#The Wide Game book pdf

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A media literacy handbook for Israel-Gaza

Next Tuesday (Oct 31) at 10hPT, the Internet Archive is livestreaming my presentation on my recent book, The Internet Con.

Media explainers are a cheap way to become an instant expert on everything from billionaire submarine excursions to hellaciously complex geopolitical conflicts, but On The Media's "Breaking News Consumers' Handbooks" are explainers that help you understand other explainers:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/breaking-news-consumers-handbook-israel-and-gaza-edition-on-the-media

The latest handbook is an Israel-Gaza edition. It doesn't aim to parse fine distinctions over the definition of "occupation" or identify the source of shell fragments. Rather, it offers seven bullet points' worth of advice on weighing all the other news you hear about the war:

https://media.wnyc.org/media/resources/2023/Oct/27/BNCH_ISRAEL_GAZA_EDITION_1.pdf

I. "Headlines are obscured by the fog of war"

Headline writers have a hard job under the best of circumstances – trying to snag your interest in a few words. Headlines can't encompass all the nuance of a story, and they are often written by editors, not the writers who produced the story. Between the imperatives for speed and brevity and the broken telephone between editors and writers, it's easy for headlines to go wrong, even when no one is attempting to mislead you. Even reliable outlets will screw up headlines sometimes – and that likelihood goes way up in times like these. You gotta read the story, not just the headline.

II. Know red flags for bullshit

The factually untrue information that spreads furthest tends to originate with a handful of superspreader accounts. Whether these people are Just Wrong or malicious disinfo peddlers, they share a few characteristics that should trip your BS meter and prompt extra scrutiny:

High-frequency posting

Emotionally charged framing

Posts that purport to be summaries or excerpts from news outlets, but do not include links to the original

The phrase "breaking news" (no one has that many scoops)

III. Don't trust screenshots

Screenshots of news stories, tweets, and other social media should come with links to the original. It's just too damned easy to fake a screenshot.

IV. "Know your platform"

It used to be that Twitter got a lot of first-person accounts from people in the thick of crises, while Facebook and Reddit contained commentary and reposts. Today, Twitter is just another aggregator. This time around, there's lots of first-person, real-time reporting coming off Telegram (it runs well on old phones and doesn't chew up batteries). Instagram is widely used in both Israel and the West Bank.

V. "Crisis actors" aren't a thing

People who attribute war images to "crisis actors" are either deluded or lying. There's plenty of ways to distort war news, but paying people to pretend to be grieving family members is essentially unheard of. Any explanation that involves crisis actors is a solid reason to permanently block that source.

VI. There's plenty of ways to verify stuff that smells fishy

TinEye, Yandex and Google Image Search are all good tools for checking "breaking" images and seeing if they're old copypasta ganked from earlier conflicts (or, you know, video-games). The fact that an image doesn't show up in one of these searches doesn't guarantee its authenticity, of course.

VII. Think before you post

Israel-Gaza is the most polluted media pool yet. Don't make it worse.

There's plenty more detail on this (especially on the use of verification tools) in Brooke Gladstone's radio segment:

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-media-breaking-news-consumers-handbook-israel-gaza-edition

The media environment sucks, and warrants skepticism and caution. But we also need to be skeptical of skepticism itself! As danah boyd started saying all the way back in 2018, weaponized media literacy leads to conspiratorialism:

https://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2018/03/09/you-think-you-want-media-literacy-do-you.html

Remember, the biggest peddlers of "fake news" are also the most prolific users of the term. For a lot of these information warriors, the point isn't to get you to believe them – they'll settle for you believing nothing. "Flood the zone with bullshit" is Steve Bannon's go-to tactic, and it's one that his acolytes have picked up and multiplied.

It's important to be a critical thinker, but there's plenty of people who've figured out how to weaponize a critical viewpoint and turn it into nihilism. Remember, the guy who wrote How To Lie With Statistics was a tobacco industry shill who made his living obfuscating the link between smoking and cancer. It's absolutely possible to lie with statistics, but it's also possible to use statistics to know the truth, as Tim Harford explains in his 2021 must-read book The Data Detective:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#harford

There's a world of difference between being misled and being brainwashed. A lot of today's worry about "disinformation" and "misinformation" has the whiff of a moral panic:

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/10/are-we-having-a-moral-panic-over-misinformation.html

It's possible to have a nuanced view of this subject – to take steps to enure you're not being tricked without equating crude tricks like sticking a fake BBC chyron on a 10-year-old image with unstoppable mind-control:

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/28/fog-o-war/#breaking-news

[anim-ttrpgs]

Why So Much Combat in an Investigation Game?

Just about every time someone picks up this rulebook, we get asked “There’s more pages dedicated to combat than investigation. If this game is about investigation, why are there so many pages dedicated to combat?”

There are two answers, which are really two explanations of one answer.

The first is verisimilitude. Eureka wants the players to have a very believable and grounded experience with combat in the game, which is not something that most players and Narrators are able to consistently improvise off the top of their heads, so the rulebook provides detailed guidelines for this in the form of its combat rules. Combat in real life is also very dangerous and deadly, and survival of it often has less to do with an individual’s skill at throwing punches and more to do with their preparedness and knowledge to just not get into a disadvantageous position in the first place.

The second reason is Eureka is a game, and it's a game about investigation. Eureka wants the investigators to be investigating, not punching and shooting their way through all their obstacles. To this end, Eureka has to make punching and shooting into something very dangerous to the survival of the investigators, to discourage it as a solution in all but the most desperate circumstances. However, if combat is to be deadly, it also needs to have a lot of depth and strategic possibility, or else it wouldn’t be fun–and as a game, Eureka is meant to be fun. Rolling a couple dice that you and your character have little control over the outcome of, then finding out that they are just dead for a (believable) post-hoc reason, isn’t very satisfying.

Eureka wants the party’s skill in investigation to determine their survival in combat as much as if not more so their Firearm or CQC skills. This is how these two philosophies on combat rules writing come together. The depth and realism of Eureka’s combat rewards preparedness with survival more than it rewards raw stats, and the emphasis on investigation creates preparedness.

It is the investigation that tells the investigators that the building next to the warehouse where the gangsters are hiding out has a fire escape they could use to jump across to the warehouse roof, and from that they can sneak to a loft that will put them directly above the villains—and it is the intricacy and extensiveness of the combat rules that dictate that by being on the loft when they attack, which they got to by investigating, they have a huge advantage, but still no guarantee of survival.

They have the element of surprise which will allow them to attack first and also opportunity to make a Stealth Attack, and then once that is over, they still have cover while the gangsters have none.

The reason Eureka dedicates so many pages to combat despite being an investigation game primarily is to elevate and supplement the investigation gameplay by providing a real sense of danger as well as providing the Narrator a wide range of game mechanic tools to raise the stakes and provide obstacles, and provide the investigators and their players a wide range of game mechanic tools which they can use to cleverly overcome those obstacles.

