Now, you’ll quickly realize that I don’t love gore horror and jump scare horror can be done really well and I’ll like it, but I do love me some B horror. So this list might have a little of those on it, but it’s going to be a lot of more monster feature shows that really feel like Halloween to me.

Stranger Things

Got to start off with the classic, if you haven’t watched it, I will say it’s not that scary if that’s what has been holding you back. The way this type of show is described is as “Kids on Bikes”. That means that you’re dealing with almost an adventure story, but with elements of horror thrown in as the kids are trying to figure out everything that is going on. Normally there is some element of the parents not believing them and the kids being right in the end and probably a teenager who is a non-believer who ends up helping in the end. Stranger Things definitely follows a lot of those tropes, but it builds upon them in interesting ways and while a lot of the 80’s Kids on Bikes style horror or just horror in general that this is based off suffered from poorer writing, Stranger things has very solid writing. Overall just a wonderful Halloween feeling show.

The Order

This one is as much a teen drama as a horror show, but you follow Jack Morton as he gets into the Hermetic Order of the Blue Rose, a secret, and magic, organization that his mother had gotten into before her mysterious death. This one is all about the monsters, the crazy magic, college aged kids, and basically anything and everything that could go wrong going wrong. This is not a serious horror show at all, but the monsters in it, the magic in it, if you want campy Halloween that somehow still takes itself seriously, this one is pretty solid for that. Don’t expect anything ground breaking, but sit back and enjoy a pretty convoluted ride.

Supernatural

If you want your Halloween show to take itself a bit more seriously, at least some of the time, Supernatural might be the right show for you. This is still monster of the week, but with CW melodrama. This ranges from a show that is straight up horror as it goes through it’s monster of the week to one that is extremely self aware and back again to horror. There’s a lot of this show, so if you wanted to wrap it up before Halloween, don’t plan on sleeping.

Ghost Hunt

This one is a bit different because it’s an anime. This one, as the name suggests is all about hunting ghosts. Teenagers hunting ghosts to be specific, but it does a good job of blending some wonderful horror elements together with some pretty fast and witty dialog in it as well. This has an interesting feel to it as well because being anime, the horror elements are more Japanese which is something that we have a vague idea of because of things like The Ring or as was hinted at in Cabin the Woods, but even those are an Americanized version of that. If you don’t know if you like anime, but you do like horror this is less “anime” in the sense of what people generally would consider.

Helix

Finale one for the list, and I do like to highlight some different ones, even though Stranger Things and Supernatural should always show up. But Helix takes horror in another direction. Playing off of the vibes of the The Thing, this Sci-Fi channel show is all about surviving in the Antarctic when something is going horribly wrong at the scientific outpost. It has a lot of those, who is or isn’t infected aspect of it going on, and overall, I enjoyed it when I watched it a while back. It’s one that I want to revisit as I know I never completely finished it that second season. If you want something that is more true horror and less Halloween horror, Helix definitely leans into that.

What are some other ones I could have or should have mentioned? I can think of a lot of them, and maybe next year I’ll do a massive Halloween show list or put out some sort of bigger list with a ton of different shows and types of Halloween shows so you can pick the ones that look best to you to watch.

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This is building off of my articles on where to start in comics and the article on zombies in pop culture. The format is going to continue to be a little bit different every time, mainly because it can be, but I want to talk about some things that have worked well and some that don’t work as well.

I think that we can all think of a lot of apocalyptic or post apocalyptic stories out there. About 5 years ago we had a lot of them being taken on in the Young Adult style with books series like The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Maze Runner. Some of these worked better and some were disappointments, at least for myself. Since then, the genre hasn’t really died off, we have Netflix putting out shows like Daybreak and The Rain where things are going horribly wrong or have gone horribly wrong in the world. The genre as a whole has kind of been all over the map though with a lot of goofy stories as well as many very serious takes on the genre as well.

Now, I’m not sure that any particular take is going to be always the right one. Some that take themselves too seriously become overwrought and melodramatic, while others can try and do a humorous take on it that just ends up being hit or miss. And there’s also an element where some authors are trying too hard to be profound on a topic that is going to lend itself to a lot of speculation.

Just to talk about speculation, I feel like there are two that I can kind of compare as to how one does it decently and the other does it poorly. In The Hunger Games, we have this idea of spectacle, and that humans, even when things are going poorly are going to want spectacle and probably even want more and greater spectacle, especially if they are at the top of the food chain. This is something that we can see already in our society where people love things like Survivor, or even before our time with the shows in the Roman Colosseum, so The Hunger Games has a feeling of something that is grounded and truthful to it. Compare that to Divergent. The issue with Divergent, besides that the story just takes a left turn that everyone saw coming is that they split up humanity and society in a way that doesn’t make any sense. At no point in time before has society split itself along those lines in such a way or tested people so that they would be split that way. It feels like an illogical jump for a society to make and one that doesn’t really aid the society in the long run. So even though, I would say, there is some overlap, the speculation and the ability for a post apocalyptic story to have a ring of truth to it makes a big difference.

