Welcome to the Brainfart Chronicles!
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the first issue of the all-new Brainfart Chronicles! I appreciate you signing up for the newsletter. I'm going to start off by telling you about some exciting opportunities for you to give me money (because capitalism), but I promise there will be some content later on.
Most of you probably already know that February is Zine Month/ZineQuest, when hundreds of would-be game writers crowdfund short RPGs, about a quarter of which will go unfulfilled as soon as they turn into work. In the past few years, I've released Tales from the Lusty Minotaur, Elvismancer, and The Blasphemous Temple of Yargolith as part of ZineQuest. This year, I'm contributing to two different zines.
First up is Million-Colored Sun, which went live on Tuesday. Leighton Connor, Joshua Burnette, and I have strong feelings about sword & sorcery gaming, but for years we were convinced that the world didn't need another fantasy game. After several years of all three of us buying new fantasy games, we realized that was probably and incorrect assumption. Million-Colored Sun distills our collective experience as sword & sorcery fans, GMs, and players into a 100-ish page RPG for running rules-light pulp fantasy adventures using a slightly modified version of the QAGS system. In addition to our outstanding knowledge, the book features beautiful cover art by James West.
The Kickstarter campaign for my second zine, Castaways & Conspiracies, kicks off next week. You can visit the pre-launch page and click the button to be notified when it goes live. If you're a long-time Hex Games follower, you might recognize Castaways & Conspiracies as Project G, a game we ran at dozens of conventions during the early 2000s. The basic premise is that it's Gilligan's Island, but all seven castaways are sabotaging attempts to escape because each one has a secret reason that they want to stay on the island. Thanks to all the convention games, this might just be the most heavily-playtested product Hex Games has ever released.
Recent Reads
Gilliamesque by Terry Gilliam is a fairly broad but heavily illustrated autobiography. Given that Gilliam is probably my favorite director, it's no surprise that I enjoyed the book. Given the lack of dramatic artistic manifestos, shocking revelations, and detailed biographical information, it might be less entertaining to those who aren't hard-core Gilliam fans.
Chaos & Beyond: The Best of Trajectories by Robert Anton Wilson (and a few others) is a collection of pieces from RAW's newsletter from the 1990s. While a lot of the material is dated or covers familiar RAW territory, to me it kind of felt like kind of a homecoming after so many years without new content from Saint Bob. My favorite entry by far was a reader mail from subscriber George Carlin, because there's nothing like seeing mutual appreciation between two of your heroes.
The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett is me giving Discworld another chance. Previously I'd only read and not particularly enjoyed Unseen Academics, which everyone tells me is a terrible jumping-on point for the series. When Humble Bundle did offered a bunch of Discworld books for under $20, I decided to try again. The Color of Magic was a much more enjoyable and while I'm not going to wolf down the whole series in one sitting, the other books are definitely on my "to read" list now.
Currently Reading
Islands in the Net by Bruce Sterling has shown up on a ton of "Cyberpunk books you should read" lists, so I grabbed a cheap copy of the paperback when I got a chance. I haven't gotten very far into it, but so far it seems firmly in the William Gibson tradition. I just hope that Sterling doesn't follow Gibson's usual trick of introducing some kind of really cool groundbreaking concept and then using it as little more than a MacGuffin for a fairly standard crime thriller.
Recently Watched
John Wick 2-4: I've been meaning to watch the John Wick sequels for a while, but didn't get around to them until a few weeks ago. As you probably already know, it is an excellent series that just barely manages to be less over-the-top than the Fast & Furious movies.
Stan Helsing: I mainly watched this one because I was looking for a dumb comedy and it stars the guy who plays the neighbor/bartender in Shameless, who I've already found to be very entertaining as a dumb guy. It's pretty much just what it says on the box, but it's enjoyable.
Pawn Shop Chronicles: This was one of those movies I'd never heard of, but it had a good cast and sounded promising, so I gave it a try. When it opened with a Pokey LaForge song, I knew I'd made a good choice. The movie consists of several interconnected vignettes framed by scenes of Vincent D'onofrio and Chi McBride hanging around the titular pawn shop. The movie has a very 90's indie flick feel, but with rednecks. It's probably not for everyone, but if you're intrigued by the idea of Brendan Fraser playing an Elvis impersonator, it's worth checking out.
Currently Watching
My Name is Earl: I originally watched a chunk of this show back in the pre-Netflix days when "streaming" was mostly through pirate sites, so I never saw it all and probably missed episodes of the seasons I did see. Since I really enjoyed the other Greg Garcia shows I've watched (Raising Hope and Sprung), I decided to (re-)watch Earl from start to finish. I have not been disappointed. In addition to the "white trash surrealism with heart" vibe that distinguishes all of Garcia's shows, the cast is phenomenal. I'm up to the season where Earl's in coma, and it's staring to give me ideas. I've had a "Redneck Robin Hood" concept floating around in my head for about 15 years now, but every time I think about it, it just turns into the Dukes of Hazzard. I wonder if reframing it as a Greg Garcia production would make it snap into place as something more interesting. Who knows? Maybe that'll be next year's ZineQuest game.
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TYTYVM,
Steve
©2024, Steve Johnson