• Best Hero
• Best Villain
• Best Episode
• Best Fight
• Best Supporting Character
• Best Non-Powered Charaacter
• Best Writing
• Best Overall

Plus we of course have our news and rumors to talk about. From what the release schedule of Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man is, possible recasting of T’Challa, Strange Academy being set-up in Ironheart and more.

Catch up on Videos

A New T’Challa in Black Panther 3?

Rumored Plot of Nova

Szerdy Comic Covers

Thanks for Listening

I hope that you are enjoying the podcast. If you are, there are a few ways that I always talk about that you can support 10 Minute Marvel. Firstly, please consider sharing it with your friends as word of mouth really is a great way to help more people find the podcast, and personal recommendations are always great. As well as then subscribing or leaving a rating and review. Both of those make the podcast easier to find for people looking for a fun Marvel podcast. You can find the podcast on iTunes, Google Podcast, and Spotify or wherever you get your friendly neighborhood podcasts.

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Comments or Questions: What Is Your Top Show/Movie from 2024 For Marvel?

How did we do on our awards? Did we miss any obvious ones that we should have put in?

You can let us know all of those things down in the comment section below, or tweet them to me @TheScando or by using #10MinMarvel. And there is now the Facebook page, as well, where you can join in the conversation here. And follow us on YouTube for more content here.

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Catch up on previous videos here

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Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – Top 10

10. Aeon’s End

• Published by Indie Boards & Cards in 2016
• Defend the town of Gravehold against a Nemesis and their minions by slinging spells around

To kick off the Top 10, let’s talk about one that has been in my Top 10 for a while and one that I have basically everything for. I’m guessing I’m missing a few promo cards, but Aeon’s End is one of my favorite deck building games.

This is a deck building game, tower defense, and boss battler all wrapped into one. The name of the game in this one is variety. There are other elements I like too, but variety is huge. Each mage is unique, each nemesis is unique and the market of cards that you create is unique. Everything about the game can be mixed and matched and give endless replayability. I also like that this is a cooperative game.

And, finally, I like this game best as a solo or two player. I know that it can play more, but with the turn system, it works better at lower counts. You draw to see whose turn it is. In the deck there are two nemesis cards, and one per player at four players, or two at two players. So you get these fun moments where it swings from the players getting four turns in a row to the nemesis getting three and now things look dangerous. It makes the game feel more exciting, it just works best at two players though because of that.

Buy Aeon’s End

9. Roll Player Adventures

• Published by Thunderworks Games in 2021
• Explore the lands, beat monsters and complete skill challenges in a world that remembers what you did

Now to a really big game we have Roll Player Adventures. They took the Roll Player system, tweaked it and gave us a story and adventure game. And I think that it works really well as a game, clearly, as it’s my #9. Though, like Aeon’s End, I’ll give a caveat that difficulty changes based on player count, which, isn’t a bad thing, but it something worth noting.

In this game you play through chapters of an adventure. To do that you are fighting monsters, doing skill checks, and reading story. Whenever it’s a right or a skill check you are spending cards and resources, your health, in different stats to try and complete a dice puzzle. You need to get dice of certain colors and certain numbers into specific locations. But, the game is smart and it limits you in how much you can do that, and it is what they try and use to scale, but like I said, I think that it’s easier with more.

The story is also a lot of fun. There are games on my list that have a bigger and darker story. And I like dark stories, dark fantasy can be a lot of fun, but it’s also fun to have stories that are maybe a bit sillier at times. And, I will say, they manage to create a story where it feels like it matters and continues along with the choices that you make.

Buy Roll Player Adventures

8. Dice Throne

• Published by Dice Throne Inc. in 2018
• Fight in a Mortal Combat style tournament by chucking dice and leveling up attacks

My #8 is “Battle Yahtzee”. By that, I mean that it is Dice Throne. This is a game that is played either as a head to head battle or as king of the hill. You get a hero, or character, that you play as. And they have specific abilities that you can activate by rolling dice Yahtzee style. By that I mean you get three roles, you keep some dice each time, and you see what you get at the end.

But Dice Throne is more than just a lucky game. Yes, there is an element of luck with rolling the dice. But the game often comes down to how well you can mitigate that luck. If you manage to get off your ultimate attack, well there isn’t much your opponent can do, of course that does mean that you roll all sixes. That’s very unlikely to just happen. But with cards and your combat points you spend to play them, you are able to manipulate dice, turn them to different sides, or get rerolls to try and land those attacks.

Plus the game offers a ton of variety. The first set is more standard fantasy. But then you get into other characters like a Tactician or an Artificer who do different things. And I own the Marvel set and am waiting on the Marvel X-Men set to come as well. You pick your favorites to get, or if you’re like me, you get them all.

Buy Dice Throne

7. Rogue Angels: Legacy of the Burning Suns

• Published by SunTzuGames in 2025
• Change the galaxy with a unlikely group of heroes in an epic sci-fi adventure

Now for a game that isn’t even out yet. Why do I have it on the list, because I have in my collection a prototype of the game. And I’ve even played it on Malts and Meeples. The game is basically set, through there are elements of the game that will change, but that’s mainly around components not around actual game play.

I love Rogue Angels. You know that by now because it’s on every list of Crowdfunding game that I’m waiting for. And yes, it will be again at the end of this year, most likely. This is another story, adventure, and combat game. And I really enjoy the story in it. I like having some campaign games that aren’t just another fantasy setting, and Rogue Angels gives you a good sci-fi setting. And I love how the combat, or mission element of the game works.

I want to say that this isn’t a game where every scenario is a go and beat someone up. No, this is a game where you might want to dive into combat. Or you might want to sneak through, and it all depends on the scenario. I love that for a game because I don’t always want to beat up the bad guys. And with how the game activates the bad guys, well, getting rid of the wrong bad guys at the wrong time just means you’ll be dealing with the other ones all the time.

Late Pledge Rogue Angels

6. Floriferous

• Published by Pencil First Games in 2021
• Create the best scoring group of flowers in this drafting game

Now we have the smallest game in my Top 10 list. But Floriferous was there last year and it is staying there again this year because I love what the game does. I enjoy a good drafting game, and I think that drafting makes sense in a lot of different games. But how Floriferous does it works for me because it combines drafting with building out your own scoring.

And the drafting itself is clever. You either draft a flower or you draft a scoring card from a column. The scoring cards are always at the bottom of the column, though, which matters for drafting the next column. Because the turn order for that next column is determined by the previous column you drafted from, aka, the higher you are up in the column the sooner you draft again. So yes, you need scoring cards, but that means you draft later next time.

