I kinda wonder how much historical mysticism was just this kind of bad media analysis but with religion rather than genre films.

This is certainly the appeal of crunchy tactics, but I do like how pbta and similar games put their 'oh shit!' moments in other places, like the mystery solving mechanics in Brindlewood Bay.

My favourite TTRPG Classes: 1. Confidence is a super power 2. Don't know what I'm doing but I'm doing it hard 3. Damn it! I'm a doctor not a... 4. Distressingly competent idiot 5. Giant Sword

There's no "study," this is based on a crank manifesto with only four footnotes written by a bunch of health grifters. Why is the Guardian covering this like it has any academic credibility?

Cool that it's being used for research but with that budget, he could have commissioned 10 or more regular research ships.

I think there's more ways to be satirical than green looney tunes

TBF Brennan Lee Mulligan hasn't been shy that his style with most D20 seasons is railroading with extra steps.

This is a great thread and it has me thinking of how often people fall into 'one true way-ism' when talking about the ways they dislike PBTA. Like it's obviously not gonna be everyone's cup of tea, but I've always found good PbtA games to have this core of thoughtfulness that's always worth

... they lose track of both history and specificity. Particularly when they start pulling clips from media outside that stated slate, which is 1) cheating and 2) further evidence of a half-assed C+ grade of an essay.

To be more specific, the rest of the thesis–which, I broadly agree with–is that the dramatization of guilt and shame is subject to double standards in stories about men vs. stories about women. But by tying it to a slate of films (and one game) with only superficial connections to one another...

I need to get this bit off my chest, particularly- ... the thesis of this essay hinged on the YouTuber observing a "micro-trend" in what they'd deemed as "All My Fault Horror." Not only is this... not a real thing... ... guilt has been a foundational building block of the genre since Walpole.

There's poetic irony to the bsky devs making a protocol where likes are public and there are no private accounts, and now the Aaron has created his own personal samsara where he constantly bans people bringing up his public like of barely legal porn on main, Streisand Effecting it into immortality.

Like, I get given the environment why people get defensive about media they love but I don't understanding this reasoning where it's legitimate to not like Mass Effect for its gunplay but a sign of poor chaarcter to find the "genocide is a land of contrasts" aspects of its narrative offputting.

One thing I'll say about the Mass Effect discourse is that even if you don't think it doesn't have flashy elements, it doesn't really have anything anti-fascist about it

A thing that really annoys me in TTRPG discourses is when people veil discussions about preferred playstyles with obtuse incredulity. Like I do not believe that after all this time, these people don't understand what Fiction First gameplay is obviously gesturing at. They just don't want to admit

The CEO of the studio making Lords of Fallen 2 (Dark Soulless) everyone. The same guy who guzzles Grummz’s chode and panders to chud gamers every time he posts. Don’t buy this shithead’s game.

i use the phrase "taxonomically anxious persons" to refer to people who are so concerned w/ whether or not something conforms to *their* understanding of a word or phrase it uses to describe itself, that they mistake any disconnects for a Mistake, Error, or Poor Quality. this shit drives me crazy.

On a semi-related note, I think I'm kinda over emulation as anything more than a vibe check in RPGs. I don't care if BitD succeeds or fails in evoking Oceans 11 or Leverage, I enjoy playing it as a game. Same thing with seeing posts being like here's how you make "insert anime character" in D&D.

Reading this piece and thinking about some reactions to yesterday's Quinn's Quest video and I think there's kind of a sharp divide between people who evaluate games on their own merits and those who who can't see beyond very prescriptive categories and frameworks.

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...

Hokum good

Something that the swinginess of the d20 does, particularly in tactical combat games, that I don't see discussed all that much is that more often than the alternative, it saves players from their bad decisions.

For @typebarmagazine.bsky.social, I wrote about how trying to play nice with the modern concept of "fandom" is ruining the greatest card game that's ever existed www.typebarmagazine.com/the-fandom-s...

