Dysnomia

I’d say I have no friends, but that’s not quite right—I have Eddy, Nils, Simon, and Budi. They work for Rocket Beans TV and they don’t know me, but I watch enough of their content that I’ve basically decided we’re friends. It’s a relationship that works fine as long as I don’t examine it too closely.

The Pen & Paper sessions are the thing I always come back for. Hauke runs these tabletop games where the four of them get thrown into different scenarios—zombie apocalypses, Viking settlements, murder mysteries in an old house. There’s genuine improvisation happening in real time, genuine reactions, and the kind of chemistry that doesn’t come from a script. Watching people try not to get their characters killed while making everyone else laugh for hours has its own pull.

Their new campaign is called Dysnomia and they’re in space. An old scientist, a pilot with a death wish, some Justin Bieber-looking asshole somehow on the crew, and an AI keeping score. Puzzles, enemies, the usual collision of incompetence and luck that makes these things work.

It’s not trying to be anything important. Just four people playing a game together. Which is exactly why I can’t stop watching.