Weekly Geekly Rundown for June 23, 2023

Kickstarting RPGs, Deliberating the Next Scorsese,

Cryptozoic Entertainment to Kickstart Adventure Time: The Roleplaying Game

Cryptozoic Entertainment has been on a bit of a creative tear lately and have become a major creator of tabletop games with titles ranging from licensed games like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns to more original fare like Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards. If you take a look at their catalog, you’ll notice that they have a long standing collaboration with Warner Bros. Discovery that has provided them with a pretty rich line up of board and card games. Now they are leveraging that partnership to launch an upcoming Kickstarter campaign for the Adventure Time: The Roleplaying Game.

The game is based on the popular Cartoon Network Emmy and Peabody Award-winning animated series, Adventure Time. Given the show’s popularity and the fact that Adventure Time is based on the Dungeon & Dragons role playing game, it is remarkable that outside of fan made materials it has taken 13 years for this animated property to get a role playing game. Certainly the gonzo nature of the show would make designing a perfect table top emulation difficult, but with the rise of storytelling style games like Inspectres, the Apocalypse World based Masks: A New Generation, FATE, the very Adventure Time-esque No Thank You, Evil!, or the absolute classic TOON! there are some mechanical foundations that could have been used as springboards.

Each of those would have had a different feel that I think might have captured Adventure Time, but Cryptozoic opted to go with a new rules set that they hope will offer an immersive and accessible experience for both novice players and seasoned RPG enthusiasts ages 12 and up. The new system at the heart of the Adventure Time: The Roleplaying Game is what they are calling the "Yes And" game mechanic, referencing a classic impromptu exercise. The mechanic was developed in partnership with Forever Stoked Creative. The “Yes And” system determines success and failure via a custom set of dice, while encouraging collaborative storytelling and ensuring that players are always engaged. The game’s focus on a storytelling approach attempts to eliminate the need for complex calculations and allow players to focus narrative being created.
 
“Adventure Time is one of our favorite properties, so it was the perfect choice for our first roleplaying game,” said John Nee, CEO of Cryptozoic. “The series is rich with stories and characters with real heart, and we cannot wait to let players lose themselves in the world, whether they are RPG experts or this is their foray into the genre.”
 
Given the cartoon’s balance of the silly and the heartfelt, Cryptozoic’s game attempts to allow players to capture the full range of emotions on the show and claim to offer “a wealth of character customization options.” The game will allow players to choose from a diverse range of abilities, mixing and matching to create unique characters that suit their playstyle, but it will also offer the opportunity to play Adventure Time characters like Marceline by providing ready-made character sheets.
 
The game will include a variety of adventures at launch, and will use a learn-by-playing introductory adventure to teach people the basic mechanics of the game.
 
In addition to the base game and the “Yes, And” system, Cryptozoic Entertainment has partnered with renowned designers and publishers to create zines and supplements that enable players to incorporate different core rule systems. This will potentially enable fans to explore Adventure Time using alternative popular roleplaying engines and play with an incredible array of optional rules.

There was a time early in the role playing game hobby when crossovers like this were more common practice. You could often find conversion rules for Champions, SuperWorld, or Villains & Vigilantes characters to be converted between the systems in adventures or magazines written for those games. The old Thieves’ World boxed set by Chaosium included stats for D&D, Tunnels & Trolls, Runequest, and Traveller. Yes, Traveller the SF role playing game. It’s nice to see Cryptozoic being ecumenical in its approach, even as they provide their own system.
 
Cryptozoic plans to launch the Adventure Time: The Roleplaying Game in late summer and you can get the latest campaign news and sneak peaks, including reveals of some of the amazing talent that will be adding content to the campaign, by following Cryptozoic on Facebook and Twitter.

I know I’ll be doing just that.

Who Will be the Next Generation of Great Directors?

Before we jump into the list of reviews by Luke Y Thompson and Courtney Howard this week, I’ll start by sharing an article written by Luke asking what director might be/become the next Martin Scorsese. It’s interesting that we are now at a time similar to that of the late Sixties and early Seventies when we can see the end of the line for a generation of directors on the horizon. Scorsese, Lucas, Spielberg, Coppola, Eastwood, and Milius (three of those six were classmates at USC’s film school) have all made a major impact on our society as film directors, but father time comes for us all and at some point these directors will be gone and they will leave very large shoes to fill when they are gone.