Now, I feel like I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about how it’s moved into other mediums. It’s easy to think of books, films and TV shows, but in many ways it’s just as easy to think of video games. The Last of Us is a prime example of a post-apocalyptic game, and the Resident Evil games take place during or after the apocalypse. But probably less known to some, though obviously something I like, is how it’s made it’s way into board games. Pandemic Legacy Season 1 and Season 2 are basically board games about the apocalypse and the fallout from that. And it gives you an interestingly written story. Even a game like Dead of Winter, which I’ve mentioned in the zombie article, is definitely about survival after the apocalypse. While I don’t have a ton of post-apocalyptic games on my shelf, I have a lot that are about thwarting that great disaster from happening, basically all of the Lovecraft Mythos investigative games from Fantasy Flight fall into that category. In those games, Arkham Horror, Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition, Eldritch Horror, Elder Signs, you’re always trying to stop a great old one from coming through, or something along those lines. Even fantasy games like Gloomhaven, Sword & Sorcery, and Aeon’s End: War Eternal, while maybe not as heavily apocalyptic as some, have bits and pieces of that thrown in, especially if you fail the campaign.

Finally, there are RPG’s, and I think when it comes to a medium that is built for the apocalypse, RPG’s are that medium. Even if it hasn’t happened, the fact that you’re going on an adventure to do something, it’s going to be to stop something bad, and generally that’s some form the of the apocalypse for at least part of the world. And if you make it up to level 20, it’s probably for the whole world. In fact, one of the campaign books for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition is Princes of the Apocalypse. There’s just something about the story of an malevolent god trying to destroy humanity and the player characters becoming humanities champions that just works well for a story. It’s one of those things where you can joke that it’s a story as old as time, but it works for so many reasons as it gives you that heroes journey and that final thing for them to overcome.

Well, that was kind of rambling, I had a lot that I wanted to talk about what I like from apocalyptic stories and why some of them don’t work as well if they ring a little hollow. Plus, I couldn’t go an article without talking about how it has flowed into the RPG and Board Game mediums. What are some of your favorite apocalyptic stories from whatever medium it might be?

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But we’re all familiar with zombies in popular culture. The Walking Dead both as a comic and a TV show really brought them into the limelight and turned what was just a bunch of shambling monsters into something more terrifying where the humans might be the monsters. But we still kept getting the more standard zombies as well with movies like Shaun of the Dead. But The Walking Dead was really the show that let zombies expand. And even hit board games where the popular Dead of Winter gives you a potential traitor in your midst and everyone being selfish to some extent.

There has to be a lot beyond that, so what are some other things you can check out?

Book/Movie – Pride, Prejudice and Zombies
This one people might be more familiar with. It did have a movie come out and while it wasn’t an extremely successful movie to pick up on the zombie theme, it was advertised. But I think that the movie and book are worth checking out. Pride, Prejudice and Zombies is a lot of fun because while it twists the story from Pride and Prejudice, it stays true to many of the themes. It still has the sarcasm and it takes itself seriously. Even though the world is in the midst of a zombie apocalypse (or at least England is), there are certain principles of being a lady and a gentleman that can never truly be done away with. It’s a funny juxtaposition of those two things, and is something that Jane Austen did in her own work.

Game – Zombicide Black Plague
While this isn’t a unheard of game in the board gaming world, it does take on more of a classic zombie feel. You’re fighting off endless hordes of zombies in various scenarios that might just be about killing zombies but might have more going on as well. I have the Green Horde stand alone expansion for the game where you can get some orcs into the world as well, so there’s magic as well as zombies. There’s also Zombicide and Zombicide 2nd Edition that put it in a more modern setting, I went with Black Plague for the list because Zombicide, the original, has some issues with it, and the 2nd Edition I don’t believe is out yet. But if you want to be in one of those movies where you’re dealing with wave after wave of zombie trying to survive, but you’re not worried about the people as much as the zombies, this one’s worth a look.

TV Series – iZombie
Obviously the big TV show is The Walking Dead, but this show based off of a Vertigo comic by the same name and produced by the producer of Veronica Mars is a lot of fun. Liv Moore, get it, is turned into a zombie and now her perfect life of planning to become a doctor and getting married has to be put on hold. Not only is she a zombie, she realizes that she gains memories and knowledge that the person whose brain she eats at last, so she goes to work for the police, in their morgue, and can get access to brains to help solve cases. It has a bit of a procedural nature to it, but a lot more fun. And there’s a good supporting cast of characters around her. The villain of the show is really good. CW also didn’t mess with this show like they did with Veronica Mars, which keeps the show stronger throughout.

Movie – Cockneys vs Zombies
So the first time I went to a con, CONvergence in Minneapolis/St. Paul area, I went at the last minute because they were screening Cockneys vs Zombies and I was following the writer of it on Twitter since he’d also worked on Doctor Who. This is a good, absurd, and British zombie movie. I really highly recommend this one as it just has some wonderful moments in it. While I wouldn’t call the story anything amazing, I think that they did a great job of adding in a few expected jokes, but is clever ways. Possibly the best moment, and spoilers so you can skim ahead to the next heading if you want, is there is a nursing home/assisted living home, and when the zombies come there, one of the residents is outside. Of course that resident is slow and has a walker, so we get a great slow speed, high intensity chase as a zombie slowly shambles after the resident who is slowly walking using his walker. And that’s not the only joke that works well, definitely a zombie comedy worth checking out.

