This game is incredible. It's an instant buy if the premise of a swashbuckling action game is, in any way, appealing to you. And if you like to turn the difficulty up and master a game's systems, even better. It's super rewarding to memorize a level's layout and exploit its intricacies.

What’s fun about playtesting with designers is that your game won’t even be fully developed yet and they’re already creating third-party content and iterations.

Pro-GM tip: if you want a word in another language, just use Esperanto. Most people won't recognize it but it won't sound like gibberish. And, unless you're making something to publish, people won't mind or likely even call you out on it.

Avowed’s story has its problems, but its ending is not one of them. Everything from the Garden onward is just gangbusters. And I love how the final battle wraps up all the loose ends of the game and brings all the conflicts to a head.

This is America’s military strategy.

So, fun fact about /r/rpg rules, yes you can! If you make a post that's tagged as self-promo, the rules specifically say you can make as many self-promo comments within it. However, each comment still counts toward the 9:1 ration of non-self-promo to promo you have to maintain. And also...

This is a really great piece of tech. I love the way it explains and highlights fictional positioning.

My favorite LinkedIn posts are the ones that are like, “I’m doing something really stupid. Here are all the reasons it’s stupid. At the end of the post, I will imply that I’m taking this into account so that, just by acknowledging it, this thing becomes smart, but I will give no specifics.”

Unironically, we finally have a good reason to bring up dead author theory in the matter of trans rights. Because saying, “It wasn’t my intention” has zero weight. Republicans heard his jokes and found support in them. That doesn’t go away because he didn’t “mean it.” variety.com/2026/tv/news...

Going to brag on myself for a sec. Ways Cleave is funny: the Guidance spell gives you a +1 bonus on all your rolls. The downside? It’s really fucking annoying. There’s also a chance you pay the price but don’t get the effect, meaning the spell is loudly telling you what to do and it’s wrong.

I’ve heard if you can’t sleep, you should get up and do a lightly stimulating activity until you’re tired enough to back to bed. And it really helps. I was having trouble sleeping, and now I’m up to Ascension level 9 with Ironclad! Still awake, but at least that’s progress!

“Hey guys, I wrote a bill based on Charlie Kirk’s tragic death.” “Oh does it increase restrictions around gun laws to prevent them from murdering people in broad daylight?” “Nope!” “Would it have protected Kirk in any way at all?” “Nope, it would’ve made people hate him MORE.”

This song was released 5 years ago but it still lives in my head rent free. youtu.be/AdVgPCM5wEk

Think I finally figured out a fire spell. For context, a strong hit gets the effect, a weak hit gets the effect + price,* and a miss gets just the price. *Some playbooks can pay an alternate price on a weak hit.

You’ll never guess what happened next. (If anyone knows of any help content or knowledge base-related jobs that are remote US, feel free to send them my way)

TTRPG about me First game: VtM Last game: Scum & Villainy Longest game: PF2 (Quest for the Frozen Flame) Favorite game: Ironsworn: Starforged Favorite mechanics: Apocalypse World Favorite setting: Eora (technically there’s a PoE RPG) Favorite art: hard to say, but D&D 4e is up there

Project Hail Mary was pretty good (especially if you don’t mind the divorced dad aftertaste). I didn’t love it as much as some folks, but I get it. I think people are desperate for classic “Professionals tackle a problem” movies, and this one fits the bill, even if it’s somewhat formulaic.

You should never be afraid to ask tabletop RPG authors dumb questions about their games because that's literally how we tell whether or not what we wrote is working.

mRNA vaccines & the technologies & research paths that've opened up as a result of their study are basically magic, and among the most important & powerful discoveries/inventions in the 30+ years (at least). this man is a villain, trying to murder one of the best things that's ever happened.

An experience I’m pretty sure is unique to my generation of millennial geeks is having deeper connections to media surrounding a game rather than the game itself. Did I play Majora’s Mask as a kid? No, I didn’t have an N64. Did I have a magazine with a guide to all the masks? Yes. Why? IDK.

My GM is discussing running a Star Wars campaign and I really want to play a dirtbag Kreia character who’s just this meme all the time.

Me and all my coworkers are pretty sure we’re going to get laid off next week, so this week has been so weird.

