Guardians of Justice Not-Review

 

I wanted to find more screenshots of the show to share but most of the screenshots I've seen fail to capture what makes this show so interesting, which is a shame, because it really is visually amazing. I will acknowledge that the acting is not always the best, you can tell it has a limited budget, and the writing is sometimes more corny than campy. I'm frontloading the negative, because that aside, it's a truly creative and brilliant show and I really appreciate it for what it is.

This is superhero pastiche done right. On the surface of it, it feels very rooted in Justice League and Marvel/DC-style superhero tropes, as well as the full gamut of Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, the 1980's, videogames, etc. Even so, as the sum of its parts, it feels unique, and that is in large part due to the excellent art and sound design. It does things I've never seen before in the way it blends live action and many, many, many kinds of animation.

Adi Shankar (showrunner of Netflix's Castlevania, among other fan favorites) does amazing work and I'll watch anything of his, but I also appreciate that he has on his youtube channel a series of mini-documentaries (a few minutes long each) explaining the various influences on the show. He discusses at one point how he had the idea for this show, and people told him it couldn't be done, and he wanted to challenge that notion, and as someone who also often veers into that territory, I get why this resonates with me, but unfortunately I think a lot of people will just write it off or not really give it a fair shake, which is a shame.

The story goes a few places I didn't expect while still following along the path. There are many twists that I won't spoil, and most of them are interesting and feel earned, some of them exceptionally so, and even the few that don't, or that muddle the subtext, don't ruin the experience. That said, the heart of this is definitely in the presentation. I'd love to see more works like this, that really challenge preconceived notions of different kinds of media and genre (even as they pay homage to them). My understanding is that it's getting a season 2, so that's cool at least.

My first not-review was for the underappreciated TTRPG Super Blood Harvest, and while this is focused on superheroes, this does have a very similar feel, so if you've liked my sensibilities up to this point, check out Guardians of Justice. This is a perfect show to not-review because there's really not much more I can say. Watch the first episode if this sounds at all intriguing, you'll probably know immediately whether you're into it or not.

Response to Patrick Stuart's Post About Flow Control

This was originally intended as a comment on Patrick Stuart's blog post WHAT IS FLOW CONTROL?? (AND WHY SHOULD I CARE?) but my comment was too long so I'm just making it it's own post in response. You should definitely read that post first or this response won't make sense.

I appreciate the self awareness you demonstrate in questioning the extent to which you actually prefer a greater sense of freedom even if it's made a lesser experience, and likewise differentiating between actual freedom and the sense of freedom. These are both critical, I think, to any kind of discussion on this topic.

While I dislike the extreme linearity or narrative constraints of Paizo/modern WotC design and a lot of PbtA/FitD/storygames respectively, it's also an easy straw man/false binary that I can already kind of sense people will fall into, so while I don't think that's what you're doing, I just want to get that statement out of the way.

I'm inclined to think that flow control is underrated in the OSR scene, in part as an overreaction/overcorrection to the bad and/or very extreme examples above (I don't mean to say they are as a rule bad, but when leaning into an extreme it's easier to go bad).

In this particular example with the house, in the absence of more specifics, I might be inclined to agree with you to some extent that it's better suited to an open-ended design. That said, a few key flow control gates could have a profound effect, especially in what is otherwise an open-ended design, and so if used conscientiously, both of these tools can and should be utilized together.

People tend to conflate this idea of flow control with linearity, but I actually think that's a mistake. When done poorly this is true, but when done well, it can actually create more possibilities, or rather, even to the extent that it is constraining, it provides a sense of greater possibility by making the possibilities more salient (getting back to that idea of actual freedom vs. a sense of freedom).

Frankly, what I've often found with OSR design, is that it is so open-ended, that most people aren't clever enough (or at least not clever enough on the spot) to actually think through the possibilities and do something interesting with them, so they all kind of play out the same way, not unlike sub-par RNG Dungeons in some videogames. That actually probably comes off more insulting and provocative than I intend, it is genuinely difficult for to work without constraints, and some people perform better under those conditions than others, and I don't mean to suggest that they aren't at all clever, but anyway...

