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Originally published 11/5/22 on Substack
Happy Birthday to Against the ’70s! It’s been 365 days since I started this project, and in that time I’ve made 40 posts1, covered 23 movies2, and created approximately 41 new elements for the Cypher System role-playing game (9 creatures, 4 NPCs, 9 descriptors, 2 foci, 5 cyphers, 5 artifacts, 1 character arc, 1 piece of equipment, 1 new genre [in the Cypher System sense], 1 patron3, and 3 instances of new rules or a mini-essay about adapting a film genre to the game)4.
In addition to that, I created two products for the Cypher System: a new focus called Owns the Road, for playing sentient automobiles, and another new focus called Struts, for playing disco-dancing club kids who also happen to go on adventures. I think they came out quite well!
Generally, I’m pretty happy with my output in the last year, and I think I’ve written some pretty decent posts. Some of the ones I’m most proud of happen to be the most popular as well (see below), but I’m also pretty happy with my writeups on Saturday Night Fever (1977, John Badham), The Incredible Melting Man (1977, William Sachs) and Empire of the Ants (1977, Bert I. Gordon), so be sure to check those out if you haven’t.
But what did you think? Here’s the five most popular posts, according to the stats provided by Substack:
Now I’m wondering: what if the black gloved killer from a giallo was a car?
#5 (tie) The Car (1977, Elliot Silverstein) and Deep Red (1975, Dario Argento), Part One, featuring Cypher System stats for both The Car and the Dynamite Truck (The Car) and guidelines for introducing giallo concepts to rpgs (Deep Red, in the forthcoming Part Two);
Put your finger in the soup.
#4 Phantasm (1979, Don Coscarelli), featuring Cypher System creature stats for The Tall Man, the Silver Sentinels, and the Hooded Figures (Jawas);
M-A-S-T-E-R, gooooooo Master!
#3 Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976, Jimmy Wang Yu), featuring a mini-essay on martial arts in the Cypher System, plus NPC stats for the master himself, Feng Sheng Wu Chi;
Devereaux Beds
#2 Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (1977, George Barry) The inaugural post! Featuring Cypher System creature stats for the Death Bed;
and finally:
Whoopsie!
#1 Zardoz (1974, John Boorman), featuring new Cypher System descriptors Immortal and Hirsute.
(I’m proud of the Zardoz, Phantasm, and Deep Red posts, for the record.)
First year down, second year to go. If you’ve been on this trip with me so far, thank you very much for your attention and your patronage (and your Patreonage5). As I hinted at last post, I have some changes planned for the coming year, a kind of course correction6, and I think it’s going to be exciting. As a certain acupuncture enthusiast once said, we have such sights to show you!
Finally, despite having the space for comments, I rarely explicitly open things up for discussion — it’s just not my normal mode of thinking. (The first 23 years or so of my life was without the internet; it’s just not baked-in.) But now, today, I really would like to hear from you. What’s your favorite post? What’s your favorite bit of gaming material you’ve seen here? What are you digging, maaaan? Let me know in the comments below! Like and subscribe! Other 21st century words7!
Not quite one a week, which was my original (foolish) goal, but awfully closer than I expected.↩︎
That’s nearly two movies a month, which I’m going to take as a W.↩︎
A new element invented by me. We’ll see more of this, in a revised form, in the future.↩︎
I’m counting the currently-unpublished-but-coming-soon mini-essay on giallo in rpgs.↩︎
No Patreons, No Masters (except for those of the Flying Guillotine).↩︎
12/15/24: I’m embarrassed yet compelled to admit that, two years later, I have no idea what I meant here about a course correction.↩︎
This is a secret footnote for people who read everything on here. Just FYI, this post does not count towards the “2 posts/month” minimum I require of myself before I charge for paid subscriptions.↩︎