We have provided a simplified set of “Basic Combat” rules, but these are an optional rule, with the default and intended way to play being to use every mechanic afforded to investigators and NPCs to the fullest degree.

[There is also a secret third reason why Eureka dedicates so many more pages to combat than to investigation, and it's because at the time of writing this, the chapters covering investigation have been copy-edited, while the chapters covering combat have not yet been. The copy-editing process reduced the page count of the investigation sections by about 25%, and will do the same to the combat sections when we get around to it. By the way,(You can also get the latest PDF for FREE for a limited time by joining the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club!]

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but our Kickstarter page is still the best place to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, and where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more than just status updates, going forward you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and it’s adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[victusinveritas]

Writing advice from Nick Mamatas.

Some science fiction/fantasy creative writing students I have encountered, a field guide

1. World-Savers: these are generally older students, have no real interest in SF/F, are writing a book to express political or metaphysical ideas they consider to be radical and necessary for the future of life on Earth. In reality, they're writing long Platonic dialogues about their ideas, and authority from various culture and pop culture tropes (aliens, noble savages, fairies, resurrected presidents)–to the extent that their work has a plot at all, it involves a Christ figure transforming the world via a sacrifice. The ideas aren't very radical either: "pollute less" and "love your neighbor, unless they're a dick" are common. Occasionally the message for the world has to do with something more prosaic: reverse budgeting, the evils of Affirmative Action, the importance of installing solar panels, how dare Eileen divorce me and fuck like three guys in the six months after she moved out, etc. These students are utterly confused by actually existing SF/F stories they read, and often interpret them in bizarrely sexual ways. They don't believe in numbering the pages of their manuscripts, and often attempt to submit work in PDF so it won't be stolen.

2. Children with Money: recent college grads, or drop-outs, these people have read Harry Potter, Twilight, and perhaps three or four other best-selling young adult series and nothing else. They are easily upset, especially when someone suggests reading more. Their main interests are YouTube personalities, video games, and a sort of Puritanical pansexuality that actually makes smut boring. They often "forget" to read the work of other students, and have no idea how to use a printer. They warn the other students that their story might be "too intense" because it contains, for example, a depiction of a car accident. Their stories are routinely awful, and always contain a character named "Aidan." Sometimes their parents come to class to make sure I am "not a serial killer", as though they could possibly tell from looking at me. (Oh, "Mamatas" IS a white person name...I guess?)

3. Anointed Ones: They contact me, or the people running the workshop, beforehand, to make sure that "the class is right" for them. They have file cabinets full of their stuff, and after many decades of toil, they are ready to reveal their work to the world. They just need a mentor, and an ally—could I be the one they've been searching for lo these many years? Prior workshops were full of callow teachers and jealous students. Why they were only allowed to submit ten pages a week! Some of them have actually read fairly widely, but you wouldn't know it from their work: three adjectives per noun, a fetish for speech tags other than the word "said" or no tags at all. Often these stories include as characters philosophical prostitutes with very sensitive nipples. They never miss a class and often show up more than thirty minutes early. One time, I had to hide in a closet to avoid an extensive pre-class conversation with one.

4. Frightened Proles: These have read Stephen King and Dean Koontz and sometimes even horror writers from this century. They generally have working-class jobs and write about working people who encounter the supernatural on the late shift. They really hope they can sell their novel soon, but they know it'll take a lot of work. (Ten more drafts oughta do it!) They wear baseball hats to class and look like enormous eight-year-olds. They get very excited when I mention professional wrestling or do a taiji move in class. Their significant others are often nameless—"my girlfriend" "my wife." They buy my books and bring them to class for autographs. Some of them get published after, especially flash fiction.

5. Repairables: decent writers, often involved in the SFF "scene", who need to be fixed after a bad experience with Clarion or another workshop or an overeager editor at a semipro magazine who told them some idiot nonsense they decided to believe because they were told it was "unprofessional" not to consider editorial feedback. These either get published...or lost to MFA programs, video game jobs, fandom, podcasts, or other writing-shaped pursuits. Most of them are ferocious name-droppers; the ones who heard of me beforehand know to keep quiet though.

[gm-warlic]

My friends, the time has come.

As many of you know, I have been working on creating a sourcebook adapting the setting of DragonFable to the Genesys Universal RPG.

After a lot of work, I have decided to release the book in chapters, starting with Chapter 1: Character Creation!

This document is about 120 pages, about a third of the size of what I expect the full book to be. This has everything you need to create your characters, from a wide selection of the fantastical races of DragonFable to a variety of careers patterned after DragonFable’s various classes, and a wide selection of skills and talents to further customize your character!

Remember that this is a supplement for the Genesys RPG, so to properly play this game you will need to also have the Genesys Core Rulebook and a set of Genesys dice (or use the Genesys dice app).

I hope you have fun creating your characters, and I will see you again when I am finished with Chapter 2: Equipment and Gear! (In which we will explore the wide variety of weapons, armor, equipment, and magical artifacts available to characters in the world of DragonFable!)

[alongthewayfanzine]

Below the cut is a detailed FAQ for the zine. Please read before sending questions!

General Information

What is this zine about?

Along the Way is a charity zine celebrating the Linked Universe as a comic, a fandom, and a community.  The overall theme will focus on the found family aspects of the chain and the friendships forged on their journey. Each of the 9 Linked Universe Links will have a section dedicated to them, which will include 1 short story and 3 pages of art.

Is the zine digital or physical?

Both! The zine will be produced as a digital PDF and as a physical book.

Will there be extra merch?

Yes! There will be a keychain, a bookmark, and 3 sticker designs available in addition to the zine.

What's the content rating for the zine?

The zine will be limited to a maximum content rating of Teen, or PG-13. The tone of the zine will be optimistic, so we won't be including any intense content.

Will the zine feature AUs or ships?

No, this zine will not feature any specific AUs or ships. Along the Way is focused on the friendships between the Links.

Regarding headcanons, we will be sticking as close to canon as we can. Widely-accepted fanon (i.e. Time and Warriors knowing each other from the War of Eras) can be acceptable, but is discouraged.

If you have a specific question about what is and isn't alright to include, ask the mods.

What's the production schedule?