Game – Zombie Dice
When you want a faster game to play, Zombie Dice is a simple game in the style of Farkle or other dice games. You’re rolling dice, pushing your luck to see how many brains you can get, but if you push your luck too much, you can get shot, and if you get shot you don’t collect the brains you’ve gathered this round. The game is very simple but it works well in decent sized groups because turns take a few seconds and you just need to remember your total of brains. It’s one that works well with families as well, again because of the simplicity.

Book – Chemistry
Now, I don’t know much about this series, Kristen is the one who has read it and loves it. I’m just hearing about it through her. From what it sounds like, it has elements of being a Twilight Parody but with zombies instead of vampires. And that the writing and characters are more interesting and better. And that’s coming from Kristen who still enjoys the Twilight Saga for the cheesiness that it is. This book, and series, just do have a similar story but in a more interesting way with more developed characters. So if that sort of fiction interests you, I know that Kristen and other she’s read it with, have enjoyed the books a lot.

Now, there are a whole lot more zombie themed things out there. Some of them are more serious and plenty of them are pretty silly. I wanted to highlight some that are maybe a bit more well known while others that are a bit more out there, that is you’re a zombie fan you could checkout. What are some of your favorite zombie things?

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Taking from the Oxford dictionary, the definition of a game is:

“a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck”

Oxford Dictionary

According to that definition, is my example of The Mind, a game?

Basics of the Mind are that you are trying to play cards in numerical order without talking, you can see your cards but there is no communication, so you have to guess, based off of feel when to play them down, and you’re trying to get through a certain number of rounds.

By the definition of a game, it doesn’t really take skill or strength, but it is very much luck. And, I think that something that I’d say for a definition of a game, it needs to have a win condition of some sort, I think that competitive is trying to cover for that, but I think a win condition is clearer, because cooperative board games are definitely games even though you’re not competing against someone. So, the Mind, by the technical definition is a game. But, when looking at the definition, it feels like it’s lacking a little bit of what is normally a game because it is just luck based.

So, maybe it’s a combo of a game and activity. I think that you could say that all games are activities. And with the Mind, because you’re mainly just guessing when to play down a card or when to use a special ability, it feels more like an activity to me. And it is a fun group activity as you try and use body language or other non-verbal queues and non-spoiling clues to get other people to play or to have a rush of playing when the numbers are close together. For me, the Mind is more of [redacted – come back for the review].

Is it bad that it might be more of an activity than it is a game? No. I think that many party games, they are best when they are treated more as an activity than a game. When you are playing something like Stipulations and trying to come up with an answer, it’s better to put down something that you think is funny. Same with Balderdash or a game like Cards Against Humanity or Apple to Apples. Even if it isn’t the best answer or the answer most likely to win, it’s a lot of fun just to create moments where you can laugh. And you play until laughing is just starting to fade, and you’ve had a great activity without caring about who wins because you can just be goofy. If you treat them as a game, you won’t get the in-joke answers, you’ll get people trying really hard, and that’s less fun. Yes, you might be removing the game aspect from it or going against the spirit of the rules, but it’s a party game, and a party is supposed to be fun. That’s why I have issues with “party” style games that don’t led themselves to being an activity because they can’t have the same level of fun. I’ll talk about what makes a good party game later as well.

So, with the Mind or party games, they can border on an activity, and that’s fine. I think what’s not fine and some of the reason why I’m writing this article, is because there can be a sort of snooty thumbing of the nose towards these games and the people who play them. Yes, it’s not that complex a game or activity, but are the people having fun, yes. Can it be a gateway for getting people into the heavier and more complex games? Yes. Will it always do that? No, and that’s fine. We want to encourage as many diverse gamers to join the hobby as possible as that will keep the hobby growing and from becoming stale. It might not be a 4X game, an 18XX game, a euro game, or an Ameritrash game, but that’s fine depending on the group, and if they don’t want to move on to those sorts of games, it might be that game group isn’t the right one for you, but don’t disparage someone for having fun in their own way.

What is a light game that you think works better or is more of an activity? Have you tried The Mind, and do you like it? Let me know in the comments below.

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There’s a reason for the focus change in the second question because you won’t be able to get everyone into your hobby, for some people that’s just not interesting. And that’s fine that you can’t get everyone into your hobby, but for those people who seem open to the idea, how can you help them into the hobby without overwhelming them or having an elitist attitude about the hobby?

First, I would start by inviting them to join you in the hobby. You’re looking to create a welcoming space. If someone seems interested in board games or the game you’re playing, if you’re in a public space, ask them if they want to sit down and watch or if they have any questions. Or, if it’s a smaller/fast game, you can maybe even ask them to join in on another game. People aren’t going to be that apt to invite themselves to your table, but you can invite them in. Or if someone is interested in your Sci-Fi books, consider inviting them to join you in reading the book or to a book club that also is reading Sci-Fi. And when you do invite people to that club or to a game night or to your table, it is part of being inviting to make sure that they are having a good time. This doesn’t mean playing the game for them so that they can have the optimal strategy, but it does mean helping them if they get stuck, explaining Sci-Fi terms or who an author might be when they don’t know. It’s about creating that welcoming environment because they are going to feel like an outsider no matter who welcoming your are, but you can make it feel less that way.

