Dungeons & Dragons is a game that’s all about cooperating with your fellow players (for the most part, at least). Of course, you and your character have your own motivations—but for a good campaign, those motivations should line up with the rest of the party’s motivations. When you sit down with a group to take part in a game of D&D, whether it be in person or online, there are some things you should never do if you want to ensure fun for everyone....

Marvel’s commitment to long-form storytelling has been met with overwhelmingly positive reception by fans. It’s an exciting opportunity for heroes who can’t sustain their own movies at the box office. The most intriguing of all Marvel MCU TV shows has been Marvel’s What If…? series that explores what happened in alternate timelines and alternate universes within the MCU multiverse. At the start, it seemed to be threaded together by Jeffery Wright’s Uatu (aka The Watcher) as he viewed all events within the multiverse with a vow never to interfere or intervene....

A few years ago, I was able to meet face-to-face for the first time with the entire founding whatNerd crew—plus a few others from another site we all worked at—and we had a blast! On top of running several escape rooms together and playing a lot of Nintendo Switch, we actually spent most of our free time playing various games from the Jackbox Party Packs. If you’ve never played any of the Jackbox games, you’re missing out!...

In what other game can you pit Mario against Bayonetta? It’s only in Super Smash Bros. games that you can settle these unlikely matchups. SSB has revolutionized the fighting game. The platform-style combat, diverse cast of crossover characters, and unconventional way of KO’ing your opponent make SSB different from all the rest. While all SSB games have the same basis, not all of them are exactly the same. Here, we’ll break down all SSB games, from worst to best....

Every month, it gets harder to figure out which streaming services you need to watch a particular TV show. And with more streaming services on the rise, keeping a tight lid on your streaming bills can be tough. You have to consider what you’re willing to pay for, what you’re willing to let go, and manage all of your different streaming subscriptions. That’s why NBC’s Peacock streaming service is so refreshing....

When Herman Melville died on the morning of September 28, 1891, he was practically penniless. His writing career had yielded limited success, and to add insult to his memory, The New York Times listed his masterpiece with the erroneous title “Mobie Dick.” And that was that: Melville was gone and his greatest book ever written fell out of print. Fortunately, over the next 20 years, publishing house Harper & Brothers did revive the book—and managed to keep it alive despite it teetering on the verge of irrelevance....

Gaming has gotten better over the years. In the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, gaming mostly consisted of side-scrolling platformer games with the occasional sports game or top-down action game. Now we have unlimited variety. But not everything in gaming has gotten better. There was a time when every purchase of a video game console came with something that is now essentially non-existent: the pack-in video game . Many modern gamers have never even heard the term, let alone know what it is....

The Golden Age of Hollywood spanned from the 1910s to the 1960s, a period of fifty years starting with the inception of Hollywood itself and encompassing the industry’s evolution into the behemoth that grew to dominate Western media culture. Hollywood’s earliest stars are still remembered as a group that remains untouchable. They stand tall among the Acropolis of cinema icons, looking down at those whom attempt to scale the mountains of modern Hollywood to land among their feet....

The assassin is a figure shrouded in mystery, who’s hired to murder on behalf of others while operating outside the usual laws of society. All of that makes assassins so compelling right from the start. They’re able to sneak around corners and dispose of well-guarded men with ease, calculation, and precision. Regardless of their weapon of choice may be, silence and success are of key importance. Anime is full of assassins, but there’s often more to these characters than first meets the eye....

A single main plotline isn’t always the most interesting direction for a story. Sometimes, it’s more interesting to explore many different—but individually smaller—stories that are lightly related in some way. Enter, the anthology movie! Anthology movies can be thought of as collections of short films, where each short film is its own distinct story, but all of them share something in common. Maybe they all take place in the same fictional world, or maybe they all explore the same particular theme....

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a TV sitcom about the fictional 99th Precinct of the NYPD, a series created by the same mind behind The Office , Parks and Recreation , and The Good Place . It may have its flaws—like stretched believability or rushed plotline resolutions—but it’s a fantastic low-maintenance show that’s original and wholesome, making it great for when you’re feeling down. A lot of that comes down to its characters....

A good anti-hero can be a vehicle for vicarious thrills, allowing us to live out our most base and petty desires. But a great anti-hero can show us the truest, most disturbing complexities of their behavior. Over the years, there have been numerous television shows that feature a central protagonist (or protagonists) engaging in immoral lawbreaking. For some reason, we keep rooting for them anyway. We might root for them because we empathize with their rationale and their personal struggles, or maybe they’re caught in a world where such behaviors could be seen as justifiable....

Psychopaths. Sociopaths. Maniacs gone wild. There are lots of films that peer into the darkest of minds and explore what those people are capable of. They frighten us, yet draw us in with morbid intrigue. But before we dive into those movies, I think it’s important to know that medical professionals rarely use terms like “psychopath” and “sociopath” in diagnosing a condition. Rather, psychopaths and sociopaths are those who suffer from antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) ....

Time travel pops up everywhere in fiction—movies, TV shows, books, comics. Whether it’s going back to kill Hitler or forward to an unknown future, sci-fi loves jumping into different time periods. But what about movies where the protagonist isn’t the one going back in time, but rather the movie itself? Directors like Christopher Nolan like to manipulate their narratives in various ways, and one of those ways is to play with the story’s chronology....

Movies are expensive to make, especially nowadays with all the tech that goes into making even simple films. The average Hollywood movie costs around $100 million to produce , and even indie movies require several million without any significant special effects. But then there are those films that are so insanely expensive that you wonder where all of that money went. Here are the most expensive films ever made, why they needed such budgets, and the limits they pushed....

Junji Ito is an established manga artist known for producing horrifying stories with bizarre concepts. From strange occurrences to grotesque creatures, his stories are unlike any others. And while Junji Ito primarily works in the manga format, some of his stories have been adapted into anime, including Studio Deen’s adaptation of Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre . If they weren’t unsightly enough, adding eerie audio just makes it that much worse....

In most media, butlers are just characters who work for a rich man. In anime, butlers are extraordinary and more than meets the eye. Some anime butler characters hold great positions of power in a household, only beholden to their masters. Others are powerful beings who respect their powerless masters. Yet others serve a much more powerful master who doesn’t even need them. One thing that makes butler characters stand out is their outfits....

Immortality is a double-edged sword, making it such a great topic to explore in anime. How does someone live when they can’t die? Is it a blessing or a curse? A boon or a bane? While many anime series about immortals have nothing new to say and drown in stale tropes and clichés, there are others that are fresh, fascinating, and downright thrilling. From protagonists seeking never-ending life to unkillable villains who are ruining the world, here are our picks for the best anime series about immortals and the meaning of immortality....

Before they became a mainstay of modern TV comedies, the mockumentary was—and still is—a popular format for movies. Mockumentaries are the perfect vehicle for parody or satire as they feature fictional characters (often caricatures) in a realistic light. But what’s truly fascinating is when a mockumentary movie’s actors and creators have their fictional characters interact with real-life people. You may either laugh or be shocked by their reactions. That there are so many mockumentary films to choose from just proves the format is popular....

Beyond anime-focused streaming services like Crunchyroll, no other streaming service has as much high-quality anime content as Netflix. On top of licensing several popular anime series, Netflix has also been creating their own anime series for several years now. All of that to say, Netflix is a solid streaming service for anyone who’s interested in exploring anime for the first time. If you’re already paying for Netflix, there’s no need to commit to another service just yet....