fantasy – Page 8 – PopCult Reviews

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Dungeon World Part One

Of all the games under the banner of “Powered by the Apocalypse,” Dungeon World is probably the most well-known and played. It’s a variation of the classic dungeon-crawling tabletop rpg games that dominate the hobby. While games like Dungeons & Dragons rely on skill checks and rigid combat systems, Dungeon World takes a fiction-first approach, with all rolls being player-facing. Everything in the game happens as an extension of the player’s actions. There are no modules with structured adventures; instead, Dungeon World encourages improvisation and, at most, a simple dungeon starter outline. As with all the PBtA games, the focus is on playing to discover what happens without having all the steps written down beforehand.

Comic Book Review – The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume Six

The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume Six (2014)
Reprints Swamp Thing #57-64
Written by Alan Moore and Stephen Bissette
Art by Rick Veitch, John Totleben, and Alfredo Alcala

As Alan Moore’s Watchmen maxi-series was making waves in comics, he was also writing the final issues of Swamp Thing. The writer was interested in connecting the elemental hero with the space/cosmic elements in the DC Universe. While the delve into the occult was successful because Swamp Thing’s character lent itself to that genre, this foray into science fiction is a more mixed bag. Moore is clearly being more experimental, and that causes the series to lose some of the humanity that made it so compelling in the early collections. These aren’t poorly written stories, but I could see them turning off some readers because of how Abby gets sidelined for a big chunk.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Lisergia

Lisergia
Designed & Written by Cezar Capacle

You can purchase this game here

When someone hears about a tabletop rpg, they typically think of character/class-based systems where adventures are had, treasure of some sort is discovered, and a story is told. You would be right in almost every circumstance except this one. Lisergia goes in a direction I’ve never seen a ttrpg go before. In some ways, you could argue it’s not a ttrpg but a freewriting tool. I would push back that this limits what a ttrpg can be, and I think it’s much broader than people contemplate. One of my favorite things with ttrpgs, whether I play solo or with a group, is the spontaneous emergence of ideas. I’ve always loved David Lynch’s take on this: thoughts emerging from a massive pool, and we are just receivers. Lisergia is a game that plays to that idea.

Comic Book Review – The Saga of The Swamp Thing Volume Four

The Saga of the Swamp Thing Volume Four (2010)
Reprints The Saga of the Swamp Thing #43-45, Swamp Thing #46-50
Written by Alan Moore
Art by Stephen Bissette, John Totleben, Stan Woch, Rick Veitch, Alfredo Alcala, Ron Randall, and Tom Mandrake

This collection from Moore’s Swamp Thing run sealed the deal for me. I haven’t ever read better moments of horror in a comic book than some of the sequences in these issues. Moore knows how to take surreal imagery and turn it into dread-inducing moments where reality bends & warps. In that distortion, we are treated to a story that blends horror with epic dark fantasy. It’s fascinating to see how Moore set a standard for the occult corner of the DC Universe that has held strong four decades later.

Patron Pick – Nine Days

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.

Nine Days (2020)
Written & Directed by Edison Oda

I did not like this movie. From what I see online, it has proven to be a very polarizing film, with few people settling in the middle. I know exactly why I didn’t like it, which concerns some creative choices by the writer/director Edison Oda. I think the film is way too long for what it is trying to say and how it is trying to say it, and I argue the message could have been more poignant if a good half hour was shaved off the runtime. By the time we get to the third act, Oda is just saying a lot of the same things over and over but not building upon them in a manner that excites or interests me. It is thematically similar to another divisive film that came out recently, Alfonso Cuaron’s Bardo. I enjoyed Bardo because I felt the director kept things visually inventive, so I never got bored with the images on the screen. Nine Days is never able to move past the sedate, bland tone it sets at the start.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Mork Borg: Solitary Confinement Part 4

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 playthrough also uses the Mork Borg Core Rules as well as the Feretory supplement.

Instead of using the core book & its included classes, I used a third-party class I’d found on itch.io. Let me introduce you to the Murderous Marionette.

I rolled through some of the Mork Borg core book tables to flesh out my character and his adventure. His name is Träpojke, a puppet made by a disturbed hermit in the mountains of a distant land. The hermit had initially intended to use Träpojke to lure children into his lair, where he would feast on them. However, the spirits of the children who had already been killed by this monster prayed, and these prayers were heard by the Fae who lived in the misty mountains. They woke the wood sprite that slept within the wood Träpojke was made of, and he went on a murderous rampage, bludgeoning his creator to death with the very mallet used in his creation.

Solo Tabletop RPG – Mork Borg: Solitary Defilement Part Three

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 playthrough also uses the Mork Borg Core Rules and the Feretory supplement.
Our next player character is Von the Fanged Deserter. Here is the description I was given when I generated them in Esoteric Hermit.

Your earliest memories are of following an arm in eastern Wästland.

You have thirty or so friends who never let you down: YOUR TEETH. Disloyal, deranged, or simply uncontrollable, any group that didn’t boot you out, you left anyway. But your parliament of teeth — enormous, protruding, thick, and sharp — have always been your allies.

Nihilistic and suspicious. Starved: gaunt and pale. Permanent phlegm deposit in throat. Continuous cough, snort, spit, and swallow. Banished and disowned for unspecified deeds. Can never go home.

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.

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.

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.