By having some carefully considered flow control gates, where in the first case the Designer, and then the GM, and then finally the Players, know that there is some kind of limits in place (or have some sense of them), more possibilities unfold or become salient. I've heard it said in the context of videogames, sports, and children's games, but I think also applies to TTRPGs, that games aren't defined by what you can do, but by what you can't.

If the designer knows that no matter what X has to happen before Y, they can design more interesting leads for how X gets to Y, or things to encounter between X and Y, or in how Y branches out into Z or A (but absolutely not B! But that's ok, because X precludes B; in other words, the branches on Y are a function of X). It goes much deeper than that, I would argue this same principle of flow control vs. open-endedness in scenario design also applies to mechanics design and many other facets of a game, and not just games but also literally systems in the abstract, but that's also all an aside...

But back on the topic of flow control in scenario design, the GM can better prepare for the kinds of actions the Players may make, and can more easily improvise if  Players do all the whacky stuff that Players tend to do. It might be that the Players do something which invalidates X, but if the GM knows that it all needs to lead to Y, they can improvise towards those ends, and do so more easily than if there were no framework or no constraints whatsoever (circumstantially, I don't necessarily mean this as an absolute).

And the Players too, if they're given these various leads by the Designer or GM, they can still choose any number of ways to approach the situation, or choose to come up with their own approach, but at least they have some leads to go off of, because there is some end in mind.

And nothing says, despite all this, that Players can't totally upend the whole thing, because that's just TTRPG, but having some degree of flow control and intentionality with that is only mutually exclusive with freedom if Players aren't clever enough to find their own way or GMs aren't clever enough to deviate, and good Design should lower the bar for both regardless.

Anyway, I realize some people get really heated with this stuff, so I welcome thoughtful discussion to this response not unlike Patrick's post in the first place, but please I'm not looking for throat cutting argumentation here.

BONUS: Maximum Recursion Depth Exalted Funeral Printing!

Maximum Recursion Depth is now available on Exalted Funeral! It should be available print+pdf later today (as of posting). I've been vocal about the fact that I'm a very digitally-oriented person, but I'm still looking forward to having a copy of MRD physically in my hands, and I know many other people do prefer print so I'm glad to have an offering for them. Also, Exalted Funeral is an awesome publisher and it's a real honor to be a part of their catalog. I hope that this exposes more people to MRD and my blog who I would not otherwise have crossed paths with.

Maximum Recursion Depth on Exalted Funeral!

MRD2 Mecha Gear Thematic Spark Tables

In moving forward with the idea of using Tarsos Theorem's Concept Crafting for the basis of my Mecha Gear system in Maximum Recursion Depth 2, I have run a series of "Mock Session 0 Playtests", discussing the setting, game mechanics, and character creation with people as if we were going to run a game (and in one case, it actually is going to be an ongoing IRL Campaign!).

I've been pleasantly surprised the extent to which people have responded really positively to the Playtests- it feels like I have demonstrably learned from MRD1 and have gotten better at conveying information and setting expectations, and also in game design itself. One of the playtests was with the first group I ran the earliest version of MRD1, and they said they liked the idea of MRD2 even better and were interested in playing it with me for real some time! Granted there's a sampling bias here obviously- the people who participate in the playtests are necessarily people who are at least somewhat interested in the first place, but even so.

That all said, one consistent issue I've run into, which I knew would be an issue, is that Players felt like it was difficult to come up with a Golem (the MRD2 version of Mecha) Core and three pieces of Gear, without any word lists or spark tables or whatever to jumpstart things.

I had avoided doing it, because at least for me, putting together the tables themselves seemed more difficult and daunting than just free associating on the spot, but I realize that's not viable for the game. But, of all the words in the English language and however many more outside it, how can I create a finite and manageable table? If I make not one table but several tables based on different themes, how do I decide the themes?