Next, don’t overwhelm them. I talked about this in the last article about starting in a new hobby, about how a lot of hobbies can be really overwhelming. How do you pick through all of the Sci-Fi books that came out last year, let alone all the Sci-Fi books that are already out, and the same with board games, or anime, or comic books. So, while you don’t need to have a list of things already to go for new people, because you can do better than that, don’t overwhelm them with a ton of different options either. Instead, using your knowledge of the hobby, ask them about other things that they like, maybe you can tailor it more so. If they like comedy movies, starting with a heavy Sci-Fi book isn’t going to be what they’ll want to start with, instead, you can recommend a lighter Sci-Fi book. Or if they like Sci-Fi movies, don’t pull a fantasy game off of the shelf. I think that there is often a temptation to pull your favorite book or game or anime off the shelf and recommend that, but, if I were to do that with my favorite game, I’d scare people away as Gloomhaven is too much of a monster for a new gamer. So have options of more accessible options for new people into the hobby.

Thirdly, slowly introduce more, and I mean slowly. There’s always a desire to rush someone to the point where you are in the hobby, because then you’ll have more in common to talk about, but that goes back to the overwhelming, you don’t want to do too much too fast. Most people won’t be able to jump into Gloomhaven right away. Let the person who you are leading into the hobby lead the pace they get into the hobby. If they are seeming bored with a type of Sci-Fi book or interested in another type of Sci-Fi book, you know you can move them on. If they really like a game, say, if they really like Dominion as a deck builder, when you’ve played that a handful of times, introduce them to more deck building games. If they start pushing back when you suggest something else, slow back down again. I realize that this might be boring to you at times, but hopefully you’re able to have other gaming groups or other people to discuss Sci-Fi books with, and realize that creating a strong base with the new person to the hobby is going to allow them to more fully join the hobby.

While I’d like to say that these three steps are a guarantee to get someone into your hobby, but it’s not always possible. Some people won’t like it no matter how you go about it, and that’s fine. Not everyone has to be in the same hobby. But also, don’t let that discourage you from trying again with another person or group of people. There will be people out there who just need a nudge to join you in a hobby. I’d also like to say that these aren’t the only things that you need to do to get people into a hobby, there are other tactics that you can take, but these are fairly easy steps that you can do to hopefully introduce someone to a hobby in a way to make them more likely to joint the hobby.

What other suggestions do you have for someone who is trying to bring people into and grow their hobby?

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Now, there are plenty of things that we can start as a new nerdy hobby, maybe you want to start playing Dungeons and Dragons, get into board games, or read more Sci-Fi books. But where you jump into them can be pretty tricky for some of them. So how do you pick that starting point of joining into a hobby that already has a lot of people in it?

Let’s use, what I know well, board games, as an example. In 2019 there were thousands of board games that were published, and that’s just last year. And in that, there were thousands of bad board games published, so if you are getting into the hobby, what should you be looking for? Is there some proper starting place?

It is going to be overwhelming to jump in, but thankfully, there are a lot of articles out there about good starting places for board games. So to start with board games or any hobby, I’d use Google and simply research, “Introductory…” and it’ll give you some good options. Now, that might seem off, because you want to play the best board games, so maybe you would go to somewhere like Board Game Geek, which will probably come up in search results, and just buy games in the top 10, but a lot of those are much bigger and heavier games, and the same with picking the most popular Sci-Fi or anything, it is going to lean more into what those who are already steeped in the hobby like.

The other reason that you want introductory is that while the games aren’t always cheaper, they are going to be teach you about the hobby. So something like Carcassone teaches you tile placement, how games can have various ways to score, and generally gets you to a point where you can understand board games better, and the different introductory games are going to be good at teaching different things. Catan can teach you about probability and resource management. Ticket to Ride is about set collection, route building, and there are so many other intro games that teach other things.

But, maybe you won’t like all of the introductory games, so should you really go out and get all of these games? You will probably find some that you don’t love, so did you just waste money? Thankfully, if you’re in a larger town/city, you might have a couple of options. A lot of larger cities are going to have gaming stores. These places often has games that you can just try or the employees should be willing to open up a game and teach you how it’s played a little bit so you have an idea before you purchase the game. Also there are other spots that you can try and game. A lot of breweries are going to have some games, and while you might mainly find Cribbage and Cards Against Humanity, I’ve seen Catan at a lot of them as well. And who knows what gems you might find there. Also, you can look on Facebook or other places used to schedule Meetups (again Board Game Geek could help) and you can find a public one in your area that you can join. I’m in a city, so there are more options, but in more rural areas, you might be able to at least connect with people who are already in the hobby. But use these ways to start playing the introductory games and then when you have a better idea of what you like, you can get some.