You can find the full timeline, including contributor deadlines, here.

~~~

Finances and Charity Information

How much will the zine cost?

Right now, we are planning on making four bundles available--digital only ($0), physical zine only, merch only (3 stickers, 1 bookmark, 1 keychain), and full (physical zine + merch). Prices are still being figured out, but the current estimate is around $30-35 USD + S&H (calculated separately and varies based on location). The price will change depending on how many people order, and we aim to keep prices as low as possible!

We now have a final interest check open until Wednesday Jan 22, which includes estimated prices. If you're interested in the zine at all, fill out the form here!

What are the shipping costs?

Shipping within the US is estimated to be around $15 (though this is subject to change depending on weight and size).

The zine is based out of the United States, so the unfortunate reality is that shipping costs will increase with distance.  We have plans to coordinate shipping to Europe and Australia, and potentially South America and Asia if there is enough demand. Details will be determined later on in the process.

How is the money being used?

Along the Way is a nonprofit charity zine. Money will first be used to cover the cost of creating and shipping the zine and associated merch, after which all additional proceeds will be donated to the AbleGamers Foundation.

What's the AbleGamers Foundation?

A charity focusing on "creating opportunities that enable play in order to combat social isolation, foster inclusive communities, and improve the quality of life for people with disabilities". They have won several awards for working with disabilities and give their own awards to games with accessible features. You can learn more about them on their website here!

~~~

Contributor Information

Who can contribute?

Writers and artists will comprise the majority of the zine, but cosplay and crafts are also welcome.

Contributors must be aged 18+.

How many contributors are there?

Each Link has been assigned one writer and two artists, for a total of 9 writers and 18 artists. We also have 5 merch artists (with a few of them doing page art as well!)

Will contributors be paid?

Since this is a nonprofit charity zine, contributors will not be paid. Depending on our budget, we may be able to offer free copies of the zine, or free merchandise. Details will be determined later.

Where do I apply?

As of 8/29, applications are now closed!

~~~

Communication

Communication with contributors will be handled using both a private Discord server and direct email.

Discord will be used for announcements and deadline reminders for contributors.

Official communications will be through our email, alongthewayfanzine@gmail.com.

How can I contact the mods?

For the general public, feel free to send an ask to this blog. For contributors, Discord is the best option for general questions (Discord handles are listed below). For urgent needs, email us!

Can I send questions through Tumblr?

Yes, Tumblr asks are open! I (mod G3) will do my best to answer as quickly as possible, though please note that Tumblr is not the most direct method of communication with the mods.

If you are a contributor, we would prefer you use either Discord or email for communication.

I don't have Discord. Can I still be a contributor?

Yes! All official communications will be through email, so it's okay if you can't join the Discord.

~~~

Who are the mods?

We have four mods on our team!

