hi everyone!! i'm gonna be at gencon this year! please let me know if you want to schedule a meeting to chat about anything, from stretch goals and consultation to news and journalism to uhh idk? art? theory? the beauty of creation?
i unfortunately think "it's not my job to educate you" , as a phrase, has done tremendous harm to leftwing communities and communication and we all gotta put in doubletime to recover from the harm its caused
queer creators cannot "bury their gays" and i'm on my knees weeping pleading sobbing for my fellow gay people to stop getting weird about stories that involve death
cities skylines is also a game that, despite an insane level of practical detail, completely refuses to model homelessness in any form, and treats every person as being fundamentally tied to a house
cowardly move: you simulated capitalism too closely, and the results got in the way of the intended experience of building a functioning capitalist utopia, so you revert back to faking it in order to dissimulate the contradictions inherent in the system and rescue the fantasy
players: wow the GM is spending so much time describing this room, im sure theres something evil in here
the GM lost in the sauce, extremely hyped to explain what medieval architectural style the columns are:
sorry but there no such thing as "just google it" anymore and if you dont do the work of explaining what you mean, a thousand evil people and/or robotd will gleefully do that work for you
if youre going to write a game about norse mythology, you must be very careful to make your politics clear. there are incredibly dangerous and monstrous people who use norse mythology as an ideological framework to justify their racism and nazism (THREAD)
wow this person seems to be having a ton of fun playing Dungeons & Dragons, i would love to get ahold of whatever book they've got in their hands that's so much fun (presumably its Dungeons & Dragons)
every gay friend group has one of the following: a necromancer, an overworked priest, a dude with giant muscles, a mariner, a giant monster, a mentally ill librarian, and a sleepy boy who wants to kill god
humans did not evolve to get more than like 20 likes on a post. a single viral tweet contains more likes & retweets than a medieval peasant would have gotten in their entire life. it just isnt natural
it sucks that marginalized people gotta be the voices of our own oppression and also that sealioning exists and fucking sucks but it is still our moral duty to help each other through the confusing mist of this dying world together
also i'm a leftist lol i know my political beliefs are fringe for mainstream social conversation , if i want to build the better world i believe in then it is very explicitly my job to educate and challenge hegemonic thinking
Wanderhome is live on Kickstarter now! A pastoral fantasy RPG about a group of traveling animal-folk! The game you've all been waiting for! You are truly not ready for it!
"pronoun rituals" isis the new rightwing buzzword for "asking people to respect my pronouns" and i think its fucking awesome. pronoun rituals, pronoun incantations, pronoun wizardry of the highest gendertomes
(its worth noting i'm only talking about the first cities skylines , the second one does simulate homelessness β which tbh makes the decision to remove landlords even more glaring)
Hey just a pro-tip to my (wonderful, lovely, I'm sure) cishet followers - don't do this. Just, don't fucking do this. Not on Twitter, not in email, and certainly not in Kickstarter DMs.
my doctor finally got back to me on whats wrong with my body
"its all cheddar biscuits in there" she nearly sobbed into the phone. "like from red lobster"
isnt it really weird that we've invented the "proper" way to apologize, created a bunch of arbitrary and specific rules around what that looks like, and act like any other form of apology betrays malicious intent
somewhat recently i went on a tinder date and they were like "yeah i design games, im working on a tabletop game" and i was like "haha neat i write those too!" and he was like "oh okay well anywayβ" and then spent the next 30 minutes telling me about his d&d clone
in short, this AI art piece is disquieting not merely because of its AI-ness, but rather because the art itself is built on an orientalist symbolic language (which is arguably a flaw of a database built on 19th-century paintings)
in the orientalist style, they would frequently mix and combine many different styles of levant and egyptian architecture and culture without regards for what it meant or where it came from, just like how AI art will recombine meaning without its context
unfortunately, lion king 1 1/2 (where we learn what timon and pumba are doing during the lion king) is just Kidz Bop Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
"starting a project" and "finishing a project" are completely separate skills, and i find that if u find it easy to start but hard to finish creative works, its because uve spent a lot of time exercising one muscle and letting the other muscle languish
post-postscript: i am extremely cautious to moralize about a medium, and im not interested in sitting here and saying "AI art is bad." i am much more interested in saying, "if this is art, what do we see? what happens when we look at it as art?"
