Seth Harris

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Lineage: Epoch Edition

Lineage: Epoch Edition (WYH Games)
Written & Designed by G. Johnson

Additionally, I used the following “quality of life” supplements: Family Tree Worksheet and For the Ages.

Like Ex Novo, Anamnesis, or Artefact, this game is more like a tool to aid in worldbuilding that is also fun to play with. If you’re searching for something parallel to a character-focused adventure, this isn’t that, though you could use this to establish a monarchy in your fantasy kingdom with a rich backstory for both the people and the land. What Lineage is, is a royal family history builder. Using a couple six-sided dice, you will roll on a series of tables to determine everything from the descriptive sobriquet of the ruling royal to how many children they have to the events that occur within the kingdom during their reign to the cause of their death.

My Favorite Films Released in August

While its reputation has improved slightly in recent years, for a long time August was seen as one of the worst months for seeing a new release (though nothing can top the wasteland that is January). The peak of summer dwindled down with the most prominent releases coming in that space between Memorial Day and the 4th of July. By the time August rolled around schools were starting to go back into session and so you didn’t have the younger audience as a available to watch your popcorn flicks. There are some fantastic August releases though and I’ve made a list of some of my favorites here.

Movie Review – San Soleil

San Soleil (1983)
Written & Directed by Chris Marker

I can’t tell you much biographical information about filmmaker Chris Marker. I can tell you he directed one of the best short films ever made, La Jetée, and he is French. I like it that way. Holding Marker as an enigma does more to imbue his work with meaning than finding out where he was born, his upbringing, his beliefs, etc. I can extrapolate all of these things in generalities through his work. San Soleil (trans. Sunless) is a documentary & a video essay that tells us a lot about this often-forgotten figure in mid-late 20th-century cinema. Marker is concerned with things on the micro and macro levels; he finds connections between his complex inner world and the diverse external one he travels through, particularly in the people and their faces.

August 2023 Posting Schedule

Film Series
August 2nd thru 30th – Flashback to 1983

The Dead Zone, Sans Soleil, Terms of Endearment, A Nos Amours, The Right Stuff, The Big Chill, Local Hero, Meantime, The 4th Man, El Norte, Eyes of Fire, Tender Mercies, Pauline at the Beach

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Mork Borg: Solitary Defilement Part One

Mork Borg: Solitary Defilement (10d+5)
Written & Designed by…? (no specific names on the document)

You can get this set of solo rules here.

This playthrough also uses the Mork Borg Core Rules and the Feretory supplement.

OSR stands for the Old School Renaissance, which is a revival of a style of “classical” tabletop RPGs. This type of game is marked by four core ideas: 1) the GM is a referee of sorts and makes rulings and has the final say on the events in the game; 2) players have to be explicit in what they want their characters to do to avoid traps & hazards set up in advance by the GM, 3) characters are heroic but not invincible as death comes often, and 4) the events are not balanced, and players can wander into areas they are not prepared for. There is, of course, more unpacking of these ideas and additional concepts that come into play, but these are the base foundation of OSR. From my limited knowledge, OSR was a response to a period of more experimental story-centered games like Powered by the Apocalypse or changes made to stalwarts like Dungeons & Dragons that fans didn’t care for.

Movie Review – The Dead Zone

The Dead Zone (1983)
Written by Jeffrey Boam
Directed by David Cronenberg

By 1983, Stephen King already had much of his work adapted for film and television. This year alone, there were three Hollywood movies: The Dead Zone, Cujo, and Christine, with more coming as the decade progressed. The Dead Zone is typical of King in that our protagonist is experiencing extrasensory perception, as many King main characters do. This ability to perceive things beyond average human senses opens him up to horrors, but now how you might expect. Where other King stories allow this breach of the barrier between life & death to create ghoulish supernatural monsters, the evil in The Dead Zone are the privileged. No zombies or ghosts here, just powerful, wealthy white men who don’t care what happens to everyone else.

Patron Pick – Philadelphia

This special reward is available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 monthly levels. Each month those patrons will pick a film for me to review. If they choose, they also get to include some of their thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Bekah Lindstrom.

Philadelphia (1993)
Written by Ron Nyswaner
Directed by Jonathan Demme

I don’t really gravitate towards “issue” films. You know, the type of movie. It’s centered around a pressing social issue and dramatizes it in a way that appeals to mainstream audiences. These types of films often shave off the rough edges to not make the audience feel too uncomfortable. That defeats the purpose of bringing up the topic in the first place. Feeling discomfort when contemplating something like prejudice is the correct way to feel. We must examine our unconscious biases to become better people, open our arms wider, and accept people for who they are. I’m not saying it is always easy, but it is necessary to be the best version of yourself and help humanity as a whole. Philadelphia was a film I wrote off as that sort of “issue” movie. I’ve never entirely understood Tom Hanks’s appeal so that probably moved me away from it too. Boy, was I wrong about this movie, though still correct regarding a few things.

Movie Review – Observe and Report

Observe and Report (2009)
Written & Directed by Jody Hill

In 2009, America got two mall cop movies. In January, the Kevin James vehicle Paul Blart, Mall Cop was released, and just a few months later, in April, Observe and Report dropped in theaters. At the time, this film was unfairly maligned and lumped in with Paul Blart. On the surface, they share a lot of elements but are ultimately vastly different movies with very different perspectives on law enforcement. Observe and Report is a film that full-throatedly yells, “All Cops Are Bastards,” and rightfully so. Police were not brought into existence to protect the ordinary person. They were an alliance made between those with systemic power and violent organized gangs with the express purpose of protecting private property. The misconception that police exist to watch over communities and spare them from harm is a myth that is proven false day after day. This isn’t about what a nice guy your cop uncle is or how the policeman gave you a lollipop when you were growing up. Those are anecdotal and ultimately irrelevant. ACAB is about the actual role of police in our societies and how they employ state-sanctioned violence to keep the populace virtually enslaved.

PopCult Podcast – Joyland/Barbie

This episode features two films that explore ideas of gender & society but in wildly different ways and styles. For our first film, we journey to Lahore, Pakistan where we enter the world of erotic theater where transgender women perform on stage. Then it’s over to a land of make believe where toys come to life and face the complex problems of the real world.

TV Review – The Venture Brothers Season One

The Venture Brothers Season One (Adult Swim)
Written by Jackson Publick, Doc Hammer, and Ben Edlund
Directed by Jackson Publick

In the early days of Adult Swim, it was always a surprise to see what would pop up beside the standards like Space Ghost, The Brak Show, and Aqua Team Hunger Force. One of these surprises was a one-off pilot for The Venture Brothers in 2002. The show combined elements of Jonny Quest and The Hardy Boys to make a spoof of both these shows and their associated genres. The Venture Brothers would run for seven irregularly scheduled seasons and recently culminated with a streaming film on Max that serves as a series finale. It has been about a decade since I last watched the show, so I decided to go back to the beginning to revisit familiar episodes and see where the series went after I moved on to other things.