Now, that section seems fairly specific for board games, but it works well for D&D as well. For something like Sci-Fi, this would be the library. Get a library card and check out books that are different types of Sci-Fi to see what sort you want, maybe you want the hard core scientific Sci-Fi, or maybe you prefer one that focuses like on the science aspect and is more a grand space adventure. Who knows, maybe your library even has a Sci-Fi book club or would have up a poster for one. There are always groups around for various nerdy things, whether it’s in person or an online forum that you can join as well and ask questions. Now, it’s the internet so there will be people who get annoyed because you aren’t already into the hobby like they are so you’re stepping on their turf and wasting time by asking questions, and while it’ll seem like they stick out more than anyone, it is really less people than those who want to grow the hobby, so ignore the trolls.

This is all a good way that you can start and it helps get rid of some of the chafe that might be less than ideal stuff to dive into to start. But any hobby, unless it’s something with technology that is brand new, is going to have a lot to dive into. So it’ll seem intimidating when you’re jumping. And you’re going to run across games or books or DM’s or whatever it is that you don’t like. Don’t let that drive you off and don’t let those people who feel like it’s their hobby and because you’re just joining keep you from joining the hobby. It might take you time to find the area of it that you like, so the last piece of advice is patience. And with that, if you don’t like part of it, move on and try another part of it, if you don’t love heavy Sci-Fi, go and try some more adventure type Sci-Fi, if you don’t like deckbuilding, try area control games, if you don’t like playing a wizard try playing a fighter. Experiment until you find something that you like more. And maybe the hobby won’t be for you, but there is so much diversity in all of these hobbies now in different types of things that hopefully there will be something for you.

I could talk more about this topic, but I don’t want to overwhelm someone who wants to get into a new hobby. To summarize, try and find an existing local community that can help you or a good online community. Try a wide range from the hobby you want to join, and while everything might not be for you, find what is for you.

If you’ve already gone through this process, what other simple tips do you recommend?

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5 – Crawlers
So this actually is from the movie The Descent. It is a monster that you don’t know much about, but being the movie takes place in a cave and there are plenty of dark corners for the monster to hide in, it works so well. And, then if you watch the non-American ending, you find out even more about the monsters that possibly makes them even more terrifying. Yes, this movie has been out a while, but I don’t want to spoil it for you.

4 – Cloverfield Monster
I don’t know that it really has any name, but it is scary and the fact that it is having smaller monsters fall off of it is just creepy. It really is just a monster that is around to kill, but the fact we don’t know more about it than just that, it works well. There’s something about a large amount of unknown that makes it into a terrifying monster and something that is so hard to kill is also a good monster. And it isn’t like some horror movie villains where you think that you’ve killed them and then they aren’t dead, this monster just doesn’t go down.

3 – Dracula
Hard to go against one of the oldest monsters out there. Dracula is just terrifying because of how he can plan things out. For me, a good monster really is one that isn’t just that mindless killer that is going to chase you down, but can plot and plan and has an idea of how they want to take over. Dracula is very much that type of monster and very hard to kill as well. There have been so many different versions of vampires, but anything with Dracula in it tends to be a little bit more iconic.

2 – Freddy Krueger
Another one of my personal favorites, I really like the concept of Freddy Krueger and how he can get you in your dreams. While some of his movies are cheesy, the concept is very good. There’s just something so iconic about the sweater that Freddy wears and then the razors on his hands. Robert Englund does such as good job as Freddy as well and has consistently through so many movies.

1 – Pennywise
If people didn’t like clowns before, they definitely don’t like them after seeing the horrors of Pennywise the clown. He is the monster from my favorite Stephen King book and he’s shown up in two tellings of the story by Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgard. The Skarsgard version of Pennywise is definitely the creepiest version on a screen. And Pennywise in an inter-dimensional cosmic spider/clown being that knows your darkest fears and how to play upon them.

There are so many more good monsters out there. The Denarians from The Dresden Files are up there or then Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees are both good options as well. I wanted to do some more mindless monsters as well as some crazy out there monsters.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed the little bit of Halloween coverage that I’ve done, I plan on doing more against next year, and I’ll probably continue to talk about more horror things coming up here anyways, as Halloween just makes me want to watch horror films.

So what is your favorite monster that reminds you of Halloween?

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The idea of this is that as a fan or a consumer, we are demanding, creating petitions, threatening, and generally behaving like five year old’s that things are done the way that we want. And it isn’t just with the examples I gave, but those are a few that have been thinking about. It raises a few questions, what do we as fans of something “deserve” and what should be changed for us?

Let’s start by talking about Game of Thrones. There are a lot of complaints about Season 8 of Game of Thrones. I stopped watching much earlier than that, but I know people who watched through it and who didn’t like the end, because it felt rushed and because it didn’t go like they expected. Now, I think that there are valid complaints about how the last season went, and the show runners being given as much time as they wanted, but then deciding to rush the ending is a bad look. And it’s going to taint the fact that they are doing the next Star Wars trilogy after this one wraps up. Not like Star Wars fans have generally been that forgiving anyways.

