Category: cultural analysis

Solo Wargames

Does anyone else find it significant that solo miniature wargames have become so popular in recent years? Games like that shown here (which you can get a hard copy of through Lulu), Rangers of Shadowdeep, Five Leagues from the Borderlands, and so on.  To say nothing of Mike Lambo’s long-running series...

Towards A New Model of Adventure Gaming

As this post goes live, the IP holders for D&D are doing their darndest to rip conventional play away from the hobby approach of “anything is possible at the table (as long as you adhere to story-arc driven narrative games)” and into a consumerist approach of “gatcha driven subscription...

Mary Shelley Invented RPGs

Thanks in large part to the bros actively re-inventing and reshaping RPGs through experimentation, session reports, analysis, and (sometimes heated) discussion, the hobby has cycled back to the age old question of, “Who invented role playing games?” Other lesser factors contribute, of course. The upper midwest Boomer Crew is...

Red Letter Norms

The RLM guys are experts at one particular species of cultural tree, but have spent so much time looking at the one tree that they can’t see how the health of the forest is killing that tree. Naturally, that tree is cinema and the forest is the wider culture....

GrimDark

Ashe Barker, over at the YouTube Channel Guerilla Miniatures Games, has been running down a long series of thoughts on GrimDark Media.  It’s a fun series – one of those hangout and gab sessions with a couple of ersatz friends who share many of the same interests as you. ...

On Lahaina

The one thing we can all agree on in the aftermath of the Lahaina Fire is that the events prove that my pre-conceived political and economic notions are one-hundred percent correct: Vegans suck.  They cause the fire by pressuring big corporations and legislatures (but I repeat myself) to enact...

A Love of History

This map has been making the rounds on social media. The white dots represent the locations of battles fought during the last 4,500 years of recorded history. Before we get into a deeper analysis, look at this: The map doesn’t really show the locations of all the earth’s battles....

Hello, Gym

Finally got things re-ordered in life to commit to the fit. A lot of my contemporaries have been losing weight, adding muscle, and generally vocal about their gainz and how they get them.  You could say they bullied me into it, though that might be a half truth.  For decades...

Pushed Out of the House of Cards

From the “They’re Not Sending Their Best Files” comes today’s general attitude among the moneyed class that all brands must participate in the Holy Modernist Month of June.  You know which of the deadly sins we are supposed to celebrate instead of celebrating something good and beautiful and true. ...