Mina - Project Manager

Pronouns: she/her

Tumblr: @zarvasace

Discord: zarvasace

G3 - Social Media Manager

Pronouns: they/them

Tumblr: @that-g3-artist

Discord: that_g3_obsessive

Kahl - People Manager

Pronouns: she/her, fae/faer

Tumblr: @vagueandominousvibes

Discord: chrestomanchi

Zola - Human Spackling Paste

Pronouns: they/them

Tumblr: @zolanort

Discord: zolanort

Official mod intros are under #meet the mods!

~~~

This FAQ will be updated as more details are figured out. Follow this blog for updates on the zine's progress!

[mcnuggyy]

✨ Rainbow Factory TTRPG! ✨

HIII!!!! As promised here is my silly little reskin of KOB (kids on bikes/brooms)!!! :o] <3

EDIT: This post got a bit long eek!! sorry!! if you just wanna see the silly stuff I did then just check out the links! You can ignore all the other text on this post jajaja!

Mini Rule Book  ( for GMs & Players!)

PDF Version!  

Here is the document I gave all my players beforehand! This is a simplification of all the KOB rules, character creation process, and the worldbuilding for Unicopia! Please feel free to use as much or as little of it as you like for your game! It goes step by step through the character creation process and has a wide variety of examples and references. I try to be as thorough as possible but ofc I may have missed something! Please feel free to make up what i miss or shoot me a message if you're really curious jaja!

Here is a jpg of the Player Character Sheet of needed! :o]

RFTTRPG: NPC Stats & BG Characters! (For GMs!)

This is what I used while GMing! Feel free to use these as you like! I tried to keep it simple and loose for the big characters like Hev and Trixie! And even simpler for the background characters. I didn't give the BG chars any stats as I knew I wouldn't need them for the one-shot I was running but please feel free to make your own BG chars, and stats, and all of that good stuff!

I also have a rough RF building chart for exploration! Our campaign was set inside the Rainbow Factory so it felt like a good idea to make this for my players! However please feel free to set your one-shot anywhere else in Unicopia! I hope to make a map of  the districts one day to add to the mini rule book later on! :o] You can also set it at another Happiness Factory such as the Tear Factory or Heart Factory! You could even have your unicorns visit Earth! The world is your oysta! ♡ 

Overall I tried to keep everything super simple and clear for both myself and my friends! I imagine other Factories in smaller districts would be much smaller than this but this is a rough idea of what I think most of them would sort of be like!

RFFTTRPG: One-shot Ideas & More! (For GM's)

I love love loved using the KOB system and reskinning it for my silly little world! and I love when a TTRPG gives you nice sort of rules to follow while still being super free and open in other aspects! It made it  easy for me to just come up with a simple problem/plot for my players! However I know coming up with something from scratch is also super intimidating and overwhelming! So here is the idea I did, along with some others I've thought of for fun! (and might even do in future games jejeje)

Kid on the Run!  This is super Monsters Inc inspired. Have the party over at a Factory for any reason you choose. I chose a tour/ted talk hosted by the lovely Trixie! It can also be a company party, or breaking and entering, or they already work there, etc.! Have one of the portals go haywire allowing a child to enter Unicopia! It's now up to the party to not only capture the child but return them back home safe and sound to the human world! All while keeping the child secret from the rest of unicornkind! RF: Happiness Special Forces The Counsel has decided to create a special task team in charge of going down to earth! Go undercover and stop those who cause great risk to Unicornkind! This could be stopping a huge evil corporation that is creating an excess amount of unhappiness, reducing the magic of Unicopia. Or having to go in and save multiple children in danger such as a field trip gone wrong! Or making an adult human who remembered their childhood unicorn forget about them again before things get dicey! Your players will have to keep their existence as unicorns a secret, all while saving their world, and exploring Earth as characters who may be unfamiliar with humans and their ways! Unicorn Hunters & the End of Unicopia What if unicorns biggest threat finally found out where they had been hiding all this time? and not just knew but had access to a portal? It's up to the players to stop them at all costs and save their world.  A high stakes adventure full of lore, magic, and potential unexpected allies!  The Daily Life of a Field Op/Happy Tech This is more of a slice of life concept! This would work well for smaller parties of 1-4 Players! Have your Players form teams and deal with the daily troubles a helping a kid/teen/pre-teen  as a Field op or Happy Tech! (You could even have one of your Players play one of the kids themselves!) While still balancing their social lives, self needs, etc.! A look inside what it's like for Unicopias most essential workers, their interpersonal dramas, relationships, etc. Great for those who love character centric collaboritive storytelling!

ANYWAYS!!! Sorry for the ridiculously long post </3 I just wanted to cover all my bases in case someone decides they wanna play this reskin!! If you do end up playing pleaseee let me know eeek!! very very exciting!!! <3 regardless i hope you have fun looking at all this silly stuff I did to make my friends smile and laugh :o]

You can check out our one-shot over on my Patreon yahoo!

[jasper-tarot-reader]

[ closes eyes and scrolls your deck list to pick one at random ] The winner is... Tarokka Oracle! So all questions are related to this deck! (If you like this format of questions I'll pick some other decks for the same questions!)

What was your first impression of this deck? If you've had them a while, what's your current impression?

What's your favorite card(s)? Do you have a least favorite card(s)?

Which card(s) resonate with you the most? Which card(s) resonate the least?

What's the learning curve for this deck?

How easy is it for you to read this deck?

To whom would you suggest this deck? If anybody, who do you think wouldn't like this deck?

Give a (super) quick review of this deck.

Why isn't this deck available for public readings as of current? (If you feel comfy answering this one anyways)

I think that's all I got! Enjoy the question hoard as always!

Yeehaw, let's go.

What was your first impression of this deck? If you've had them a while, what's your current impression?

I got this deck because I wanted to get into using official merch for tabletop games as divination methods, but when I opened the box, I realized I was in for a Situation. See, the cards are playing card-sized, but they're also plasticky, because this is made to be used for maybe twenty minutes tops during a Curse of Strahd campaign. That means that the stack is almost taller than it is wide or long, making it excessively difficult for me to shuffle.

My current impression is still me complaining about the make of the cards, as you can tell.

What's your favorite card(s)? Do you have a least favorite card(s)?

I love the horror of the Executioner card, because you only see it when you get reeeeal close to his eye. (And I'm speaking as someone who is squicked out by eye-related horror.) I don't particularly like the design of the Priest card.

Which card(s) resonate with you the most? Which card(s) resonate the least?

As someone who has always loved shapeshifting and physical transformation in both my science fiction and fantasy media, it's gotta be the Transmuter. As for resonating the least...the Missionary. It's always going to be the Missionary.

What's the learning curve for this deck?

I imagine it would be easier if you had the Curse of Strahd book or any Strahd-related supplements. I do not, so it's...it's real bad, buddy. This deck is a nightmare to figure out because most of what I'm doing is drawing on my knowledge of more general Dungeons & Dragons instead of...you know...pirating a Curse of Strahd book. (Do I even have a PDF of it? I don't know!)

How easy is it for you to read this deck?

As someone who relies on guidebooks to explain the deck creator's thoughts and framework for working within a deck, this is very difficult because I have nothing comparable to a guidebook. I am flying by the sheer power of my own farts when I use this thing.

To whom would you suggest this deck? If anybody, who do you think wouldn't like this deck?

Don't be like me, don't take a game supplement tool and turn it into a divination method, you're in for a bad time unless you are really good at improv.

Give a (super) quick review of this deck.

*gestures vaguely to the rest of this post*

What do you mean there's Christian fittings and trappings for the priests in this fantasy setting that doesn't know what a Jesus is? Especially given the fact that the people who use this deck in-universe are based on some bad stereotypes of Romani people... It's rough.

Why isn't this deck available for public readings as of current? (If you feel comfy answering this one anyways)

