mrw the effort of simulating provides specious rhetorical cover for reproducing the ideology of past simulations

I wrote a SIMULATIONIST'S MANIFESTO for #manifestojam2026 ptychomancer.itch.io/simulationis...

shock! awe! bedlam! mayhem! it's the latest episode of DEAD LETTERS, about Magpie Games' AVATAR LEGENDS: THE ROLEPLAYING GAME! we discuss the challenges of licensed adaptations, expectations of play, product lines, and contrived anti-bender prisons. come listen! open.spotify.com/episode/650n...

rpg design hidden technique: map-making

"What's that?" I hear you ask. "Why," I say, "it's the new DEAD LETTERS about Jay Dragon's EXPRESSIONIST GAME MANIFESTO!" we discuss 20th C. art movements, struggle, rejecting rules, ~Metaphor for the Queer Experience~, subversion paradoxes, and more! come listen! open.spotify.com/episode/68SY...

celebrating pride by walking at 1.5x speed

FINE I'LL START BLOGGING! For your convenience and for easy reference, I've taken the massive bluesky thread of crowdfunding advice I posted a while ago, and edited and organized it in blog form.

How I set up my small game of cataphracts: seedlinggames.com/blogging/cat...

new DEAD LETTERS episode! this time, it's the vast, legendary, landmark WOLVES UPON THE COAST, written by that one bald guy! we talk about the Adventure Writing Trust Horizon, reading, horses with unhinged jaws, poetic monster manuals, legwork, and the GM as medium! open.spotify.com/episode/2Z1e...

NYC TTRPG Book Club! a week from today at @boshis.place! we're reading Snow's SONGBIRDS (3e revised, the most current one on itch)! come discuss with us!

I had the delight of talking to @samsorensen.bsky.social who has very different tastes in games than I do. I loved hearing about his play-by-post OSR Mega games and the way they creat emergent narritve.

it's me!! we talk about wargames, third-class relics, the resonance of chaos, unplanned stories, cannibalism, ritualistic hair-cutting, old-school design aesthetics, simulationism, and avuncular relationships!! give it a listen!!

Now that the discourse has died down, and my birding has lessened, I want to talk about lists in rpgs. I like what both sides of the debate make. So, like everything else, "good" isn't about which side you choose but how you execute the idea. If you choose to use lists, use them well.

DOCTOR: The great Pagliacci is in town! IAN BOGOST: Commedia dell'arte is formally deficient DR: BOGOST: Clowning robs from us the purer joy of watching balls roll down a ramp DR: Ok— BOGOST: The circus is riddled with kids & narrativists DR: Get out. Here's a scrip for lexapro just get the fuck out

holy shit

In honor of everyone who gave their lives on the Discourse Fronts, on the beaches of The Forge and Story-games, I present this for #TTRPG Memorial Day: aggregatecognizance.com/p/fiction-fi...

in his declaration of Butlerian Jihad, Pope Leo XIV compares the diverse variety of the truths of the gospel to the humble d20

on the cataphracts HQ server, an amateur Mongolian historian is running a slow-rolling early-20th C. post-revolutionary RP in pseudo-Central European setting, the Republic of Kunland. we vote about once per day as the Kunish government (currently the KDPP, the majority). things are not going well

Hello! @deer.stream and I are running an Over/Under-like called Baseline Drift. It starts on May 29th at 11am CST until June 14th. The max player count is ~300. We would love to have you join! The Discord! discord.com/invite/j9WqG... The Rules! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

💫 Meet the guest judges for our first ever Grit System game jam! 🎲 #gamejam #itchio #gritsystem #SRD

tomorrow!! come discuss with us!!

i'm something of a 'bad boy' in the rpg scene myself

storygames (+adjacent) that I think would plug pretty well into a cataphracts campaign before: - microscope - a land once magic - for the queen - ex novo - constellations - artefact during: - the king is dead - I have the high ground - your dead friend after: - the quiet year - world ending game

Of course they are, and it's the effect of gaslighting their viewers, who flounder in self-doubts about why their home games don't have the same drama when they're ostensibly using the same rulesystems.

