I saw a viral Twitter thread on “pre-Jackson Tolkien/Middle Earth aesthetica” full of white supremacist dogwhistles.

Let's dissect some of them and talk about how white supremacists love Lord of the Rings.

🧵 For a better reading experience with more detail, subscribe to my substack, where I write about gaming, tech, and culture. robertgreeve.substack.com/p/how-lord-of-…

I had a wonderful #PAXUnplugged this year—I feel like Twitter-Rob is serious and unapproachable but convention-Rob lets down his hair (literally).

Here's just some of the great people who I crossed paths with this year. Follow 'em, they inspire me. 🧵 I finally got to hug @Persephiroth, who introduced me to the crew of the Shikar actual play after their panel. I wish I had more time to talk to Jasmine about Green Knight and to @LordBalvin about samurai movies

https://twitter.com/ThatBronzeGirl/status/1599485021232181248

OpenAI’s ChatGPT designed this 5e D&D rogue archetype in 15 seconds.

It got the subclass levels correct (3, 9, 13, 17). It appropriately tied memories to psychic damage & wisdom saves. I asked it to make the 17th level stronger and it knew “memento mori” had to do with death. I’m talking with @alyssavisscher and she asked for a spell with the same theme and y’all we are freaking out. The formatting is great. The editorial style is great. The clarification that the target is unaware makes sense (a little less when it adds damage at a higher level tho)

I went looking for a logical or ideological consistency to Elon’s decisions about Twitter.

I remembered his chats on Joe Rogan's podcast, just dudes being guys, and that's when it clicked:

the Gen X entrepreneur. 🧵 In a PBS interview during the Bush presidency, Elon said he distrusts politicians generally but loves Reagan.

“Bush is like Reagan without the brains...Reagan actually had strong intellectual underpinnings for his decisive actions.” pbs.org/thinktank/tran…

Let’s talk about this AI-generated cover. And the value of labor

This person's taking a “no press is bad press” approach to marketing—leaning into “controversy” for likes. But they didn't take any time to understand the controversy around AI art.

Thread 🧵 Before we start: do NOT go harass this person. They came out swinging with an opinion, and I emphatically disagree with it.

But some of her quote tweets say things like “kill yourself” and what the hell? Don't be that way. It's not going to make anyone rethink their position.

HUGE D&D ANNOUNCEMENTS TODAY

· New iteration in 2024 will be called ONE D&D and you can playtest it now
· Dungeon Master’s Guide revamp aimed at new DMs
· physical/digital bundles
· 3D virtual tabletop, customizable minis
· five additional 2023 book titles announced

Thread 🧵 NEW 2023 D&D BOOKS

· Keys from the Golden Vault—an anthology of heist adventures
· Glory of the Giants—it is what it is
· Phandelver—expands the Lost Mines starter adventure into a full campaign
· Book of Many Things—new options for DMs
· Planescape—a classic multiverse setting

Two leading figures in the tabletop industry wanted tattoos from an artist who did work for Post Malone.

They berated him over a disagreement about the contract: “Be happy I am not punishing you for your lack of experience”

https://twitter.com/nerdytattooer/status/1534402018751590400

In another instance, Jamison Stone put a writer he hired for his $300,000 tabletop RPG Kickstarter on a blacklist, simply because she asked for clarification on a late invoice.

https://twitter.com/Miss_Jess03/status/1534572319687180293

Today is D&D Direct, an event where @wizards_dnd tells us about upcoming books, video games like Baldur’s Gate 3, and even a movie.

I could wait to comment on their reveals, but let’s put some skin in the game.

5 predictions for the next 5 years of D&D. Thread. 🧵 PREDICTION #1: a 3D virtual tabletop

This one's obvious. According to job postings, Digital Dungeons & Dragons is “the future of Dungeons & Dragons’ digital play experience.”

These postings are full of signs we can read like a haruspex to catch visions of a possible future.

My $500 router broke today—a nightmare if you work from home.

Let me weave you a kafkaesque tale of tech support where @netgear tried to bill me $229 for the call.

It’s a tale of corporate greed, romance (I miss Andre already), and confusion.

Thread 🧵 I did a ton of research on this Netgear Nighthawk combination modem-router, knowing that @ohadelaide and I would both be streaming, sometimes concurrently.

I didn’t mind the high cost because it was fast, future-proofed, and no hassle.

Until today.

Watch John Oliver's segment on data brokers.

He went into a lot of detail I couldn't fit in my thread about ad tracking and my mom's toothpaste.

notice that he didn't say a word about phones listening to you talk. they DON'T NEED to.

https://twitter.com/iamjohnoliver/status/1513553685435064323

Shameless self-promo

https://twitter.com/RobertGReeve/status/1397032784703655938

The Marvel RPG teaser is hilarious

The abilities (might agility resilience vigilance ego logic) spell MARVEL

They call 3d6 "d616"; one's a "Marvel die." Roll a 1 on that die for a "fantastic" result.