The same was true when Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Donen, John Ford, Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, Michael Curtiz, and Billy Wilder (to name but a few from the list of great directors who produced word in the middle 20th Century) were at the twilight of their careers. Most of these directors produced quality entertainment, with some bombs to be sure, for as long as they were able and that seems to be happening with most of the wave of directors who became the successors to Classic Hollywood.

But as it was an open question as to who would be the replacements for those Hollywood legends of old, it is now time to ask who might be the replacements today. Luke’s article on Scorsese grapples with the topic in a very serious manner that demonstrates both his deep knowledge of film and that he won’t let pretense dictate his proposed replacements. After all, who would have guessed that the director of the Roger Corman produced AIP film Boxcar Bertha would go on to direct a string of Oscar winning and contending films? If one was to ask this question in the late Seventies, decades prior to Scorsese’s foray into more traditional Hollywood fare like The Aviator, one might have thought that Michael Cimino or Peter Yates were more likely to follow up the Hollywood greats. Cimino and Yates have produced meaningful works that speak to a large audience, and their work endures, but they don’t have the prolific nature of those older figures in the same way that the six I listed at the beginning do.

From a certain point of view (sorry, couldn’t help it), it’s an important question to ask who the next generation of film makers will be. From another, it isn’t. Even as the older guard was passing, there great directors every decade constantly continuing the tradition of quality film making. The passage and replacement of directors isn’t as “wave” based as one might think. Since the emergence of Lucas and his cohort, there has been the Cameron, Bigelow, Burton wave a decade later, the Smith, Luhrmann, Liman wave and the wave of directors Luke focuses on in his article are already in the middle of their careers while Scorsese and crew were still making AIP films in their 20s when the old guard passes. Luke’s article is thoughtful, and a must read, but I’d love to see a follow up that looks at the current wave of Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Corman equivalent employees out there making films and TV (don’t forget that Spielberg’s Duel was made for TV and he did the pilot for Columbo as Michael Mann worked on Starsky and Hutch). It’s almost as if the article is pointing at Budd Boetticher, Sidney Lumet, Robert Altman, Arthur Penn, and John Frankenheimer and asking which of them would be the next Ford, Capra, or Hitchcock. It’s a fun question, but what about that kid actor who is directing Grand Theft Auto (little Ronnie Howard)? So here’s hoping A.V. will continue the series.

Weekly Luke Y Thompson and Courtney Howard Film Article Cavalcade

Luke reviews God is a Bullet for AV Club and finds Nick Cassavetes wanting as a director in this revenge film. The revenge film genre is a tough one to pull off right because it can quickly run into the “refrigerator problem.” John Wick avoided this by shifting the focus of the villain’s cruelty away from the traditional visceral exploitation to one that was symbolic, though still very cruel. As difficult as they are to pull off though, they can provide a very real catharsis for audiences. We often feel under threat and helpless and these kinds of films can help us engage with those feelings, whether that film is You’re Next, Hostel, The Man from Nowhere, 7 Men from Now, or Kill Bill, there is something there that pulls at our desire to see vengeance fulfilled after wrong has been committed. It’s best though when the genre frames the challenge in a way that avoids cliched cruelty that has become as stale as it is misogynistic. It looks like God is a Bullet doesn’t achieve that and wallows too much in refrigerator territory.

Is Mezco’s first One: 12 Directive G.I. Joe Action figure worth the high price tag? Luke’s got the rundown for SuperHeroHype.

Luke also provides a review of the 4k version of the most recent Avatar film. I really like reading reviews of 4k, and special edition, film releases because the review is about more than just the transfer but what else we get in the package. One of the benefits of digital releases is that you can add a lot of material for the cineaste. Does this one deliver? Read and find out.

Courtney Howard reviews No Hard Feelings for Fresh Fiction and finds it to be a fun raunch-com that might be up your alley.

Classic Roleplaying Game Recommendation

A friend of mine, who is a younger gamer, has asked if I will add rpgs to my growing list of Friday classic recommendations and I thought I’d take him up on it.

