Apocalypse World taught me a lot about RPG design, and I'm excited to try the new edition. @lumpley.bsky.social has taught me many things over the years, and it's thrilling to see the success that he and @megueyb.bsky.social have achieved. www.kickstarter.com/projects/lum...

TIL

Sexual selection driven by direct benefits leads to the erosion of direct benefits https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.07.687154v1

I’ve had my copy of grandmother fish waiting in my house for quite some time, and finally got to read it to my little one. Thanks Tweet for this wonderful book!

This article is surprisingly good, and if I were still teaching my yearly into-to-game-design class I would assign it www.raphkoster.com/2025/11/03/g...

I am still incredibly proud to have worked on this RPG at @atlasgames.bsky.social with @jonathantweet.bsky.social and now you can grab the books at a fantastic price as well as James Semple’s amazing soundtrack. Check it out! bundleofholding.com/presents/OTE3E

The elf is off to confront his traitorous twin sister, hopefully before she desecrates a sacred shrine. The party made short work of the death's-head toad and the drow scimitar sisters. The spider stag & dark fairy archers didn't do so well against the party, either. From my "Mighty Ones" game.

Who wants to play a minotaur? Maybe a minotrice huntress or a tattooed albino maze mage. What I love about the OGL is creators sharing their weird ideas in an accessible format. I collected lots of OGL stuff back in the day. This book & more now on eBay. www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_...

Can't get enough coelacanth info!

I'm definitely on the orcas' side in this conflict

For years I pondered how to make a game about evolution, and my answer is Clades. Players match animals according to their positions on the evolutionary tree of life. Everyone plays at once so it’s fast. FWIW, I get royalties on this one. Kids love animals! #evolution www.atlas-games.com/clades

Today, on Halloween, The Chaosium officially turns 50 years old. 🧵 On October 31, 1975 our founder Greg Stafford went down to the Alameda County Clerk’s office and filed the paperwork to officially register the company...

Troupe style is one of those approaches to RPGs that people resist but I tend to find love when they actually try it. Basically: You have a character that's yours. You may have a secondary character. You then have a pool of other characters you can grab as needed. (thread)

Makes sense when you think about it: over time natural selection finds new uses for old genes

Ten years ago, this blog post by @bjking.bsky.social put Grandmother Fish on the map. It went viral, and my small run of self-published books sold out. Wish I'd printed a lot more copies! This question is just as timely today as it was 10 years ago. #evolution www.npr.org/sections/13....

Starting in the '80s, Mayfair Games released unlicensed adventures & supplements for AD&D. For a while Mayfair obliged TSR to allow this, under certain negotiated conditions. This deal fell apart in 1993, and here is one of the last Role Aids supplements released. www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_...

Last Call for Ars Magica Edición Definitiva #ArsMagica #Crowdfunding

Geek culture gets a little loving, but not too much.

T minus 7. We're launching the KS next Monday, one week from today! www.kickstarter.com/projects/lum...

Today’s children should enter kindergarten knowing things that would have boggled Aristotle, and that’s why I wrote Grandmother Fish, the first book to teach evolution to preschoolers. I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t make a great Christmas gift. Kids love it. #evolution

OK, but a “wight” is not an apparition. It’s a sentient being, especially a human being.Tolkien’s barrow-wights were “tomb-creatures”. A wraith is an apparition.

My playlist is ready for the "Mighty Ones"/FOO session tonight. Mostly or entirely songs with no English lyrics. open.spotify.com/playlist/6uC...

On my honeymoon last year, I bought an artsy glass dish, and at the game table I keep my dice in it. There's a fancy TSR d4 for # of color spray targets, a d3 for # of mana storm targets, Imajewels for marking enemies w ongoing effects, and three d20s for attacking multiple targets.

Remember when @atlasgames.bsky.social and @greenroninpub.bsky.social published the first for-sale d20 adventures at the same time the Player's Handbook debuted in 2000, one by John Tynes and the other by @chrispramas.bsky.social? These pieces of history are now on eBay. www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_...

So much disrespect for living things. Tuataras are the lizards that are so primitive that they're not even lizards! The amnion is what makes us amniotes. I'm going to write such a letter. 1/2

I made it! I hit the big-time!

If you scavenge maps from the incredible resource of the Reddit r/DNDMaps community, you may already have spotted the new banner at the top of the page. I worked hard on making the banner a playable map in its own right. dysonlogos.blog/2025/10/17/d...

