there is, lets be fair, only one way for your beliefs to align with objective reality, but lots of ways to be screamingly wrong

D&D is basically Content. Once upon a time it wasn't, as much bullshit as there's been in its history it was at one point a thing for sickos, but these days D&D lives firmly in the realm of Content. It's a Brand, it's a Lifestyle, art is entirely incidental to this and likely considered undesirable

I'm at #MCMLondon tomorrow attending a marketing summit run by @popcultr.bsky.social If you're attending / have a booth and want to hang out, chat or show me your booth let me know! Open to talk about: 🎲 #TTRPGs 👻 @soulmuppet.co.uk 📖 Writing and Publishing 🎨 Art and Design 📣 Marketing My face 👇

THE GARDENS OF YNN by Emmy Allen (@cavegirl.bsky.social). This looks like a book of Victorian poetry, reads like a children's fairytale, and has some of the most innovative, unnerving adventure design I've ever read. I can't begin to tell you how excited I am to put this in a home game.

THE STYGIAN LIBRARY, also by Emmy "Cavegirl" Allen. The "dark academia" counterpart to YNN's "mythic cottagegore." (I said what I said.) This adventure perfectly realizes a particular dreamscape of mine, and will grab a certain kind of player and crawl into their dreams, too—or their nightmares.

i mean railroading is a fine and noble old tradition

menhir's fate is a very good larp

from the execs who brought you "magic the gathering has gone completely off the deep end", we bring you "D&D is gonna go completely off the deep end".

dear god anybody but wes streeting

the default way to play magic is surely Legacy, no?

106 years ago today, on May 7th, an undergraduate at Christchurch College, Oxford, drank a glass of port then left through the main gates for a walk. I've been thinking about him, & his walk, for years now. It's taken a long time for me to figure out why - why I've kept returning, near obsessed.

so the thing is that I think the "lolrandum problem player" phenomenon (and "lolrandum problem group" and "lolrandum problem play culture" phenomena) are on a different axis to whether the game is serious.

the block bot is talking about mtg controversies lets go lets go

The Lasombra PC I'm roleplaying with in this vtm game: "I have stared into the true face of horror, and come away changed forever by it." My harbinger of skulls: "Yves Klein could stand to learn that a second colour existed, but he *was* very good at blue. Lucio Fontana, however, was a boring hack."

I've taken to reading D&D reddit, and the best comparison I have to my feelings is when queer folks just blink in confusion at the vagaries and weirdness of hetreo culture. You guys are doing WHAT!? Really? Why?

Inquisitor my beloved game I didn't get to play.

i sincerely believe that "Wargaming" is one medium of a broader roleplaying hobby, alongside tabletop rpgs, text-rp, larp and a wide spectrum of hybrid forms.

statistically, be a peasant,

as much as there are valid discussions to be had about how hard MPs' jobs are or aren't and how much they do or don't sacrifice. i think they probably should not be drinking on the job. i think the people who run the country should be sober while they do it.

Alright i got an OSR guy in a thread by Alyson Greaves now. Soon part of my plan will be Complete

A thing I love about Violet Core is that relationships between pilots don't have to be amicable or even reflective. Leto only knows Draco Z through slipnet chats, they're commiserating chat buddies. Draco Z wants to hunt down Leto 'irl' and beat her ass so hard she gets her shit together.

75. The Stygian Library by @cavegirl.bsky.social A procedurally generated OSR adventure set in a vast extradimensional library with portals that can appear in any library in the real world. I've used this adventure with many games... including a MotW game where a portal opened at Harvard!

the thing that sucks about getting older is "when the internet was good" becomes an ever more distant memory

I find the different connotations when you call somebody "a cowboy" in america vs the uk somewhat telling: America: Rugged outdoorsman, individualist, probably owns several guns and a hat. UK: Poor professional standards, brings shame on whatever profession they're bluffing their way through.

well this is some grade-A fucking idolatory, good grief

From D&D onwards, what we've actually had is SCA fantasy. Fine if that's your thing, but it's as American as early Warhammer Fantasy is English. *Sotto voice* Honestly, we probably have enough Americans writing RPGs with dragons and castles in general now.

do you want fragging? because this is how you get fragging.

