We watched the old Interview with the Vampire, then Prime decided to auto-play the TV show as a chaser. That's a hell of a contrast. Seeing TV Lestat made it all make sense, that guy totally kills that role. I thought we were going to get some Murdoch Mysteries villain, then he speaks.. jesus.

My gosh this is entertaining, right up my alley. Insane amounts of gaming fodder. Also kind of depressing, because the stakes to those involved are rendered so well. Bracing myself for a dismal ending.

Just read that they're now making two 600 page books (!) of my favorite-favorite fantasy game of all time. We ran a gorgeous campaign of Stonetop here a couple years back and it was some of the best gaming of my life. How much of that is the game? Read my 10 part AP and decide for yourself:

Could you build a 2D computer out of the minute gravitational interaction between photons, then send it out into space to wonder why you did that to it?

Hey, East Toronto folks in need of a last-minute gift, I stumbled on a whole display of @portablecity.bsky.social treasures at 'Arts Market' on Danforth. By Crom is amazing of course, but also zines galore and these beautifully soft illustrated maps to snuggle while daydreaming about elves.

The inspiration to write a good holiday-themed adventure often arrives mere days from the holiday itself, which by my reckoning is about nine months too late given that you have to actually write it and then schedule a group to play it.

Musing on the 'back rooms' as a manifestation of the collective unconscious. When we're asleep, we're psychically alert for potential threats around us. For most of human history, we've been surrounded by wilderness, so in our dreams we prowl a night-black forest, lush and threatening. 🧵

There's a neat thing in Dark that I won't spoil, but a certain sound starts out much like mood-building for thr audience, but becomes a diegetic thing that gives a information to everyone In The Know when it happens. This is underused in RPGs! 🧵

I've gotten many hours of gaming out of this book and I've barely scratched the surface.

Watched Krull (1983) last night, and it's interesting to treat its rather odd worldbuilding as ~incompletely revealed~ rather than slapdash. There are some really interesting things about it.

I reviewed every adventure in the book back in 2020 coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2020/01/osr-... They're well worth using. And $9! An absolute steal.

I genuinely cannot suggest this book enough, I run DND for 10 to 12-year-olds at a local game store and I’ve been using these adaptable one pagers over and over again. Every word and image is evocative, and they can just as easily become a complete campaign.

this is a hell of a deal - there's so much weird/unsettling/fascinating/enwondering content in this book. if you're into osr-type stuff, vancian fancy, ultraviolet grasslands etc you'll recoup that nine bucks of value in about 15min of reading, methinks.

Trilemma Adventures Compendium is the DTRPG deal of the day! This 2x ENnie award-winning book has 55 two-page adventure sites that you can immediately drop into your fantasy setting, or use as part of the embedded campaign setting. All for a measly nine bucks?! www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/2...

Orcs have 12 hit points. Only 7 are real, but they're relentless cheats and will pretend you didn't hit them.

Someone on FB asked, 'Why didn't the Fellowship simply take a boat to Mordor'?; the first reply is that meeting Nazgul at sea would suck. That's a great image, Gandalf trying to fend them off with magic light while the fell beasts slowly rip bits off the mast.. 🧵

Remember how Obi-Wan dies? I want sabers to do that to everyone! Just imagine Jedi fighting a crowd of stormtroopers! Just bzhzh pop vwoom pop nyvvv pop and the clatter of white bits of armor everywhere, like so many piñatas.

Big missed opportunity in the third Maze Runner movie to have the protagonists do the chase/fight scenes in the med building using maze running skills. Where's all the parkour leaps from stairs and slides through closing bulkheads? Instead they're going toe to toe in shootouts like they just forgot!

Campaign idea: you're companions of a Time Lord who unexpectedly dies. Turns out all the spacetime jumps were actually at the behest of TARDIS itself, not the Time Lord, and it still has a List. Each week it yeets you all into a new calamity that a lone Time Lord could fix. Use the Paranoia™ RPG.

Musing on LOTR as a kind of cold war between the Maiar. Gandalf's need for hobbits as similar to the use of human assets, below the radar and deniable. He ~could~ have started zapping armies, but then Morgoth would have started unleashing balrogs, etc. etc.

A scene burned in my mind part of me longs to recreate in an RPG is from Day of the Triffids: holed up in an apartment, the characters spy a distant light across the darkened city. They scratch the window to mark the direction, and in the daylight they see it came from a distant building. 💙

I would never, but every time I empty my electric razor I think, hey, you could flock a Nurgle army with this as static grass. Eww

We're counterprotesting a hate rally attempting to target trans kids' healthcare. Details in the poster.