Pathfinder 2e game update: our characters are level 12, and I noticed we’re not doing a lot of buffing. So I bought a wand or protection and used it before this latest encounter. That +1 AC bonus stopped 2 crits and saved me over 80 HP, which is great because, at this point, I have 86 HP.

I’ve been seeing a lot of “what the fuck am I even supposed to DO today” and feeling that myself, and after some thought, here’s where I’ve come down First, call your house rep/senators. Yes, I know that feels pointless. Do it anyway. Helpful script below bsky.app/profile/cele...

Me playing Avowed

You know Pillars of Eternity is for real sickos when the trailer’s like, “Revised action economy” and “Balanced free actions!”

There is a path. It’s the path that Michael Vick walked. He has worked with the Humane Society for the last 17 years to educate folk about animal cruelty. He says he’ll do that work for the rest of his life. Call me when Louis or Kanye devotes even one weekend to making reparation.

Got into a fit of inspiration today and reworked nearly all the Minstrel moves in Cleave. I feel like I know what I actually want to do with the playbook now. 1.5 will have it in a much stronger spot.

Broke: All incentives are bad. Woke: We can do so much better than, "You get +1 XP if you do a thing."

I was really anxious going into this morning’s Cleave playtest, but it ended up being probably my favorite session of it so far. I’m feeling a lot better about how a lot of the different pieces are fitting together.

A key difference between PBTA and OSR design is that PBTA uses moves, and moves are not tests. In both, players roll dice to determine the outcome of (usually) risky actions. In OSR games, these rolls are called by the GM, but in PBTA games, these are determined by the game and the fiction. (1/13)

It's funny when two different interests collide in my head and now I'm figuring out how to run a Jak 3 game in Apocalypse World.

I’m so glad the BlueSky devs are vibecoding this platform. On other platforms, when you start a video, it just plays. But on BlueSky, when you go to start a video, you never know what’s going to happen!

It's nice to see Avowed can still surprise me. After spending more than 189 hours with the game and after being convinced that I've found everything that can be found across every map, I found a new area with a new boss I had never fought before.

My biggest (and basically only) complaint with Avowed's combat is that the finishers take a beat too long. DOOM should be the model. You should be able to do a quick awesome thing and then move on without skipping a beat.

I'm not planning on running Pathfinder 2e anytime soon, but my brain still thinks of changes I'd make to improve it. Healing is a particular sore spot. Out-of-combat healing is required but feels like a chore. I was thinking of how I could make it more satisfying and thought up some skill feats.

"Artemis II's Outlook Not Good"

About 30% through Dungeon Crawler Carl and I think I’m just going to give it up. I’m really into fantasy, but this sort of video game fantasy completely disinterests me. Goblins lose all their appeal when they’re just low level mobs.

There’s a demo for the new Monsterhearts video game, and you can tell the designers really care a lot about the game and thought carefully about how to adapt it. It’s very neat approach to a PBTA video game. Highly recommend checking it out. store.steampowered.com/app/3827470/...

This is good, but it also only happens in an environment where the democrats knew that their heads were on the chopping block if they could even be associated with ICE. Radicalization forces progress but moderation gets the credit.

This is a great metaphor for Trump’s presidency. He’s earnestly trying to do a fascism and the only opposition he faces is how tired he gets. (And yet he still manages to lose consistently)

I don’t care what people say. Glass Onion is a banger.

I really enjoyed this article. I get a ton of enjoyment and value out of Pathfinder 2e, but it's still restricted by the dungeon fantasy mold. Its greatest strength is that it knows it's about dungeon fantasy and filters everything through that lens, but this is also its greatest limitation.

I love this because that means they’re looking at how people use BlueSky, and the fact that so many people just use the basic feed is seen as something they need to fix instead of one of the app’s biggest strengths.

Devin theorycraft a PF2 character without free archetyping them into Swashbuckler challenge, difficulty level: impossible.

Good thread here

Reminder that the reason you're seeing so much weird Chappell Roan news is that just a few weeks ago she fired her Epstein-adjacent agent, Casey Wasserman. Wasserman is still the chairman of the 2028 LA olympics, but has started stepping back from his ad agency.