brilliant seraphina strikes hot with an iron, challenging the paradigm of how people talk about rpgs and what people mean when they criticize d&d for "not supporting xyz" seraphim-seraphina.itch.io/my-blog/devl...

@seraphimseraphina.bsky.social started blogging on itch and the first one is a doozy, y'all. What if we stopped asking if a game supports this or that fiction or experience, and started figuring out what roles games can play within the way we play in the first place?

I've been thinking a lot about Batfam headcanons, cozy roleplay in D&D, and what it means to assert whether or not a game supports a certain kind of play. So I wrote down my thoughts and turned them into an inaugural post on my new itch blog! seraphim-seraphina.itch.io/my-blog/devl...

The Dice Exploder 2025 year end bonanza is here! This year I got together with @lincodega.com and @diogooldskull.bsky.social to go over a whole bunch of game mechanics that we think represent where rpgs were at in 2025 and where they might be going in the future.

Just in time for Jewish Christmas, we have a new TTRPG 🎲: The Vatican Stole the Menorah and We're Going to Steal it Back! TVSTMAWGTSIB is a dreidel-powered heist TTRPG about reclaiming the Temple menorah from the Vatican. Itchfunding a print run till Jan 1! 📆 🔗: jumpgategames.itch.io/tvstmawgtsib

Really good thoughts worth considering- I think that the internal pitch process where we evaluate what ideas deserve additional development is a valuable one, as it serves not only to identify what makes a game exceptional, but how you can enable players to table it effectively and consistently!

Me, @ehronlime.bsky.social, and @aaronmfking.bsky.social have stepped from the shadows to make the Council of Aarons public. We pass judgement on 3 Harvests, and evaluate the course of 2025--at least in tabletop games.

I think “bad game design” maybe doesn’t exist, because I don’t think there’s a design that never works for any goals. What I see that makes me think *bad* usually just doesn’t meet expectations, or doesn’t live up to the promises made. Maybe that’s disappointing or boring game design instead.

I highly recommend The Rule Book (2024), which provides an incredible vocabulary for these different types of rules. The text brings formal rules, but you bring internal rules, your table has social rules, and even the world around you has external regulations and material rules!

I've had the honor to play both of these games (Persuasion digitally and PnP, Conviction after picking up a copy at Pax), and they're dynamic, engaging, thoughtful exercises in what boardgames can accomplish when they aren't chained to convention, and also a great time! Fantastic review, and games!

hi, we launched a gofundme. we need help covering rent for the first half of 2026, because we've still been unable to get a job. the goal is $10,875, which will cover half of rent for those six months. any extra will go towards bills. gofund.me/1f699bd36

I read @monsterpotion.bsky.social's new version of Fight Truck, and cried about it. Then I wrote this. It's personal and vulnerable and bold and I'm very proud. I'd love to hear from anyone if this speaks to you, and I want to hear why other people seek out risky play .

"What do we risk when we play?" Contributor @seraphimseraphina.bsky.social interrogates the path of her life through a joyfully violent larp that radically reframes safety and risk.

New subscriptions to Rascal News will be rising by $1 in 2026. If you've been waiting to support us, we're currently running a holiday sale where the first two months of our entry tier is only $1/month! Independent journalism on the cheap? Yippee-Ki-Yay, Anklebiters!

its been a few years, but I was reflecting on my (admittedly small!) body of work recently, and i think my writing for FRACTALS riverhousegames.itch.io/fractals (and, especially, The Witch) is some of the best I've ever done.

I'm back with @seraphimseraphina.bsky.social doing another 90 minutes on expressionism over on the patreon, this time breaking down game examples from my own work. This framework continues to be useful for me even as it doesn't apply tons of the time.

Folks are still catching up to @armaanautomatic.itch.io's brilliant piece on The Ultimates #17 and ADHD: comicsxf.com/2025/10/26/d...

i need more games for sickos. so many are so intensely aiming for broad appeal. whenever i find a game that is unapologetically weird it feels exactly like a glass of water in the middle of the desert. do your own specific thing. give me, the sicko, something i can sink my teeth into.

Part 3 is here. The deep dive into the Ennies. If you're someone who doesn't know much about the Ennie Awards, you should read parts 1 and 2. But if you like a bit of inside baseball and are interested in award shows in general—this is the article for you. www.explorersdesign.com/ennies-3/

Alright, the first in-depth article of my awards debrief is live. "How do the Ennies work?" A top-down look at my judging experience from A to Z. Please share, leave comments, and ask questions. And don't forget to read part 1 if you haven't already. www.explorersdesign.com/ennies-2/

one thing thats crazy is that all art movements are just systems of hundreds of individual little unique goblins, none of whom did the exact movement; particles of the movement wave

hi i'm getting a kickass set of new genitals installed in 2 weeks from now !! isn't that fucking cool ? i could use a little bit of help with medical bills + housing expenses during recovery and so i've set up a little gofundme! gofund.me/394dc2e93

I wrote a little about criticism today. idlecartulary.com/2025/09/25/w...