I don't want to offer readings with decks that I am not comfortable doing readings with, and considering the trouble I run into with this little bastard, I don't want to offer a subpar divination experience. Maybe once I get this thing figured out, it will reach the same level of offering readings as the rest of my tarot and oracle decks, but it and I have a long way to go before then.

Thanks for sending in more questions, Khajiit! Sorry if this got more...meandering than actually answering some questions.

~Jasper

[bellshazes]

my first two jobs ever, in order, were "board game teacher" and "university library assistant," so tho I've never formally studied games (I have been dropping out of college on and off since 2015, and was a freshman in 2012 lmao) I've been casually exposed to games and the people who make and play them in a professional context, as well as having the research skills to help close the gaps. i actually kind of hate playing board games but i loved GM-ing the coop arkham horror and watching my players, which i did for seven years straight.

my current fixation is the result of several years' fucking around on YT watching all kinds of game content, from LPs to specific game dissection to video essayists. jacob geller and folding ideas are kind of gold standards, but this week I've been really enjoying errant signals in particular. Sometimes I'm introduced to concepts this way - ludonarrative dissonance, ergodic literature, the magic circle, etc. that, and getting recommendations from friends or accidentally stumbling into game studies via other research (such as the paper i wrote a few years ago on theater-as-games in prison contexts). most of it though is having thoughts and opinions on things and letting it percolate until i am dangerous enough to find someone who's already explained a concept better than I could, and then running with that. find something that cites its sources, and then chase the ones that seem interesting.

my syllabus post is very much not a reclist, though i do in varying ways recommend everything on that list and it might be of use. here's some stuff I think would be great starting points:

Rules of Play - Game Design Fundamentals, Salen and Zimmerman. This book is an excellent resource, as it introduces a wide variety of scholars who you can dive into as it is relevant to your interests as well as providing tons of useful frameworks and vocabulary to go hunting. It's an easy read with concise bullet-point summaries after each chapter, and the PDF is hyperlinked for easy navigation. I might have found this via Wikipedia, honestly.

A Play of Bodies: A Phenomenology of Video Game Experience, Keogh. What I'm currently liveblogging - it is firmly a literary/philosophical work, rather than by/for designers, and correspondingly it's a little more difficult without at least passing familiarity with cyborg theory or any brand or offshoot of post-modernism, but still fairly digestible and a great read so far.

My Life as a Night Elf Priest: An Anthropological Account of World of Warcraft, Nardi. Found this during my theater-and-games paper, and MMO anthropology is not really my thing, but it's a nice complement to the other books as an explicitly player-theorist perspective. Also provides a more approachable introduction to a variety of theorists and sources. (Open access on JSTOR!)

Draw Your Weapons, Sarah Sentilles. I'm biased because I discovered this book by accidentally attending an author event at my local museum, and the games portion is incidental, but if you can find it I think this analysis of the relationship between depictions of violence and violence itself is worth your time. Memorable re: games for its discussion of Press F To Pay Respects.

here are some videos which I offer as examples of channels you might enjoy diving into, looking for additional jumping-off points:

Playing as Anyone in Watch Dogs Legion, Errant Signal. I really appreciate Errant Signal's thoughtful, personal approach to analysis and especially his highlighting of buried gems in his Blips series as well as his non-self-deprecating reevaluation of some of his older analyses over his decade plus career making videos.

Controllers Control Everything, Game Makers Toolkit. Discovered via the Boss Keys series highlighting the souls games, and although I think his channel is (increasingly) geared toward devs, these are well-constructed, thoughtful videos about many aspects of game design. Even when I don't personally get what makes him enjoy Zelda dungeons in that specific way (I'm an outlier), I appreciate his analysis.

Mega Microvideos 2, Matthewmatosis. Perhaps better known for his extremely long-form essays, I love Matthewmatosis' series of microessays framed like Wario Ware minigames. They are brief but don't pull punches, and the format is uniquely delightful. (See also this microessay mixtape.)

Making Sense of Catherine Full Body, SuperButterBuns. She doesn't do much essay content, I guess, but I she loves Catherine and the Persona series, and this dissection of Catherine Full Body is an absolute treat.

Jon Bois. Okay, mostly not about games, but like - come on. 17776 and Breaking Madden, alongside everything else he's ever done, fit because I feel like they do. If nothing else, I think Pretty Good and his general use of Google Earth as a medium for storytelling have a lot of utility in talking about digital media. He's good for the soul.

The Future of Writing About Games, Jacob Geller. One of the gold standards for a reason - and especially if you're looking for further solid recommendations for other writing/creating about games. This video in particular discusses & links to some really great pieces, but his Big List of Other People's Video Essays is also a great way to spend the next month of your life. (You might notice some crossover between this list and his, only some of which is coincidental.)

if i have any conclusion, it's that my current fixation on digital literalism is me finally finding an outlet/academic match-up with a fascination i developed in 2015 when studying gonzo lit. i think the utility of academia and the long history of scholarship on a given topic, as a non-academic, is to help you express ideas or reinterpret beliefs or experiences you've had to others without having to reinvent the wheel. i always become most energized when i stop worrying about knowing all the bg and chase whatever is useful and affirming or enlightening to me. and you can get pretty far if you think about why you like what you do, and just - enthusiastically also consume non-academic stuff. maybe this is a note more for myself! but thank you for the opportunity to monologue.

[saunne]

Any tips on writing floriography??

Oh, hi fellow lover of flowers and symbolic languages ! You can't imagine how happy this question makes me 💐. I never really had the opportunity to rant about this specific interest of mine so sorry, "Pavé César" incoming.

For what use ? Passive vs Active Representation

The first question to ask yourself is the framework in which you want to use floriography. You won't use it the same way in a fanfiction, a regency novel or a thriller.

Floriography is above all a symbolic language where emotional meanings and messages have been associated with plants, especially flowers. The use of floriography can, in my opinion, be active or passive. I consider representation "active" when the meaning of the flowers used is expressed clearly within the text and "passive" when this meaning is left to those who have a vague idea of floriography.

Concrete example : A detective analyzing the meanings of the flowers of a bouquet found at a crime scene is an "active" portrayal while comparing a reincarnated character with a lotus flower through spun metaphor throughout the text is "passive".

Passive floriography is regularly used in video games, especially on character splash art. The meaning behind the flower is never made clear in the blurbs, but the players' analysis of it and how it relates to the character's lore is what gives it meaning.

Example : Blade, from Honkai Star Rail, with the red spider lilies

Knowing what this flower represents takes only a few minutes with an internet search or a bit of general knowledge, due to its frequent use in the world of animation/manga. But it is only when we put this flower in comparison to Blade's lore that this representation makes sense.

Your best friend : Sources

Impossible to cut it : if you want to get into floriography, you need sources. Floriography is a simple yet complicated language, where each flower can have several meanings, several flowers can have the same meaning or the meaning can completely change depending on the color of the flower. I prefer to use several sources and cross-reference the results to be sure to have the broadest idea possible of the different meanings.

Just to give you an idea, I got my hands on about twenty pdfs of copyright-free books that I'm going to cross and compile into a single huge document to be able to use Ctrl + F and make my searches faster. But I do this because I'm obsessed with floriography and that I spent 3 years in a bachelor's degree in history cross-referencing sources for my homework.

