You see, there was going to be a Father's Day post about the way the holiday coincided with the simultaneous No Kings Rallies, Trump Birthday Army 250th Anniversary Parade, Minnesota state government assasinations, and Israel's attacks on Iran. It was going to build on the themes of fatherhood and legacy in the  Metal Gear  franchise, and talk about how the villains are generally motivated by a need to force change for the benefit of future generations. It was going to build on my previous Father's Day post about breaking the cycles of paternal abuse in  Metal Gear , along with the  Yakuza/Like a Dragon  series . And then a series of unforeseen real-world issues came up in my life - nothing catastrophic, but all things that needed to be dealt with immediately... and the post was postponed. No big deal, I thought, Father's Day can be a starting point, but certainly doesn't need to be the focus. I could keep going in the direction I'd already charted.  And t...

Collecting, and curating those collections, is something that seems to span cliques, cultures, and economic statuses, even throughout history.Though there are some major differences: one would imagine the upper crust collects things such as cars and yachts, and historically what gets collected has certainly changed over time along with tastes change... though you still see Hummel figurines, pressed pennies, and fancy spoons in tourist destinations. Ask any average person today, and they'll likely say they collect something themselves. It might be as simple as coins or stamps (if you’re thinking booooorrriiinnnggg , you're probably right, but don’t yuck their Yum !), as widespread as trading cards, or as nerdly as dice (shout out to our fellow dice goblins ). We even have games based around collecting - the writers of Never Say Dice are certainly no strangers to Magic: the Gathering and other collectible card games, even if we’re not currently wizard-dueling each other. They al...

A phrase that's probably most associated today with the Marvel What If…? animated series, the concept predates it by some time. Before the phrase even came up in comics (Marvel's original What If series started in 1977), the concept was over all sorts of media. Not necessarily in a What if "B" happened instead of "A", but certainly in a sense of “what if you took a vigilante detective series" (already a popular genre at the time) "and made it bat-themed ?” Often, the answers are very satisfying. They scratch some sort of brain itch we may not even be aware we had. You see it come up in comics, TV shows, movies, even our old favorite Choose Your Own Adventure  books, which are essentially founded on the question. One place where you typically don’t see it, oddly enough, is in our tabletop roleplaying games. So this week on Never Say Dice, let's explore the concept of “What If” sessions in tabletop gaming. - A Book(mark) It! A : In the original ...