Editing note: added our experience with Gauntlet-style character keepers. A few months ago, some friends of mine who hadn’t done much/any tabletop gaming said they wanted to try D&D. I had plenty of free time and felt like it’s somewhat mean to make non-gamers learn D&D in a virtual setting, so I volunteered to run Monster of the Week for them. It’s gone great – we wind up playing about once per month, and everyone seems to be having fun. ...

Movies reviewed this week: Girl, Action U.S.A., and The Boy Behind The Door.

For all the obvious reasons, I spent some time this year refreshing my knowledge of a rough cluster of subjects centering around the dangers of extremism, particularly on the Internet. I haven’t finished reading all of these, but I’m on course to get them done by the end of the year. It occurred to me that it might be an interesting list for others. My thanks to Shane Burley, whose article " The Best Books on Fascism in 2019" supplied much of this reading. Subscribe to his Patreon. ...

Movies reviewed this week: One Cut of the Dead.

Movies reviewed this week: Contempt.

It never dies! People in the comments of my earlier post keep saying “aid and comfort,” which in today’s climate is one of those ominous codes meaning “he’s a traitor.” One guy even said “What Arnett has done would have gotten him arrested and jailed in WWII.” So I thought I’d do a little research on the nature of treason. Turns out it’s a slippery beast. In particular, you have to prove that the guy wasn’t acting under duress, and you have to prove that there was the intent to cause harm. In Cramer v. United States, the Supreme Court said “On the other hand, a citizen may take actions which do aid and comfort the enemy… but if there is no adherence to the enemy in this, if there is no intent to betray, there is no treason.” If Arnett believed that he was providing aid and comfort, that’s probably sufficient. If he didn’t — and see a slew of previous comments from me on the reasonable belief that most of what he said was nothing you couldn’t read in a million other places — that’s probably not. ...

This is going to be both a writeup of our first Yellow King RPG scenario (played over two sessions) and some notes on prepping for the game. I wanted to use the ad lib skills I’d picked up while running Blades in the more structured GUMSHOE environment. Spoilers for the game follow; players please do not read.

Movies reviewed this week: How to Build a Girl.

Movies reviewed this week: Murder on the Orient Express and Free Fire.

Movies reviewed this week: Mauvais Sang.