As often occurs, was looking at @evlynmoreau.bsky.social's patreon art for one thing and was inspired to grab a different piece for an entirely different thing. Swordmother, inspire us to protect our communities.

You know when a franchise dips its toe into another genre to try to add depth, and all it achieves is a cardboard backdrop for the main dish? Is there a name for that? 🧵

The bones tell me nothing!

Accidental cosplay at the optometrist. She gave me these crazy steampunk lens holders, they looked so odd I had to take a selfie. But with the mask I was already wearing, I looked like a tusken raider!

Musing on the investment that players get in a game from the pre-play prep. Miniature wargames can feel consequential and interesting when you're crossing off the last damage box on the .50 cal MG you thought would dominate, even if the game itself is mediocre. 🧵

Savoring the idea that somewhere out there is a couple that picked *Together* as their first date movie.

@robindlaws.bsky.social your segment on falling damage got me thinking about Iconic vs. Dramatic characters and how neither really describes the likely-doomed 1st level B/X PCs, members of DCC "funnels", or perhaps even the died-earlies like John Hurt in Alien or the many victims in slashers. 🧵

I'm watching Alien: Earth, and reflecting on how some "isolated eccentric" setups are really tense, others drag. 🧵

Aliens/xenomorphs get loose on Earth in vast numbers. What's the equilibrium? Do they sterilize the planet and go dormant, like in Covenant? Or (given the billions of humans) or is a pocket of people left somewhere to keep generations ticking along?

For a while I've had this idea that I could simplify Epic: Armageddon a little bit with some custom dice, but I've never tried making some. It's apparently pretty straight forward with blank dice and iron-on transfer paper. Well.. 🧵

Mayor Olivia Chow just presented Guillermo del Toro with the key to the city. Is this what Toronto really needs right now, Guillermo del Toro creeping around, unlocking things?

Nice, my best mini paint job ever! Now to varnish it until it looks like a glazed donut

When people talk about terraforming Mars, remember that there is no way to make Mars habitable that couldn't also be used to fix Earth's problems for a thousandth of the price.

Day 303: Teaching our gelatinous cube to speak using buttons has been expensive and, if I'm honest, unrewarding, but today we had the breakthrough with Glassy we've been hoping for all this time. We now think that she pushes all the buttons at once on purpose.

The truly fun civilizations skip space elevators and go straight to space ferris wheels. Huge wheel, 300km radius, eat in a lovely restaurant all the way up. (Please finish your wine before zero G hits.)

'Factory' is old fashioned, let's now call them "germinals," as in, "we are expecting a shipment from the train germinal."

I haven't been talking up my pal ‪@genesisoflegend.bsky.social ‬ 's game After The War enough. And with his crowdfunding campaign for Songfall Survivors, an ATW supplement, closing in a week it's time to rectify that. 🧵

Worth it, though!

Manic miniatures terrain-making binge once more interrupted by ~drying time~ Who wants to poke at some caustic tile grout with me to see if it's set?

Coming up on ten years since I wrote this and I have still never felt vigilant in an RPG! Have you? How did it happen? blog.trilemma.com/2015/09/wher...

Weird realization about gaming miniatures. I love them, but when I see a bunch of them in a display case there's a tinge of disgust. Weird! I've had this a long time but never really put my finger on it. I think it's unconsciously associating them with bugs!

This is what it was all in aid of, making custom bases for this pack of vampires. This is the first time I've made bases like this, so there was a whole bunch of learning.

I had a concept for a miniature base that involved me making interlocking brickwork out of sprues. I stumbled on the idea that thin strips of the PET plastic from a blister pack are perfect for getting nicely spaced mortar lines! (Apparently PET requires superglue though, not plastic cement.)

Five techniques for fighting the dead that you can use while crying

Avery Alder of 'The Quiet Year' and 'Monsterhearts' fame is back with a new game, 'Going for Broke'. www.backerkit.com/c/projects/b...

@leemadgwick.bsky.social Dying to know when I might first have seen your shipping container piece online, a very similar mental image made its way into my writing for an RPG, so have to assume I was unwittingly inspired by your work!

Stray thought that a ranger's power might be to get a peek at parts of the area's random encounter table.