I also gather with friends to listen to music and collaboratively create a playlist on a weekly basis. My friend Joe's project Conference of the Birds started in April 2020—another pandemic project!—and I started hanging out with the group that June. Some of the people involved were volunteers at WNUR-FM in Evanston, Ill., but not everyone. Regardless, we all love music and listen pretty widely. Everyone brings a different implicit favorite or go-to genre to the turntables: world music, jazz, hip-hop, electronica, and so on.
For the collaborative listening sessions, we use a service called Hangout FM. It offers its own music discovery tools, and you can import Spotify playlists to your queue. Once people step up as DJs, the service cycles through the DJs' queues, rotating through the DJs after each song. We rearrange our queues based on what the others are playing, doing our best to follow up on, build on, or totally disrupt the flow continued by the preceding song.
Hangout FM also offers a chat function during the sessions, so we all spend the two hours catching up on each other's lives, sharing information about the musicians and recordings we're playing, and making cornball quips. There are a lot of cornball quips.
The end result is a lot of fun. And the process getting there is even more fun.
For I don't know how many years, a friend in Los Angeles and I have watched a movie together once a week. At first, it was in my home, enjoying each other's company and conversation throughout the selected feature. We alternate weeks picking the movie and tend to enjoy the same stuff: science fiction, horror, monster movies, gialli, spaghetti westerns, and other outre cinema. When the global pandemic hit, we took to each watching the same movie on a streaming service we both used, at the same time, texting throughout. It wasn't the same as hanging out, but it maintained the tradition. And when I moved overseas, we did the same, but watching movies that have been uploaded to YouTube, still texting throughout.
In recent months, I've started curating more of a complete program instead of just picking a feature. I choose trailers—new and old—cartoons, horror shorts, experimental shorts—just recently—as well as a feature, creating playlists for us to play and watch together while texting. That's been a really fun experience, and it's a practice I'll continue when it's my week to pick.
I'm a long-time player of roleplaying games, dating back to about 1983 when I first played Dungeons & Dragons. I fell out of the practice during college—I didn't find a group that I gelled with and didn't want to spend all my free-time hours in a library group study room—and didn't really play much between 1992 or 1993 and about 2010, when I fell back into the hobby during the days of D&D 4E with a fervor and a passion. I participated in and ran weekly public play sessions at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica and It's GameTime, got my son interested in the game when he was about 7 or so, enjoyed the launch of D&D 5E, and joined and ran games with friends and strangers alike in the Los Angeles area, even going to my first RPG cons. I met some of my best friends from my time in LA while rolling dice.
After my return to the tables, I also participated in a couple of RPG-related amateur press associations, including Alarums & Excursions and Ever & Anon. (You can find many of my fanzine contrubutions here.) So I've been aware of events such as RPGaDAY, even if I haven't participated. This year's instance started Aug. 1, which I missed, but let's see what comes of jumping in a week late. I can't promise to write something in response to a prompt every day, but I'll do my best to make my way through the calendar of prompts even if I spill out of August.
***
Day Eight: Resolve—or, "A moment when a character kept or broke their resolve?"
Just yesterday, I started a new solo RPG session at my downstairs desk table before going to bed. Drawing inspiration from Jim Hall's Solo RPG Toolkit, Seedling Games' Procedures to Discover the Path Ahead, and Matt Davids's The Book of Random Tables: Dungeons, I created a new BECMI D&D character—a young dwarven rock farmer—to explore the mysterious forest southwest of Castle Town in search of long-rumored ruins.
It struck me recently that even though I've been DM'ing games dating back to the mid-1980s, I haven't always consistently utilized the mechanic of Morale—especially when I was younger. So that's the first thing that came to mind when thinking about resolve. Morale is effectively the enemies' measure of resolve during combat. While players decide whether their characters fight or flee in a given combat encounter, the Morale check is the DM's way to determine whether enemies—or retainers—stick to their guns, or their swords and spears, as the case may be.
In BECMI, the mechanic—presented as optional—is pretty straightforward: The DM tests Morale when a creature (with a Morale of 3-11) is first hit or when it gets down to 25 percent of its hit points. When facing a group of enemies, the group's Morale is tested when the first death occurs in a given combat and when half of the enemies are no longer "free to act." (i.e., dead or otherwise restrained)
Some people don't like Morale checks. Some do. And the idea continues even to more recent editions of D&D as the Will saving throw, the Morale check's modern implementation. In some recent OSR (Old School Revival or Renaissance) games such as Swords & Wizardry, Morale checks might not come into play.
I quite like Morale. For the most part that's because, in older game systems, combat encounters aren't necessarily balanced or optimized for the level of the characters. (Characters really should run away, hide, or avoide combat more than they do.) Applying some degree of chance to whether enemies resolve to see a given combat through to its logical conclusion introduces a little bit of what I might consider natural balance. That can be helpful if players try to bite off more than their characters and parties can chew. It also makes the enemies a little less automatic, their behavior less able to be assumed. We mustn't treat it as rote that enemies will always engage in combat, or that they'll always stay once engaged in combat.