(One of) the most heartening findings in the HCC survey is that despite the best efforts of both fringe and mainstream media outlets, imported AstroTERF pressure groups, & a barrage of online trolls, the Irish public’s support for trans people’s human rights has actually grown in the last 2 years.

It's kinda interesting how even when there are people who think the act of smoking is cool, we can all agree that talking about how cool it is is the cringest shit ever.

On the whole trans people working at defense contractors discourse, it's true that working there is a massive, inexcusable moral failing, but also it's worse for cis people to do it as they have way more options available to them and still chose this.

Gonna take a wild guess and say that this was originally Omegaverse adjacent

If you start shitting avocados, you might just be a giant ground sloth

So the thing is that Fisher picked Brand because he was the most defensible misogynist he could think of.

I think the last decade, between the acquisition of twitter, this shit, and the collapse of the US goverment, can be characterized by this reminder that no actually you shouldn't run anything like a renegade who doesn't give a shit and in fact things like empathy and tact are vital for an operation

If they don't start this way they generally end like this if they're not deposed beforehand

"We want to discuss controversial ideas" Like... rewilding? Prison abolition? Worker co-operatives? Direct democracy? Proportional representation? Hybrid economies? New educational paradigms? Indigenous land sovereignty? "No, just race science"

A lot of people talk about how popular APs have impacted the way a lot of new players approach ttrpgs, but I wonder about the role CRPGs have played. In many respects you don't have Critical Role's style and tone without Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment.

Every single person who says "Ireland for the Irish" adds a silent invisible asterisk that leads to a footnote that says "Except Irish travellers"

The level of racist and misogynist abuse currently being levelled at Eileen Flynn online is horrendous

Oddly enough, I'd say Homelander is a more accurate fascist in Season 5, but they've basically Flanderised his character to get there. Interesting conceptually but definitely makes for a pretty weak season so far.

Fascinating that she has the exact same mindset of the redditors she derides, just offset by a few generations.

Bluesky is amazing because they’ll see someone who hasn’t had a good time since 1996 and think “damn I wish I was her”

This is like, most adventure fantasy since at least the 90s.

I'd love to see some statistics on which tabletop RPG has the highest "mechanical complexity in character creation" to "(lack of) engagement with the outputs of those character creation mechanics in actual play" ratio. I refuse to believe Dungeons & Dragons is even close to the worst in this regard.

TTRPG about me First game: Fate Last game: Pathfinder 2e & BitD Longest game: Exalted Vs WoD Favorite game: Public Access Favorite mechanics: BitD Favorite setting: Brinkwood Favorite art: ICON

This whole Palestinian scam account shit has been a boon to the absolute worst people on here (i.e. Zionists) and some more well meaning people jumping to the absolute worst conclusions amidst it. I'm just gonna stay away from this because people refuse to treat it with the nuance it needs.

Heroforge minis are fine, but I hate how prominently people use their renders for character portraits in ttrpgs and APs. It makes them all look so samey and cheap.

Facing a hard reality here.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt1A... Fantasy is filled with cockney orcs, but consider the possibilty of Masshole Orcs.

The only way to durably protect hauliers - and the economy - against fossil fuel shocks is to support them to electrify trucks. Sales of electric trucks in China outsold diesel trucks last December. So far this year, only one electric HVG was newly registered in Ireland. #fuelprotests #speirgorm

I think sports also bring up an important counterpoint that how pro-social or antisocial a game is has more to do with the surrounding cultural context. Sportsmanship is a value that's taught to people irrespective of the game being played and a sporting community that values it will have less

Don't taco Tuesday this shit. Millions of people spent the day wondering if they would get vaporized, and no one in our government stood up to him. Nothing cutesy about it.

Apartments should never be built on a mass grave. The scale of suffering at Bessborough cannot be ignored or erased. Survivors and families still deserve truth, dignity and justice. You cannot build over unmarked graves and call it progress.