PopCult Reviews

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Against the Wind Part One

I recently used Cezar Capacle’s excellent zine of tables Random Realities as part of my solo world-building for another series. I love the versatility and depth of those tools, so I thought I would try out this game system he’s put out, Against the Wind. This solo/co-op fantasy game is set in a wintery world ravaged by strong winds and brutal cold. The artwork leans heavily into classic fairy tale design, and the game complements that vibe. What I found in playing Against the Wind is a robust procedural system for solo play that feels like what an official version of solo Dungeon World might be like.

Solo Tabletop RPG World Building – Finishing Touches

Read our last session where we used Becoming the Villain to develop one of the main antagonists for our campaign.

I am almost ready to start playing this superhero campaign I’ve been world-building, but I wanted to use three more tools from superhero tabletop RPGs as some finishing touches. I decided to use Starforged as the system with some fan-made superhero assets, but these other games provide instruments that help get a sense of how the world operates. I discovered these by reading other blogs and paging through the PDFs on my laptop.

Movie Review – Grave of the Fireflies

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Written and directed by Isao Takahata

Not all the horrors in Japan were the result of the two atomic bombings. What gets less coverage in U.S. history books are the ongoing firebombings of civilian areas. The same B-29s that would eventually drop the horrid nuclear weapon would also drop standard bombs and burn neighborhoods to the ground, creating orphans and widows. What made this so much worse was the fascist stance of the society. There was some community, but certainly not the level needed for people to recover. Whereas now we can see those who still survive in Gaza keep hope alive by caring for one another, these sentiments were not nearly as widespread in imperial Japan. Some people even found it within themselves to walk by dying children and not think to help them.

Movie Review – Barefoot Gen

Barefoot Gen (1983)
Written by Keiji Nakazawa
Directed by Mori Masaki

The moment when the bomb drops in Barefoot Gen shakes you. The film does an excellent job presenting itself as a slice of life initially. We follow a Japanese family. Learn their relationship dynamics. The parents discuss worries about the future. Mom is pregnant. Dad feels powerless in this fascist society. The kids argue & play. Then, without warning, the world turns into Hell. Flesh melts off bone. People are crushed to death. Some keep living, and we wonder if it might have been better if they died. You start to think about how little we’re taught in the United States about what happened after the bomb was dropped beyond “the end of the war.”

Movie Review – The Atomic Cafe

The Atomic Cafe (1982)
Written and directed by Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader, and Pierce Rafferty

The context of the atomic bomb at its inception is not the same as it was viewed by the public two decades later. Our relationship with this weapon of mass destruction continues to evolve. We no longer have children practice “duck and cover” drills under the fear that the Soviets or their allies might launch nukes on the United States. Those drills weren’t really about protecting anyone if a bomb was dropped. We can look at what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to see that our buildings would be of little protection to anyone. Those drills were about instilling fear of communists in the population. This is quite ironic, as no communist nation has ever dropped an atomic weapon on a civilian population. That “honor” is held by one country on this planet, and they did it twice.

PopCult Podcast – Longlegs/Maxxxine

It’s a new release horror double feature. First, we follow a troubled FBI agent as she uncovers the truth behind a series of murders that connect to her childhood. Then Ti West delivers the finale for his X trilogy that takes us to sleazy LA in the 1980s.

Solo Tabletop RPG Actual Play – Kids on Bikes Solo Part Five

You can purchase Kids on Bikes here.

You can purchase the Plot Unfolding Machine here.

Read our previous session here

(For this session, I will use the Powered Character rules for Waldo to reflect the change. The Powered Character gets 7 Power Tokens that can be spent to roll 1d6 each to add to a check roll. They only replenish with rest.)

(Powers for Waldo are

Heals others with a touch
Controls the elements – fire)

Scene 16 – Falling 1 of 3 – The Old Sykes House

Modified proposal: increase the intensity and tension
Action: Looking for some answers

Waldo’s eyelids flicker. Something has changed as he takes a breath. He can hear noise in the room. The ground beneath him is damp and dirt. Rita Hyde’s voice. Then Sally Gilliam’s, but weaker. The Mayor is there, too.

Comic Book Review – The Manhattan Projects Deluxe Book One

The Manhattan Projects Deluxe Book One (2014)
Reprints The Manhattan Projects #1-10
Written by Jonathan Hickman
Art by Nick Pitarra and Ryan Browne

The basic premise of Jonathan HIckman’s The Manhattan Projects is “What if the research and development department created to produce the first atomic bomb was a front for a series of other, more unusual, programs?” From this seed of an idea, Hickman and artistic collaborator Nick Pitarra developed alternate history versions of many well-known scientific figures of the mid-20th century. The names are familiar, but what they do and who they are in the context of this comic is a wild trip of discovery, comedy, and horror. At first glance, the books have a graphic design philosophy similar to Hickman’s Krakoa-era X-Men work, making them like artifacts from an alternate reality.

Solo Tabletop RPG – Worldbuilding: Becoming the Villain

You can purchase Becoming the Villain here.

Check our last session with Microscope here.

Becoming the Villain is a solo tabletop RPG that uses Tarot cards and prompts to fashion a villain’s origins. It can be a stand-alone bit of fun or used as part of a campaign’s worldbuilding. For our purposes, we’ll construct the main villain’s backstory in our solo superhero campaign. You’ll create elements that define your character, but those will change a lot through play, and by the end, what you started with will likely be completely different.

Movie Review – Godzilla, King of Monsters

Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956)
Written by Shigeru Kayama, Takeo Murata, and Ishirō Honda
Directed by Ishirō Honda

6 August 1945. Hiroshima, Japan. Three American B-29 heavy bombers passed over the city. One of them, the Enola Gay, dropped a 15-kiloton atomic bomb. That is the equivalent of about 15 thousand tons of TNT. Over 100,000 Japanese civilians were killed. Those who didn’t die immediately were blinded by the flash of the bomb, were crushed under the weight of collapsing buildings, suffered radiation poisoning the following days and months, and more. The U.S. would drop another even larger bomb on Nagasaki. There were plans to drop yet a third bomb on Japanese civilians. Japan had been in talks with the Soviet Union to surrender and end the war. For the United States, a post-war era in which the USSR was seen as a hero was a danger. The atomic bombings of Japan are up there with the Holocaust as some of the most horrific acts of violence humanity has committed on itself. It’s no surprise that many films have been made about this event and the atomic bomb itself. In this series, I want to look at how the bombing is analyzed and made a part of the culture, both through the eyes of the Japanese and the perpetrating nation, the United States.