Regardless of its bafflingly incoherent use today, for most of its existence the term "woke" had a very different, and specific, meaning. Coming from Black civil rights movements of the 1920s and 30s, it referred to becoming cognizant of the systems of oppression that exist in every aspect of Western culture, to "wake up"  from the sleepwalk of the blind structural acceptance, and, eventually, involvement in movements to undo those systems. It's a powerful term, implying the sudden collapse of everything one has been taught and accepted as a dream, an enforced fantasy. Coming face-to-face with the brutality inflicted by today's society and acknowledging the centuries of cruelty and destruction it took to build that society is terrifying - often the best we can do is try to push it to the backs of our minds simply to get through the day. Another concept was starting to make its appearance in the 20s and 30s, even if there wasn't a name for it yet: cosmic ...

It seems the New Year has once again caught us off guard. 2024 has been a tumultuous year, for the Never Say Dice crew and the rest of the world, to be honest. We don’t need to go into specifics of the things we’ve gone through in the past year (feel free to insert your own), but the short version is that our other responsibilities have meant less time: less time for gaming, less time for media, less time for storytelling. As we go into the new year, there’s no sign that any of this is going to be slowing down, and will likely get much worse. None of this will keep us from our annual New Year’s Resolutions post, however - it’s simply a factor to consider, for us and for yourselves. It’s going to be tough out there, dear reader, and we all need to remember that every little thing is a victory. Here are some of the little things we’re going to try to do in 2025. - B A : There really isn’t a need to go into what's held us back, or what we’ve accomplished, and certainly I don’t expect ...

I don't think I've seen it out there as a meme, but you can tell a lot about a person's history by asking which iteration of A Christmas Carol was their first. Consummate child of the 80s that I am, for me it Mickey's Christmas Carol , taped onto Beta from some mid-80s showing. At the time, I didn't appreciate that it was only the second ever screen appearance of the already-legendary (in comics), although it did help set the stage for my DuckTales fandom shortly afterwards. While a number of changes are made for time, intended audience, and the central hook of casting existing Disney characters, Mickey's Christmas Carol doesn't duck (sorry) its responsibilities when it comes to the story's final climax: the existential horror shown Scrooge by the Ghost of Christmas Future - a terrifying, yet captivating, sequence for a youngster like myself, capping off a story involving more temporal complexity than anything I'd ever seen to that point. ( Back to...

Given the power they exert over film and other visual media, it's no surprise that some editors think of themselves as gods... and when it comes to turning raw, disorganized messes of raw footage into complete narrative products, they might as well be. Not to mention the advice that a (possible) god once told (wannabe god) Bender, that goes doubly for editors: "when you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." Not to say there isn't flashy editing, of course, the kind of cuts that demand a viewer's attention and acknowledgement through sharp juxtaposition or shifting from one part of a story to another in a manner reminiscent of a page being turned or curtain pulled. But these examples are notable because they're standout exceptions - most editing has the far more mundane, but no less miraculous, task of turning a three-walled set filled with lights, cameras, microphones, and all the people running them into the illusion of...

Anyone who knows their Never Say Dice Lore is familiar with our lifelong Simpsons fandom. While we were lucky enough to catch the legendary Golden Age of the series when those episodes were first airing, we actually started before even that. While most of the elements are present that would eventually enshrine the series in cultures worldwide, the show itself is rather different in its first two seasons: slower, with a smaller scope and emphasis primarily on family and social relationships - not to mention relatable scenarios, the kind of things that happen to regular people. (And not one single magic robot!) As a kid, I remember them hitting pretty hard emotionally, particularly “Bart Gets an F,” “Bart’s Dog Gets an F” (no surprise those would hit someone who, at the time, was the same age as Bart), but especially “One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish” which dealt with mortality I’d never seen before. I had fewer of those moments of deep emotional connection as the series went on, ...

For reasons of which I am still not entirely aware, in the days leading up to the election I had a strange compulsion to look into the 1986 reboot of Superman comics. Maybe it was from going through the comic collections I've finally retrieved from my parents' basement - while I still haven't been able to find them, I had a few post-reboot issues that confused me as a kid and would, over time, learn the circumstances that led the publisher to push for a clean slate and undertake what's possibly the most successful "hard" reboot of a major media franchise to date. For the (blissfully) uninitiated, a devil -may-care attitude stemming from writing decades of crossovers , twist endings , and IP acquisitions with an expectation that the audience won't care enough to be confused (or, more likely, simply grow out of caring) had left the "DC Universe" an incomprehensible mess by the early 80s. But as we've discussed before , readers by that point ha...

While we here at Never Say Dice try to bring you our own creations every week, be they on storytelling, video games, tabletop games, or any number of other nerdly topics, we thought it'd be good to talk to some other creators so you, dear readers, can hear from others right here on our blog. We haven’t included an interview since our popular MDRF posts , and thought now would be the perfect time to start including them again. One creator I’ve personally backed in the past has developed a risqué game series called Lewd Dungeon Adventures: An Adult Tabletop Role-Playing Game for Couples . So this week, here at Never Say Dice you’ll get some background on that series from the creator herself, Phoenix Gray. - A We should point out that, like the game itself, this conversation will involve sexual topics, so if the subject of sex and gaming (in this case, both in-universe and among the participants themselves) doesn't interest you, you may want to move on to another post. I've be...

While many different traditions come up around this time of year, the one that's always scary popular is Trick or Treating. At least in the USA, things are typically focused more on treats rather than tricks... though, in some shady corners, flaming bags of animal poop, eggings, and the TP'ing of people’s houses still likely prevails. There are also always rumors of the tricks disguised as treats:  needles or razor blades shoved into candy or fruit treats, drug laced delights, and so forth . Even today, it's still recommended that adults go through their younglings' collection of confections before letting them have at (also a great opportunity to sneak some candy yourself). But before you slip into your sugar infused diabetic naps, have a quick read of a table of tricks and treats you can use to sweeten up your tabletop games. - A A mixed bag of candies and curses for your players can come in any number of ways. Perhaps they're a collection of Victorian tinctures ...

 " He came dancing across the water With his galleons and guns Looking for the New World And that palace in the sun..." - Neil Young, "Corte z the Killer" (1975) I'm aware that I bring up Ozark Softscape's 1984 game The Seven Cities of Gold rather frequently for a title that's mostly remembered today for its influence later series like Civilization . But it's a very significant game for me personally, not only because it was, for me,  an early demonstration of the medium's potential richness and depth, but because some thirty-six years later, I keep coming back to it. There's the cartographical indulgence Seven Cities foregrounds, of course, and an appreciation of the game's mechanics I wouldn't have had at seven years old, especially since so many are hidden, left for the players themselves to deduce. But there's a reason I kept going back, both as a kid and as an emulator-savvy adult, every Columbus Day: a longing for repai...

By now, my love of older electronic games should be well-established. Indeed, over the time we've been doing this blog, I've only delved deeper and deeper, more than tripling the number of vintage consoles I have on-hand, hooked up, and ready to go. And while we can look to the pandemic and the money saved by not having to regularly commute lifestyle changes that came with it, the fact is, the propensity was always there - I have always loved older technology, especially if it operates in ways fundamentally different than modern equivalents. And compared to, say, vintage guitar and bass amplifiers (something else I have in... "generous" quantities), consoles are relatively cheap, don't take up much space, and can be used late into the night without risk of noise complaints (provided I'm using headphones). They all have their own quirks, their own histories and unique libraries, and, since they were all released in my lifetime, personal connotations. Each cons...