I also want to call out drafting the scoring. I like it when a game does that because it offers a great decision point. When I draft, I might want that scoring card, but if you don’t have enough flowers, it won’t do much for me. And on the flip side, if I draft too many flowers I’m not going to be scoring anything.

Buy Floriferous

5. Slay the Spire

• Published by Contention Games in 2024
• Climb the spire, fight monsters and can you defeat them all in this cooperative deck building game

Next up is a new one to the list and it’s debuting all the way up at #5. Now it’s not the last new one to the list, there is one higher, though just barely higher. Slay the Spire is a video game that I love to play. In fact I’ve been on a kick of playing it recently. It’s a rogue like deck building game where you climb a tower.

The board game is the exact same thing. But it takes a solo video game experience and makes it multiplayer. In fact, while the solo is fun, I think that it’s even better two player or two handed. And I want to play it with more. Because you figure out a strategy of who wants to attack which enemies. Because each player has their own enemies that will attack them, but you can attack the other person’s enemies. So you might have more defense and handle it as well.

With all of that said, the game does change one thing. How some things activate is changed, so you’re not needing to keep track of “every seven turns” or “every three times you shuffle” but it makes it easy to keep track of. And they scale down everything. I like that because I don’t want to be keeping track of six enemies with 50 health each. So while the math is very much the same, the numbers are just lower.

Buy Slay the Spire

4. The 7th Citadel

• Published by Serious Poulp Games in 2024
• The Citadels are in ruins. How can you rebuild society and deal with the threats?

The other new to the list game and debuting at #4 is The 7th Citadel. I should have put it at #7 just to make it a bit more fitting. But I love this game and you can see me playing it for some sessions on Malts and Meeples YouTube.

This is an adventure game. These Citadels have fallen and now in a dangerous and post apocalyptic feeling world, though uniquely so, you need to survive. You play as leaders of a settlement has has formed out of the 7th Citadel. And now you need to deal with some threat that is coming.

The main mechanism is the same as The 7th Continent. You spend cards to try and complete checks, fight monsters, and deal with challenges. And the cards are going to be your life. Plus you are flipping over cards and exploring areas of the map and dealing with encounters that happen. But the game gives you more direction than the 7th Continent does as the threat gives you missions to go on as you build up your settlement for whatever that coming threat might be.

Late Pledge The 7th Citadel

3. Stars of Akarios

• Published by OOMM/Open Owl Studios in 2022
• Explore space, fight battles, and unravel the story of why you were attacked

This is the one that launched into the Top 10 last year and it’s sticking around. I love this game, clearly, but it’s another one of those big campaign games, and it’s one that’s set in space. But this game feels different than so many others. I don’t know why, but it gives me the feeling of stories like Ender’s Game and Space Dandy all wrapped into one with obvious nods to other sci-fi stories as well.

I really enjoy how they created a game that is split into three different element. The one, space exploration, is a bit weaker. There is some randomness to it, and I feel like I never found anything major on it. But I love the other two element. You get to have a 7th Citadel/7th Continent style exploration on planets. But instead of playing cards for checks you roll dice. And it’s a really fun time, but the biggest part of the game is space combat.

And I wasn’t sure how much I’d love the space combat. But I really enjoy it, it’s this great tactical puzzle as you use special abilities that you can only use so much. And then you spend dice to maneuver and you need to figure out how to even get into range to shoot the enemy and ideally in a flanking position. I love sitting there looking at the dice and trying to figure out how to make it work.

Late Pledge Stars of Akarios

2. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

• Published by Awaken Realms in 2019
• The lands are returning to Wyrdness, you’ve been sent out to help Avalon survive, if you can

Now or one of a few campaign games that I’ve completed, at #2 we have Tainted Grail. And this is the base game and the two expansion campaigns. I love them all. I need to play Kings of Ruin as well, but I’m not sure when I’ll get to that because of, well, my #1 on the list.

But this game, let’s start off with the highest praise, has the best writing of any board game I’ve ever played. The story that it tells is amazing and for that reason we did play in story mode to be able to experience as much of that story as possible. I’ll talk about why in a little bit. This is a grim dark game, but it manages not to dwell on the darkness to the point where it’s overbearing but creates this amazing fantastical and dangerous world to deal with.

And let’s talk about that story mode and why we played that way. One of the criticisms of the game is that it’s too hard. There is too much grind and too much survival. That is what the game was advertised as, so why people thought it was bad, and not just not for me, when they got what they knew they were going to get, I don’t know. But story mode makes it easier, but not too easy. So you do need to engage with that survival aspect of the game, but you can delve into the story more so. If you find the game, get it, and I do recommend playing on story mode.

Buy Tainted Grail

1. Gloomhaven/Frosthaven

• Published by Cephalofair Games in 2022
• Battle monsters, explore lands, and build up the town in this epic campaign

Finally the number one stays the same. The #1 on the list is really Frosthaven, Gloomhaven and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. I don’t think it’s fair for them to be separate on the list. While Frosthaven does build on Gloomhaven and add in some elements like the town management, the core loop of the game is the same. I do think the added element of the town management would push it even a little bit higher than Gloomhaven for me though.

But the main part of the game is going into scenarios and trying to complete their objectives. This almost always includes killing some bad guys, and often times the win condition is kill all the enemies. Though in Frosthaven that is less often, though still the most common scenario goal.

The element that is the best about the game is the characters though. I love how every character is unique. And from the cards that you get to play, it feels that way. Sometimes you want to be that tanking character, or a fast damage dealer, or a support or healer character. And the games offer all of those.

And then the card play where you might want to go fast, so you can get in and out dealing damage quickly, or maybe you want to go slow to draw the enemies towards you, there is a lot of great strategy. I love picking cards, too, where I might plan to use the bottom and top halves in one way but then give myself the flexibility to change it. Needless to say, I love my #1 game.

Buy Frosthaven

Upcoming Streams

Just a reminder on my streaming schedule. It’s not just all my Top 100 Games (of all time).

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again. And generally the streams do start between 8 and 8:30 PM central time.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to be my 200 through 101 next week. After that I’m going to do some videos looking back on 2024. So expect to see my Top 10 Games of 2024 and probably Top 10 crowdfunding games I backed in 2024 as well.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. Join us for the adventure of Nina and Kaerok and see what choices we make.