If you just like it as a hobby, people have already made very well done books. If I had to recommend just one, it would be Floriography, by Jessica Roux.

Each double-page provides the most common meanings of the flower, a beautiful illustration and above all, something that I really appreciate : correspondences to create bouquets. An entire section of the book is solely on thematic bouquets.

Specificities : Culture and History

Another thing to think about is that floriography has been practiced by many diverse cultures throughout history. But when we talk about floriography now, we're mostly talking about Victorian floriography.

This does not mean that the rest of the world has ceased to exist.

Asian cultures have very strong symbolisms for a wide range of flowers and one of the important counterweights to Victorian floriography, in my opinion, is the Japanese hanakotoba. It is interesting to be interested in the meanings of flowers other than in our culture of origin and how these other cultures have come to associate a particular flower with a meaning different from ours.

Your second best friend : Senses

Next, for something more "hands-on", how do I write floriography ? Well, for starters, I'm mostly a big user of passive representation. I would put the meaning in the author's notes, but I generally prefer to just depict the flower and leave its meaning unsaid, except for those who will fetch or link to the clues I weave throughout my text.

To do floriography, there is no need for the flower itself to be present. Its representation may suffice: in patterns on fabric or in a memory is just as effective as having the real thing present in the scene. To take an example : A character that I like to write has a complex relationship with longing and I often introduced this notion very early on, by making one of the core memories of his childhood the strong camellia perfume of his adoptive mother, which is also the last thing he smelled before she left him.

Then comes the way to introduce the flower itself. The first sense is usually sight, the second smell, and the third touch. It is sometimes interesting to separate from one sense, particularly that of sight which is often overused, to focus on the more neglected ones such as smell and touch. If the flower as a physical object doesn't have to be present, showing it in deflected ways such as a lingering scent or the delicate relief of embroidery is something I love to do.

When it comes to descriptions, I'm also big user of comparisons : a blood-red rose, a fiery orange marigold, a dandelion with plumes as light as the wind that scatters them, a petal soft as velvet, a stem brittle as glass.

The flower itself should not be alone, it should belong to a whole, be connected to other things. I'm not going to describe a bouquet just to describe a bouquet, even if it happens to be very fancy one. No, I will link the choice of flowers to a conversation that took place between certain characters, to the vivid memory of a childhood home, to the regret of a past relationship.

Flowers are not an end, they are a means.

Here it is, I think I have said it all. Sorry for the length lmao, hope it wasn't too laborious to follow. Do not hesitate to contact me in dm to talk about floriography, I would be happy to discuss it !

[xiabablog]

Hey I’m 20 now and new to programming cause the education system in my country isn’t that good…so where do you think I should start and is there any tip for someone like , absolute beginner..?? Is it too late..??? Also love your blog💕✨

Hiya! 💗

It's great to hear that you're interested in programming, and I'm glad you're finding value in my blog. It's literally never too late to start learning programming, no matter your age or background, so don't worry. I start properly pursuing programming at 19, same time I started this blog actually~!

Here some links from my blog that might be useful: my asks | my asks on how to get started

Here are some tips to get you started as an absolute beginner:

Choose a Programming Language: Start with a beginner-friendly programming language. Depends on what you want to program e.g. Web Development, Game Development, Machine Learning, you find out what you like and search up what programming languages are used in that field. Unsure? Start with JavaScript (probs learn HTML, CSS first) or Python, those my pick, to be honest.

Online Resources: There are numerous online resources and tutorials available for free. Websites like Codecademy, freeCodeCamp, MDN Docs, W3School, Coursera, and edX offer structured courses for beginners!

YouTube and Blogs: Many experienced developers share their knowledge through YouTube channels and blogs. You can find video tutorials and articles on a wide range of programming topics. I don't have a specific YouTube channel I follow, I just search up on the topic and watch a few videos on it. But I always go for the long videos e.g. 1-2 hours long for a bunch of information.

Books: Google "[programming language name] PDF books" pick a couple and study them.

Build projects > learning theory: Don't just absorb the information and do a couple practise questions on what you learnt, build a project on it! E.g. "I just learnt variables and loops in C#, let's build a student gradebook console app" I don't know~! APPLY your knowledge = wisdom.

Stay Consistent: Learning to code is a gradual process. Stay consistent with your learning, even if you encounter difficulties.

Check out the links above as it might help further questions and hope what I said helps!

[noisetwister]

this is my current bsd collection with (almost) every piece of media from bsd LOL, a little bit of backstory:

i have a thing for data collecting (I'm a data hoarder hiding as a data preservationist basically 😭), and l frequently have like.. episodes? where i become convinced that [insert media here] will be erased forever and i have to have it physically to know it existed, usually at night and just with things I'm into. it struck bsd last night so i barely slept because i was collecting it all lmao. my hard drive #struggles everyday but i don't like to delete anything because yk, hoarding

almost all of this goes thanks to bsd-bibliophile's website, and i usually share anything I've collected amongst friends (but never the light novels where the translator asks you don't distribute, obviously).

While a lot of it attaches to me having to have media physically that is already widely distributed online, i also love collecting underground media on promotional DVDs, certain game editions and CDs etc (an example of this is my youtube @hatsuneuploads where i uploaded all of a special edition of the DTM magazine for the release of rin and len - a previously (presumably) not on the internet interview with some voice providers and a cubase official was uploaded by me which i was super happy to have done!! i also uploaded the DVD so anybody willing to find out what some of the songs are (over 50)/translate the interviews that would be very cool!)

irritatingly, a lot of the uploads for the light novels and most of the manga were in pdf format, when for light novels epub is the most widely accepted format (some were uploaded in epub which i am working on finding and downloading) and manga i much prefer cbz files (i might look into converting them).

I am also into book binding, so it is definitely on the table for me to book bind some of the light novels (but i kind of find issue with it personally when i can support the official English physical releases, so i might just book bind the way i like AFTER i have the money to purchase the official books)

also to note i would absolutely die for the manga set but i don't have the money rn 😭😭😭😭 its ok tho i will one day LOL

anyway its not much but i just like to talk about these things a lot cuz its interesting yk!!! and i'm such a bad fiend right now, I've been hooked on it since 2019 and it kind of comes and goes in waves lmao

[awarenessaslove]

