#BONUS EXPERIENCE

[bonusexperience]

*taps mic*

Is this thing on? Hello?

We’re back, blowing the dust off this old account since Twitter has become (more) of a trash fire. We’ll be putting all our episodes here, as we work on getting them onto YouTube.

In the meantime, enjoy the first episode of our current season.

Welcome to Season Six! Rai is retiring from permanent co-host duty so you're all stuck with me (Monica) and a rotating door of our friends. Fear not, Rai will still join us from time to time. And don't worry - we remain two queer people speaking with authority about games, and we absolutely will still swear (die mad about it). In today's episode D and Monica sit down to really get into the ins and outs of designing good resource management games. We talk about what you need to consider as a designer and break down how you can avoid common pitfalls. We also cite a handful of excellent games you can try that use their resources extremely well.

 In the Extended Cut:

Starting the work day, weird dreams, and a good sandwich

Behind the scenes of Scion 2e

The mysteries of PEMDAS

More fun rules from The Other Side

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

not "i ship these characters" or "i want them to bond platonically" but a secret 3rd thing (I want them to be forced to interact by the Narrative bc they would HATE that)

[mfshipbracket]

[dragondawdles]

did a piece in the LU server's gift exchange ! something of survival and reunions and smug little shadowguys

[duodipersponsh]

broke: chekov's accent in star trek: tos is so horribly exaggerated it's not even funny, besides, it doesn't make sense that he would keep such a strong and unchanging accent after months spent on enterprise

woke: chekov is absolutely capable of speaking perfect english. however, he only does that when somebody manages to pronounce his name correctly

[sunderwight]

SV scenario where Shen Jiu is also Shen Yuan's Meimei.

Trans egg SJ never got to examine her gender identity very much in her first life. What with all the enslavement, abuse (given as well as received), misunderstandings, betrayals, dismemberment, and death, there was far too much for her to ever come to terms with a set of concepts she'd never really had the luxury to entertain. By the time Shen Jiu was a peak lord, the Shen Qingqiu persona was locked in, and any dreams of a different life or inclinations to the contrary of her role were ruthlessly quashed by SJ herself.

But when SJ finally dies and her soul is free to reincarnate (taking a few more memories than usual along for the ride), she has mixed feelings about being born as the youngest daughter of a wealthy family.

The mixed feelings don't actually last long, though after a while she starts to wonder why the fates would grant her a reprieve? Maybe remembering her past life is her punishment, because it's certainly the worst part of her new situation. Her parents are indulgent, her older brothers all dote on her and spoil her, and when she tests limits she's only gently rebuked if she gets rebuked at all. Not only is she allowed to wear fine dresses and look pretty, she's expected to (actually the expectation does chafe, a bit). But even when she uses foul language, skips classes, reads controversial books, and commits myriad other tiny rebellions, no real retribution ever comes of it.

Even despite everything, after some years Shen Jiu starts to become... not complacent, but perhaps calmer would be a better description. She has a stable future handed to her on a silver platter. Very few things remind her of her past, either. She can read books about snotty highborn lords getting railed by werewolves as readily as classics of literature or academic papers on science, business, culture, politics, or whatever else takes her fancy. Her family doesn't even put demands on her to marry, despite some of her mother's hints in that direction. For the first time, Shen Jiu has a life where it seems like she can't fail, she can only succeed however much she wants to. It's like having nowhere to go but up, except without the part about hitting rock bottom.

A foolish set of assumptions, in the end. There's always something to lose.

When Shen Yuan suddenly dies, Shen Jiu recognizes the sinister hand of the same entity which oversaw her own reincarnation. One which had visited her dreams quite recently, trying to tempt her back to her first life with offers of being able to change the past. It wasn't even difficult to deny it. Shen Jiu doesn't believe she could change what happened, and she doesn't really want to try. Her one regret is what happened to that person, the one who died so horribly while rushing to her rescue, and even that, she doesn't know how she would change (because she still doesn't know why he bothered in the first place).

But how dare the System God take the silliest and softest of her brothers to try and fix her accursed first life?! Luo Binghe will eat him alive! Cang Qiong will mistake him for a demon or a madman or worse, and throw him into some cell somewhere, if they don't just kill him outright!

