Can campy, violent ninjas from an indie RPG help protect small creator rights against AI? It's certainly worth a roll of the d12. Salute to @rugosekohn.com and @liberludorum.com, makers of @ninjaborg.com and the first tabletop creators to certify their work as Human Intelligence®. More info 👇

The little thrills: Caroming through early '90s hip hop stuff on YouTube Music and stumbling across the origin of that mean, punchy vocal sample from Death in Vegas' "Dirt" It's Shanté.

Giving away some cool indie tabletop stuff I acquired from @grumpyspidergames.bsky.social, @thinkdeepplaylight.bsky.social, @long-tail-games.bsky.social and Ada Press. Ep. 110 has game descriptions and how to enter. 👇

I'm listening to "Heatwave (JiggyJoe Remix)" by Skeewiff & Pedigree Cuts. This beat is like medicine to me. What do you have on tonight?

Talked to @liberludorum.com and @rugosekohn.com about their freewheelin' NINJA BORG #ttrpg and then to @mattthr.bsky.social about the Golden Age of Fantasy Flight Games — and how his path into that Ameritrash paradise differed from mine. Link to the audio's down there 👇

Step 1: The box lands in the driveway. Feel the heft of that box. Holy moly, it’s a two-hander! Curl it every morning, for three to four days. Three sets of 10. I finally got in my first solo play of SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. #boardgames #seti #soloboardgames Episode link 👇

Found a two-page letter from 1967. A destroyer commander deemed my Dad a complete fuckup. Audio's below 👇

I held on for the whole ride, wondering if God took Kirk's vision away at age two so he could show you what sunlight on the trees looks like in a valley where a clamorous parade of the dispossessed honks and wails its suffering and joy like the culminating scene in some magical realist folk opera.

Ep. 107 includes the Ryuutama and Dwelling RPGs — and the first of my Fantasy Flight retrospective, starting with Space Hulk: Death Angel, which I still break out multiple times a year. The FF catalog set the rhythm of our Saturday nights for years. Episode link below 👇

RIP Guru

"I was her boyfriend, so it was my job to keep those copper eyes flashing with the right fuel mix. The deal was I kept her high so I could show her off. I kept me high so I wouldn’t think too much about the deal." My Dwelling solo RPG Session 6 is in the bag. Link below. Has sex and drug content.

Learning about Ryuutama with @liberludorum.com turned out to be the pastoral intermission I needed from the world. For 19 minutes, we talked about the rascally adventures bards can have in the Japanese countryside. Link to interview's down there 👇 #ryuutamarpg #indiettrpg #podcast

Had the pleasure of talking trick-taking with the brilliant and generous Josh Buergel about The Fox in the Forest and the candlelit game of Knockout Whist with his kids that got him thinking about his next design. Also, he holds forth on DJ Q-Bert to great effect. 👇Hear our talk with link below

All three of these stacks went into my neighbor JoJo's car last night. I'm putting my house on the market and these can't come along. Do you have memories or stories of any of these titles? Put them in the comments, I'd love to hear yours. (Complete list with link below) 👇

In Wyoming, my man Fritz played his first-ever game of Final Girl (Killer from Tomorrow). The same weekend, I got my Madness in the Dark movie back out. I interviewed him before and after our games. Hear our talk with link in comments 👇 #FinalGirl #Podcast #SoloBoardGame

Let's say you've got a Thanksgiving-week email campaign going out for a pretty good-size CPG. Here's how you message and segment that: SUBJECT LINE: hows it goin BODY: im drunk as hell LISTS: All

Congrats to @notinventedhere.bsky.social for generating the winning name — The Icebox — for @skrrtvonnegut.bsky.social's cocktail. You're getting some neat stuff in the mail. Recipe and official announcement — including a few clever runners-up who made it a tough call — with link in comments 👇

I interviewed @liberludorum.com about the grisly near future of Lichoma, the visual triumph of the artifact itself, and what you can expect as a resident of The Wen. #ttrpg #dystopia #interview #tabletop Listen to Walt talk this thing with me👇

When somebody supports the show, sometimes a gem will pop up outta that '80s comics box. Bet you can guess which one this donor picked. #comicbooks #giveaway #podcast #boardgames

Excited to once again be working with @printinkling.bsky.social on developing a boffo new wearable for Breakup Gaming Society. It won't be for sale, but it will be part of the — if I may say so — inspired small gift package I send to people who follow through on the Donate page. Stay tuned.

