Stubbazubba & Chamomile proudly present the Critical Insignificance Podcast, Episode 2, attack of the new age music, in which we carefully avoid a few controversies that are simply too significant for this podcast. More importantly, we plug a little-known but much-loved RTS game with a unique twist called Majesty (see Cham’s prior heads-up on the Steam sale), and Cham briefly reviews Gone Home.
We also lay out how GMs can engineer better pick-up games online, which should be a boon to anyone running a play-by-post, play-by-email, or virtual tabletop a la roll20.net game. The tl;dr version is:
It’s not what you think.
I’m going to leave this a little ambiguous, because 1) who ever understands Bane perfectly the first time? And 2) because you should listen to the podcast, though I will say this discussion starts at 14:55.
Finally, we talk about what’s going on with the D&D movie rights; Hasbro and Sweetpea Entertainment (the studio behind this, this, and this) have concluded the trial over the future of the rights, and…well we’re still waiting for either a last-minute settlement or a decision from the judge, but either way, something is going to happen on that front. We talk about why that is and what it means for D&D fans in the near future.
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Matters of Critical Insignificance 
Speaking of cinematic universes, Dissolve just ran a piece speaking against them, mostly in the context of Dracula Untold:
http://thedissolve.com/features/exposition/784-the-case-against-cinematic-universes/
Mr. Tobias raises some good points, which mostly boil down to the idea that movies aren’t TV shows and shouldn’t take on their constraints. That’s an assumption that I don’t quite buy, however. I think Mr. Tobias is creating a false dilemma. Why shouldn’t movies sometimes take tips from TV shows? I understand movies *can* be great, stand-alone pieces that express a theme, a unified vision, which really can’t be reproduced into sequels and spin-offs, but the cinematic universe idea doesn’t mean that stand-alone films are in any way threatened. Blending the scale and resources of movies with some structural elements of TV shows has produced the MCU. They aren’t the ultimate artistic expression, but neither do they mean directors will stop making movies like Gravity or Birdman.
I still submit that D&D is a money-making cinematic universe waiting to be made. The prelude of Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, and Game of Thrones has primed the audience for prime-time fantasy for over a decade, just as super hero movies before Iron Man had for that genre. Now, with some strict oversight and coordination, and more importantly the necessary investment in time and talent, a D&D CU could mean a profitable future for the brand, even if it is divorced from the actual hobby (as has been the case with the MCU and comics).