SEE FOR YOURSELF incaseofgrace.itch.io/gutgun

The modern equivalent of a heartbreaker is some game that no one has ever heard about that has amazing design principles that are innovative or elegant or just really well done, but that are languishing on itch because no one has ever thought to read it.

triangle agency is a fun game to play with your friends :)

@seraphimseraphina.bsky.social published a really neat case study of Triangle Agency today with @jdragsky.bsky.social's Expressionism as a frame! It's very cool to see someone doing a deep read of what's going on within our game and how that affects/supports certain modes of play.

I've been thinking on how to apply the expressionist manifesto as a lens for looking at games, and I decided to demonstrate that approach by analyzing how Triangle Agency aims at expressionist goals and, in doing so, earns a place in my heart. www.tumblr.com/seraphim-ser...

This touches on a principle I embrace- lenses, not boxes. Putting things in boxes means defining hard boundaries, losing nuance, and resigning ourselves to only benefiting from one framing. Using lenses instead of boxes means we can use more of them, and see what we learn from new perspectives. 1/2

this is esp. useful cuz sometimes people will say "this game/approach isnt safe" when what they often mean is "its more risky" this lets us now ask... if its more risky, what do we do to scaffold that risk? what do we do to help support people who want it?

This wasn’t even the most memorable part of the night! Credit for that goes to when the other three workers tried to force me to bargain with them via violence, and I threatened to fire the last person to not leave my office- peeling off one and just barely enabling me to survive. Fantastic game!

I wrote a pseudo-memoir feelings blog using @jdragsky.bsky.social's qualities of expressionist games as a frame! It's available with a free sign-up on the Haunted Table Patreon. There are precious few hot takes so don't get too excited! Thinking out loud. www.patreon.com/posts/you-ma...

The view of RPGs isn't wrong per se, but it's a distinction of form and function. the form of a rule is to restrict, but the function of a rule is to support playing the game well. This fantastic article is a great case study of this behavior that rules have. www.thomascummins.com/the-heresy-o...

Just finished playing Persuasion by @xoe.gay for the second time in the past week- what a lovely, exciting game! I once thought TTRPGs might be better referred to as conversation games. Among other reasons, board games like this prove that wrong. 1/3

i felt like people needed an example of an explicitly expressionist game following yesterday's article. so i drafted one up! it's called THE EXQUISITE CORPSE FACTORY and it's about drawing exquisite corpses to make a living www.patreon.com/posts/first-...

"This game's rules is frustrating to players" not as a failure state, but as a fecund site of intentional design / artistic possibility. I do think people have a hard time with this. It goes against orthodox, deeply held assumptions that friction between rules and players is Bad Design. 1/

I read a draft of jay's new manifesto last week, and it stuck in my head so much that @seraphimseraphina.bsky.social and I spent two hours podcasting about it yesterday. That audio is now up behind the Dice Exploder Patreon.

Sam and I went through jay’s manifesto with a fine toothed comb, and it was a lot of fun to see what we dug up about our perspectives on expressionist games as a movement. Really happy with the conversation we had, and I’m very excited to hear and say more about it in the coming days and weeks.

This manifesto is such an explosive call to action, both explicitly through the clear goals it sets, and implicitly for how it demands other designers stand up and write their own manifestos. Jay has a lot to be proud of here, and it’s so cool to see the throughline from her earlier work to this.

good morning, i wrote a manifesto about a new direction for game design / play possumcreek.medium.com/the-expressi...

One of the critiques I see of a board game as art is "If you remove the theme, it isn't about anything." I simply cannot imagine disregarding elements of an art piece that the designer considered and gifted to me so casually. If I remove the colors from a painting, it's just brushstrokes. 1/4

Only a few days left!

Engaging in play with my friends and fun. Delivering a consistent experience is good craftsmanship. What it really takes for a design to impress me is if it sticks around at the table- if the players are compelled to engage and excited to invite it back into play again and again, that’s great art.

New episode of Dice Exploder Afterimage, this time about City of Winter from @heartofthedeernicorn.com. I found this game causing me to reflect on my own life, legacy, mortality, and need to make art at a particularly poignant time in my life. It's a beautiful game.

enjoying the return of #Andor? hit "Notify me" on Kickstarter now to be notified on 5/20 when: - my Andor & Rogue One-inspired #TTRPG & CRIT Awards Best GMless Game of the Year "Going Rogue" - Riley's Star Wars-inspired game "Galactic" come to KS...in a ONE combined print book! 🔗 in QT, more ⬇️🧵!

I'm not going to incessantly post on Bluesky about this until the first two weeks of February, but as my pre-launch is live, I should tell people: I'm running a Kickstarter for Sharky, my new module, featuring art by Jay White, for Zinequest in February. AMA! www.kickstarter.com/projects/die...

I've been tracking these data a while myself, and though my numbers are a little different they show broadly the same trend: - 2023: 58 out of 119 projects (~49%) that raised $100,000+ were 5E - 2024: 41 out of 147 projects (~28%) that raised $100,000+ were 5E

People ask about this a lot: I know it is tough but our official stance is that, yes, players should actually read their section of the book before playing Triangle Agency! Part of the game is negotiation over the text and dealing with the temptation/opportunity to read further.

I'm into the second week of Critique Navidad, my series of reviews where I review whatever game or module is offered, one per day, for the month of December. Here's the games I've reviewed this week, what I reviewed last week, and a teaser for what's coming! 1/🧵