After discussing with the Players in my upcoming Campaign during the for-real Session 0, an idea we had was that I should create a set of tables that are Weird, and meant to evoke the kinds of Golem one might not normally consider, the kind of stuff that I most enjoy and that best reflects my own sensibilities, with maybe one or two general tables for comparison, and then point people to other sources for inspiration (such as the many spark tables in Between the Skies).

Here is my first pass at doing exactly that. Some of them might seem mundane but have unusual associated words, there will likely be some repeats across them, also I'm fairly inconsistent about part of speech- so it goes (and actually I don't think these inconsistencies are necessarily a bad thing anyway). Generators were created in part using Slight Adjustment's List to HTML Generator.

Element: Words based on traditional elements or words more unique than that but reflecting the fundamental nature of things in some way.

 

Distribution: Words relating to a Mecha that is not one thing but rather a distribution of things. Can be literal like a collection of smaller Mecha, gear like Gundam-style Funnels or autonomous missiles, multiple AI systems, or things weirder or more abstract like a business or organization or some kind of superorganism.

Weird: Words that are weird, abstract, psychedelic, pareidolic, dadaic, uncomfortable, grotesque, sexy, unexpected, euphoric...

Using these tables, I'll create a handful of MRD2-appropriate Golem. Players will not be expected to be limited to these tables, and can combine them freely, but for the sake of example I'll only use the words in these tables (but still combine them freely). Other than rejecting repeats, these were otherwise entirely random.

Golem 1 (Element + Weird tables)

CORE: (HEAT + LOSS)

Entropy Elancer

Ballerina Golem, bands of heat and dissolution stream behind its steps. A component of a yet to be written opera of the story of the universe from beginning to end in the form of a dream or psychotic break like one's life passing before their eyes in their final spark of awareness before death.

GEAR1: (LIGHT + DREAM)

Phosphene Slippers

Entropy Elancer darts between physical spacetime and Tehom like a myoclonic jerk in the moment between consciousness and sleep, creating its liminal stage. The phosphenes it produces are like spotlights, and so long as the show goes on, that which is not in the spotlights fades out of conscious awareness.

GEAR2: (MUSIC + DEATH)

Discordant Curtain

When Entropy Elancer or its Nazarite near their destruction, the Discordant Curtain falls for Curtain Call, veiling them momentarily behind death in the form of an eerie tone. But fret not! They will return for a final bow, and perhaps even an encore. Of course, by then much of the audience will have already filed out.

GEAR3: (TIME + PSYCHEDELIA)

Tessellating Zoetrope

Entropy Elancer pirouettes counterclockwise, like a gear, turning the Tessellating Zoetrope existing just outside of time. The animatics of the Zoetrope are profound, but only to the extent they are catered to their audience.

Golem 2 (Distribution + Weird tables)

CORE: (WOLF + BLOOD)

Lycaon Strain

Disembodied circulatory system of a mutant wolf pack of Tehom like an elastic wire mesh network of monstrous beasts sliding and undulating and spurting.

GEAR1: (PACK + CYBORG)

Coagulant Gland

Injects a hormone into the Lycaon Strain, creating steel-hard Lycaon Skins of coagulated blood. The Lycaon Skins are genetically encoded with simple instructions, but otherwise act autonomously from the Lycaon Strain, and have a finite lifespan before drying out entirely.

GEAR2: (COMBINATION + SEX)

Eldritch Incubator

A sub-strain nested inside the Lycaon Strain, where sexual materials are injected to rapidly incubate a litter of Lycaon Spawn. The Lycaon Spawn are more powerful than the Lycaon Skins of the Coagulant Gland and can survive independently. However, they are more prone to unintended mutation, require more time and energy to produce, and will turn hostile before inevitably running off.