So, hurrah for the Morale check. What are some other ways that players and DMs can exhibit or test resolve? In addition to the Will saving throw mentioned above, some game systems include character skills such as Resolve or Willpower.
The idea also comes into play when considering alignment, which I also think is often under- or misutilized. In many cases, alignment is something that players set and then forget—it doesn't really come into play except, perhaps, in the case of clerics, and most players I've shared time and table with don't really apply their characters' alignments as a roleplaying guide or aid.
Such behavior comes at a risk. In BECMI D&D, "Alignment Changes" are addressed explicitly in the Dungeon Masters Rulebook:
Sometimes a player forgets (or ignores) the alignment of his character, and plays the character incorrectly. You should talk privately with the player about the problem, and encourage the proper play of alignment. ... If the problem continues after you have warned the player more than once, you may tell the player to change the alignment of the character to the different alignment actually being played. A penalty may be applied at this time, such as the loss of one level of experience, a valued item, etc. (p. 14)
That's interesting to me. When selecting a character's alignment, how committed to roleplaying that alignment are you as a player? The same question could be asked about other aspects of a character such as the personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws of D&D 5E. Many players treat those aspects as fluff or roleplaying aids, but they offer another opportunity to exhibit resolve. What kind of rewards and penalties could come into play for successful commitment to those aspects of a character? Should they involve any kind of mechanical boon or bane? Perhaps rewarding inspiration is enough.
It's not quite the same thing, but various game systems kind of address this through mechanics such as Shadow Points (The One Ring), sanity rolls (Call of Cthulhu), and fear checks. Even though some people don't like fear checks, such tests of resolve seem to be another way to apply Morale checks to characters, who might not always be smart enough to get out of a situation while the getting's good.
And finally, let's consider the role of the stories we tell in roleplaying games. In many games, a campaign or session is built on the acceptance of an assignment, a quest, or some other form of adventure hook. Ideally, and perhaps in most cases, players, characters, and parties see such responsibilities through to completion. What if you can't, won't, or don't? If a party isn't resolute enough to see an assignment through to its end (say, the rescue of a tailor's daughter, as in the Swords & Wizardry game in which I'm currently active), what happens? Is there a cost or impact to failure or abandonment? (Other than death, that is.)
That might depend on whether the characters own up to their failure or abandonment—do they return to their patron to inform them, or do they just avoid that town for a period of time, hoping that people will forget?—but other mechanics could also come into play to reward the application of resolve—narratively. Consider reputation, fame, and honor mechanics such as those in GURPS Social Engineering,HackMaster, andHERO. This Mindstormarticle offers additional examples—and its own approach.
There seem to be multiple ways that the games we play already support and reward resolve exhibited by our characters. There also seem to be additional ways that players could consider applying resolve—in terms of roleplaying and character development—and that DMs and GMs could bring to bear while guiding their parties through a game's world and the stories it propels. Similar to how I'm newly committed to Morale checks when appropriate, I hereby resolve to continue to explore the steadfast application of alignment, personality traits, and reputation.
For quite some time now, I've been making Spotify playlists of songs mentioned in or inspired by articles in the magazines and newspapers I read. The practice might date back to my Media Diet email newsletter, seems to have become more formal and frequent in 2021, and became much more important and interesting to me when I moved to Portugal late last year.
After relocating, the effort served a three-fold purpose. In addition to reading Portuguese newspapers such as Correio da Manhã, Jornal de Notícias, Público, Expresso, Correio do Minho, and Diário do Minho, and magazines such as TV 7 Dias, TV Guia, Sábado, and Visão for local, regional, and national news, as well as learning the language, it also offered a crash course in Portuguese popular music—past and present. Portuguese newspapers and magazines do a good job covering local arts activities, including upcoming concerts, festivals, and other events—with a strong focus on Portuguese musicians in addition to touring international acts.
When compiling the playlists, which can take some time, I apply several "rules." If a song isn't named explicitly but a musician or musical group is, I pick one of the most-played songs on Spotify—unless I've previously included it in a similar playlist. If a song is named explicitly by title, I include that song—even if it results in including more than one song from a particular musician or band. Otherwise, I try to include one song per musician or band (or composer, in the case of classical music). I tend to try to include album cuts rather than single edits, live versions, or songs from best-of anthologies or compilations, though I sometimes rely on such records for expedience. And if a song has been remastered, I try to include the most recent remaster. That might seem like a lot of hoo-hah, but I think it results in me including a definitive version of a song. Whatever that means.
If I can't find a musician or band—or if I'm unable to determine which musical group is the band in question—I exclude the track, so not everything covered by the press ends up on the playlist. And when I finish the playlist, I share it as an Instagram Story. I don't really pay any attention to whether anyone else saves the playlist in Spotify, which seems the strongest signal indicating that others are also listening.