Your stocking stuffer and problem is solved. Give Midnight Market a look and shop some small game makers.

Started a living post at Breakup Gaming Society where capsules and links for all my #indie #ttrpg interviews with @liberludorum.com will live. Episode 104, dropping in six days, will feature a chat about the soul-flensing and stunning Lichoma.

I'd never seen anything like Cave Evil when it hit my radar in 2011. An utter commitment by three friends who simply had to design the dungeon wargame they wanted to play. I interviewed co-designer and fellow Coloradan Nate Hayden about the decision to reprint it in 2024. Interview's down there 👇

"Once your eyes map a face in the night boughs, you’ll start searching it out whether you want to see it or not; mine is a giant or golem with a steam shovel jaw." - From Session 5 of my ongoing work with Dwelling, a solo RPG for ghosts from @goodluckpress.co Listen or read: link in comments 👇

Alula, a hidden land that reveals itself to travelers in the Faraway card game, is coming to grips with an influx of wiry fintech people in Mercedes-Benz sprinter vans, bringing with them what might be the modern analog to blankets infected with smallpox: podcasts. I reviewed 8 of them 👇

My man @skrrtvonnegut.bsky.social puts his homemade plum liqueur over an ice cube 1:1 with rye or blended whiskey and a preserved cherry garnish. Help name this cocktail. Submit your name ideas in the comments. At end of Nov. Skrrt and I pick a winner, who gets some Breakup Gaming Society swag.

I wrote down some of my favorite sentences from J.G. Ballard's debut novel, The Drowned World (1962). Hit the link below if you want to hear me read my Drowned World simile collection (and hear plot spoilers) 👇 #sciencefiction #jgballard

Use a maqui's most powerful action and they may end up tied to a chair somewhere, coughing up teeth and secrets. I contend with the evocative mechanical dilemma at the heart of Resist! from @saltandpeppergames.bsky.social in Episode 101 of Breakup Gaming Society. 👇Listen with link in comments

Well... this is what I get for devoting my energy to a dying industry. My department has been made redundant and I'm out of a job. If you know anybody who's looking for an emotionally dysfunctional super-genius, tell 'em you know a guy.

Coming up in just a few days: Episode 101, featuring my first plays of Resist! from @saltandpeppergames.bsky.social and a retrospective of David Thompson designs that conquered my table this year. #cardgames #podcast #soloboardgames #wargames

"I have some of the ingredients and none of the touch. But those wouldn’t be enough, either. I don’t have the infrastructure: The bower of Saturdays and people who would just appear in them, or me in theirs, while I was mistaken for sweet and bankable."

Episode 100 features: • Review of the brisk and charming Fireworks 2p card game from @thinkdeepplaylight.bsky.social • Interview with @liberludorum.com about two wild #indie #ttrpgs from @sandroad.moe: Burnout Reaper and Digital Angel Hear it all with link in comments 👇

Got a touch of orange and a fistful of ice for my second sit with Kansas City Whiskey. Jumped into the recording room with @liberludorum.com and talked two TTRPGs that were too wild for the wusses at Itch.io — Burnout Reaper and Digital Angel. Hit the link in comments to hear our chat 👇

A very happy one to @whovian223.bsky.social: Voracious player, voluminous blogger, con junkie and all-around swell pal and fun opponent. Cheers, brother. 🫡

Now that a solitaire wargame (Thunderbolt Apache Leader) has claimed #1 on my favorites list, these kinds of posts are catnip.