GEAR3: (COMPANY + SURREAL)

Lycaon LLC Certificate of Status

Encoded in the Lycaon Strain is a sub-organism that is both the legal document certifying the existence of the Lycaon LLC (an otherwise undocumented and unknown corporation), and the mechanism of a howl-like fear response propagation system that serves to propagate the will of the corporation in others as a memetic thought virus.

Golem 3 (Element + Distribution tables)

CORE: (COLD + GOVERNMENT)

Hibernating Hyberia

Cold-storage encryption superorganism of the prehistoric civilization Hyberia, preserved at its peak just before stagnation and eventual societal ego-death (ascension?). Hibernating Hyberia takes the form of anomalous market trends, commodities futures, and doomsday cults. Although some astute observers may perceive around its edges, only its Nazarite (or more accurately, their Shamir) can effectively conceive of it and compel it, serving like a Head of State.

GEAR1: (NULL + TRADE)

Knights of Solomon Nuclear Football

A Nuclear Football that can be used to activate the collection of sleeper agents; bureaucrats, spies, soldiers, mecha pilots, and all sorts across the world and Tehom who unwittingly serve Hibernating Hyberia. They sabotage trade routes and information networks, perpetrate insider trading, engage in piracy, or whatever else, to disrupt the supply chain of a given commodity as assigned by the Nazarite in short order.

GEAR2: (NEUTRAL + ECONOMY)

Shofar of the Invisible Fuchsia Fist

A shofar used to summon the Invisible Fuchsia Fist, a mythical kaiju of Tehom seeking to stamp out all economic inequality. For the short duration that the Invisible Fuchsia Fist is summoned, all laws in any society that empower the rich or suppress the poor are invalidated, and this is consciously understood by all in its presence, and so ensues the market purge.

GEAR3: (UNHOLY + MULTIPLICATION)

Twilight Talmud

A mistranslation or lossy decryption of the holy book of Hibernating Hyberia. The doomsday cult of the Twilight Talmud maintain the necromantic rituals and preparations necessary to raise corporate brands from the dead. The clever new slogans and focus tested logo redesigns can bring the brand to rapid ubiquity, but can only mask the utter lack of product or profit for so long before once again going defunct.

Weird & Wonderful Wavelengths (Variety Show s1e2)

We interrupt this broadcast of the normally scheduled Weird & Wonderful Worlds blog to traverse the other WWW (the Weird Wonderful Wavelength decomposed like an overzealous cockroach in an empty kitchen from the spectrum of nutrient deficient fluorescent white light that is the World Wide Web). Let us begin with an interactive spacetime courtesy of Leenalchi, from the past, present, future, and sidetime of Korea. But watch out... TIGER IS COMING!

Link here if you don't see the embed on mobile

That sure was something folks. Reminds me of my conversation with Gearoong. Horrific psychedelic Scooby-Don't and the Gang hunting Poltergeists in Maximum Recursion Depth (poor Frieda is already an Ashura).

Moving on to RPGs, because that's why you came here... Right? Or maybe not, sound off from the bleachers!

Here's an UNFINISHED Martian Bestiary for TNT which I never posted (Tunnels & Trolls for those of you folk not in the know ;)):

Martian Bestiary

If more than one MR is listed, it is intended as Trivial, Serious, and Deadly, similar to the TNT deluxe book. These are relative, of course. Even a "trivial" dragon is a tough monster.

Psychomancer (Acolyte):

Psychomancer (Vancelord):

Thark (Brute): Often slaves or gladiators, fighting for the chance at freedom, or just for the sake of fighting. Usually they fight with their bare fists or gauntlets, although some ride lizard-horses and other beasts and wield spears and shields. MR 30 / 50 / 75 

Thark (Myrmeleodon): Gladiator champions, warlords, and berserkers. They utilize traps like a huntsman, preferring to create pit traps to shock and separate enemy forces and overpower them by brute force (like an ant-lion). MR 35 / 75 / 110

Radium Legionnaire (Shocktrooper):

Radium Legionnaire (Zeta-Force):

Orange Agent: These martians manipulate Hyperbolic Orange Light to change their appearance, making them excellent spies. The illusion holds along all senses, and their true form may only be revealed in presence of magic fire. MR 15 / 30 / 50

WotW-style Cephalopod Martian:

DC White Martian / Xenomorph:

Tripod: (see Martian Gear) MR 135 / 160 / 185

Flying Saucer (Fighter Class): (See Martian Gear) MR 45 / 135 / 235

Flying Saucer (Destroyer Class): (See Martian Gear) MR 98 / 185 / 400

And now, here's a 5 Minute Challenge I did forever ago and never posted!