The best way to know when we go live, though is to subscribe and click that notification bell. I can’t promise, and in fact it’s pretty unlikely, that I’ll have events to click on ahead of time. Though I do want to get better at it. I hope that you can join a stream and hop into the chat. And let me know what games in this list are your favorite or that you want to try.

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What’s Changed from Early On To End?

Firstly, I don’t think that a ton has changed. I think there are a few elements where I commend what they did also I wish they were a bit better. And I still love the D&D nature of the game. When I sit down, I play Dungeons and Dragons because that’s what Baldur’s Gate 3 is, and they kept it very true to that.

So really, generally, this is my favorite video game that I’ve played. I love some other games that I’ve played, like Borderlands and Dragon Age. Neither of those games, however, give you that big branching feeling in the story that Baldur’s Gate 3 does. I get to sit down, explore where I want to explore, make choices, and feel like there are real things that change in the game.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Act III Issues

Now, that isn’t to say that there aren’t issues with the game. And I think most of them crop up towards the end of the game. Not kind of the end of the game hurrah, but the final faceoff against the bad guy, or leading into that. Mainly that some elements of the game aren’t as smooth as they should be. But more so, the story isn’t as smooth as it should be.

By that I don’t mean so much the main plot. I think that there is one element where it really is not that well done. Mainly, it’s a move that doesn’t make that much sense for a character that you’ve interacted with. And I think with the massive branching narrative that they have, there are some choices that get locked in, in ways that you don’t expect, because of a choice made. I’m trying to be vague here, but it’s just enough story, let’s put it that way, that sometimes things happen that don’t make sense.

Does Combat Hold Up?

So this is another little nitpick of the game. Not a major one because I get what they are doing. And I still love the combat in the game. Turn based D&D style combat is what I’m there for. So it’s not really a nitpick with the combat, it’s a nitpick with the level cap. I locked into level 12 pretty quick in the game.

And I get that there is power creep and enemy scaling that would need to be done. But I missed leveling up every now and again. Even if they push it out and slow down the level from 12 to 15 so that you barely can make it to 15 by the end, it’d be fun to hit a level up more often.

I understand that there’d be a need to scale the enemies in different ways. Basically, you need them to put out more damage or have more health depending on where people are at. And the more you are a completionist, the more you need that in place. I am not a 100% player, but I find a lot and I easily was at level 12 before most of the big boss fights in the game. That made some of them fairly easy still. So the game could use enemy scaling and for me a higher level cap.

Baldur’s Gate 3 – The Story

Again, I want to avoid spoilers as much as I can. So this is going to be more general than everything. But I love the story in the game. I think that even with the hiccup of a couple of things either getting locked in or having an extreme result, it’s a great story. And you feel like your character gets to progress throughout everything that they are doing. That is a great element for an open world RPG like Baldur’s Gate 3.

I want more games like this. But I have been watching Neil Newbon’s stream of the game, he voices Astarion and he talks about how long it took to get this game out the door. And that is not without some of the issues that I mentioned. I understand why there aren’t many games like this, it is so much work. But also, I want more like Baldur’s Gate 3 in terms of options for your character, branching narrative, choices mattering.

Let me know what you think of Baldur’s Gate 3. How many playthroughs have you done (my wife is on her fourth)? And what games maybe give some of the same feel as Baldur’s Gate 3?

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Gloomhaven

Gloomhaven, and I’ll include Jaws of the Lion, is going to be a campaign game for the person who wants a lot of control over what they are doing. The card play in Gloomhaven is great and really smart. I love picking two cards, one to use the top of and the other to use the bottom. But if I’m slower than other players or the enemies, now I need to put flexibility into what I’m doing. Gloomhaven also provides great character progression. It isn’t too fast so you learn and can use and enjoy the new cards but then be gaining XP for the next new card.

I also think that Gloomhaven, the big box, works well for players who like the change it up. You retire a character after some time. You’ll hit your secret goal and it’ll be time to retire them and move on. If you get really attached to a character or a way to play the game, Gloomhaven won’t be for you. It is better for a game that changes everything up as you get new characters with how you play them.

Sword & Sorcery

As compared to Gloomhaven, Sword and Sorcery is light and small. Now it’s still a big box with a lot of minis in the box. But Sword and Sorcery is all about the dice chucking. The story is pretty light, the decision making space in where the story goes really doesn’t exist. But when it comes to optimizing how many dice you can have and roll, Sword & Sorcery does that.

Stars of Akarios

Stars of Akarios is an interesting hybrid. I would say that this game is for people who want something like Gloomhaven, though the game is very different, but set in space. You can watch game play here. But this is going to be your big space epic game, and probably the biggest space campaign game, at least until ISS Vanguard comes out soon.

But this is also the game for the person who wants a little bit of everything. There is some choose your own adventure. Tactical space combat and then space and planet exploration. So really a little bit of everything that you could do. And they manage to make all of them work, though you need to be in for the space combat because that is the biggest piece.

Pandemic Legacy

This is one I’d say three introductory campaign games. And Pandemic Legacy is a legacy game on top of that. This one, though, might be the best, because in Pandemic Legacy Season 1, if you’ve played Pandemic, you can basically jump in and play the game. If not, it’s an easy teach and a cooperative game.

This is really just a story driven version of Pandemic. It does introduce rules as you go along. But it ramps up players slowly. So if you know someone who is interested at all in gaming, this is a great option to start.

Tainted Grail

Moving to the other extreme, this is not introductory friendly. There are rules you kind of need to look up to figure out what is going on. And there will be situations where the rules maybe don’t explain everything. But Tainted Grail offers some of the best story experience I’ve had in a game.

The story is dark, the story is adult. And the game has a strong survival element as well. I really recommend this one on story mode. The game is still very hard at times. There are going to be combats where you just look at it and run away. But when you dive into the story, it is just so good. So much depth to the world and every expansion gives even more story that is just amazing.

Charterstone

Charterstone is a euro campaign game. It’s one that I think euro players will like, it is a campaign game, and it adds in things. I also think that Charterstone is also a good one for a budding euro player. It’s pretty simple to start and definitely adds in a lot as you go along.

The story for me on Charterstone is very weak, and I honestly thing it pretends too much with it. But the game play is solid. It is a good euro game. And for a legacy game, you can still it after. They even offer a recharge pack, as does the next one on the list as well. But I don’t know what I’d want it.

