I finally finished the two seasons of Picard this weekend. I have thoughts. They might be surprising. I want to take a wander down memory lane first. I'll try to keep it brief. When ST:TNG premiered in 1987, I was a 12 year old who loved the classic series. I... hated... TNG. It was stiff, …
New Trek, Part Two: TLD & SNW
These two are both shorter so I figured I'd put them together. I feel very good about both The Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds but I don't feel like my take here is anything special so it's not as in-depth as my thoughts on Discovery. I'll start with Lower Decks. It's just so much …
New Trek, Part One: Discovery
I wanna talk about new Trek. I've mentioned it before but I want to say more. I'm all caught up on Discovery, Lower Decks, and Strange New Worlds. I've also watched the first season of Picard. There are probably some light spoilers below but I'll try to keep them to a minimum, if that's something …
Frankenstein, Again?
I stumbled across this tidbit just a few minutes ago, shared in a group I’m part of on Facebook. The question, “Is Frankenstein Really Science Fiction?” I’ll get back there. First a quick detour. It is an oddity of my professional and education journey that I have a Master’s degree in Rhetoric and Technical Communication. …
Molly Grue – Again
So, it’s probably impossible for me to explain to strangers why I love Molly Grue so much. And by strangers I mean anyone who doesn’t pay rent inside my head. My first introduction to The Last Unicorn was the animated movie. I’m probably 8 or 9 years old and my encounters with fantasy are mostly …
Atheism and World Creation
Hoo-boy. I'd like to acknowledge two things right off the bat. One, there is going to be some imprecision in terminology in this post because I am not making a philosophical argument about theism or atheism and so I'm not concerned with fine points of atheist vs. agnostic vs. whatever. That has its place but …
My Thoughts on Matrix Resurrections.
So, I really liked the new Matrix movie. I thought Resurrections was well-made and interesting. The first and second act were stronger than the third. And I only say that because the third act felt a bit like a victory lap at times (I'm okay with that, it just wasn't as compelling as the lead …
NaGaDemon – Day 3
I've never been much for systems that use "succeed at a cost" mechanics. I prefer the binary of pass or fail when it comes to skill checks most of the time. Largely, both have to do with stakes. What is lost if you fail? What is gained if you succeed. What might be the consequences …
Thinking About Cyberpunk: Shotgun Introduction
I’ve been inspired lately to write about cyberpunk. For me, cyberpunk is usually Shadowrun, but I think I want to write about cyberpunk more generally. I thought about starting with my shadowrun “mood board” but I realized that no one would ever take me seriously again so instead I’m starting with a random shotgun blast …
Continue reading Thinking About Cyberpunk: Shotgun Introduction
Fallout RPG: Welp.
So, I've gotten my notification that I'll be receiving my Fallout RPG stuff on Monday. It will be nice to get the items I ordered. And the PDF version of the book is now for sale on Drive Thru RPG. I have not received an update to my PDF - and I'm not spending another …
The Rhetorical Gamer 