Outmatched Commonwealth forces in Malaya about to get bulldozed off the Eastern Road by an overwhelming Japanese push in Battle Card from @postmarkgames.bsky.social Link's down there if you want to hear me talk this one up 👇 #ww2 #sologames #printandplay #boardgames

A great listen all round www.breakupgamingsociety.com/episodes/bat...

When I saw @zillablitz.bsky.social mention the new Combat Commander anniversary box, I should have known @whovian223.bsky.social was already on it. Anyway, here's a big roundup of upcoming wargames from one of the nicest guys in the hex-and-counter ecosystem:

Check it out @printinkling.bsky.social, one of your frogs hopped the pond and now adorns the laptop of James from the War with a Mate podcast. James and Andy let me be on their show because of Defiant Frog's unyielding diplomatic stance.

Pyrotechnics from @thinkdeepplaylight.bsky.social leads off a small-creator parade of things I'm going to play this fall, also including work from @bullypulpithq.bsky.social @postmarkgames.bsky.social @bogfolk.com and @partymeeple.bsky.social down in Perth. Peep the preview. Link in comments. 👇

My big bro @partymeeple.bsky.social sent me a pic from his workshop, where he's brutalizing the card corners off of his PnP submarine game, Dive Dive Dive, before he sends it to me. What a guy.

Tipped some remote Palomas with @liberludorum.com and talked the Lichoma TTRPG from @bogfolk.com. The drinks must have worked, because I bungled the audio. Except for Track of the Week: "Murder by Contract" by Depth Charge, coming up in the next Breakup Gaming Society episode.

TIL my new Florida pal and Ep. 96 guest, @liberludorum.com, founded a Mörk Borg content and resource directory. I have never played a Mörk Borg title — or almost any indie TTRPG for that matter — but I recognize the passion and diligence. Check the product. morkborg.exlibrisrpg.com#content

I finally get @hollandspiele.bsky.social's Sykes-Picot: The Secret Treaty to Partition the Ottoman Empire on my table. And a beer-fueled screed off my chest. Plus, a Masta Killa track. It all works, trust me. Ep. 97 link in comments if you'd like to check it out 👇

I love watching the evolution of @printinkling.bsky.social's Potion Hero character. I've seen PH on the beach, wishing it was a kaiju and more, but I missed this one:

As advertised, @cube4me.bsky.social's tray counters neatly hold all the pieces for Squad Leader, which I finally punched and sorted after 40 years. Nice job, @thebrdgmschronicle.bsky.social and team! If you have a favorite wargame, they've prolly got a tray for it. #hexandcounter #wargames

"I peer at a noise: There’s a soft sizzle coming from the table. It’s the slaw, the pepper slaw is collapsing and rotting. I can hear it fall by sections." Read or hear Dwelling Solo RPG Session 3: The Honey-Chili Heart with link in comments 👇 #indiettrpg #journaling @goodluckpress.co

While I don't know the Combat Commander system, I do enjoy @whovian223.bsky.social's meticulous blow-by-blow accounts of his battles. Since I'm learning Squad Leader with @partymeeple.bsky.social, the narrow scrapes and wild mishaps all ring true. #HexAndCounter #wargames

Episode 96 is live, featuring an interview with @liberludorum.com about the Carolina Death Crawl RPG from @bullypulpithq.bsky.social. If you've never met Walt or heard about this game, you should do both with link to episode in comments 👇 #indie #ttrpg #civilwar

Tried a thing. My variant as pictured. Walt of @liberludorum.com went with Haku Vodka and Florida Avenue Brewing's Big Boy Blue as his booze pillars. We drank and he told me about @bullypulpithq.bsky.social's Carolina Death Crawl. This and more in the next Breakup Gaming Society episode.