The Danger

Tachyons: Particles moving backwards in time. The tachyons were weaponized. Their presence creates butterfly effects, culminating in chaos fields, paradox-like masses of entropy, spacetime violently correcting for itself in a recursive loop that outpaces itself.

Psychofields: Electromagnetic wave transmission, specifically engineered to tamper with human consciousness. The signal is not subtle, but when cognition itself is altered, it doesn't matter one way or another. It is a collective madness, one which cannot be falsified. It may as well be real.

Antiwaves: Inverse frequency waves. The mathematical imaginary plane actualized in physical spacetime. Like realizing you've been seeing in two dimensions your whole life, discovering the third, only to realize you can't perceive the second dimension anymore.

I only came up with three of them, and I feel like they dip into themes I've explored before, and the writing is mediocre at best, but I guess it's something. What can you expect in 5 minutes?

Alright Alright let's wrap this up, the children need to be put to bed and the babysitter's getting antsy. Let's end with an open-mic poem and a song for the road.

so much to think about and do and see

an itch to scratch and tear until it bleeds

and yet its all so stifling to me

to bring in brief relief to unmet needs

to nonetheless deny the way this feels

it would be nice to rid myself of this

to win is not to spin again my wheels

instead of hell to dwell in love and bliss

What utter beauty, I am moved to tears, TO TEARS! Well folks, it's been fun as always. Maybe the next Weird & Wonderful Wavelength will be less than a year away. Anyway, just so we can enjoy these final moments together a little longer (and wipe away those tears), how about a coffee break?

Royal Tenenbaums meets Children of the Atom: Help me make a storygame!

I had a dream last night (as of when this was drafted, not posted) that got rudely interrupted by construction just as it was wrapping up. It would make a great story that I will likely never write, but could also be a storygame TTRPG. I don't normally play or run storygames, I used to listen to a bunch of Actual Plays of them but honestly at this point don't know much about them, and don't have sufficient time to invest in it, but I would love it if somebody with more knowledge and interest in storygames could help me carry this idea into some small side project. I'm somewhat less gung-ho on this now that it's been several days since I had the dream and this would admittedly be a lot of work, but I do still love this idea and I suspect one way or another this will eventually influence something else I do, even if nobody takes me up on this for now...

Children of the Atom (1953), not to be confused with X-Men

The high concept is Children of the Atom (1953 novel not X-men) meets Royal Tenenbaums / Wes Anderson, with maybe a smidge of Life is Strange.

I should also say it's been a very long time since I've seen Royal Tenenbaums or read Children of the Atom; at one point I considered both to be some of my favorite stories, but I don't know if they actually hold up as well as I remember.

A rogue superscientist has a profuse number of children over a short span of time (or they're artificially inseminated, or genetically modified by him, or whatever). He raises them as part of a gifted school largely in seclusion from the rest of society.

One of the children, the "PoV" character we'll call them, for whatever reason was removed from the school at a very young age, but as a favor to the other parent for reasons that may or may not matter, they stay at the school for one summer during high school, so this would be the beginning of the story/game.

It would be tempting to make the initial source of conflict about animosity between the PoV character and the other siblings, but I don't think that's the direction I'd go, other than maybe one sibling or a small clique if it would spice things up, but the main struggle should be the extent to which, despite being generally accepted by the siblings, the PoV character feels like an outsider and fails to connect with their siblings, and also struggles to keep up with the rigorous demands of the school. An exploration of things like imposter syndrome, or feelings of being an outsider.

