2025 backlog (June) Final Boss Fufu

2025 MotherV3 art. The first one is from August and the last 3 are September. Noticeable improvement! (All text in the images are quotes)

2025 backlog featuring radiaactive. Online Reactor and Rise Above

More 2025 backlog, more obkatiekat.

Featuring obkatiekat

Time to start uploading the art I did in 2025 starting with Highlight #squeakart

I've been absent from here for a long time but I've been busy. With what? Learning art. @fufuvt.bsky.social

This is a fae.

I'm not kidding when I say it doesn't work.

Yeah a good GM can make a poorly designed game fun, but if you only have poorly designed games it's going to be a lot harder to produce good GMs.

"ANY #TTRPG game book can be run with total freedom and range, if the GM is good." Sure. But some books will help the GM and be useful for that, while others will set them up for failure and make it hard. This is the scenario version of "the rule isn't bad because the GM can change the rule."

Many TTRPGs should just be supplements for existing systems. Especially ones that are just reskinned D&D. In fairness, the OSR guys at least do this with making their stuff somewhat compatible with each other. It helps because it's an open system. TTRPG is better as a hobby network than industry.

I like to play good games so people can be bad DMs.

What's the bsky equivalent of "send tweet"?

Limited palette nintendo fanart from earlier this year 💘 Corrupted/Gothic versions of Rosalina and Zelda!

Imagine if overnight, we’d decided to close down every café and bar in the country because we’d heard someone had invented the Teasmade. “Quick! We must move with the times or be left behind!” That’s generative AI.

BlueSky

Huh apparently I was user #329,558 on this place.

Playing cards instead of dice makes perfect sense! TTRPG devs are already famously good at balancing their math, so why not make it more complicated while adding very little functionality? Some games actually put cards to good use, but for most it just seems to be a lower quality source of RNG.

I frequently mention the AD&D 1e Dungeon Master's Guide. There is good reason: it is a unique document. It is one of the few "complete" RPGs that exist. It is comprised of multiple game loops that feed back into each other, each loop is complete. There are no gaps. Most RPGs have massive gaps.

This is part of why skill systems need a hard reassessment.

this whole series of Reason-Why posts has moved my feelings on cypher system from indifferent ignorance to hard pass but this one specifically has a certain veiled contempt for outgroups and Wrong-Fun that makes me want to keep my distance from their player base in general

This might sound crazy but I like it when TTRPG systems have the things I want them to have so I don't have to make it myself.

Running: Cyberpunk Braunstein using GURPS. It features some psionics too. Playing: Nothing.

If you see this, repost with an image you saved just because it made you laugh

Trad RPGs skill systems need an overhaul. Success/fail + skill name should not be a foundational pillar of a system, it should sit ON foundational pillars. Instead, it sits on the GM. This keeps skill systems oversimplified because any additional mechanics is seen as adding to GM burden. (Art by me)

the story-minded ttrpg folks need to get their house in order and deal with the gatekeeping in their ranks it's one thing to want your version to be included in ttrpg spaces, it's another to posture your version as the singular endpoint of moral virtue fix your damn hearts

Running a Cyberpunk game and pitched "Play megacorp management" to some other groups, they're VERY keen to do so! I'm really looking forward to seeing what happens in the 'fog of war'.

This but unironically. My dreams just hand me worldbuilding, NPCs, factions, and more. Not really plots, but that's fine I don't write plots anyway.

Oh look it's contempt for the medium.

got blocked for criticizing someone's claim that mechanics "cheapen" a game so, you know, a typical day in online ttrpg spaces

why would you go out of your way to show this to me? why would you think this would do anything else but make my day worse?

@unboxedcereal.bsky.social I decided to glance at Reddit and found this gem that I'm sure you will just love; specifically the line: "In role playing games the tool we use to overcome the unnecessary obstacle is storytelling." The one just after it clarifies he really does mean story telling.

i've said for a while now that there's lots of folks in the ttrpg space who don't actually like ttrpgs, and i think sometimes they project that by assuming a newbie will have no motivation and thus the only way to get them to play is to *outrun their boredom* with how fast the game is to learn

same with ttrpgs some of you are scared to death of showing a newbie something that they can't memorize on a smoke break, like people haven't always been self-teaching huge games just because they sounded fun the best ttrpg for a newbie is whatever looks dope af to them, even if it's 600 pages

"a player reading the rules shouldn't feel like they're a player reading the rules" this post belongs in a museum or in a ttrpg curriculum about the weird self-loathing of people who identify as ttrpg fans while constantly pining for them to stop being games and be a "better" art form instead

This gave me a Bsky thread-game idea: Make Believe Battle, except your laser proof shields or w/e must be a feat/spell/mechanic/skill/item from a TTRPG. A great excuse to show off cool things from RPGs you like! Guidelines(?): - Avoid over-escalation - Avoid anything requiring very generous GM fiat

but rest assured, the game i recommended is definitely a roleplaying game as opposed to a "board game" (game whose most-central mechanic/interface is the board), pf2 is a "roleplaying game" (game whose most-central mechanic/interface is the imagining of a person in a situation, aka "roleplay")

You don't design for a power curve, you design for an interactivity curve Low-interactive components become more powerful when contextualized by high-interactivity, and may only seem 'boring' because you can't yet do anything interesting with them. — Durendal, 2024

"How does a generic sword fighter deal with dimensional horrors immune to physical weapons?!"

I have a collection of quotes from players about RPG design and campaigns and I will now start posting them.

my only ttrpg design related excitement in recent memory was reading the sword world 2.5 core rulebook if you've ever wondered what fantasy adventure roleplay-gaming might look like if it developed without the monolithic influence of dnd, give it a look

RPG folk: What are some modules/campaign books or whatever that don't lay out a plot, but give the components for an actual dynamic campaign? Like listing factions, their forces, their goals around some central axis of conflict?