Excited to be able to announce EMPIRE 5E! Finally you can play the greatest #ttrpg in the world! Rules for aberrant weather! 50 unique senators for you to fight, more than 149 new ritual spells, and over 4 magic items! Experience massuvely multiplayer fest live roleplaying on *your* table!

I've been playing GURPS with some folks from Paper Cult for the past couple of months. These are my reflections following the conclusion of our mini-campaign. www.fluoriteguillotine.com/blog/2026/03...

𝑆𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑙!

at the start of the game, each player rolls 7 dice. If all of those dice roll a six, they get to play as a Billionaire! Won't this be fun!

Blog Post: The Literalist Gaming Manifesto In which I differentiate two ways of engaging with "games" and assert the value and right-to-exist of the one I keep seeing trampled by fans of the other. unboxedcereal.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-...

i think we've all been saying it wrong, it's not "Buggy The Clown", but "Buggy D Clown".

Behold! Some spreads taken from our work in Fomoria's core book. Really happy with how it's looking and can't wait to share more. Fomoria launches on April 7th on Kickstarter: fomoria.com #fomoria #ttrpg

honestly if you engage with the new wizard shit tv show, i am writing you off as a person "but what about if-" i'm sure you have a lovely excuse but, you see, i am not going to listen to it because i will have written you off as a person

NOOOOOO MY BACKLOG OF CIRCULAR OBJECTIVE MARKER MERCH NOOOOOO

Archaeological Dig Uncovers Ancient Race Of Skeleton People https://theonion.com/archaeological-dig-uncovers-ancient-race-of-skeleton-pe-1819565415/

Game design is culturally and economically the least value-added part of ttrpgs. People will ride an invisible bike a hundred miles off a good pitch and ten pounds of merch.

i do find it odd that there's a market for paid GMs who put on a really good show for frustrated players, but there isn't an equivallent 'paid players' who let a frustrated auteur GM finally run that game they've been dreaming of.

like, okay, let's take OSR games as an example of what I'm talking about when I say I want the game's mechanics not to fade into the background. Taking it step by step.

I think people often conflate making a character with a pinned-down backstory, and making a character who's firmly tied into the setting. You can have one without the other.

"A good GM can make any game work" - trite, thought terminating cliche, simplistic "A well designed game is fun even when you aren't very good at it" - actually useful design advice.

games that I think do this well in and in interesting ways: - Wraith: The Oblivion - Pasione De Las Pasiones - Don't Rest Your Head - Dungeon Crawl Classics - Lacuna - Violet Core - Dread - The Yellow Curtain (self promo self promo) - Mobile Frame 0

i suspect that very few of my bluesky audience have an interest in an accademic talking about liberal christian theology, but on the of chance you are, I've found CJ Cornthwaite on youtube to be an interesting listen.

i don't think i like games whose mechanics "fade into the background", I like games where the fact they're a game is always present, where you can see the designer's fingerprints on everything, you know?

i wonder what the crossover in design & playstyle is like between play-by-post games and solo journaling games? My experience is only with play-by-post, curious what people on the other side think?

Protip: for any cis people who don’t already know, the phrase “this person” is an extremely obvious way transhobes often degender and/or misgender trans people. you should generally not use that phrasing. especially if you are criticizing someone who happens to be trans.

I want to thank @cavegirl.bsky.social for The Yellow Curtain; two performing arts students fell in love so hard that they *broke reality* and are now Cloud Atlas style chasing each other through every TTRPG I play with those friends. This damage is irreparable. You can't un-experience something.

nominating "Randy Waters Is A Son Of A Bitch" for song of the year.