When I work with a student for the first time, I start seeing how to modify Level 1 so that it fits their individual style, level of resistance, understanding of energy, internal logic, & any prior healing experience. Level 1 is a 5 hour course but I take 15 minutes to explain how the method works. The rest of the course is about the student practicing and refining their technique, live experimentation, getting actual results, unblocking resistance to healing, and arriving at modifications and innovations that work uniquely for them. While the student is practicing, I am in a certain level of consciousness to track their subtle energy shifts. This allows me to tell whether they’re healing or not, how much, how deep, where, and where more energy blocks lurk. This perception allows me to identify the bottlenecks that block healing and how to unblock them. We fine–tune their technique throughout because when they land on a certain “perfect pitch,” per se, like striking oil, their pain, wounds, blocks, and fears rush out of their energy system. When the block is purged, the most common feedback I hear is, “I don’t care about that issue anymore.” By the end of class 1, energetically the student will not be the same person anymore. Typically, we end the class with them grinning because heavy energies have been released and they are learning to help themselves. The next few classes is where we get strategic about healing, devise shortcuts on how to significantly cut down on healing time, address complex issues, understand the architecture of pain, and refine the student’s technical ability. The only way to learn healing from me is via one–on–one classes. There are three main reasons for that. Firstly, my healing method won’t make sense to anyone who reads it as a book. It would be like learning how to swim by reading a PDF. It’ll just be words without direct experience. I know that everyone who reads my method as words on a page and tries it out for themselves will be doing the healing wrong. Secondly, my healing method isn’t a formulaic cake recipe or like an arcade game like 100% of other healing methods telling you to visualize this, meditate that, press this button, or pull that lever inside yourself to make healing happen. My form of healing is individually adapted to each person according to their internal logic and how they work with and respond to energy. No one person on this planet digests even a piece of bread in an identical way, let alone heal complex and unique psychological wounding while also being uniquely wounded. Not only this—when a person is healing deeply enough, the healing method stops working. True healing requires continuous innovation in technique and constantly abandoning previous ways because each time we truly heal, we become more sophisticated. Also, we aren’t starting from the same place nor dealing with the same type of resistance or energy architecture. This is why I say that if a person’s healing is happening in spirals, or if it feels like it never ends, or if they have been doing reiki for a few years, no healing is actually happening because their energy hasn’t progressed. True healing methods change your energy so fundamentally that you continuously outgrow your technique. You as a healer + the method you innovate must continuously respond and adapt to ever–increasing sophistication and an ever–changing energy structure. Lastly, I don’t share my method widely because I truly respect my craft and value my innovation and know–how. I choose to guard it and am particular about who I share my gold with.

Ana Coeur

[meetameliajones]

Sudoku for Kids: Unlocking Fun and Learning Through Puzzles.

Sudoku, a classic logic puzzle loved by millions worldwide, is not just for adults. It’s an exciting and educational activity perfectly suited for children as well! With tailored versions such as beginner sudoku for kids and picture sudoku for kids, solving puzzles becomes an enjoyable way to nurture essential skills like problem-solving and logical thinking.

Why Sudoku for Kids?

Sudoku for kids is designed to introduce young minds to the world of logic puzzles in an engaging and accessible way. Simple sudoku for kids worksheets use smaller grids (e.g., 4x4 or 6x6) and colourful themes to capture attention and encourage participation. As children progress, they can tackle more challenging options, like very hard sudoku for kids, fostering confidence and persistence.

Sudoku for Kids Bundle : 6000 (6×6) different unique kids (8–12) Sudoku Puzzles, divided into a total of 20 volumes of 300 puzzles, with Solutions, as KDP Interiors, editable and ready to upload and use.

This Bundle includes : – 20 KDP interiors – 6000 puzzles and 6000 solutions. – Sudoku puzzles 6×6. – 20 PDF files (ready to upload) – PNG files. – 20 PPTX Files (editable) – Size 8.5 x 11 inches.

Get this great bundle now

Benefits of Sudoku for Kids

Enhances Cognitive Skills: Solving sudoku puzzles strengthens critical thinking, focus, and memory.

Boosts Problem-Solving Abilities: Each puzzle challenges children to think ahead and analyse possibilities.

Encourages Patience and Concentration: Kids learn to approach challenges methodically and enjoy the satisfaction of completing a puzzle.

Provides Screen-Free Fun: Sudoku printables offer an excellent alternative to digital entertainment, promoting hands-on engagement.

6000 Sudoku for Kids Bundle : 6000 (4 x 4) different unique kids (6–8) Sudoku Puzzles, divided into a total of 20 volumes of 300 puzzles, with Solutions, as KDP Interiors, editable and ready to upload and use.

This Bundle includes : – 20 KDP interiors – 6000 puzzles and 6000 solutions. – Sudoku puzzles 4×4. – 20 PDF files (ready to upload) – PNG files. – 20 PPTX Files (editable) – Size 8.5 x 11 inches.

Get this great bundle now

Easy Sudoku for Kids Printables

Introducing sudoku to children is simpler than ever with easy sudoku for kids printables. These worksheets feature straightforward puzzles that build confidence and develop problem-solving strategies step by step. Parents and educators can find numerous resources online, including:

Picture Sudoku for Kids: Fun and visually engaging puzzles where children match images instead of numbers.

Simple Sudoku for Kids with Answers: Pre-designed puzzles accompanied by solutions to make learning stress-free.

Sudoku for Kids Printables Worksheets: A wide range of printable options for different skill levels.

+ 2300 Puzzle Book | KDP Interior Bundle : + 2300 Puzzle Book | KDP Interior Bundle

Features ▼  — — — — — — — — - ◉ Sudoku Puzzles for Kids ◉ Word Search Puzzles for Kids ◉ Maze Puzzles for Kids ◉ Crossword Puzzles for Kids ◉ Large Print ◉ Dimensions: 8.5″ x 11″ Inches. ◉ Bleed: bleed. ◉ Tested on KDP (no error) ◉ Ready To Upload

Get this great bundle now

Gradual Skill Development

From beginner sudoku for kids to more advanced challenges, there’s something for everyone. Start with simple sudoku for kids to master the basics, then gradually introduce very hard sudoku for kids to inspire perseverance and logical thinking. Having access to printable puzzles with answers ensures that children can independently check their progress and learn from mistakes.

2000 Very Hard Sudoku Puzzle for Kids : This is an interior Kdp Sudoku, you can take it apart and mix or match it with other game types and graphics to make your own unique activity books.

2000 Sudoku Puzzle Features▼

– 2000 Puzzle With Solutions – Sudoku Puzzle Book 9×9, Easy with solutions – Sudoku puzzles 9×9 grid – 20 folders – Each folder Contains 100 Sudoku Puzzle and 100 soltutions – 1 Puzzle per page – 4 solutions per page – 2000 puzzles – 2000 solutions – Dimensions: 8″ x 10″ Inches – PDF – High-Quality

Get this great bundle now

How to Get Started

Ready to explore the world of sudoku with your little ones? Begin by downloading easy sudoku for kids printable worksheets and setting aside some quiet time for puzzle-solving. With consistent practice, children will not only improve their skills but also develop a lifelong love for logic games.

2100 Meduim Sudoku Puzzle Book for Kids : This is an interior Kdp Sudoku, you can take it apart and mix or match it with other game types and graphics to make your own unique activity books.

2100 Sudoku Puzzle Features▼

– 2100 Puzzle With Solutions – Sudoku Puzzle Book 9×9, Medium with solutions – Sudoku puzzles 9×9 grid – 21 folders – Each folder Contains 100 Sudoku Puzzle and 100 soltutions – 1 Puzzle per page – 4 solutions per page – 2100 puzzles – 2100 solutions – Dimensions: 8″ x 10″ Inches – PDF – High-Quality

Get this great bundle now

Final Thoughts

Sudoku for kids is more than just a pastime; it’s a gateway to cognitive growth, creativity, and problem-solving excellence. Whether you opt for picture sudoku for kids or delve into very hard sudoku for kids puzzles, these activities guarantee a blend of fun and learning. Explore sudoku for kids printables today and watch as young minds flourish, one grid at a time!

Unique Sudoku Template Bundle : This is a digital & printable Sudoku Learning Activity book For pre-schooler kids or Kindergarten students or you can sell it on Amazon KDP.

Bundle details: ✔ 20 Unique files ✔ EPS, AI, PDF, SVG, PNG, JPG FILES ✔ Dimensions: (8.5″ x 11″) Inch ✔ High-resolution interiors ✔ Belongs to page included

Perfect for your High content book business, this template is ready for you with belongs to page and you can add your own cover and upload! Fully tested in the Amazon KDP platform and ready to list!

It would be recommended to make this template all your own by adding/deleting/rearranging pages, clip art, coloring pages, quotes, changing the page titles, or whatever so that you don’t potentially get dinged by Amazon for using duplicate content.

Get this great bundle now

Sudoku for Kids -

Fun Today, Genius Tomorrow!

This article contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through and makes a purchase. All our blog posts are independent and in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative. By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that third-party cookies will be set.

[gm-warlic]

It has been a while, but I am back!

As many of you know, I have been working on creating a sourcebook adapting the setting of DragonFable to the Genesys Universal RPG. Well, today I have finished the latest chapter of the book, Chapter 4: The World of Lore!