I think what we need to unpack more is the complaints where fans are complaining because they didn’t want something to happen. Game of Thrones has built it’s brand on having slow seasons and then shocking and expected moments happen. With the last season, from what I can tell, again getting this information from people who are watching the show, the biggest complaint is people knew how they wanted the show to end, and when the last season, not even the last episode, the last season, went in different directions, they disliked that. I have issues with this complaint though, for several reasons. The first, it goes against the nature of the show. Game of Thrones isn’t supposed to be predictable, and when the complaints are that the popular fan series aren’t accurate, that should be fairly obvious. But more so, why is there this idea that we deserve a show go the way we want it. While it might be a minority, there are going to be people who liked Season 8 of Game of Thrones. So if it had gone a different way, they would have the issue. The job of the show runners and creators of a book, movie, tv show, play, comic book, etc. isn’t to please everyone. It’s to create the best thing that they can, now you could argue with Game of Thrones, maybe they didn’t do that by rushing the end, but this isn’t just a Game of Thrones problem.

This even shows up in the biggest movie franchise of all time, Marvel. When it was announced that we were getting a female super hero stand alone movie, I thought it was awesome. Captain Marvel was an interesting character that brought in more cosmic stuff to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, there was a large backlash over not getting the Black Widow movie that the “fans” had wanted. Now, I don’t want to belittle the idea that these people are fans, but threatening to boycott something or complaining loudly on Twitter and other social media because you don’t get what you wanted, I do question the fanhood some. Unfortunately, this backlash has hurt Captain Marvel in the long run. That wasn’t the only thing that Marvel has caught flack for and had people get mad about and demand changes from. I want to get into Kickstarter though, but you can go back and read about character arcs in the first three Phases of Marvel that I did when Endgame came out.

In Kickstarter, it’s interesting. There are two types of demands that you see on Kickstarter and the threat is pretty obvious, someone will demand a refund or threaten to pull funding on an active project. But the two types of demands are game play changes or extra things changes. And these go throughout the campaign, but also after the campaign and probably worse after the campaign. Both of these are extremely headscratching to me for one reason. Kickstarter is a platform for people to raise funds to do a project with the hope that it gets completed, not a pre-order system. So, as someone who pledges money on Kickstarter, I’m an investor, because I have faith in your project, if I get something back, that’s an added bonus.

Let’s assume that isn’t the case, even though that’s what Kickstarter is, and talk about the other things. Game play changes for me is the bigger of the two things. As someone who loves board games and who has dabbled in working on my own game, I don’t think I know enough about a game after having read through a vague idea of the game to tell you that you need to add in something to the game. Sometimes the people who are making a game have something obvious that needs to be fixed, maybe remove rolling to move, but don’t put money into a project because you like 80% of a project and then demand that the last 20% change for you specifically. If you need that change or don’t think that they are playtesting it fully to not make that change, you should assume that means larger issues with the project and pass on it. Or assume that if and when they do playtest it, that it will be caught or fixed if it needs to be. If I or you were a great game designer, we’d have games of our own on kickstarter.

Or, demanding extras, that’s it’s own ball of wax. This generally comes in later in the process when the project is running a bit behind schedule. I realize that it’s horrible that you won’t be getting that one out of fifteen projects you’ve backed and are waiting on right now, won’t be showing up on time. But does that mean that they have to treat you specially and give you more because it’s running late? For example, I’m in a project for a Shadowrun game, I have my copy of the game, but the fulfillment center screwed up massively and sent out extra copies of the games and games to the wrong address. Both of these are an issue, and while I think that there are probably things that could have been done better in handling the snafu, there are people flying off the handle about it. And they aren’t fine with the fact that the Shadowrun game that they got already has extra stuff as a surprise, they are demanding extra and different fixes to make them happy. Basically, you’re complaining about helping people get the copy of the game that you were complaining about before because it was delayed. Again, not a perfect example, because I think there is another fix that could help, but there would still be people complaining that they’re being asked to do something, even though they got more after complaining, because they couldn’t read information correctly when it was clearly laid out.

So, where does this demanding and threatening culture come from? I think it can be placed on several things. One, there’s this idea that something that is meaningful or interesting for you in some way belongs to you. Even on Kickstarter, I have a copy of the game so yes that belongs to me, but the idea and concept of the game were designed by someone else, and while at some point in time as a designer/creator things aren’t yours anymore, when it’s being created it still if yours. You get to put your stamp on it, but there’s too much of a mindset now that something being put out, because it’s meaningful or important to you, needs to be yours and go like you want it. Next, I think it can come out of jealousy. And I don’t know that is something people really consciously think about. I think, and at times I notice myself doing this, complaining about something that someone else is creating while wishing I had created it myself. Tied into that is the last piece, and that’s the delusion that you can do it better yourself. I am using that word intentionally, it is probably a delusion that you’d handle it better yourself. Now, sure, there are some people in Hollywood who probably hated Season 8 of Game of Thrones that would have done it better, but I’m talking about you and me, average people in the world. It’s a delusion that we could have done it better. I like to think that I would handle the Kickstarter situation that is going on with the Shadowrun game better, but the actual answer is that I’d be panicking and probably be radio silent right now, at least we’re getting regular updates.

Now, there’s a lot to parse through there. And I won’t lie, this article is very judging, and I’m not claiming that I’m above it. There have been plenty of things where I went – “You did what?” – or – “You better not kill of that character.” But, I wanted to write this to end on what we can do as a culture to move on from demanding and threatening and to allow creative things to continue to grow instead of scaring people out of the creative fields who have stories and ideas to share with the world that might be simple popcorn fun, but also might be important to making the world a better place.

