# Brand New Day Considered Harmful tags: #thoughts You're probably wondering, given my general focus of posting, why I am letting you see a perfectly accurate, super critical decomposition of why *Spider-Man: Brand New Day* is a shit movie. I promise this is relevant to tabletop RPGs. ![Spider-Man: Brand New Day: An Unbridled Rage](https://youtu.be/d5nfJdsg9Mw) The secret is that one of the critical failures of the movie, among several, is that the usage of powers, that is, the ability of a character to affect the plot in an outsized way for an individual, is provided no narrative or mechanical heft. Limitations mean nothing. Consequences mean nothing. Actions and choices mean nothing. Yes, actions are obviously the mechanism for a character to have an outsized individual impact in a setting, but also literal choices, ideas, and abstractions are the mechanisms by which individuals can have outsized impacts. The flapping of a butterfly's wing, metaphorically. All of these things are common in fantastic TRPGs, whether we're talking about classic Tolkien-esque fantasy, modern urban horror, or sci-fi. The elements of magic, technology, and direct action, or advanced alien technology, all of which are ways in which individual characters can do more than the average person within any of those settings. In order for those things that they do or choose to have meaning, they must have consequence. If characters choose to do things which are against the common morality of the setting, then the people in that setting should respond appropriately. If a character is established to have a limitation of what they can do, then if that limitation is overcome, there needs to be a focus on understanding how and why that happens. It needs to happen while we watch. If a character acquires a new means of affecting the setting in a way that is outsized, then they need to be shown acquiring that means and mechanism. Above all, when any of these things are done, they need to have consequences, repercussions, and clear impacts. A lot of modern media, and unfortunately as an extension, game design, has discarded the idea of consequence. Because X, then Y. If you're going to have a superhero story, and while superhero RPGs are not currently big, they certainly are due to come back around sometime soon, then those superheroes need to have limitations and obstacles that they overcome. They need to make smart use of their powers in ways that are unexpected. They need to change the world in ways which are appropriate to who and what they are. When who and what they are changes, then we need to see it. In a sense, and this is going to ruffle some feathers, all tabletop RPGs are superhero stories. That is to say, all RPGs are about characters who have outsized impacts in the world due to their actions and choices. Even a hardcore sword and sandals, low magic setting, has characters who are changing the situation of the world. We know this because we are watching them, spending time with them, and guiding them. Things are changing around them. Even if those changes are small and localized, even slice of life, modern, no magic settings have characters who are changing the situation of the world in ways that other people are not. That is why they have skill ratings or attributes or character traits. They are acting on the world and we are watching it with positive and negative outcomes. Consequences accrue. That's why we play the game. This is true whether you are a gamist who is there to push the buttons and pull the levers of an RPG and try to win. It's true if you're a narrativist who is there to make a good story and experience a tale worth telling. It's true if you are a simulationist and are watching the gears and springs of the world drive the things before the camera of the table. All of this to say that your stories don't necessarily have to turn $1 billion in the theater. You can do better than that. You can be better than that. You have the opportunity to be better than that. Lean into consequence. Lean into a memory of what you did in the last session and the last dozen sessions and the last hundred sessions. Lean into persistence. Lean into a consistent morality, even if that morality doesn't match that of the world that we inhabit as players, and maybe especially then. Your protagonists are protagonists. Your antagonists are antagonists. Let them be so. Let the consequences accrue. The alternatives are painful.