While compiling the most recent week's playlist—Newspaper Music: Week of July 20, 2026—which I finished yesterday, the enormity of the task and result struck me. (It makes sense that I've taken a couple of months off!) This week's playlist weighs in at 375 songs, or more than 24 hours of music. That's a far cry from compiling a 60- or 90-minute mix tape.
I've already stopped doing this on a weekly basic—I don't always read all the papers and magazines every week, there are other ways to spend time in a new country, and, more importantly, I don't always listen to all of the songs and pieces myself. So I'm going to institute a new rule: I will compile the next Newspaper Music playlist once I've listened to all of the most recent playlist myself. I've been missing out on the true value of the musical education component of this practice: Experiencing the actual music.
If you'd like to check out some of the other playlists I've compiled along these lines, here are some additional links:
Among the film-related belongings I brought with me when we moved was a small stack of DVD and Blu-ray inserts that promised a digital copy of the movie in addition to the physical media purchase. Even though I've acquired quite a library of DVDs and Blu-rays over the years—all denuded of their cases and nonessential inserts (I kept booklets and more informative inserts) to be stored in binders, which take up much less space—I apparently never sought to claim such digital copies, relying instead on the physical media itself, or streaming services. Regardless, I kept all of the inserts for potential future use.
Rather than just recycle the inserts unused at this late date, I decided to see whether they still worked. In some cases, I might have acquired the DVDs and Blu-rays a decade and a half ago, so it was an interesting experiment. There were just more than 20 such inserts. Apparently, such redemption codes were more commonly used with Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD releases rather than DVDs
In some cases, the URLs on the inserts no longer worked. In other cases, the offer had expired, which makes sense given how long I've had these. In one case, the service—Disney Movie Rewards, later renamed Disney Movie Insiders—has shut down. Launching in 2006 and rebranded in 2019, Disney Movie Rewards was shuttered in late 2024 after almost 20 years of operation. That, too, makes sense with the launch of Disney+ in late 2019.
But many, perhaps most of the insert URLs and codes—long alphanumerical strings, all—still worked. I ended up parceling out the redemptions across several streaming services. Most of the codes that still worked went to Google Play if it was an available streaming service. The next largest set went to Fandango at Home, if Google Play wasn't offered. And one movie, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, landed in Movies Anywhere, if neither Google Play nor Fandango at Home were available options. I created new accounts for Fandango at Home and Movies Anywhere because I hadn't used the services previously.
(Interestingly, for at least one of the URLs that didn't work—but not for Disney Movie Rewards—I could still redeem the code via Movies Anywhere. I'm glad I tried!)
I still own the DVDs and Blu-rays—physical media remains the most secure way to retain ownership to the media you buy—and will likely turn to them first as I watch my way through my movies before releasing them to friends, family, and the wild. So I've yet to experience accessing or watching the movies that now reside in my Google Play, Fandango at Home, and Movies Anywhere libraries. Having redeemed the codes on the Web using my laptop, it's clear that I can watch the movies on my MacBook, and I've used Google Play before, so I have a sense of what that experience will be like.
But it'll be interesting to see whether it's worth downloading the Fandango at Home and Movies Anywhere apps—I presume they exist—to my television. I now have two movies available on Movies Anywhere, five on Fandango at Home, and nine in Google Play.
Perhaps more interesting, we'll see how many times I want to watch Gods of Egypt or Infernal Affairs.
If you're interested in science fiction, fantasy, and horror literature, movies, and television, fandom, comic books (banda desenhada or bandes dessinées, natch), and roleplaying games—and you're interested in the country of Portugal or speak and read Portuguese—you might enjoy my recently launched newszine Notícias de Pfandom. There've been two issues so far, and we'll publish monthly.
My co-editor for this project is one Álvaro de Sousa Holstein, who published the first sf fanzine in Portugal in 1983. His article, "Science Fiction and Fantasy in Portugal," which I printed in translation in The Stf Amateur #3, was a formative influence on my initial understanding of the history of the genres in the country. The piece provides useful context.
And if you'd like to receive Notícias de Pfandom on an ongoing basis, just let me know, and I'll add you to the distribution list.
***
Se se interessa por ficção científica, fantasia e literatura de terror, filmes e séries de TV, fandom, banda desenhada e jogos de role-playing — e se interessa por Portugal ou fala e lê português — talvez goste da minha revista recém-lançada, Notícias de Pfandom. Já foram publicadas duas edições e a publicação será mensal.
O meu co-editor neste projecto é Álvaro de Sousa Holstein, que publicou a primeira revista de ficção científica em Portugal em 1983. O seu artigo, "Science Fiction and Fantasy in Portugal", que publiquei em tradução na The Stf Amateur #3, teve uma influência formativa na minha compreensão inicial da história destes géneros no país. O artigo oferece um contexto útil.
E se quiser receber as Notícias de Pfandom regularmente, basta dizer-me e eu adiciono-o à lista de distribuição.
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