The other siblings would have their own personal struggles and the PoV character would develop relationships with them and begin to feel almost like they belong, but of course in the end, they have to return to the "real world".

The rogue superscientist is mostly a background figure or when present is present as a teacher and not a parent or relatable figure, but at the end they drive the PoV character to the airport. The PoV character finally asks the rogue superscientist why they were excluded from the school, only to learn that it was actually for a really petty and incidental reason that had nothing to do with them or their aptitudes. Yet even knowing this fact can't erase years of internalized self doubt, so it's all still very bittersweet.

From a storygame perspective, I think it is ok for the PCs to know that this is how it ends, to be keeping this in mind the whole time; it might affect how they think of the whole setting and the various relationships and dynamics.

You could give each student academic specializations, or go full X-Men / Doom Patrol with it. In fact, it seems highly likely that Stan Lee and/or Jack Kirby were directly inspired by the 1953 Children of the Atom novel- they literally refer to the X-Men as "Children of the Atom" in many cases. That said, an inversion of Doom Patrol (weird powered outsiders but who are exceptional and conventionally successful or perceived as such or held to such a standard), or something like Venture Bros (basically what I described as an inverse Doom Patrol...), or The Royal Tenenbaums themselves, are probably a better point of reference than X-Men.

Mike of Sheep & Sorcery suggested Umbrella Academy as a comparison, which I do like but always thought of as more like just a lesser Doom Patrol with the serial numbers filed off, but actually that is an important conceptual distinction between the two and in that regard Umbrella Academy is more like Venture Bros. and what I'm going for with this storygame premise, so that's a cool observation.

Where it gets more Royal Tenenbaums-y specifically, besides just the intended aesthetics, would be the extent to which it's about exceptional people who are detached from "regular society" and struggle to match the expectations set for them, and perhaps also what it's like to be in such an insular world lacking diversity of experience and broader perspectives.

But there's also this element of randomness, or the extent to which "randomness" plays a more outsized role in our identities and lived experiences than we may want to believe or be capable of understanding without outside context. The PoV character has practically defined themselves by the fact that they were excluded from this school, thinking they must not be as smart, or have ADHD/focus problems, or laziness, or mental illness, or anything like that. When in fact, it was basically just a careless decision by a self-involved agent and had nothing to do with them.

But now, despite that fact, the damage has been done, and they are forever changed as a result. They learn that they are capable of doing what their siblings do and have developed relationships with them, but they will forever be different, in difficult to define but meaningful ways.

Life is Strange is very much its own thing, more so inspired by Twin Peaks, but if the premise or scope for this game needed to be expanded, I would probably look to Life is Strange for reference.

From an RPG perspective, you could make the PCs be some of the siblings, and the narrative "PoV" character would be an NPC, a framing device for the mechanics of the game. If the PCs are the siblings, that would give them room to develop their own "narrative arc" in that Royal Tenenbaums vein.

Alternatively, you could have just one of the PCs be the "PoV" character and the others be the siblings. Or it might work best as a 1-1 game.

I say storygame because it should be more so linearly defined than like OSR/NSR/FKR type stuff, and you'd probably want some kind of game construction to evoke a Wes Anderson feel, although I don't know if or what that would entail.

But again, that's all very outside my experience or frame of reference, so to actually make a storygame out of this, I'd really need help and/or somebody to just take this idea and run with it with minimal involvement from me, but it would be cool to see this idea taken to completion and to be able to experience it in some capacity, even if I'm not super into storygames.

That all said, maybe I'm being too precious about the specific way I experienced it in the dream. I like the simplicity of the premise, of it being mostly not supernatural, but I could easily imagine this as like a different kind of module / setup for a game set in the broader MRD universe, like an "MRD 1.5 / Side Story" kind of thing. That would certainly be easier for me, but would that be as interesting?