There are a few things that we can do to try and make a difference. The first is to understand that the active creative work of someone can be picked apart for what’s bad, but also spend time trying to find what you like in the work as well. It’s easy, as the Twitter and online herd hurdles headlong into complaining to be swept up in it. Instead, take a moment to stop and think about what you liked about something before you join the echo chamber of complaints. You might find that there are good things to be taken from the story, from the moment, from the idea that has more depth than it would look like on a cursory glance. Next, encourage people to take risks and compliment people on taking risks. Again, this doesn’t mean that you have to love everything that is done, and maybe it isn’t your cup of tea, but recognize when people take risks and encourage them to do so. It’s easy to tell someone that a risk was bad and that they shouldn’t have done it, again, probably on social media, but instead appreciate the risk for what it was. Encourage people to take those risks and challenge them to pull off their next risk even better than they did before, realizing that it might never be for you, but it might be so important for someone else. And, finally, spend time encouraging those who are being run down by the herd. This ties into the first two, but there’s a mindset that you need to step in front of the herd and try and stop it, all that happens is that you get trampled and you feel like you wasted time trying to help. Instead, turn around and look at the person who is about to be trampled and engage in them in positivity and encouragement. Again, I don’t mean that you have to love and tell them that what they are doing is perfect, I mean that you let them know what you like and encourage them to continue to reach for the stars. Through a herd of negative, you have a chance to stand out and be a shining like for them to latch onto. And you might be someone who gives them confidence to continue.

What are some things that people have demanded be changed that you really like? Who are some creators that you’ve seen take risks that you think are interesting or important and that you want to encourage. Tweet at them, let them know somehow, but also leave a comment below so that we can learn about these interesting, boundary pushing people as well.

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A couple of examples of this:
I have a lot of comic books, I read them when I got them and I enjoyed the stories that were told. But I haven’t gone back to reading them in a long time (I’m thinking I should soon), and I stopped getting new ones. That’s a collection now of comic books, but reading comic books was a hobby for a while.

Compare that to a friend of mine who had/has a massive collection of Star Wars and other action figures. He decided a little while ago that he wanted to start taking pictures of them and set-up scenes. He now has hundreds of posts, and over 1,000 followers on Instagram, at TheToysAwaken, who see the pictures and scenes that he’s set-up with what used to be his collection, and now is his hobby.

So why talk about this topic?

I think at times there can be judgement put on people because they aren’t using something has a hobby and it’s just a collection. It’s kind of the idea that if you have it and aren’t using it, you’re doing it wrong. Or the same is the other way around. action figures are a great example of this. We come to it with a collectors mindset because we think we’ll be able to sell them eventually. And you judge anyone who has opened up the package because now it isn’t in mint condition anymore.

Let me quickly get my main point out of the way. To complain that someone is collecting things or using things, that they paid their money for because they wanted them, is dumb. It is there money not your money, you get to decide how to spend your money, they get to decide how to spend their money, and that’s how it works. Stop judging people for not doing exactly what you’d do.

But I think the more interesting thing to look at is this shift, why does it happen?

There are plenty of obvious reasons, circumstances change in a person’s life, the thing gives you joy in a different way, you have a new interest, your interest in the thing is now focused in a different way.

Let’s take my board game “collection”. It’s not just a collection in the purest sense, where it’s something I have a lot of and I just look at. I use them, and in fact I’m not extremely picky about them, don’t have to have every card sleeved, because they are meant to be used and enjoyed until they fall apart. But this is a hobby that borders between being a hobby and a collection. I have a number of games that I haven’t played yet, and that is something that I’m hoping streaming (coming soon) will help me take care of. I don’t really like having games that I haven’t played and that are on my “shelf of shame/opportunity”.

But for a long time I had what I’d consider more of a hobby of games versus a collection of games. That was when I had a smaller amount of more simple games. I think I played games less often then than I do now, but all the games would get to the table, because I had a limited number. Now that the board game hobby is blowing up and there are so many options out there, it’s much easier to have games sit around and not be played longer.

I also think, though, that I do try and keep my board games as a hobby. There is the monthly game night, I have people over to play games, it used to be once a week, now it’s every other week and sometimes a random game time thrown in. But beyond that, I have the streaming that I’ll be doing so that I can play more games. And even more than that, I have culled games from my collection because I know I’m not going to bring them out again. So I’m trying to keep it to an amount where I can get to and play the games on a semi-regular basis (by that I mean every few years). And I’m lucky to be able to do that because we have a house, if we didn’t I’d have to cull even more games.

With all of that, my board games to border on a collection as well as a hobby, but it’s something that I’m trying to keep as both.

Compare that to my comics which are clearly a collection at this point. I have fond memories of reading them, and they are easy to store out of the way. But will I go back and read all of them again ever? Probably not, but I do plan on going back and reading some of them again, and probably soon, because I’m going through them again.

I’m also much more okay with my comic books being a collection, because they take up less space. But even with space, that isn’t always the factor. Sometimes you just need to divest yourself of something you know is just going to be a collection primarily.

