Monday Musings #98 🤬
Mechs, Mad Dice, and Prom Weekend Mayhem
Good Monday, Gamer!
“The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed.”
— William Gibson, Ghost in the Machine
It was prom weekend over here — and my little man is growing up fast.
Saturday morning kicked off with our KC Rockband performance (think School of Rock, but locally run and lovingly chaotic). The band went with the name Fine Young Gentlemen, which was 100% my pitch and somehow stuck. Our setlist:
What You Know - 2 Door Cinema Club
Missed Connection - Head and the Heart
Ain’t No Sunshine - Bill Withers
Ride - Twenty One Pilots
It’s always a blast playing in “the band” with my kid. It only happens when KC Rockband doesn’t get a student guitarist for a cycle, so I “sub in”... but I’m always secretly hoping they come up empty! 🤷🏾♂️ Saturday night was the Junior Prom.
Theme: Enchanted Forest.
And yes — it was enchanting… and then monsters arrived!
Highlights:
Parental scandal ✅
Ex-spouse drama ✅ (not me!)
Civilian loudmouth vs ex–Spec Ops dad ✅ (again, not me!)
Six-kid sleepover ✅
Brunch at IHOP ✅
I’m officially too old for this sh!t… and prolly gotta do it again next year!
Currently Watching: The Ethernaut
I just started The Ethernaut on Netflix — a slow-burn sci-fi mystery based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Juan Cabana. Season one is all up, but I’m crawling through it, one episode at a time. It’s dense — emotionally and narratively — but I’m really enjoying the human element and the slow unfolding of the central mystery. Even when the 🍆-head gets done in, you kinda feel for him a bit…
If you’re into The Electric State, The Last Caravan, or Twilight: 2000, it’s got that same cracked-glass energy: low trust, worn-out gear, long silences. Real “emotional fatigue sci-fi.” I’m in.
Tiny Supers + Mad Dice Testing
I’ve been reading Tiny Supers by Gallant Knight Games — a super-tight, rules-light superhero RPG built on their TinyD6 system. It’s quick to learn, and I think it might be just the right mix of punchy and accessible to test out Mad-Dice and kick off the Supers AP podcast I keep teasing. It even got me revisiting Tiny Frontiers as a possible chassis for scaffolding my Debt Punk meets Kuiper Belt Anomalies sci-fi setting—something modular, light, and expandable.
I’m also eyeballing CBR+PNK — a high-octane cyberpunk RPG using a Forged in the Dark-style framework. It’s lean but offers just enough crunch to stress-test Mad-Dice. Quick missions, brutal stakes, neon-drenched misery — the good stuff. I might run a one-shot just to see how Mad-Dice holds up.
But then again... maybe I should just run something I know cold. Like The One Ring. Or Old School Essentials. Start with familiar ground and see what rattles loose.
Mad-Dice Soft Launch: May the 4th Edition
Speaking of — I soft-launched Mad-Dice over May the 4th weekend!
My friend Rich Rogers, who ran his annual Star Wars–themed RPG con using Mad-Dice, gets a huge thank you! Mad love to all of you subscribers who jumped in to shake it down. Now it’s my turn to run it through the paces… just gotta decide which game earns the test pilot seat. 🧐
Mekton Rails and TitanFall Dreams
I’m prepping Mekton for a homebrew TitanFall-style setting — chunky mechs, ruined colonies, fast-burning conflicts. And while digging around, I found this beautiful, ancient piece of interwebs archaeology:
15 years old! Still standing. I’m gonna try to resurrect it and see what’s what.
As for rules — I’m deciding between going full MK+ or using the Cinematic Rules to keep it lighter. Either way, it’s shaping up to be part toolkit, part experiment, part nostalgia run even dug up an old Titanfall Prima game guide from the garage!
ICYMI
🎒 I’ve heard from some Velvet Glove gangers that Sarah Doom has a new Patreon full of games and stories. She’s migrating away from Substack and setting up shop there. I’ve had a lot of fun playing games, chatting, and laughing with Sarah — thrilled to see her new space. I’ll see ya there!
🎧 MobyGratis – Free, copyright-free music from Moby for indie projects, video, whatever. I’m shopping sounds for a new project I’m participating in!
Catch ya next week!