2023 – Page 10 – PopCult Reviews

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Fake Guru, Real Vice

Fake Guru, Real Vice (Sealed Library)
Written & Designed by Sealed Library

Based on Chris Bissette’s The Wretched, Fake Guru, Real Vice asks the player to imagine they are someone who has influenced the thoughts & behaviors of the masses. You may be a famous self-help figure, a tech billionaire turned motivational speaker, or an influential megachurch preacher in my game. You’ve accrued a lot of material wealth and skeletons in your closet. Those skeletons are about to break out, starting with a popular gossip magazine’s story exposing just some of them. Your PR team has assured you they are taking legal action and that nothing more will come out. However, when you are honest with yourself, you admit much more is about to explode.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Mork Borg: Solitary Defilement Part Two

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

Read Part One, where I explain the rules/tone of Mork Borg and this solo supplement.
You can get this set of solo rules here.
This play through also uses the Mork Borg Core Rules and the Feretory supplement.

Our next player character is Prügl the Occult Herbmaster. Here is the description I was given when I generated them in Esoteric Hermit.

From a little witches’ cottage in Galgenbeck.

Born of the mushroom, raised in the glade, watched by the eye of the moon in a silverblack pool.

Nihilistic and wasteful. Cataracts slowly but surely spreading in both eyes. Best friend is a skull. Carry it with you, tell it everything, you trust no one more.

PopCult Podcast – What We’ve Been Reading/Godland

So many books and so little time in life to read them, but today we have some you should add to your To Be Read list. Also, we take a journey into the harsh & surreal landscape of Iceland along with a Danish priest out to tame the people and the land.

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

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

You can get Lineage here.

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.

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

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.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Supersworn Part Five

Supersworn Pre-Alpha
Designed & Written by Ben Adams

You can check out this game and many other hacks of Ironsworn here.

Read part four of our Supersworn actual play here.

Once again, I used Mythic GM Emulator 2ed tools to set up this session along with Starforged’s built-in Start of Session move. That latter move generated this for me: “Unforeseen aid is on the way or within reach.” I got this at the start of the last session in the context of a comic book adventure; I interpret this as another hero guest-starring. I had a list of names and randomly picked one: The Forever Kid. So at some point, we will meet The Forever Kid and learn what he is about. Then, I decided the Chaos Factor from the last session had gone up from 7 to 8 and rolled on Mythic’s scene table. I was told to go with an Altered Scene with the prompt “Remove a character.” This was the moment I decided to just reveal the phone call from Aunt Laurie was an illusion removing her from the moment.

Solo Tabletop Actual Play – Little Town Part Three

Little Town
Designed & Written by Gustavo Coelho

You can purchase this game here.

Read part two here.

For this second chapter, I decided to pick a character introduced in the last session and continue the story from their perspective. The one I settled on is Richard Robertson, the father of Liza, the girl who is currently in a coma after being struck by a car after she ran wildly out of the Twin Rivers State Park late one night. I knew he had secrets when I introduced him last session but didn’t flesh them out until this one. Rolling on the book’s table told me he had two, and I tied them both to his profession as a psychiatrist: 1) he’s currently having an affair with Lucy Hayward, one of his patients, and 2) he’s become an addict, and because this takes place in 1996, his drug of choice is OxyContin which had been seen as a miracle narcotic upon its release in 1995. Being an incredibly flawed & complicated character is more interesting to play than some perfect golden boy type.

PopCult Podcast – Full Time/Yellowjackets

It’s tough for ladies out there. Whether its trying to commute to work in the midst of French transit strikes or handling the trauma of being a cannibal in your formative years, women are being asked to balance a lot.