I enter dressed as a magician, and announce I have a new, special, twofold RPG. first, you play it as a GMless solo RPG, exploring a strange world and meeting odd NPCs. then, you run that *same world* as the GM for new players. I wave my hands, a flash of light! and I reveal my new project: B2

this episode ends with us talking about our favorite GLOG classes. here is art I made 5+ years ago of my beloved but short-lived Monkey Dad (a GLOG class), a fellow named Bill Toast. you can read the Monkey Dad class here: as-they-must.blogspot.com/2020/01/monk...

there's another episode of DEAD LETTERS out today! this one is about the GLOG, the Goblin Laws of Gaming, the biggest, weirdest, and coolest branch of the OSR. we cover blogging, 3.5, bizarro skill systems, Delta templates, and more. give it a listen! open.spotify.com/episode/60GT...

NYC TTRPG Book Club! a week from today at @boshis.place! as a followup to last time, we're reading Greg Stafford's THE PENDRAGON CAMPAIGN, the 1985 original! come discuss with us!

#OVER/UNDER obsession got so far, I'm doing a university project about it. If everyone who participated could fill out this really cool questionnaire, it'd be so amazing :)) forms.gle/h5D2motTcDcD...

if you like oddball Violence adventures you will really enjoy THE WAR ON CHILDREN

Released my first Mothership module today - Prospero's Trust, inspired by #over/under by @samsorensen.bsky.social. Shoutout to @amandalee.bsky.social and @d20plusmodifier.bsky.social for their incredible art along with all the support from fellow creators. <3 bakenshake09.itch.io/prosperos-tr...

last 4 RPGs played: - Wolves Upon the Coast - Thousand Year Old Vampire - Cataphracts - secret unannounced project

The events of a murder ballad might be a story game, but the world of a murder ballad is an OSR setting.

HEY NYC!! The day after tomorrow, 6-10 PM, is the @nyugamecenter.bsky.social's annual SHOWCASE of new student work! Over four dozen brand new games of sundry variety (see thread!) Come party & let weird little playables warp your mind! RSVP for a free ticket: www.eventbrite.com/e/nyu-game-c...

Not being featured on the hellish AI-generated TTRPG industry icons website is a humbling reminder that I have more work to do. #grindset

inspired by this and the silly hypothetical posed in the podcast, please to enjoy: silasoftrees.itch.io/stick-the-la...

extremely good website

It's "genre simulation" for "OSR as genre." Seriously: the Shadowdark/DCC/Mörk Börg games out there I've been in have all felt like "Our play is meant to impress some invisible designer audience out there, who approves of our cleverness and grit." It's meant to simulate OSR-style play & stories!

Maybe I'm crazy but every osr game I've played has been fiction first?

I've repeatedly said that the backflip example goes against the spirit of the game but it's technically RAW. You keep telling me I'm wrong, and to prove it you say that it's against the spirit of the game. I agree! I've always agreed! That's the point of the thought exercise!

anyways, listen to DEAD LETTERS open.spotify.com/show/2u0XMpF...

Welp, it took me a day or two longer than I thought it would, but I finished the post. Fair warning, it is a long one: aggregatecognizance.com/p/dead-lette...

new DEAD LETTERS episode! this week, we're discussing Leo Hunt's THE SHRIKE! we talk about spoilers in adventure writing, videogame-isms, physical space, legwork, Dark Souls, and giant swarms of skittering insects! give it a listen! open.spotify.com/episode/2Hq1...

tomorrow!! come chat with us!! 7pm at boshi's place!!

Space D&D has been done a number of times, frequently quite well. I do not mention this to criticize another swing at it - make the game you want - but rather because every time it happens, I am freshly reminded at how thoroughly sci fi has resisted singular colonization by any one game.

ttrpg raspberries: - most racist osr author award - meanest tweet award - creepiest ap streamer award - "....for 5e" award - non-specific ghibliesque award - most dice & t-shirts in KS award - longest failure to deliver KS hall of fame induction

checking out the latest zillion-dollar 5e Kickstarter from Avantris Entertainment, "Neon Odyssey"? why not read my in-depth review of their last outing, "The Crooked Moon," while you decide?

very good post! extremely insightful and actionable. if you like my "tangible tips" posts about editing, you will find lots of useful ideas here

bed-stuy is god's own country