Malaise and Movie Directors

Not much posting here the past month or so. I've been busy. My father-in-law lost his 6+ year battle with lung cancer two weeks ago (the doctors had given him 6 months when diagnosed almost 7 years ago, so it's not like it was unexpected). My older son has three separate health issues (orthodontic work being the most expensive, but the others pretty time consuming with hospital stays and doctor visits...thank God for Korean universal national health insurance, and low cost no-fuss supplemental private insurance for what the national system doesn't cover!). I have two academic papers under review at the moment, both submitted mid-October -- so revisions from peer review coming up later in the month most likely. And planning/researching background info for the next paper. Oh, and teaching classes and doing a weekly radio show and general husband/father duties.

Despite all that, I've been tinkering away at both East Marches and my Star Wars d6 game when I've got some time. The newest SW adventure, based on feedback from the end of the previous session, is more or less ready to go. I could run it as it is now, but adding some detailed stats for a few NPCs that could be encountered will save me from having to wing it in the game. But I could easily wing it. Smuggler? Sure, he's got...5D in Space Transports. But having some of that stuff already on paper before the game will make me more consistent. This weekend, though, most likely I won't have time to run it. Or rather, I have some time Sunday afternoon, but my older son will be at his Python coding class all afternoon so he'd miss the game, and he's into his Mando character just like my younger son is into his Jedi character (who did a lot of shopping between sessions, including a new C1 series astromech droid companion/sidekick -- yes, we've been watching Rebels). 

I skipped the previous scheduled session of my West Marches game because of the funeral. I could schedule a make-up session this Saturday night, but I'm not really in the mood. I feel like re-tooling some parts of it, especially the areas where I dropped classic D&D/AD&D modules into it. They've found  or had solid rumors of a few of them (Caves of Chaos, Quasqueton, Xak Tsaroth all explored, The Moathouse partially explored, and rumors of White Plume Mountain & the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief have been heard). I've actually placed a couple other modules that they haven't heard about or found clues to yet, and I had plans for even more even farther out. Now, though, after the long slog in Xak Tsaroth that in the end wasn't super fun for me (although the players seemed to enjoy it a lot), I'm thinking of stripping out these modules they haven't encountered yet. Maybe replace them with similar themed but smaller dungeons of my own. I've found that for West Marches style play, small dungeons of a dozen or fewer rooms work best. But again, not much will to get cranking on modifying that stuff at the moment. Real life has drained me. 

Anyway, enough personal blather. What about the movie directors? 

I've mentioned before that when I was gaming in Tokyo, Steve and Pete dubbed me the Mel Brooks DM (to Steve's Quentin Tarantino and Pete's Terry Gilliam). I think it's an interesting shorthand to let players know what sort of games to expect. NOT that I think RPG play should try to tell stories the way a movie does, just that in my games, expect plenty of humor and tropes stood on their heads. In Steve's games, things could go from conventional to very bloody on the turn of a dime. Pete had lots of whimsy but also a dark undercurrent to his games. 

I've been reading and enjoying Alexis's recent series of posts on how to create a more compelling, deeper campaign world and use that in play to make D&D play more meaningful. Some of the advice he gives matches things I do now. Some match things I used to do but stopped somewhere along the way. Some are things I've never tried. Part of me wants to really up my game (I think my Chanbara campaign burned out quickly because I wasn't doing enough of these things, and it made the game feel cheap to me). 

But another part of me, the part with malaise from all the real life stuff I'm dealing with mentioned above, is just like, fuck it. There's room for deep, epic Oscar contender films, small, personal Oscar contender films, big damn roller coaster blockbusters, scrappy independent films, avant-garde art house films, cheap comedies, and endless remakes and reboots and continuations of old IP in cinema. 

Sure, a game by Alexis is going to be pretty awesome, the way watching a finely made film is deeply satisfying. But you know, I still enjoy the MCU movies despite them being fairly formulaic. I could watch Dazed and Confused or Aliens or Austin Powers for the 100th time and still enjoy it. Nothing wrong with some sometimes campy special effects in a John Carpenter movie. Kevin Smith is working on Clerks 3 and I'm actually looking forward to it despite most of his recent films not being so great. 

I hope Alexis, if he's reading this (and he probably will get around to it eventually), understands what I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to knock what he's been doing. I admire it a lot. And I don't doubt him when he says his method has elevated his games and could elevate mine as well. I want to give something like that a go. But honestly, right now I just don't have the mental energy to commit to that sort of game. I'm doing fine with my Mel Brooks West Marches and my Star Wars game that is a bit more Spielberg to be honest. Maybe after they've run their course, and life has settled down a bit more, I'll be ready to take on a Kurosawa epic of a campaign. I think my players could really dig into it.