Aeon’s End Legacy

Aeon’s End Legacy is another one with a weaker story to it. But a story that I sound fun. You can watch the whole of the game over on Malts and Meeples, I’ll put the first part down below. But if you like deck building or are interested, this is a great spot to start.

I also think that this is a great game for players who want to make their own character. As a legacy game it allows you to build up your breach mage with the cards you want the way you want. Other games allow you to customize somewhat, here you really get so much choice over that. Deck building helps provide some of that, but also with the powers you get, it works nicely as well.

My City

Another legacy game on the list and another one that is really easy to get to the table. It is a tile laying game where everyone has their own set of tiles and a card if flipped over to determine which one to put down. There are additional rules that are added as you play further into the game, but it is never too much.

This is also a great campaign or legacy game for people who don’t have that much time. Or don’t have a big block of time. It’s easy to pull out and play a game that takes maybe 30 minutes. Then you do that again two nights later, and so on and it’ll never take you that long to be back up and running.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Another one that I played on Malts and Meeples. This one is kind of like Aeon’s End Legacy, but instead of deck building through game play, this offers deck construction. So if you like optimizing your character to be good at some things, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is good for that.

I also think that this works well for maybe the person who doesn’t have time to play Pathfinder. If you’ve played Pathfinder and done the adventures, you’ll get more into the story, recognize characters and places. But it’s less of a commitment than jumping into another campaign and planning out 3 hours every week or two to play, at least.

Paper Dungeons

Paper Dungeons is an odd one on the list. It is technically a campaign game, you play through cards with monsters to fight. But it doesn’t need to be, it can be a one off. Nor do I think the campaign is all that great. But if you really like roll and write games, and Paper Dungeons is a very good roll and write game, this is going to give you a heftier roll and write to play. And also one that I played on Malts and Meeples.

Sleeping Gods

Alright, one more that is on Malts and Meeples. Sleeping Gods is for the player who wants a weird fantasy world but also wants to be able to do whatever they want. All the other campaigns on the list give you a general order of doing things. Some might have side missions but generally they’re about the main story that is going through.

Sleeping Gods gives you fun card play and a lot of interesting powers and decisions. Now, I’d recommend that you get the sequel one, it’s coming out sometime probably next year. It’ll make a few things cleaner, like not having to control as many characters. But the one you can get now is great as well and the story tends to be one of the lighter ones and more fun. And the story works as well which is impressive with no real direction.

Risk Legacy

Another legacy game on the list and only one more after this one before the list is finished off. But Risk Legacy is going to be for the person who likes that in your face game. But whereas Risk can be annoying and take forever. In Risk Legacy the games are much faster, so it’s also for the person who likes that in your face but finds Risk way to long. I’m one of those people, so this one is a lot of fun when you want something very competitive.

Seafall

Finally, I had to put it on the list because I technically did play probably half of it or a bit more. This one I don’t really recommend. I think that there are elements of the game that work but most don’t. If you go back to Sleeping Gods where I talk about open world, that one tells a great story in spite of that. Seafall is also open world but it doesn’t tell a good story.

Also the games are just too long, so I really don’t recommend it for that. The longer you play the higher the points get, plus you unlock things so that means there is even more to think about. I want this to be so much better than it is, it had potential and it just falls flat.

Final Thoughts

13 campaign games on the list. And I thought about adding in Arkham Horror the Card Game, and when I get around to a campaign box for Marvel Champions. So clearly I love campaign games, but like I said, not all of them are for everyone.

If you are looking to dive into a campaign game, I really recommend probably three games as my top choices. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is a great small box version of Gloomhaven. And it’ll give you the exact same game just with less stuff and less cost. Pandemic Legacy is a good one to jump into as well because a lot of people know Pandemic. Start with Season 1 and it’ll be an easy way to see how much you like legacy games and campaign games. And finally, I think that if you want something bigger and maybe a bit more challenging, I recommend Sleeping Gods. I like it solo, but I think most people will like it at three players.

But let me know what your favorite campaign games are? And how do you play them?

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What Are Some Pitfalls?

With all of that said, I do think that we need to start on a bit more negative side of things. We need to call out what can create these less interesting characters in a book. Then after that, I will talk about how they can be overcome.

The Mary Sue or Marty Stu

This is one of the more common tropes for new writers. The general idea is that the main character is perfect at anything they do. Jumping out of an helicopter with a bedsheet and parachuting to safety, that is completely absurd. But it’s been done in a book that I read. Every idea the character has is right and everyone else is always proven wrong, I watched a show that ended with a season that was completely full of that.

The Dullard

Similar to the Mary Sue or Marty Stu, the dullard is slightly different. While previous they might be good at everything, this one is just generic. It is meant to have that ultimate self insert into the character. They don’t really have any traits of their own, so that as you read them, they sound like you sound. The biggest issue with the dullard is they can often be overtaken in interest by side characters. And that causes an issue for the author, they either need to make the main character better and more interesting losing the self insertion or make the side characters worse weakening the whole story. I had seen side characters fall of a cliff in terms of depth and interest of writing in a series before because of this problem.

The Out of Place

This one I see more often in RPG’s. A person has an idea for a character that they want. And they really love the character. Maybe it has personal sentiment for them or something like that. And it is something they want to bring to the table in a book or a series. The character, however, doesn’t fit in with the world that is created. A grim dark setting isn’t going to have a crazy happy brightly colored character without people believing that character would be crazy. Or it could be a archetype character that just doesn’t quite fit. But it’s something that shows up in a books as well, and can sometimes be a dullard character who just doesn’t match the depth of the rest of the characters.

The Fixes

The Mary Sue or Marty Stu

This character is one of the easier ones to fix. Give that character a flaw, and a major flaw. Going back to the one example I gave, the character who jumped out of a helicopter, the author gave them a claustrophobia that kind of appeared out of nowhere, and then was fixed the page later. That doesn’t cut it. This really goes back to RPG’s in some ways and how you can learn from them for writing, but give your characters a “dump stat”.

What do I mean by a dump stat? In Dungeons and Dragons and other RPG’s you fairly often have six different stats. For Dungeons and Dragons that is strength, agility, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. Most heroes in RPG’s will have stats that are 10 or higher in most of them. 10 is the common baseline for what everyone can do. But, a more interesting character will have a stat that is below average. So while a fighter might have 18 strength being well higher than the average, they might have a below average wisdom or charisma.

