For your consideration: "Slick skinned cringe merchant*

What's a little carrier group redeployment to the other side of the world among friends?

I'm increasingly convinced that KCD 2 should have had only three "romance" options: 1) no romance, 2) faithful to Teresa, 3) Hans.

shockingly, I actually think that games that are designed to be about exciting adventures and fighting scary monsters are very fun, and I enjoy playing them. I also think that the best way to play that kind of game is not to fight its design and instead use it for action and adventure.

You can roleplay in anything, you can roleplay in fucking Monopoly if you want, and if you see that and go "well that sounds dumb" then congrats, you know what it's like to be told that a game can have 200 pages about combat and two paragraphs for Diplomacy checks and not "be about violence" somehow

"The roleplaying is the stuff the game DOESN'T need rules for, idiot" is such a ridiculously illiterate stance (in multiple senses) to hold in 2025, an era in which we have a veritable cornucopia of designer TRPGs to showcase that elfgames can be more than a combat engine draped in vibes

The fundamental disconnect I am starting to put together here, which I'm sure someone else has long since beat me to, is people keep conflating what you CAN do with a game versus what the game itself actually IS, and do not seem capable of separating the two out from one another

Introduction a lot of people to the words "drongo" and "dingbat" today I see.

My stance has long been that games are about something and what that something is is defined by the game as it exists, not the aspirational game that might be imagined between the lines, D&D as a game is a tactical combat dungeon crawl engine with rules for fireballs and longswords, not cozy romance

That still doesn't make this sort of ad actually representative of what D&D is as a game. "You can do whatever you want in the ephermera that the game doesn't touch on" isn't anything, it's like advertising Monopoly as a gripping serial thriller just because you can imagine one while you play it

I fundamentally disagree with the premise that in trpgs there is a 'combat' part and a 'role play' part. Systems within an rpg exist to facilitate rp by structuring it within the game.

Hasbro wotc has very intentionally built a brand identity around the game that is a complete misrepresentation of what the game actually is: a game about being violent and inflicting violence. And it's MASSIVELY successful

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

Deeply disappointed to see a trusted history series turn to using AI dog shit. ai is a cornerstone of misinformation campaigns, and to say "were using this same tech, but responsibly" is such a profoundly absurd thing to do.

K-pop Demon Hunter: wonderful Into the Spider verse: fantastic Across the Spider verse: ...

You are a grown ass adult, you made a grown ass adult decision, that decision has consequences and you are obligated to take those on the chin whether you like them or not. I do not care how misled or manipulated you were into making those decisions. Your actions, your consequences.

Okay hear me out: Imagine a multiverse. But like instead of multiple worlds there's just one. And instead of mixing all sorts of bullshit concepts and worlds you stick to one cohesive concept that doesn't suck

The car park at my work is great. The clientele is a bunch of super rich people, but staff also use the car park. And you can always tell a staff car. Bently, Mercedes, Audi, Ferrari, banged up Suzuki Swift, BMW, Tesla,

My biggest and most enduring complaint with Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 is that I cannot carry Henry's and Theresa's relationship forward from the first game. There is 1 dialogue option during the prologue, and then it basically never ever comes up again

Trump threatening an ABC (Australia Broadcast Corporation) reporter like he can somehow get this guy fired by taking it up with the Prime Minister is so fucking funny.

I do not care if you find my celebration of the death of people who seek to harm and kill the people I love distasteful or uncomfortable.

I fucking hate windows 11

The masculine urge to fuck about with insane shit and be utterly enthralled by it for hours on end.

But you don't. You want the Hand of God to deploy the sixth and seventh books, devour them like a happy meal with extra large fries, and update the wiki. There is very little love for the story. Nothing but grabbing hunger for the Product to be "finished"

I'm so fucking sick of being expected to hand out gentle gratitude for the absolute bare minimum. No. I will not. Cop to your mistakes, bear your wrongs, acknowledge them, then act to be better.

It's strange thing to explain my relationship to my day job to people outside it. My job is quite literally, to clean your shit out of someone else's toilet (among other things). The reaction I get when I tell people this, followed by saying "I really like my job" is always amusing.

More video games should have demos.

There is something uniquely pathetic about being a pro Trump Australian. Absolutely incomprehensible loser energy.

*playing helldivers with friends* Friend: I'm getting really bad stuttering and lag... Don't know why... Me: Do you have anything running in background? I've only got steam and discord... Friend: me too... And chrome... And a few tabs... Oh 8+ tabs... I should close those. Me:

If you don't want me to celebrate your death, you shouldn't be a piece of shit in life End of discussion.

Good fucking riddance 🖕

"Generic" tools can be extremely effective tools for *shudders* world building in trpgs. A really simple but proven method of engaging people in the themes of the setting is using names.

I am so fucking glad the predator movies are going higher and higher concept instead of just retreading the same ground as the first movie. Badlands looks rad

I work a day job at a high end health club as a cleaner. My day to day is vacuuming, mopping floors, wiping down sweaty equipment, changing/cleaning out garbage bins, and cleaning shit and piss out of toilets/restroom floors/showers. Before that, I worked housekeeping in 3 different 5 star hotels

Any "world building tools" that don't begin with establishing a strong thematic foundation for the activity (i.e. what are the essential dramatic themes the world is built on to facilitate story telling), are worse than useless.

It is absolutely, unequivocally, WEIRD FUCKUNG BEHAVIOUR to spend hours in a video game's character creator for the purpose of creating hyper accurate doubles or REAL LIFE PEOPLE.

When you do something that upsets someone, it does not fucking matter that you "didn't mean to", it matters that you DID. You remain fully responsible for your actions, regardless of what your intentions were.

I'm a big sucker for the poor/scrappy kids with the spirit and everything to lose vs the rich/arrogant kids with all the advantages and only prestige on the line trope myself

I'm consistently puzzled by the common opinion that Dragon's Dogma (1 and 2) have bad stories. I'm not gonna say they're the epitome of narrative in video games, but they very firmly sit in the ideal space for video game narrative as vehicle for context, stakes, and motivation (for me).

For the people saying "oh my god DTRPG you dig your own grave, you don't know your audience" dude Venger Satanis has like 30+, all 4-5 star rated, electrum/platinum selling products in there. They even infringe the "no linking to outside storefronts" DTRPG rules bit in the product description lmao

Dinner 😋🍽️

Google searching "synonym for Race" does not cleanse your fantasy game of the colonial trappings of bio-essentialism

This is absolutely the reason I cannot play Elden Ring for more than 10hrs of any given play through attempt. That game is dedicated to denying me any sense of stakes or motivation, and the steam always runs out immediately upon finishing stormveil castle.

"immersion" as a basis of critique is utterly absurd. 100% of times it is invoked for anything, it indisputably reveals itself to be 1) entirely subjective and 2) completely arbitrary. It is completely meaningless and worthless.

I want more racing games to put some real effort into story and character in their career modes. My absolute favourite racing game is GRID Legends for this reason

You strengthen your designer voice when you say "you can't change X, it's weight bearing rules" rather than undermining your own work with "but" and "if you don't want to"

Game theory preoccupied with taxonomy and labels is largely useless to design. You need to read and play more games. Not should, NEED. If design is a language and all you know is d20 you are writing at a grade school level.

The idea that fairness is necessarily symmetrical just doesn't track to real life at all. It requires ignoring when ideologies consider the violent elimination of others a core expression of their belief system. This isn't "fair," it's deliberately obfuscating