ON #DUNGEON23

I had already written about this before but now that's 2023 and I see talk of it I'll do so again. I've been working in TTRPGs full time since 2017 so you can consider me someone who has a habit and a long time relationship with the act of design.

1/15 I could start saying that #dungeon23 is just another marketing ploy meant to boost trendsetters under the veneer of late 2010s hype culture type bs. Instead, I'll tell you why for MOST people, this sort of thing is outright detrimental to achieving any sense of fulfillment.

2/15

I've talked re. cyberpunk and its irrelevance many times but I'd like to point that one problem people have in realizing it is that most understand Technology only thru aesthetic.

We have more advanced control technologies than the ones depicted in Bladerunner, CP77, etc.

1/9 When you understand how social institutions form part of the technological canon, how hustle culture, the grindset, entrepreneurialism of the self are *all* technologies that outsource oppression from institutions to individuals, you understand the difference.

2/9

This is one of the coolest little Features written into Zephyr and the creative potential is astounding. I am so excited to see what people come up with. It basically means I can plug any of the 50-something pieces of windfolk tradition, knowledge, and internalized technology and - through my own cool explanation of mechanism - make it the mechanical effect of an existing tool

Within the crafts that go into the creation of TTRPGs (prose, game design, graphic design), illustration creates perceived value like NOTHING ELSE in the space. Writing does fuckall for perceived value in comparison with illustration. This is both a blessing and a curse. While we do complain a lot about design or prose not being valued, it is also true that there is no market pressure to learn and question oneself and grow as a designer. This creates an abyssal disparity between perception of what goes into creating art vs systems and text.

Very frequently some of us in this space talk of ideological reproduction through game mechanics and I want to bring up an example that I think is crystal clear on what this means. Brace yourselves for an 💅ANECDOTE💅 about the Game of Musical Chairs

1/12 Having a chat with a friend of my mom and she mentions that the game communicates the reality of cutthroat competition; we take off chairs as the game goes on, and people are left out of the game, which (depending on schoolyard experience) might have had different framings.

2/12

THE COST OF MAKING A TTRPG MEGATHREAD
(The "I Have Receipts Edition")

I had to make this thread because randos keep jumping on my mentions to defend some 6 figure-making companies while making absolutely BASELESS claims about how much games cost. So saddle up.

1/24 To start off, I wanna make a divide between production modes. In TTRPGs, you're likely to have (in order from smallest to largest press):

1) Zines
2) Print on Demand books
3) Offset Books

This will be focused on the third, since it's the one most people don't understand.

2/24

CRUNCH EXPERIMENT

Playing Anima lately made me think about the ideas behind crunch and the way granularity (when done right) can be a vehicle of self expression. My disappointment is how most of times crunch is tied to expression re. violence. But what if it were different?

1/6 Say that I make a game about Asking Someone a Favor. What aspects come into play in those scenarios? It's interesting to think about it, given that a bunch of colonialist jackasses did in the past develop nuance over menial details re. violence. What nuances we can explore?

2/6