This idea can be taken into writing as well. Harry Dresden has a massive flaw when it comes to women. Now, is he a womanizer, not really, but his default is to always protect a woman. This, of course, gets him into trouble when that woman might be a vampire or just as dangerous as he is. He even knows he has that flaw, but out of a misplaced chivalry refuses to work on it. It is something that trips him up again and again, but makes him feel more human.

The Dullard

Honestly, it’s a similar fix to the Mary Sue and Marty Stu. Give them a flaw. But also give them depth of character. The self-insert character often lacks motivations in almost any way. Going back to Dungeons and Dragons, there is trick that can help with character creation that can also help with writing. There are four different character traits you fill in when creating a character.

• Personality Trait – Funny, serious, clueless. Give them one or two of these things. They are basically some role playing direction but also a common tone you can use for a character you are writing.
• Ideal – This is something that they hold up on a pedestal. For someone like Harry Dresden it could be that chivalry is not dead. Why you add this in, is because it always gives the character that goal or reference of what they hold most important.
• Bond – Who are they connected to. Going back to Harry Dresden, there is the White Council, his friends, and more. Find that one person or group of people who your character sees as important. The great thing about these characters is that you can then kill them to add in drama to your story, or at least put them in danger. But it could also be something like a bond to a religious organization or any organization as well.
• Flaw – Hey, we’re back to flaws. Give them something that they are bad at. For Harry Dresden that is that he doesn’t want to hurt a woman as that isn’t chivalrous or honorable. I talked about this a lot already, but it helps make your character feel more human and realistic than just an empty shell.

Now, these things don’t need to be explicitly stated in the story. But use them to create a more interesting and realistic character and get away from the dullard self-insertion main character. These characters will have longer staying power if you create them with depth. And this will give you a quick reference for a characters motivations when you get stuck as to what they would do, or what would make sense to do.

The Out of Place

This one is the hardest to fix. And, in my opinion, the simplest answer is save them. If you might just have that character in the wrong story. It might be that this great character is just meant to be in a totally different world and story. Take what I talk about above, create those traits, ideals, flaws, and bonds for that character, jot down some back story for them. When the time comes, when you have the right story, you’ll have that character in your back pocket who is ready to go. And who knows when that story will come to you, but don’t fret about it, it just means you have something already. Just because a character doesn’t fit doesn’t make you bad at writing, it just means that you had the right idea at the wrong time and the right time will come.

It’s Okay to Not Get it Perfect

Finally, it is okay to not get it perfect. If your character is a Mary Sue at some points, that is fine. If a character in a scene stands out like a sore thumb, that is fine. If your character ends up being a little but dull, that is fine. The only way to get better at writing is to write more. And sometimes you need a Marty Stu in your story, or you want someone who stands out, or it is meant as a fluff self-insertion story. My hope is that you leave more equipped to write a better variety of characters and deeper characters that will be memorable. While these aren’t hard and fast character writing rules, they are handy tools that are good to master so that you then know how, why, and where to break them.

What are some of your favorite characters in books, film, television, RPG’s, that have a lot of depth to them? What are some of the best examples out there?

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Let’s talk about how fairly often a trilogy happens, and we can delve into some of the issues based off of that. The creator of the story has an idea for one story, maybe more, but one that they know they can get published or produced. So they go to the publisher or producer and sell them on this story and they get it made. Now, it’s a huge success and the publisher or producer comes back to them and asks for more and not just one more, two more of the story or film or whatever it might be. So the creator creates another story picking a spot in the middle for a cliffhanger between both stories and then those are published or produced. However, the second and third don’t do as well. What went wrong?

Now, it could be that there just wasn’t anymore story to tell surrounding certain characters or ideas or even worlds. That can happen, but probably isn’t going to be the biggest issue. Probably as often it happens that the creator didn’t have any more stories to put in that setting and to get something a little bit more out there published or produced, they agree to a multi-thing deal which includes what they are actually interested in creating as well as two things that will be more successful for the company that they signed the deal with. Both of those examples, there really shouldn’t have been a second thing created at all, because there really wasn’t anywhere to go.

But, I think there’s another issue that often befalls trilogies, and that’s their ability to tell a complete story. Pirates of the Caribbean is a great example of this. In the first movie, we get a complete story, we get Jack going from being a pirate down on his luck, getting what he thought he wanted, realizing it wasn’t what he wanted, and overcoming everything in the end. Same with Star Wars: A New Hope, we get a complete story including third act metal ceremony. Then comes along the second film, in particular in Pirates of the Caribbean, less so in the original trilogy (Star Wars). You get the creators knowing that there will be a third film, so they tell part of a story. You get some build, maybe even some change, but in the end, the biggest issue still hasn’t be resolved. Instead, you have to wait for the third film. And that’s fine, if you can watch both films back to back, but most of the time if it’s something you’re really excited about, you’re seeing the film or reading the book when it comes out, not when both are out. So you get the second part which is the start of a story and ends with a small resolution, and the third part which is the continuation of the second part and then the final resolution. So combined you are telling a single story, but both parts are going to leave you feeling a little wanting, unless they are masterfully crafted.

So, how can you get around this in a trilogy? Sometimes you just plan on it being a trilogy. Lord of the Rings is a prime example of this, Fellowship of the Ring doesn’t tell a complete story, Frodo is still going to Mordor, the same with The Two Towers, Frodo is still going to Mordor, and that’s the end of the story (kind of, there are a lot of third acts) when he throws the ring into Mount Doom in Return of the King. However, in each of those, we know there’s the through story line going on with Frodo getting the ring to Mount Doom in Mordor, but we also have other characters getting a story as well and there’s story, especially in Return of the King and The Two Towers that gets told apart from Frodo’s journey that has groundwork laid in earlier books, but finishes up and tells a story there. We have the massive battle between the forces of good and evil in Return of the King which sees Aragorn become King. We have in The Two Towers multiple stories that are told and wrap with Merry, Pippin, and the Ents and the battle of Helms Deep.

Lord of the Rings does two things that should be pointed out. It has a through line so it doesn’t feel like the parts of the trilogy are disconnected. This is the Frodo and Sam story line that they need to get the ring to Mordor and Mount Doom. It’s the key piece of the story and in fact, if they fail, the whole thing fails and that runs throughout all of the books. At the same time with have Gandalf, Aragorn, Merry, Pippin, Gimli, and Legolas doing there own things, making a difference in another part of the world. And even though they aren’t carrying the end game thing, the ring, they still have an important part to play. So we get complete story arcs, from beginning to end, for them in the books and not across all the books, but in each book there is a beginning and ending point.

