night owls are a structurally oppressed class and subject to pervasive normalised bigotry

on the topic of cultures of play, I also think that in yet another case of horseshoe theory being real, both the most hardcore osr nutters and the artsiest storygame pseuds loop around and merge together into their own distinct subculture of people doing ttrpg theory.

I think any attempt to define modern ttrpg 'cultures of play' is a failure if it doesn't classify "5e/critrole fandom" as its own thing largely disconnected from other ttrpg (or analogue game) play-cultures, and instead largely drawing from fandom and fanfic subcultures.

this halloween, did you know that the popular alternative t-shirt brand MISFITS actually had a short-lived spin-off band in the 80s? Wild, I know!

okay fill me in, what's over/under

gonna be honest, I think the only viable way to make a Mage The Ascension 5th edition set in the present moment is to pull the technocracy out of power. Have a world where the technocrats have lost their control, having been usurped by technocrat-adjascent nephandic mages.

The Phantom Poo Spotter

hey kids, here's a fun challenge! define "Gatekeeping" in a single post!

of course, with all my ttrpg design influenced by larp, it makes perfect sense that my larp design is heavilly influenced by boardgames

~~arguably a big reason ttrpg theory lags so far behind larp theory is that larp doesn't have the millstone of the D&D fandom around its neck to drag it down~~

I'm also running the first event of my own* larp next weekend, and it's very exciting! (*tbf, a shared design between myself as mechanical designer, and then two buddies as plotwriter and lead producer)

I've been larping almost as long as I've been playing ttrpgs, and I was involved in serious larp design before I was involved in serious ttrpg design. I think ttrpg theory lags significantly behind larp theory, and ttrpg designers & players can learn a *lot* by trying larp.

i am firmly of the oppinion that: - Tabletop roleplaying - Play-by-post/text RP - Larp - Narrative miniature & boardgaming are basically parallel mediums with significant overlap, and a designer working in one of those spaces benefits significantly from having experience in the others.

"Some of our most fun / most enjoyed / most memorable sessions and experiences have been the ones where we went shopping and improv'd out conversations, or attended festivals and played games, or had a Regency-era ball and played through that" ok! I believe you! Have you considered WHY?

Dildo Tide (1995, starring Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman; directed by Tony Scott)

i mean technically beholders are all aromantic asexual so they belong in the queer community too

I firmly believe that The Campaign For North Africa: The Desert War 1940-1943 is a lyric game.

In other news, Alex Norris, the artist who drew the above panel, has settled the court case earlier this year and retains the rights to his work! Good to know!

every time I discuss rpgs on here it makes me increasingly certain that Ron Edwards was right about the brain damage thing like holy fuck how are people this dense

one of the more depressing indightments of the state of the hobby is that apparently the critical role team don't even play daggerheart

anyway memes about things i like for a change

Dungeons & Dragons is a commercial product. It is a series of hardcover books and PDFs and associated merchandise that Wizards of the Coast, part of Hasbro, sells to people. Those books consist mostly of long tables and rules text for simulating violence and light puzzle-solving.

tbh lets add "gatekeeping" to the list i can't remember when I last saw somebody i actually respected use the word unironically

FUCKING THIS

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.

anyway hasbro is making cosy slop for a terminally uncritical market. if you want queer content in your ttrpgs, go buy an indie game by an actual queer. Those tend to have things to say beyond 'please stop calling hasbro problematic on twitter'.

you know, I'm also baffled. Are people playing games that resemble the fucking wotc cosycore art? Where they just sit around describing how they laugh merrily while eating a tasty feast and maybe one of the designated Short Species dances nearby? How is that fun? What is the appeal of that?

What does any of this shit have to do with D&D, which is a game about going somewhere dangerous (eg dungeons) to fight scary monsters (eg dragons)? What relevance does all the twee art like this Hasbro keeps churning out have for a game that is fundamentally about peril, violence and adventure?

props to the etsy witches, a 2-day delivery time is pretty impressive

PARRY THIS YOU FUCKING CASUAL

"Average vampire breaks the masquerade 3 times in life " factoid actually just statistical error. Average vampire responsible for 0 masquerade breaches. Spiders Georgvani, who live in Venice and break masquerade to dozens of family members a night, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.

playbooks in a magical girl ttrpg i'm working on

With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.

if i go silent on here, it's because bluesky told me i had to give them my fucking id or bank details to verify i exist, and fuck that noise blame the uk government

Oh I am not shitposting, folks. Stephen Miller, his wife, and Elon are widely rumored to be a throuple. Now Miller's wife is leaving the Trump team to be with Musk & LITERALLY PER THE NEW YORK TIMES Stephen is angrily subtweeting Musk. They actually put it in the paper of record that he was mad

you will be excited to hear that at the 96-day mark, itch finally paid me. so that's comforting. :)

as a rule of thumb, if somebody says something to the effect of "don't do x, it's metagaming", you can just disregard their ttrpg opinions entirely as they are terminally stupid.

Got a copy of The Gardens of Ynn from @soulmuppet.co.uk‬ to go with my copy of The Stygian Library.

i wonder if i will reach 100 days without itch dot io paying me? im on tenterhooks ngl