I just discovered they’re doing Yakuza Kawami 3, and I am clinging desperately to this bit of wonderful news.

Let's lean into the fact that all games are inherently political...

2-minute comic

ChatGPT drawing maps goes about as well as anyone would predict londonist.substack.com/p/how-good-i...

I happen to know quite a bit about Venezuelan oil. TL;DR it’s hard to extract, notoriously investor-endangering, isn’t needed (global crude is oversupplied to the tune of 3.3 min bpd) and isn’t easily refined (it’s too dense so always sold at a heavy discount) www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/202...

Seb Kennedy is a great gas market analyst. And he has lived and worked in Venezuela. His take on things is definitely worth your time.

I know there are a lot of speculative fiction readers among you. If you haven’t tackled @older.bsky.social Infomocracy series, it is horribly relevant. We played with some of the same ideas in the Leverage S3 finale, political perception as reality.

“Rules, conventions, morals, reality itself: all exist so long as their existence is convenient to the preservation of power. Otherwise, they, like all else, are expendable.” -Omar El Akkad

Liked this observation from Addy Osmani: “Abstractions don’t remove complexity. They move it to the day you’re on call.” addyosmani.com/blog/21-less...

You couldn't publish this today. You'd have to cloak it under several layers of metaphor.

I have hit 500 open tabs on my phone, which appears to be a cap, and I need to clean them up. However, since a substantial portion of them are things I left open to read later, the prospect of goin through them all is daunting enough that I’m going to have to try tab syncing or something.

If you're looking to follow the short essays here about writing, power, failure, survival, and why stories are worth telling at all, I've rounded them up at ye olde blogge www.kameronhurley.com/blog/ (HOW RETRO IS THAT???)

Heroforge is one of the most effective antidotes to the temptations of AI at the tabletop.

One of the nicest things I can say about Daggerheart is that I really want to file the serial numbers off it and use it as the basis for an old-school (not OS, just old-school) generic rules engine and then open that up.

Spending half of it sick is definitely not my favorite way to spend vacation. My biggest achievement has literally been completing all missions on Borderlands 4, which was NOT a good use of time by any measure.

It’s a super splat, but the original Dragon Blooded book for Exalted is very much top of mind on this for me. It took the exciting-but-kind-of-kitchen-sink exalted setting and introduced something much richer and more interesting If the definition gets expands to boxes, Birthright and Planescape

The world's time zones, visualized on an interactive, spinnable globe. Try it out- it'll default to your current time and (approximate) time zone: gist.github.com/walkerke/c4a...

@rdonoghue.bsky.social 73 chapters full of tables, $7.95

Mine is that any combat mechanics are bad and limiting. The best mechanic for combat resolution of conflict is combat. If your players don't want to get into armed fights with the GM or each other, no game mechanics will change that. The same applies to disarming traps and crossing lava.

This feels like an effort to reframe the Hero’s Journey as “woke, actually” and I threw up in my mouth a little. feeds.feedblitz.com/~/939651917/...

Some of these answers just sadden me. www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-each-...

"You’ve lived through several waves of feminism, and they’ve culminated in two women who were among the most qualified candidates in US presidential history losing to the same misogynistic con artist." #McSweeneysTop25of2025

I'm a few hours into this, and it's a wonderful mystery/folk horror game. Pick it up!

John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hitman outlines how US imperial power is generally projected throughout the world. Read his book, but you can get a good overview in this 30-minute video. What we're witnessing is brazen, lawless... and in continuity with the past. youtu.be/XWuAct1BxHU?...

Every now and then I see someone asking for recommendations of a GMless game to play. Well a bunch of us made a list, complete with explanations of why we thought each game was great, so you can decide for yourself. Don't see your favorite? Add it! www.reddit.com/r/gmless/com...

The momatoes bundle has been extended for one year! Four of my award-winning games, for only $40 — a $37 discount. From heart-racing adventures to sad tales of longing, this bundle is a great way to explore new games. I think it's very cool :) itch.io/s/161143/the...