This varies from my Pirates of the Caribbean example because it has a through line throughout the whole thing, Pirates has characters who repeat but the first movie stands separate from the last two of the original Pirates trilogy. And Lord of the Rings has a beginning, middle and end to each book, versus Pirates 2 & 3 where you have a beginning and middle and a middle and end split respectively.

What does this mean as a creator?

First, a trilogy isn’t the end all for writing, you don’t need it to be a trilogy. The Dresden Files, a series that I love, is on book 17. So you can clearly go longer if you have more story to tell, so don’t let a trilogy limit you. And don’t let the idea of it needing to be a trilogy or anything like that force over complexity and bloat into your stories.

However, if you are going to write a trilogy, or even if you are writing something that you have a bigger idea for, but you just need to get one written and published first, think about through line and think about a complete story. Now, it’s hard if you think that you are only going to get a single shot at creating your idea, but give yourself room. Don’t bloat your idea to fit everything in to a single thing, instead, tell a nice complete story and leave room in the world for there to be even more story. Star Wars, the original trilogy, does this well. You have them blow up the Death Star, that by itself could end the story in A New Hope, however, Vader isn’t killed, so the villain is still out there. If nothing ever came after A New Hope, it wouldn’t feel like it’s missing anything, but it’s natural that we pick back up again with Darth Vader and the Empire. So create a first story, even if you don’t know that you’ll get more like that. Give the main characters a big win but leave a villain out there defeated but not destroyed. That way, you can come back and pick up with the same characters and continue a story.

Also leave plenty of your world unexplored after your first story, especially if you don’t know if there will be more. Lord of the Rings, we get through some mountains, but we know that Mordor is still out there, but we’re not there yet, and there are other lands to explore as well that we haven’t seen or gone to. Star Wars: A New Hope, they really aren’t that many locations and then they have a ton of other planets that they can create and use in future films because they didn’t have them hop from planet to planet all the time. This gives you room to create more mystery and more adventures in which to tell your complete adventure. Pirates of the Caribbean really feels like it hits up so many locations in the first film, even though it’s somewhat limited, so you don’t feel like there are a lot of players left to join the story in this small world they’ve created, as compare to Lord of the Rings and Star Wars where who knows what new enemies or allies might be out there.

Now, I’m sure there are more things out there that you can do when creating a trilogy. I do want to wrap up with that I’m not trying to bash on trilogies. I think fairly often they can work. The original Star Wars trilogy and Lord of the Rings are great examples of this. Even The Hunger Games, which I didn’t talk about much, does a good job of making the 1st and the 3rd stand separate as their own stories. But don’t limit yourself to that if you want to create an epic, and tell a complete story each time, those are just my rules for writing a series or trilogy.

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That’s basically how the games works, but Stipulations is one of those party games, up there with Just One, that I’ve had a lot of fun playing. For me, Stipulations falls nicely in between games like Balderdash and then games like Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity, and is better than both of the groups, though, Balderdash is still enjoyable.

In Stipulations you are trying to get “points” by writing down funny, interesting, weird, silly, thought-provoking stipulations to the thing that the person who is it picked. It’s very much like Cards Against Humanity and Apples to Apples that way, that someone is picking something, but like Balderdash, it requires your own creativity. Let’s give an example of how this works. I’m it, and I can pick one of the four options on my card, they are super power, lifetime supply, fulfilled dream, and dream job. I read over them and I decide that having the super power of flying seems like the most fun. Everyone else then writes down a condition for what I’ve picked. The answers come in and I can fly but….
Only when I’m farting
No more than 4″ off the ground
Only backwards
You don’t know how to land without crashing
Then I get to pick my favorite, or more specifically, according to the rules, I must pick the least desirable. Then you’d draw a bonus card that has you pick another one in a different way to award more points. At the end of the game the person with the most points win.

Let’s start out by talking about the points in this game. No one keeps track of points, or I should say, no one cares about points. This, like Apples to Apples, Cards Against Humanity, and Balderdarsh, are much more fun when people are just trying to be goofy about it and you don’t care about points. In fact, I don’t think that their “scoring” system works all that well. Picking the least desirable might make more thematic sense for the game, but I think that the game works better when the person picking picks their favorite, whether that’s the one that made you laugh the most, the least desirable, or the most desirable, but the chooser decides which one is the best based off of their own criteria. But, the least desirable is a good option, where it works less is drawing the extra scoring card. It can be something like, the one that made you laugh the most, that’s fine, but it might also be, the person who bought the game, that’s a stupid one, because, since I bought my copy, I’m always going to get that card if it happens to come up. I could just remove them, but I find that just picking one from the group of options just works better and keeps the game moving faster. Now, this might seem like a pretty long time talking about a negative, but it is a negative in basically all party games, and it doesn’t matter, because they are party games and you are meant to be having a silly fun time, if you care about the scoring, you care too much.

The rest of the game actually works really well. I’ll talk a little bit about when I think it is placed between those two groups of games. With Balderdash or another one similar to that Liebrary, you’re coming up with something unique. You’re required to use your own imagination and I like that in those games. I think, though, that both Balderdash and Liebrary because they are based on something real, a real definition or acronym or a real first line of a book. With Stipulations, you are write down whatever you want, and if you are extremely silly, it’s in line with the game. Then, the selection criteria is very Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity like. But, Stipulations has one major advantage over both of them, you never make it through all the cards. In Cards Against Humanity or Apples to Apples, eventually you’ll see all the cards, and in peak Cards Against Humanity days, that would take about a week, because you’d play it twice for a long (too long) period of time and you’d make it through the cards. Once you’ve gone through the cards once or twice, you know all the jokes in both games, and some cards will automatically win because of the meta of your group. Compare this to Stipulations, the game can still be dirty, if you want, so it can be like Cards Against Humanity, but as a group you get to control that, and because there are no answer cards and you need to use your own creativity, that means you won’t get certain answers that are as likely to win. Sure, you can still create a meta in your group where an answer like “Bees!” will always win one card per game, but that is less of a guarantee.

For me, this is one of the best party games and I think because it was a kickstarter game before kickstarter games were cool, it’s flown under the radar. I also think because of the weird extra scoring card, it can seem like a little bit more work for groups. But, I really like this game, and with my minor tweak to scoring, I think it flows even better, but it isn’t bad the other way. If you’re looking for a party game where you can tailor it to the group you’re playing with, this is a great option, for a bachelorette party, you can make it as dirty as you want, and then you can take it and play with your Grandma at Thanksgiving. Now, I think that, and I’ve seen it happen, some people don’t like that they have to be creative themselves, but, I’ve also seen those people then join into the game at a later time, because they realize how simple and silly you can be with it, and you don’t need to be that clever. And even with one person never joining the game who was watching it played, they ended up having a lot of fun just laughing at the silly things that were written. Overall, it’s always been a fun time.

