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They should defend themselves against Bigfoot, against grave-robbing aliens, against Los Angeles vampires, against devil cars, and against evil corporations trying to replace everyone with lookalike androids.
They should do this because it’s fun!
The Energy Company wants you!
Welcome to Against the ’70s, the place where 1970s movies collide with 21st century role-playing games, and I pick up the pieces and smoosh them back together. I’ll write about a 1970s movie, then find something from it to put in a role-playing game. Monsters? Of course! NPCs? You bet! Character options? Natch!
Over the course of this blog, I’ll be looking at films from the 70s, from the popular to the obscure, from horror and science fiction to drama and comedy. The first four will be Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977), The Car (1977), Klute (1971), and The Muppet Movie (1979). Future films include Logan’s Run (1976), Smokey and the Bandit (1977), Soylent Green (1973), Phantasm (1979), and The Goodbye Girl (1977). What kind of game material can I wring out of Neil Simon’s The Goodbye Girl? I have absolutely no idea, and that’s part of the fun.
Currently, all Against the ’70s rpg material will be geared toward the Cypher System by Monte Cook Games, although I may branch out to other games in the future.
I’m Kent M. Beeson, an rpg player and game master for 35 years, for such games as Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and Feng Shui. I’ve been a film critic for Comixology, and have been writing about movies, on- and off-blog, for nearly 18 years. These days, you can find me on Bluesky at @kentmbeeson.bsky.social and I also run The Best Album Brackets, a community of music afficianados who pick a year, pick 128 albums from that year, and run them through a bracket until one emerges a winner. It’s a gas gas gas!
Feel free to contact me at kentmbeeson@hey.com, if you want to say hi, inform me of broken links, or literally anything else. Lines are now open!
I’ve found that of all my interests, the two things I a) love, b) know something about, and c) can write about, are movies and tabletop roleplaying games. Of the entire history of cinema, the ’70s is my favorite decade. (My second favorite is the ’40s.) It’s probably not a coincidence, then, that ttrpgs, my other great love, were invented in the ’70s. Weirdly (well, to me anyway), there are only a few products that attempt to work within that intersection of this Venn diagram. On some level, I do see this as an opportunity to mine 1, but if I’m being honest, I’m just curious what kind of things I might create by mixing these two tastes together. If other people find it interesting, even better.
The title of this newsletter comes from the Mike Watt song, “Against the 70’s” from his album Ball-Hog or Tugboat?. The song is about exhorting the youth of the ’90s to find their own voice and not fall back on the nostalgia of their elders. Unfortunately, my use of the title and some of the lyrics completely subverts the original intention. Mr. Watt, I’m very sorry. For what it’s worth, I think you’re great. Jam Econo forever.
Of course, the most likely reason there are so few ’70s-themed ttrpg products on the market is that it has an audience of, like, five.↩︎