dont stand quietly by while nazis and the alt-right slip into your communities. you gotta tell them to fuck off, and if youre going to write about stuff that has been a fascination for them in the past you gotta be VERY clear where your politics stand
In The Time of Monsters is my norse apocalyptic tactical combat ttrpg inspired by lancer, d&d 4th edition, and books of ancient myth! play as god-thieves, witches, elven exiles, seers, and kickass valkyries in this new rpg
things the internet has taught me are morally wrong (but only when trans women do them):
β writing exploratory science fiction
β telling a story about someone committing a crime
β drawing the act of shoplifting
β having nuanced opinions
β beings friends of a friend of a fr
im talking about this because i released a game about norse mythology, and varg specifically has used his own version of norse mythology to justify his white supremacy, misogyny, and queerphobia. i want to make it clear that people who stand by him have no place in my spaces
nazis frequently get away with their evil by using center-right white people as respectability shields. his evil is dismissed as "speaking the truth" and his critics are "the woke police"
dude, he killed someone
traveling back in time to 2003 to try and explain twitter to a forum mod
"okay get this, its like a forum but everyone on earth is on it, trolls are unbannable unless they break a real-life law, and you have to pay extra to edit your posts"
the piece utilizes details and color in a similar way to the 19th century orientalist style as described by Edward Said, that is to say, the imaginary of intricate geometrical detail and color which is designed to invoke foreignness
it uses detail to dazzle us without meaning
postscript: i think "awe" and "dread" are common AI art emotions to depict because we have a large cultural repository for showing those sensations without facial expressions or detailed emotion, in part bc british people are really uptight βΒ AI art struggles with "grief"
also to be clear, the people actually doing this play lab seem really cool and im really appreciative that theyre doing stuf with so many great indie games (including wanderhome!), its just a shame that the article chose to focus so hard on one of these games
every alt-right TTRPG dude ever is like:
my name is SKARGO the WIZENED. my profile picture is THREE SKULLS and i make VIDEOS where i WHEEZE in front of a GREENSCREEN while SHIRTLESS. my last writing credit was TEN YEARS AGO. i hate POLITICS and TRANS PEOPLE
YAZEBA'S BED & BREAKFAST is finally live! come join us on a spectacular adventure with a crew of charming misfits finding community in a magical Bed & Breakfast
at first i dismissed him as another fringe asshole (and normally i dont make posts like this), but i saw "legitimate" ttrpg accounts laundering his white supremacy as "wisdom" among actual respectable designers. *this is a tactic*
right now in ttrpgs one such motherfucker is rearing his ugly head in our space. a literal nazi murderer
@WargarW
(with a wikipedia page that reads like a parody of an asshole) is gaining ground
in my recent article i make an argument about the writing style of dungeons & dragons and how it warps your gamewriting to fit a particular mode of communication
i realized this in a conversation with a friend and thought it was potentially very illuminating so i thought i would share this analysis! please know this isnt formal and is rather off the cuff, so view it like the sketch of an argument rather than the claim itself
my mom knew i was queer before i did .... i came out to her when i was 13 and she was like "duh, youre a gemini. all geminis are bisexual" and that was the end of the conversation
i wanna make sure everyone clicking on the TTRPG trending topic knows about how fucking neat wanderhome is, its an art-filled pastoral fantasy game about traveling animal folk, and it feels like kiki's delivery service meets animal crossing<3
this piece is about a figure attending a theater where a "foreign" & exoticized world is displayed in miniature for her sublime awe, to turn meaning into shapes and dreams for her to gasp at without ever comprehending, because it's an opera of spatiality
there's no reason to mystify homestuck, stop doing the marketing work of a decades-old webcomic
its plot is not incomprehensible, its themes are not unheard of, its not impossible to explain or talk about without a flurry of reactions, its just another piece of media
is your favorite part of playing dungeons & dragons when you go an entire session without rolling any dice? then you might LOVE Wanderhome, a pastoral fantasy game that lets you delve deep into roleplay and relationships
tabletop RPGs are not uniquely or exceptionally "storytelling games" (although storytelling can occur during them, and we can tell stories about what happened) and by focusing on storytelling we miss out on a bunch of other important aspects of game design
the title of the piece (needlessly and pretentiously French for "Space Opera Theater") gives us a clue, as does the aesthetic of the piece, the faded markets and the vaguely-geometric swirling tiles overhead. which is to say, it's drawing on the french orientalist tradition
had someone email me asking for a refund because of all the gay content in wanderhome which means its not family friendly which is very .... sorry ma'am but everyones gay now
@cptpugsy
it actually comes out of a way to dodge morality / censorship laws (youre allowed to depict a gay character but they cant have a happy ending) but now it's being used as an excuse to call queer creators slurs
the immediate comparison i'm drawn to is the sublime, specifically the composition of The Wanderer Above A Sea Of Fog βΒ this is useful since AI cannot articulate human emotions, and it thematically supports the sense of awe throughout the piece
but where is her awe directed?