Overall Grade: A-
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: A

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I’m going to try and do this review with as few spoilers as possible. So I will not be talking about the plot that comes from the scenarios, but the mechanics of the scenarios and the new character show up before you get into any of that, so if you want a complete surprise those will be getting “spoiled” but they aren’t really a “spoiler”. The only thing I’ll say plot wise is that Gloomhaven: Forgotten Circles picks up immediately after the final main quest plot for Gloomhaven.

There are a few notable changes for Gloomhaven: Forgotten Circles. The first, and primary one, is that scenarios have changed. Now, the basic structure from the original game is having an Introductory section, then special rules, and a conclusion, but when you have doors that trigger more text, that is in another part of the book. So you have to flip through and look on a certain page and a certain section to figure out more and additional layout for the scenario, when the time is right. This normally triggers off of some action that you take in the game, commonly opening a door, but also stepping on a pressure plate can at times also trigger the next session. And a lot of the scenarios now have several of them that are tied together, so you are going to be setting up new parts of the scenario throughout.

This is both a lot of fun and annoying. Let me talk about the annoying part quickly first, this causes scenarios to go longer, normally when we’d set up a scenario we’d lay things out and then only put monsters on as we got into new rooms, and we already know what was going to be in those rooms. In the new set-up, you don’t know that, and while you know the main pieces that you’re going to need, the room layout is going to be a complete unknown. This causes these scenarios to go much longer than the ones from the base game. We could generally get through two scenarios in a night from base Gloomhaven, with the Forgotten Circles expansion scenarios, one generally takes the same time as two, because of some of the start and stop of set-up. However, while that is a negative and annoying, especially for people who feel like set-up is too long or solo players, I do like the fact that the story of a scenario can unfold the way that it does. Hidden information also makes the scenarios harder, and while we have a completely new set of characters which is interesting and the scenarios more challenging, if we had come in with characters we were familiar with and knew the map set-up, the scenarios wouldn’t be much more challenging. I do think that the story in this is better written than in the base game, and some of that is definitely having it unfold.

The couple other new things are abilities that are added into the game. The first being that teleporting is a thing now. Everyone can’t teleport, but the abilities from the main game that cause you to teleport are now getting cards to replace some in the character decks to keep some consistent wording. Having a character that can, if chosen to be played that way, move around the board and ignore terrain is interesting. The other ability added in “regenerate” this is the opposite of “wound” where that one causes you to lose one health a turn and can be healed away, this one causes you to gain a health per turn and if you take damage it goes away. This has been key for us in some scenarios as we don’t have a tank or heavy healing character in our party. I like that trickle effect healing as something to kind of counter wound which can take out a party if you aren’t careful, this can keep you around a little bit longer or a lot longer.

Finally, I should talk about the new class that is added, the Diviner. I’m not considering this a spoiler because when you get the expansion and even if you aren’t playing the expansion scenarios, you gain access to the Diviner class. This class has a few new things that we haven’t seen before, besides being where we get teleporting and the cards that cause regenerate to be placed, the Diviner does a couple other new things. First, they can do a build that allows them to manipulate decks. It’s something that’s very odd, but they can sort the top of the monster attack deck or the top of an allies deck. This is not the build that our player of the Diviner went with, but it’s definitely something new. The other way you can build that character is by using rifts. Rifts are interesting because they can either have a negative effect for the monster, such as disarm or immobilize or they can have a positive effect on the allies such as giving them regenerate or strengthen (not sure if these are 100% accurate examples, but the basic idea is there). However, the rifts come into the play and stay in play, but they are only active for an ability for a single round, and we’ve found with our Diviner because of the speed of the other characters in terms of initiative that the negative ones work better since the other two characters are almost always going ahead of the Diviner.

Let me wrap up by talking about this overall. First, I don’t like this as much as the base game. While that was an easy A+ for me, this is more of an A-/B+ range. I’ll break it down below, simply because Gloomhaven can already be a long game and Forgotten Circles makes each scenario even longer. But I do like some of the other things in it. Regenerate is awesome and the Diviner is a very cool character. Plus the story feels more focused. In Gloomhaven it felt like sometimes the through story thread wasn’t completely there or that it jumped around a little bit, Forgotten Circles definitely has a more fully realized storyline. I don’t know, however, that I would say that it’s a must pick-up. With Frosthaven coming out that’s another big box game that is going to improve upon the linked scenario style to reduce the mid scenario set-up, if you aren’t done with Gloomhaven yet and you think you’ll want Frosthaven, I’d skip Forgotten Circles.

Overall Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: B+
Casual Grade: C-

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So, what is a LitRPG book?

LitRPG is a novel where it takes place in a world where there are statistics for the characters, like you would in an RPG. This can either be split between the real world and a game world, like Ascend Online and Awaken Online, or it can be a world that just happens to have RPG like rules, which you get in Towers of Heaven (though that kind of walks the line between the two) and Sufficiently Advanced Magic. In these books, you see the characters clearly leveling up and becoming better at things, gaining new skills, and getting new quests (fairly often). The quests is more obviously laid out in the ones where they actually go into an RPG, but the other ones really do the same thing as well.

LitRPG is a really easy and obvious way to do the heroes journey as you have that marker of progression for the character, and if the character is good, eventually they’ll be able to do more and more good. Now, you also have books like the first one in the Awaken Online series where the characters aren’t good, but might, in fact, be the villain of the piece if you really look at it. But if you don’t consider them going that far, they become an edge lord. I have mentioned the term before, but an edge lord is a character who is supposed to be the bad boy and edgy. I highly recommend not doing an edge lord character if you decided to write litRPG, because it seems like a wish fulfillment and often then leads to stupid situations just for fulfilling some wish of the author.

Now, LitRPG has also moved into other mediums. I actually think LitRPG most likely started in Japan, though you could argue that D&D Novels might have been the original. Manga and Anime like Is It Wrong to Pick Up A Girl in a Dungeon? and Sword Art Online are examples of LitRPG or LitJRPG that have been around for a little while. Is It Wrong to Pick Up A Girl in a Dungeon? is an example of an anime where the world itself has RPG rules to it, and Sword Art Online goes between the real world and various game worlds. It’s interesting to see how popular that these anime are or aren’t, but personally I find them both enjoyable.