This document is about 222 pages, and has everything you need to create your characters. We have a wide selection of the fantastical races of DragonFable, a variety of careers patterned after DragonFable’s various classes, a wide selection of skills and talents to fully customize your character, a large collection of weapons, armor, and gear to equip them with, an exploration of all the different forms of magic they can wield, and now with this latest version, an in-depth exploration of the many locales of the world of Lore!

Remember that this is a supplement for the Genesys RPG, so to properly play this game you will need to also have the Genesys Core Rulebook and a set of Genesys dice (or use the Genesys dice app).

I hope you have fun! I will see you again when I finish with Chapter 5: The Life of an Adventurer, in which we will explore the realities of adventuring life, delve into our main hub of Falconreach, and explore the worlds and dimensions beyond Lore, such as the Void and the Wastes!

[radiantmorningstar]

Solo Theory 5: RAW and Bleeding (or, The Comforting Chains of Big Daddy Rule Set)

I recently interacted with Geek Gamers, a smart RPG YouTuber, who discusses solo RPG theories and practices (among other RPG-gamer things). I reached out to her because I wanted to purchase a copy of her very interesting essay, “A Place Underground (or, Dungeon Theory for All),” which she let me know isn’t in print any longer. But she added that the bulk of the essay is reproduced in her widely available Solo Game Master’s Guide (Modiphius 2022, also found here and here). It’s an excellent book.

I started reading her SGMG with one issue foremost in my thoughts: why, after all these years of solitary TTRPG playing, do I now feel compelled to solo intensely RAW (rules-as-written)? It seems that what makes soloing attractive is its improvisational quality. If playing RAW is like the highly restrictive jazz taught to lost Andrew in Damien Chazelle's Whiplash, then solo RPGing is the solo Andrew plays at the end—a moment of intense freedom from overbearing form (or what GG calls a “rubric,” a “set of guidelines or customs or established procedures”) and its advocates. Being an essentially free-spirited creative person, why have I chosen the big-band proscriptive chains instead of the spiritual freedom and rebellion of the unrestricted solo?

GG speaks to this in her third chapter, “Easy Ways to Be Your Own GM”:

[L]ike rubrics, rules are meant to be strong suggestions of customs of play, rather than strict requirements. In RPGs, rules are meant to recommend direction. Following them to the letter is not mandatory and in fact for the soloist, knowing how, when, and why to ignore rules is imperative. Improvisation is at the heart of all solid GMing. Interpretation, conversation, and flexibility are integral to RPGs. As such, it’s okay not to concern yourself with details that don’t matter to you.

So what’s going on? Am I just getting older (pineal gland calcifying, politics contracting, hair graying, patience waning) and naturally resonating with a more prohibitive, rigid rubric? I don’t think so. That’s not how it seems when I turn inward and ask myself what I’m feeling. Well, not exactly. I think it has something to do with when I returned most fully to solo gaming. Of course, I’m talking about 2020 in the middle of the COVID pandemic. No one was going outside. I’d lost friends to the disease and to the strange dystopian alienness affecting the world. And I, too, was having dark thoughts on a regular basis.

I’d fled Bangkok the year before, ahead of the Thai army, literally getting on the last commercial flight out of Suvarnabhumi Airport before they could arrest me along with any other foreigners they could find. At the time, nobody was sure about how COVID was being transmitted, and the Thai government wasn’t taking any chances. I was declared an official vector.

My life as a Southeast Asia-based freelance writer and journalist was suddenly over. After a lot of unpleasant ups and downs, I found myself back in the States, staying with family in their spare bedroom, drinking too much, and generally wallowing in self-pity, since the exciting, entrepreneurial, international career I’d created for myself over a decade had come unceremoniously to a halt.

When I felt stuck with the novel I was writing, I opened the PDFs of Mentzer’s D&D Basic Set, the infamous “red box,” and played its two-part solo adventure a few times. It brought back memories of other RPGs I’d infrequently soloed over the years (Rolemaster / MERP, RIFTS, Vampire the Masquerade, West End Games’ Star Wars, Heroes Unlimited) and how freeing that often felt. I needed that freedom, since everything else was locked down, impossible, or too expensive.

And, just as I had in fifth grade after George Eaves gave me the finger for asking him what that game was in his backpack, I decided to dedicate myself (at least for a few hours a week) to soloing Dungeons & Dragons.

It didn’t go well. I got an old PDF copy of The Ghost of Lion Castle and, since it was coded “BSOLO,” I actually tried to run it properly. I went through about four characters until it began to seem like a really tedious death sentence. But it started me back on the RPG path and that was its principle value. Soon I was soloing all kinds of games again.

After the lockdowns were lifted and the world chose a different form of insanity, I was still playing. I moved from Scarlet Heroes to Blackoath’s Riftbreakers to Advanced Fighting Fantasy to a variety of small-form and indie RPGS, many of which were explicitly designed for the possibility of solo play. But I also noticed that I’d started to take comfort in the Rules-as-Written-Everything-Is-Under-Control perspective afforded by the larger rule sets. I think the instability of the COVID years did this to my mind (I got the nasty Delta variant and thought I was going to die; then, a year later, I got one of the gentler versions, but I use the word, “gentler,” with some reservation).

I went back to Nick Yee's Daedalus Project from 2009 and started thinking that if an all-encompassing MMORPG was “the perfect police state,” something like D&D 5e was not that far removed:

The irony of course is that we live in a democracy that abhors police states, but we choose perfect police states as our form of entertainment. Some will undoubtedly argue that MMORPG worlds are inherently fantastical worlds that have nothing to do with the real world, but as real world economies and law interface with these virtual worlds, and as we spend more and more of our time in these worlds, we have to wonder what it means when people spend on average 22 hours a week in a perfect police state. . . . What does it mean when police states are chosen as places to escape to?

What does it mean when a RPG rule set is so comprehensive that it functions like a MMORPG (cf. D&D 4e in particular, Riftbreakers, many others)? And, if we choose not to take our recreation in hyper-determined Huxleyan bubble worlds (or, if you prefer, sandboxes), how will we continue?

Geek Gamers provides the most coherent answer I’ve seen in her SGMG: “Our brains naturally filter the world in a process called sensory gating—we focus our attention on information we deem relevant. Game sessions should be no different, just because you are creating the world from a rule set. Not every aspect of the rule set will be relevant to your goals or play style.”

Or, as Daniel Quinlan, Stuart Lloyd, and Graham Bottley note at the beginning of Advanced Fighting Fantasy’s Adventure Creation System supplement, “The main and overriding piece of advice is this: Always remember that this is your adventure and your campaign. If you feel that anything in this book is wrong, incomplete or unlikely in your setting, you must change it to be more appropriate. The ideas in this book exist to help you, not to act as a straitjacket."

What it means for me is that solo RPGing might also be a tool for recovering at least a few more fragments of myself from five years ago.

[newbooksforkids]

Get The Newest Animation story The Adventure Story of the Sad Lamonte + Get A Free Gift

Get ready for a magical experience! The Adventure of the Sad Lamonte is not just a children’s story—it’s a delightful, animated journey that will capture your heart like a Disney cartoon film. With stunning, colorful animation and captivating characters, this story brings Lamonte’s world to life in a way your children will absolutely love.

Why Your Kids Will Fall in Love with Lamonte’s Adventure:

Incredible Animation: Beautifully crafted visuals that make every moment feel like a mini-movie, full of color, action, and wonder!

Heartfelt Storyline: Follow Lamonte on his journey to discover joy and friendship in a story packed with important lessons on empathy, courage, and happiness.

Engaging Characters: Lamonte and his friends will inspire young viewers, giving them memorable characters to look up to and cheer for!

Perfect for family nights or inspiring young minds, The Adventure of the Sad Lamonte is a story that feels like watching a cartoon movie, blending heartfelt storytelling with a fun, animated style

A Free Gift is

The Maze Games book is beautiful and distinctive, and its heroes are the heroes of our story in PDF format. You can download it for free after downloading the story in order to make your child spend a fun and distinctive time.

download from here

Note: The video of the story is wide like YouTube videos, and I will leave you with the trailer for my story.