An example of this is my Magic the Gathering cards. I’d love to be able to play more often, play more commander and casual games, but with the group who played, a lot of us now have small kids. Scheduling just isn’t reasonable anymore. So I have thousands of cards sitting around, what do I do with them? That’s a collection that at this point in time doesn’t have any inherit value to me. I’d really like to keep them if I was going to play more, but they are just going to take up space now, so it’s probably better to get rid of them, because I can’t read them, and just building random decks never to get used isn’t that much fun.

So how do you deal with a hobby that has become a collection? Have you had it work the other way ever? Are there any hobbies that are now collections that you need to get rid of?

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I think that’s the dream for a lot of people, and it’s a dream for me, maybe someday Nerdologists will be that big, or some off shoot, but until then, how do you create that nerd/life balance?

I think this is a pretty big struggle for a lot of people, not just nerds, because there are a lot of people out there whose 9 to 5 job isn’t what they love doing. And I can understand that, like I said, my dream would be to being doing something nerdy, like writing articles and streaming content, creating nerdy podcasts, etc. full time, but that isn’t possible right now.

It’s also easy to get discouraged because you see places like Nerdist, Geek and Sundry, Watch It Played, and The Dice Tower making it happen. But, if you watch video, in particular the Q&A’s that are done on The Dice Tower, they will talk about how much work it’s been and how it’s taken them to get to where it can be their jobs. I think it’s something that we like to fantasize out of the idea of working on a nerdy thing or that we can feel discouraged about because we often don’t see what people have gone through before they make it.

Right now, I like what I do for work well enough, I enjoy computer programming, in particular web development. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t frustrating for me at times. But that’s okay, on the days when it is frustrating, I think about wanting to have Nerdologists and board game stuff in particular be my full-time job. Then I have to remind myself, what allows me to be getting a streaming system set-up, what allows me to be able to run the Nerologists website, is the job that I have. My job might not be my perfect thing, but because I have it, I can buy board games and video games. I can go watch movies, stream Netflix, watch anime without commercials.

And that’s really because I’m willing to bust my butt at a 9 to 5 (7:15 to 3:15 for me), so I can go home and do those things. Maybe eventually those things will be my job, but until I can make that happen, I can be glad that I have a job that allows me to support my habits.

Like I’ve said before, I think it can be discouraging when you see people out there in what looks like their dream job having fun all the time and you wish it was you. Rodney Smith, of Watch It Played, on his own YouTube channel has been doing some Vlogs, and it’s an interesting behind the scenes of his life and of Watch It Played, but he also talks and reflects on some interesting things. He was talking about the concept or the validity of the idea that if you are doing what you love, you’ll never have to work another day in your life. The idea that if your work is your passion it won’t be work. He’s doing what he loves, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t still work sometimes to get out of bed in the morning and have to write a new script. The same with Tom Vassel from The Dice Tower, he talks about the business decisions that you still have to make while running your own nerdy thing. They do a kickstarter every year that goes about three weeks, and he talks about how stressful that time is and hoping that they’ll still have jobs at the end of the kickstarter.

So maybe that isn’t the the dream that it is always cracked up to what it should be. But maybe it is still something that you want to pursue. Just know that work will still be work, even if it is something you love. But hopefully, because you do love it, it’s worth pushing through.

But beyond that, maybe you don’t want it to be your career. Maybe you just want to figure out how you balance it with your normal life. You want to keep that 9 to 5, but sometimes it just takes too much out of you do the nerdy things you want. How do you deal with that situation?

You define boundaries at your work and in your life. If work is encroaching on too much time outside of your normal work hours, push back at it. It might be tough to do, but it is your life they are taking that away from you and aren’t paying you overtime, it might not be the right spot to be at. But work on setting those boundaries, they might not happen over night, but you can probably slowly change that.

Set aside defined times at home when you are going to do the nerdy things. Whether that set aside Tuesday evenings for binge watching anime or for playing board games, set it aside. That time is now sacred to that event, and don’t schedule something else over it. Especially don’t schedule something you won’t like as much. If someone asks you to come to their birthday party with 20 people you don’t know, it’s okay to decline. However, if someone asks you to see Avengers: Endgame again for the 5th time, and you really like it, you’ll still get that nerdy joy from going to that again. So figure it out that way. Generally though, try and keep that time sacred. I have two board game nights generally scheduled every other week, one of them the two people are really good at keeping the Tuesday free. The Wednesday one, people are more apt, even though it’s on a regular schedule, to flake out on it randomly.

That leads into the next thing. outside of work, spend time with people who can help support your nerdy habits. Now, maybe it’s fine to have someone flake out on you from time to time, but if it becomes a habit, you’re going to find yourself at a nerdy deficit. For me this is really important because I’m an extrovert, so when I’ve had people flake at the last minute on what was going to be my nerdy and extrovert outlet until the weekend, it can really suck, and it digs into my sire to do nerdy things, but also energy for work, which means I might have to work longer to get the same amount of stuff done.

I don’t know that I’ve given any perfect solution or any real hope for getting that perfect nerd life balance. It’s most likely always going to be a struggle, and it’s going to be a struggle at times even if you’re doing nerdy work. It’s always going to be that struggle and that tension of work and life out there that compete against each other. It’s okay to feel bummed about it at times, but it is possible to focus in and find those bits of time that you do have to do those nerdy things.

What are some things you’ve found that make nerd life balance happen in your own life?

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