So, what makes a good LitRPG?

I think that there are a few things to look for. First, you can often tell within the first few minutes or pages if the book has some sort of fulfillment edge lord fantasy feel to it. This will often be done by creating situations of unnecessary violence or hits of things of a sexual nature. This has happened in a few times when I started listening to something and I could tell quickly that it was going to be a situation where we were going to end up with an edge lord.

I also think that you can tell the quality of the writing pretty quickly by how they use descriptions or dialogue. I’ve noticed that some of the writers, since a lot seem to have originally been self published, don’t structure their books in the best way. I talked about this in my world building article, but don’t spend the first few chapters or third or whatever of the book explaining your world to me. Show me and also give me plot at the same time. If you can’t do that, I’m probably going to set down your book. And the same with dialogue or maybe more so with relationships. Know your strong points in writing. Also, be careful what point of view you use.

Also, when creating LitRPG works, have your system figured out and dispense some of the information for leveling up, things like that into your book. But don’t lean too heavily into the trope of the pop-up messages in your screen of how much damage you take or when a skill upgrades. You can show us a character sheet once in a while. I think that this is less annoying in the written form, but when I’ve been listening to things on an audio book, it really wrecks the feel you’re trying to create for the world and the characters.

Finally, have your story cohesive. People are familiar with RPG’s, you often have one quest and then another and then another, and eventually you might tie them all together, but you’ve been playing for a year now and you’ve lost one of your story threads along the way at some point, so that’s fine. But in a book, I can listen to even some of the longer LitRPG books in a week or maybe two. So that means the thread that you lost, because you might actually be pulling from your own pen and paper RPG, or just because you didn’t keep enough notes in your writing, it’s obvious to me. And if you’re doing it intentionally, don’t. It might feel thematic, but you’re writing, and like the character sheet, those things that you don’t notice in a pen and paper RPG are very obvious in a LitRPG book.

And let me do a finally, finally and say this. LitRPG is a ton of fun, I’ve been enjoying what I’ve been listening to. It has been making me want to play more D&D and write my own LitRPG, but please, people, please, if you are going to write something and self publish it on Amazon or somewhere, please hire and editor. Or at least have some friends who aren’t going to be Yes Men read the story and give you feedback. In Ascend Online, he needs someone to edit his content because he isn’t great at description so uses words over and over again. If the Sufficiently Advanced Magic writer had a good editor, they could have fixed the bad romantic language that the author tried to add to the book. And really, this isn’t just for litRPG, but please use a good editor people.

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So that we’re all talking about things from the same starting point, I want to introduce a concept that I think is important in this season of Stranger Things and that isn’t there in other seasons. This is the writing concept, but also works in other creative mediums, that you don’t want to show your audience the gears, the workings behind what you are doing. To explain this further, in a good book, the story can seamlessly transition between multiple characters having their moment or finding the information that they need (for a mystery sort of story) and it feels like it’s all part of the same story. When you start to see the gears, you can tell when it’s going to be one characters turn to be hero or the focal point, because the other characters change to foil or background roles. The story lacks that smooth storytelling consistency that you expect.

If I’m introducing this concept, that clearly means that I think that Stranger Things Season 3 suffers from this. And that would be correct. I think in a few of the relationships or pairings, Joyce and Hopper and Lucas, Mike, Max, and El it is really notable. There are almost moments where it seems like the character changes from what they were before to match what they needed for this season. This might get a little bit spoilery here, but you might have seen online about them messing up Hopper in some people’s opinions. And, I can see why people say that and in some ways that I agree with it.

In this season, Hopper is much more aggressive or angry, and I think that there are several reasons for this, but I also think that they are a bit heavy handed with it. The reason that I think it can work is because Hopper has closed himself off or a long time from feeling. And now with Eleven, he is starting to feel again, but it isn’t just the happy emotions, it’s the hard emotions, and he reacts strongly to feeling those again. He isn’t able to fully process them, but, like I said, I think that it done with a heavy hand too often. It became his personality, being the angry person, instead of having more of a complex character. And sometimes, it’s so that you can see the gears working to set-up a moment for Joyce.

With both groups, Joyce and Hopper and Mike, Lucas, Max, and Eleven, their stories are taken to the extreme reaction of things. And when it’s more extreme, you start to lose the depth of character that was created to them in previous seasons. That isn’t to say that it wouldn’t be easy to bring it back in a future season, but the writing was done to give everyone their moment, but done too obviously. Compare that to Dustin, Steve, Robin, and a surprise character, and their banter and relationships are done so extremely well. The actor who plays Steve, Joe Keery, is really good, and does a good job of playing what is now a caring but also still wanting to be popular character. He went from a jerk in the first season without much depth to a character who has a ton of depth and interest now, as compared to some of the others who are working backwards from that this season.

But let’s talk some about the whole story and the monsters. I actually really liked the season as whole, even with some rough spots with various character groups. What makes it work pretty well, in my opinion, is that you get a human aspect to a larger extent as a bad guy, like you did in season one, but you still have that upside down and monster feel. The big addition of another evil organization works really well, but what is that organization. I will say that Cary Elwes as the mayor only works so well. The main issue is that he’s clearly putting on an American accent and it’s obvious. Most of the time it isn’t an issue, but it just doesn’t work as well as it could have, which is a shame, because I like Cary Elwes, especially in Psych. This season, to me, felt a bit more like highlights of 1980’s tropes, as well. While, at times it felt a bit heavy handed with that, what they started with and how it ended, it actually worked well and made sense. I also really like where they ended the season. I’m not going to go into spoilers, but they are setting it up for season four to be a story that is potentially bigger than just Hawkins, which feels like what they need to do at this point.

Overall, I really enjoyed this season. I just think, especially early in the season, there are some things that a writer can take from the story as to what not to do. But you can also take good things from it, like how to use period piece references so it’s not too heavy handed, so like the 80’s references, versus the too heavy a hand in Captain Marvel with 90’s references. I’m at the point with Stranger Things, though, I hope that they start writing seasons that they are going to be their last, they could probably run the show for a few more seasons, but, it feels like a story that should be wrapping up soon, and while still really good, a story that I don’t want to overstay it’s welcome or overstep, like it did with the book that I trashed in review before.

What did you think of season three? Were there any fun surprises in it for you, who was your favorite character from the season?

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