Agon is the deal of the day @drivethrurpg.com! If you're interested in fast-paced heroic action in a mythic world, now's a good time to check it out. www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/3...

This one I totally accept this, not only "deodand" the Dying Earth monster but "deodand" the property forfeited to the king for killing someone.

On the front of the stand is my character's name, for the benefit of the other players. On the back of the stand are the other characters' names, for my benefit.

Today is the birthday one of the most talented creators in TTRPGs, Jennell Jaquays, who passed away last year. Jennell was one of our company's earliest artists, and played an prominent role in Chaosium's success over many years, as an illustrator and writer.

Who else loves 90s-era dark RPGs? This one is bleak, with PCs sometimes damning others' souls to hell in return for a little magic mojo. Post-apocalyptic cyberpunk demon-hunting in an enclosed city. On the short list of... 1/2 Lots more great old stuff now available. www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_...

One thing that OD&D established and that we took for granted with 3E is that mundane armor improves your Armor Class but mundane weapons don't improve your chance to hit. That's different from the earlier man-to-man rules in Chainmail, in which heavier weapons improved your chance to hit. #DnD

This is a ridiculously deep burn

One of the stories in DISCOMFORT FOOD is entitled GORGEOUS SYNERGIES and it was inspired by my 30th wedding anniversary trip to Vancouver. www.kickstarter.com/projects/gre... 1/2

Just heard about the fungus _P microspora_ that not only digests polyurethane but can even do so in the anaerobic environments common in landfills. That's nice, but a waste produce of anaerobic metabolism is methane. 1/2 www.yalealumnimagazine.com/articles/330...

Readers! Come on out to The Rogue Bookshop on the evening of October 28 to join Greg Stolze, Chris Fink, Cat Stark, and me to talk books at Beloit's brand-new indie bookstore!

Played Magic instead of RPGs for a change. Got out my old cards for a little nostalgia. Regenerating Drudge Skeletons got you down? Weakness can solve that problem! Plus some new Dominia cards because they're cooler than the original cards. 1/2

Our friends @hplhs.bsky.social have released a new astonishingly 'proptastic' licensed Call of Cthulhu adventure, The Spark Devil. The deluxe box set measures 13.5 x 11.75 x 4.5 inches and weighs almost 5 pounds!

Here's a solid RPG with a strong premise and competent mechanics (picked up from Pendragon). You're plucky, muscular elves fighting ugly mutants armed with lugers, all in a post-apocalyptic world where magic has returned. This & more great stuff now on eBay. 1/2 www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_...

Sure, it’s just the evolutionary process that made us human. Not an important word…

Lo he jugado muy poco, infinitamente menos de lo que querria. Pero este JdR me enamoró desde el minuto 1. Ars Magica @BackerKit! www.backerkit.com/c/projects/b...

SOoooooo exciting! Our friends at Blagdaross (successors of the previous Spanish translators) are crowdfunding a Spanish version of Ars Magica Definitive Edition, and it looks SOOOO GOOOOD: www.backerkit.com/c/projects/b...

The heroes made short work of the sinful blemmies, even the big ones and the ones with the evil eye. We did character creation, world creation, three battles, two roleplaying encounters, and a little exploration, with no adventure prep ahead of time. New initiative system (!) went fine. 1/2

Happy Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov Saves the World Day, everybody. 42 years ago today, Lt. Col. Petrov prevented an accidental nuclear war. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanisl...

Incredibly, I've come up with a new take on attacks of opportunity. Probably testing it tonight.

Here's my folder of personal RPG campaigns, things I worked on for my own purposes. Lots of good memories.

Today we are proud to announce our next crowdfunding campaign. Award-winning historian @shannonappelcline.bsky.social examines the roots, artwork, and lore behind each and every product released by TSR for OD&D, AD&D 1e, and Basic D&D with his latest effort, Designers & Dragons: Origins. 1/3

During the pandemic, I got together with the ‘Crow Professor’ John Marzluff at the University of Washington, and we made a free (and ad-free) app called Crow Scientist that helps kids learn to observe crows. Crows are cool! 1/2 www.phosphorlearn.com/crows/

We lasted two rounds and then fled. The beholder had an 85% chance to kill our combat optimizer (reskinned bard) with the next attack. My wizard is behind the rogue because he's confused and attacking him with his staff. 1/2