For those who aren't aware, Europe and the US maintain de facto or de jure rule over the vast majority of the world's oil fields, agriculture, and mines, mostly through corporate contracts that were created under colonialism and maintained even when colonialism "ends."

the reason they don’t bother to manufacture the consent beforehand is that everyone just sort of does it for them post-facto now

I dunno. Maybe the military would have been a check against this at some point in the past. Maybe not. But the point of systemic purges is that we never find out, and that so many people are culpable that any kind of repercussions will be impossible to implement.

So, the betting pools will start soon on whether Mexico or Cuba is next, and two days before it happens, a new crypto wallet will appear on those sights and place millions of dollars of bets, as if they have foreknowledge of what’a about to happen. Just like happened this time.

There is zero reason not to impeach.

A lot of people are going to preface tu-tutting tweets with variants on the theme of "Maduro was no angel" and it's very important to have the moral clarity to understand that these people are the lowest form of coward imaginable

Perhaps now people will stop wishcasting about the US military refusing illegal orders. That's not a thing that happens. The 100% compliance rate with using civilian boats for target practice was a bit of a tell.

Today we’re launching Jayce’s Fighting Ships of Wolf 359 A project that began as an idea and became something much bigger: a community-run act of creativity. The book is now public. It’s yours. tranquility.press/jayces-fight...

It is 2026! It is our New Year, New Game special 20% off all Starter / Learn to Play sets for #RPGs through 31st January 2026! Try something new this year! #TTRPGs #FRPGs #DnD #SFRPGs #Numunera #L5RRPG #CyberpunkRPG #Pathfinder #RQ #CoC #AthensGA

This is a great thread, on a topic I've talked about, but something niggled at me until I realized I would split it a little farther, and in doing so, perhaps shed a light on some of the value in "Idea People".

A reminder that I've a book illustration course starting in a couple of weeks in the Irish Writers Centre. You only need basic drawing skills; illustration is a form of communication first, and an art second.

it's been a while since i've added any new work to my collection of CC by 4.0 licensed art, mainly because it's a big backlog and i am very exhausted by everything, however, i can assure you a very big drop of "exquisite" work will be added in the very near future, so stay tuned… jnbutler.art#ccla

When I was a kid, they had these neat books where the page would have an illustration on it with a big empty spot in the middle, and the idea was it was a window or telescope or some such, and the prompt was to draw what you saw there. I think they have a lot in common with what makes RPGs work.

I am thankful that #TachyonSquadron was still getting played and streamed in 2025. Good hunting for 2026, pilots.

My very first newsletter just went out! Thanks to everyone who's subscribed so far! Read it on the web here (& then sign up to get it in your inbox, pretty please 🥰): pencilbooth.com/posts/7087cc...

So, I do meal prep for my own sanity, and I like to make stuff to freeze or later, so Youtube has decided I need to see a lot of videos with "Super Cubes" ("Souper" maybe?) and I'm trying to determine if this is a clever idea or a gateway to madness.

It only just occurred to me that I view “being a storyteller” and “telling a story” to be VERY SEPARATE IDEAS, and that is probably a big part of my stance on stories and RPGs.

If they tried harder they could get some some thoria inserts in there for VITALITY.

This Upton Sinclair quote never misses “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

My main hope for 2026 is that I do not wake up as congested as I go to sleep. Small goals. Happy new year, nerds. See you in the morning.

Spent time down a Youtube hole. I’m finding myself more sympathetic to people who get stressed out by the “pro” GMs. I don’t AGREE with the “and therefore they’re bad!” Conclusion from there, but I definitely understand the emotion.

Like a dork I posted this very late last night US time but anyway it’s the final Gyro Shooter post tor 2025. I’ve been having so much fun designing this game in front of my patrons. Joining is free (but I appreciate any and all subs).

This set of observations is produced by my scrolling Reddit and otherwise listening to people talk about "how to write." A) there is no requirement that any of your characters has any sort of "arc" let alone a redemption. B) there is also no requirement that your fiction has a plot.