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 ...

The Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. Is there another fictional (or even real-world) mixed drink as well-known to geeks and nerds everywhere? Like much of the larger Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy universe, it doesn’t make much of a direct appearance in the story itself, but establishes the character of the setting and the people who occupy it, especially given how early it appears in the story. The original 1978 radio play text ( unchanged in the 1981 television version ) is a great bit of writing, but it’s expanded upon greatly in the 1979 novel with the actual recipe for the “best drink in existence.” Each ingredient comes from a different planet, each with its own story or tradition, and, even though we never get to see any of these worlds (or their contribution to the Gargle Blaster), the sequence does a massive amount of worldbuilding and tone setting. And that’s one thing that’s interesting about cocktails - unlike most real food, they’re specialty preparations that stand out on ...

Nazis are the Bad Guys. Saying that shouldn’t be considered going out on a limb, and if you disagree then you probably won’t like this one. In fact, it’ll probably make you pretty angry... although, there are seemingly endless ways to make Nazis angry. If you’ve been a regular reader, it should be no surprise, given some of our other posts , what our stance is. Perhaps you just need a reminder, though. Nazis are the Bad Guys. You should have easily figured that out during your school years by reading and learning of the atrocities they’ve performed and the abhorrent things they continue to espouse. Perhaps you didn’t receive the best education, though, or struggled with your studies, so you might need a reminder. Let me assure you, Nazis are the Bad Guys. You don’t have to take it from Never Say Dice, though, or pour over history books, or visit museums - but you probably should, lest history continue to repeat itself. However, you should still be able to find continual reminders v...

It wouldn’t be the spooky time of the year around here without Never Say Dice digging up some '80s and '90s macabre media or exhuming forgotten toys. In the past, we’ve talked about a myriad of Simpsons " Treehouse of Horror" episodes , had a Mad Monster Party , and played around with finding inspiration in monstrous toys such as Blurp Balls and Boglins . It was an era in which creepiness abounded, and you could find it in just about everything, even things like after-school cartoons and breakfast cereals . Beetlejuice was one media franchise that was adapted into all those things and more... it's even been on Broadway ! (Lets face it, the cartoon was a great kids' show and the action figures did some interesting things you didn’t typically see.) So, with the franchise being revisited on the big screen in the form of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice , why don’t we see what inspiration it can bring to our games? Ghost with the Most Across all of the various forms o...

How did we get by so long without the term “retcon?” As a phrase, “retroactive continuity” goes back to at least 1973, with our current definition appearing a decade later to describe some of the way DC comics was engaging contemporary storylines with characters and plots from decades prior. Even without a name, the concept is about as old as storytelling itself, with some retcons becoming such a significant part of their respective narratives that they’d be unthinkable without them - no one involved in the creation of the 1977 film considered Vader to be Luke’s father, but inserting that retcon into The Empire Strikes Back has defined every iteration of Star Wars ever since. But “retcon” is a term that carries as many connotations as it has applications, with plenty of room for interpretation as to what exactly counts as a retcon, what it effect retconning has on a work, and how that in turn affects an audience’s relationship with that work and its creators. So this week, let’s take a...

So you’ve reached the final level of your game, maybe even the final boss. Or you’ve just hit level 20 in your D&D campaign. Congrats! Those are all fantastic accomplishments. While we do mean the sentiment, that isn’t what we mean by Late Stage Gaming though. So what do we mean by Late Stage Gaming? Like other media before it, it looks like games are starting to push to the subscription only model. A path where you’re not just paying for extras, but paying to maintain access to the game itself. What exactly is happening? What does this mean for us as gamers, both tabletop and digital? When should we really start to worry? Is there anything we can do about it? Won’t somebody please think of the children?!? Sit down with Never Say Dice this week as we try to cover some of those questions in today’s post. - A B : “Late Stage Capitalism” is a term describing the commodification and industrialization of every aspect of life, especially once the profit motive overtakes even elements of ...

There are three things I've learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin. But this is our blog, and that means we can discuss whatever we want. Being the spookity time of year, it's a good opportunity to do just that. While "horror" might be the word of the month for many, there's also something to be said for the more mundanely macabre - the things that, while not horrific, blend right into the spirit of the month. Here at Never Say Dice, one thing that brings us into that space are the old Halloween specials of our childhood. While some should probably  stay buried in the past, worms crawling in and out of their corpses, others seem to endure over the years. The favorites might vary from household to household, but shows like It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown or Garfield’s Halloween Adventure are still commonly well-liked. That begs the question, though: what makes a good Halloween special work, and what can we take from t...

The NSD Team are both 90s kids, and nerdy ones at that, so the recent passing of rapper Coolio hit us both because of his own work (near-inescapable for a period in our adolescence) and because of the odd relationship he had with "Weird Al" Yankovic's parody of his biggest hit, " Gangsta's Paradise ," as " Amish Paradise ." Al had been given permission by Coolio's record label, but not Coolio himself, who had issues with his work being parodied. To my knowledge, this is the highest-profile of a parodee being upset about Al's version, and it's certainly the one time I was around to experience it. But what makes a parody stick with us just as long as the original, and, in some cases, even longer? What do we, as audiences, get from them and how should we approach them as creators, ourselves? "Weird Al" Yankovic,as I've written about before , played a vital role in my musical journey. He wasn't constrained by genre, so eac...