As I discuss in my upcoming chat with Alan Bahr of Gallant Knight Games, when I started gaming it wasn’t uncommon for a player to play a wide variety of not only genre but mechanics. Today it seems that so much gaming oxygen is taken up by D&D that other games get overlooked more than they did in the past. Yes, D&D always took up most of the gaming oxygen, but now that the audience is bigger overall it seems that D&D is taking up an even bigger share these days, even as we have some really fantastic games being released. I won’t be including a weekly modern game recommendation, as I will want to do full reviews for those more recent games, but I think capsules of classics are a good way to go. Without further ado, I’ll start with something excellent that is not at all obscure and is very much worth your time.

If you like comic books, you absolutely MUST check out Champions 4th edition. It is one of the best emulations of the comic book genre ever created and it has game mechanics that are a far cry from what many modern gamers are used to. While the game is easy to play, and yes it is easy, it has tactical complexity galore and requires some level of mathematics to build and play characters at peak effectiveness. If the thought of doing math while playing a game intimidates you, and to be fair a game that requires a spreadsheet for character design can be intimidating, then good. Face that challenge. Go out of your comfort zone.

Why?

Because Champions is not only fun to play, but it gives you a behind the scenes look at how games are designed. When you see how the cost of Energy Blast and Force Field are related, or even better Force Field to Armor, it opens up a world of emulation to you. It helps you see what games are doing. D&D and many other modern games often have this kind of thing in their foundational mechanics, but they hide them from the players to make things easier. Your first characters will be suboptimal. Who cares? Your first combats will be more straightforward than later ones. But that’s one of the things that is great about the game, there is so much to learn and it’s rich and rewarding to learn. When I talk about “dials” in role playing games for lethality etc., this was the game that showed me that games had dials. Now I see them everywhere.

Also, you only need six-sided dice to play this game, though you do need a lot of them. It isn’t my favorite comic book based game, but it is an absolute classic and one I would play any day of the week. Better yet. You can use the rules to play fantasy too. Don’t think that D&D is good for running a Stormlight Archive game (you’re right BTW), well you CAN run that in Champions and it will feel right.

Classic Music Recommendation

Last week, as I often am, I was in a Genesis mood and offered up the album where the band was transitioning from progressive rock to pop. I love that period for the band and I love the unstable synthesis that album produces. This week’s selection is influenced by the meme going around asking people for an album that they think is a 10/10 where every song must be listened to and where there isn’t even one filler song. I’ve got a number I could choose from, but instead of going pretentious or overly personal, I decided to pick what I believe is the best rock-n-roll album ever made. It personifies the genre more than any other album and is an absolute banger. It also happens to be a debut album with a wonderful backstory, check out what Professor of Rock and Rick Beato have to say about the band and songs on the album.

That album? Boston by Boston.

Classic Film Recommendation

This week’s choice was easy. As important as I find the news media to be in general, it is important to view them with a skeptical eye. Whether it’s to make sure to be mindful of Gell-Mann Amnesia or of the fact that now as much as ever “if it bleeds, it ledes” is the rule of the day. The desire for clicks is what fuels the feed. One of the films that best exemplifies the phenomenon, as well as highlights how corrosive the focus on negative news is on the psyche’s of journalists, is Billy Wilder’s classic film Ace in the Hole.

Not only is Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) motivated to keep the story rolling, even as it causes more and more suffering, experts defer to his experience when making decisions about how to move ahead. His motivation is to pick the method that will allow him to exploit the story the longest, the rescuers never make this connection. It’s a powerful film and one of a host that should make it so that you always ask “why is this being reported? Who gains from this story?” No story is without a reason. Sometimes that reason is because the journalist is excited about the subject matter, that’s why I do this and why Courtney and Luke cover films, but sometimes it has a personal or political end.

Ace in the Hole is a canonical Noir film and is a must see for film fans and for fans of noir. I had the pleasure of getting to watch it with Drew Casper’s class at USC. The professor provided insightful commentary on the film, especially with regard to how funny Billy Wilder’s dramas can be as well as how dark his comedies can be. You do remember what and who the protagonists were running from at the beginning of Some Like it Hot, right?