Shen Meimei tries to negotiate with the System, but it tells her the window of opportunity for her to go back instead has passed. Smarmy piece of shit. There's nothing she can do without supernatural help, however, except bide her time and wait for another "window of opportunity". It's in the midst of this that she discovers PIDW, and its (terrible) account not only of the broad strokes of her first life and death, but of what came afterwards. That little beast really wrecked the world, huh? And all those women, too. She's never been more grateful to have not figured herself out in her first life. But at least with access to this information, she can try and prepare more. (She's suspicious of who actually wrote this account as well -- is Luo Binghe himself in this world? Better to leave it now, in that case, before he inevitably makes another bid for power and destroys everything in his wake all over again!)

When the System finally gives her an opportunity to go back (as herself, or rather "Bonus Epilogue Side Character -- Shen Qingqiu's Mysterious Little Sister!") she is braced for any number of outcomes. Shen Yuan could be dead. He could be imprisoned. He could have had his limbs all cut off. He could be stuffed into a pickle jar. He could be hiding or on the run somewhere. Hopefully, he'll be hiding behind that person, confused and distraught but still intact thanks to the sect leader's guilt-driven sense of obligation. Most likely if the same number of years have passed since Shen Yuan "left", he's already been destroyed by Luo Binghe and all Shen Jiu will be able to do is avenge him. But she has some ideas of how to kill the beast, so, she will.

Of course, what she finds is nothing she expected, and almost even worse.

Luo Binghe married her brother?!

Death is too good for him! Shen Jiu's going to skin him alive!!!

[bonus-links]

RUINS, pt. 13

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[daily-dubois]

Day 6

[kugisakiss]

a one man performance

[theswedishpajas]

Gay thoughts

[bonusexperience]

Hello Bonus Babies,

Today Monica invites her friend, Jacqueline Bryk, to join her and discuss something she considers a blank spot in her traditional game literacy: LARP. We discuss what makes a LARP, and general LARP design principles as Jax gives a detailed 101 crash course. We also kick around designing our own together, for a bit. Also discussed in the extended cut (https://www.patreon.com/posts/80223748):

- Jax at MAGFest and Monica's day job

- the implications of torture in games and the meddlesome Victorians

- headcanons for the Scarlet Empress and the Ebon Dragon

 - online RPG discourse

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

idk how other people define peak comedy, but for me it's visiting someone else's home and noticing a faint-but-distinguishable cat paw print on the ceiling. Events have Occurred here

[whumpwonders]

been thinking about whumpee & music

Whumpee was raised in a lab as a human experiment. All their life they knew nothing but sterile rooms, needles, and beeping machines. A cold, clinical setting where the only proof of life was the monitors displaying their heart rate.

Imagine Whumpee's confusion at the world they find after being rescued by Caretaker & the team. There's colour, new sounds, fresh air. Mundane things spark an insatiable fascination and curiosity in Whumpee, but they were conditioned in the lab not to do anything without instruction so they feel like they can't explore. Their interests are such normal things that Caretaker doesn't even think to tell Whumpee they can have look at them because to Caretaker it doesn't feel necessary.

Kitchen appliances, armchairs, fairy lights, colourful flowers in the garden. But what fascinates Whumpee most is music. They've never heard it before. Why would they have? The lab was restricted to the noise of surgery and science.

They love the melodies, the new sounds, and the variety. But Caretaker rarely plays anything on the speakers, often using headphones instead because they don't want to accidentally disturb Whumpee. Whumpee thinks about the headphones for hours and hours, but never touches them, scared of the consequences.

But one day curiosity gets the better of them. Caretaker walks into their room to find Whumpee sitting in the middle of the floor wearing their headphones, rocking back and forth gently to whatever is playing in their ears. Caretaker has never seen them look so content.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[sweepingboy]

feng xin likes to come to xuan zhen's palace after a long day grab mu qing like a cat and take a big sniff

[mettywiththenotes]

Thinking about Powder and Viktor and their creations

And how those creations lead them to...