also i am reluctantly to self promote because i view this post as a social good first and foremost but if u want to read a game by someone trying their best to make an anti-nazi norse myth combat game, u can check out my work here:
In The Time of Monsters is my norse apocalyptic tactical combat ttrpg inspired by lancer, d&d 4th edition, and books of ancient myth! play as god-thieves, witches, elven exiles, seers, and kickass valkyries in this new rpg
gods are similar to goldfish β they grow to fit the size of their enclosure. some gods are cozy in snuffboxes and reliquaries, while others stroll among the clouds or writhe like mycelium roots in the deepest tectonic caves
i love everyone who has said the two games theyve played are d&d and wanderhome. that's like saying your favorite two favorite burger places are mcdonald's and a bavarian shepherd's tavern
wanderhome, a pastoral fantasy ttrpg about traveling animal-folk and the world they journey through, is now available at your local game store! the full book (both softcover and hardcover) is available for you to hold in your hands
Wanderhome is on its way! A gentle pastoral fantasy TTRPG about a group of traveling animal folk exploring a beautiful healing world through the seasons. It's one of the most anticipated RPGs of 2021, and you can still preorder it!
it's finally time for us to reveal the cover for YAZEBA'S BED & BREAKFAST, a slice-of-life TTRPG about a magical home and the adventures its found family get up to!
can u spot all 17 playable characters on the front cover?
SFWA would like to congratulate our 2021 Nebula Award Finalists! The awards will be presented on May 21st, 2022 online aboard the SFWA Airship! Please see the list here:
while there's all this talk about nonviolent RPGs set in fantasy worlds, i wanna take a moment and promo my darling game wanderhome! it's a magical gorgeous TTRPG about traveling animal-folk in a pastoral post-war world
the painting depicts a figure in white robes staring at an orb in front of her. the orb, buffeted by the architecture of the room, contains a city within it. a figure in red robes stands off to her side. around her are more figures, shrouded in darkness and digital noise
sometimes the door is just a door and im just very excited to explain the differences between romanesque and gothic and the artistic choices of the doors decoration
I was stunned by what i found; an anti-crypto stance, anti-fraud protections, commitments to green tech and creators β¦ a BIG change from how the old rumors describe Indiegogo
i'm super excited to announce that Possum Creek Games is partnering with One More Multiverse to create the OMM Digital Edition of Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast !
aaaalright this post is starting to attract freaks, im gonna mute it and turn off replies but do consider giving me a follow and supporting queer designers / designers of color / other marginalized folks writing cool games
okay its been fun, but i got sick of people assuming weird things about me and my experiences. muting now! have a good time everyone and be nice to each other
this is 1000% a zoomer vs. millennial divide , and i suspect its based on whether you think of /π/ as the auto-corrected form of / :) / or as a lesser / dissociated form of / π / β specifically i would wager there was a lexical shift that happened as more emojis got added
@ChelseaParlett
I polled my undergrad students and only one person said that this emoji meant happy. Some of the "other" responses were a "strained smile," "smiling but actually in pain," and sarcastic. I had NO idea!
This shit is why queer designers & designers of color get fucking trapped on Itch instead of breaking into larger markets. This is why only the most sanitized, generic, subtextual versions of our stories make it big. It's coward shit and I'm sick of being the nice queer about it.
I have a joke about indie RPGs but β oh? What's a joke? Umm, it's like a Knock Knock but more indie, without β yeah it's actually way funnier, I think you'd really β oh your friend group only tells Knock Knocks?
about a month ago, Kickstarter betrayed indie creators. They announced blockchain integration, and in doing so burned multiple decades of goodwill and fucked over a lot of people
(i talk more about the pressures facing indie creators in this podcast)
being very confused about the recent
#Kickstarter
announcement to move their service to the blockchain I asked
@jdragsky
to help make me less confused. I think they did a great job.
#crowdfunding
I hope this help you as well.
to clarify this person also like ... explained what ttrpgs are, so they clearly just were not listening to me and unaware that i professionally make the stuff they thought they were an expert on
the DSM and the D&D core rulebooks are uncannily similar β theyre both useless, kinda racist too-large texts in their 5th edition that everyone treats like monster manuals and have little to no relevance on my daily life
every day the eagles arrive to give prometheus top surgery, but over the course of the day his big naturals regenerate, just in time for the eagles to cut into him once more