Roll 6, 1, 6 to get an "ultimate fantastic" result

🧵

https://twitter.com/CHofferCBus/status/1513614195513778181

trivia: Marvel's "prime" reality is Earth-616, a designation first made in a comic by Watchmen author Alan Moore when he pulled in Captains Britain of alternate realities.

The artist, Alan Davis, said it refers to the mark of the beast, which in some accounts is 616 and not 666.

i commissioned a family portrait to commemorate our new streaming group's April Fools Day session of DUKK BÖRG, a doom metal take on DuckTales.

@nerdypapergames knocked this one out of the park. Character deets below 👇 The tall duck in the amaranth & arsenic tuxedo is @Nat1Fun as Mallard Del Quack, oath-sworn titan and housekeeper.

It is said that as the world of Dukk Borg met an apocalyptic end, Mallard shut himself inside the Sarcophagus of Plott-un-Common, which protects you from anything.

Thanks Patrick. I think you have an steep challenge ahead of you if you want to make an NFT-based shared 5e world. Let me lay that out here.

This 🧵’s for you, Patrick; hope you don't mind some public debate.

https://twitter.com/comerpatrick/status/1512848754218524680

I actually think the OGL is the least of your worries.

I wrote that first thread for potential players to understand that Gripnr's Glimmering is going to look like a funhouse mirror of Wizards' D&D.

Anyone who comes on board for D&D might be surprised at the missing content.

Let's talk about this NFT D&D company.

Linda did great reporting on some decent people who just fundamentally misunderstand why people play tabletop RPGs.

They want to bring pay-to-play microtransactions to D&D. They want to own and resell PCs and their loot.

Thread 🧵

https://twitter.com/lincodega/status/1512448728468234241

Linda makes it clear up-front that this isn't a "rug pull." The creators have had successful business ventures and are using their real names.

They believe this can work. It's not another crypto scam, it's just a bad idea. Read the article, it's incisive.

Now that Elon Musk bought 9.2% of Twitter (and his way onto its board of directors), what does that mean for, uh, society?

Twitter is where journalists, politicians, corporations, activists, celebrities gather. Elon called it "the de facto public town square."

Thread 🧵 Twitter isn't the most-used social media platform, by a longshot. Look at Twitter, waaay down there in user count. It's a marvel that Twitter commands as much attention as it does

(I added the parent companies to this graph)

One of the alleged benefits of NFTs is that they're "interoperable." Hypothetically, they can cross between games, even between companies

But Ubisoft just called their first NFTs "history" and aren't giving any indication they'll apply to future games

Thread 🧵

https://twitter.com/Nibellion/status/1511673357644742656

Four months ago Ubisoft announced Quartz, a digital store (ahem, sorry, "experience") for digital collectibles

Starting with NFTs for the 2019 game Ghost Recon Breakpoint.

This week they've announced their final update for that game.

Whither the NFTs?

https://twitter.com/GhostRecon/status/1511373147475484682

Teddy Roosevelt's grandson Kermit Jr. is partly responsible for the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Kermit Jr. planned & carried out a joint CIA/MI6 coup that ousted Iran's democratically elected prime minister because he nationalized an oil company that became BP.

🧵

https://twitter.com/EricMGarcia/status/1505710196739514373

Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh was friendly with the U.S. even after nationalizing the British oil company. Truman rebuffed British requests to do some backdoor colonialism to reclaim the oil in Iran.

When Eisenhower was elected, that changed.

I was just about to go live streaming Elden Ring, when my best bud @VincentWestpha1, who has already beaten it three times and gotten every achievement, called me and said he's making chicken piccata.

So I'm just going to eat dinner instead.

This guy should stream Last time I was at @VincentWestpha1's he said "Isshin? Isshin." and on no warm-up and having not played in months, he fired up Sekiro and killed the last boss in less than 10 minutes and then we hung out

I don't know if anything in gaming will ever again hit the way the Kingdom of Zeal hit when I first played Chrono Trigger when I was 8 years old

Let's examine its storytelling, narrative, and characters to see why it still holds up today. 🧵 In the game's opening scenes, we wander a fair and bump into a pendant-wearing woman (secretly Princess Marle).

Melchior, a swordsmith who seems like a regular vendor, recognizes the pendant.

Oh and our bestie's invention reacts to Marle's pendant and shunts her through time

Buzzfeed “revealed” the identities of two founders of the NFT group Bored Ape Yacht Club. They're calling it doxxing. This is harmful for several reasons:

· It attacks legitimate journalism
· It co-opts the language of abuse victims
· It fires up harassers in their fan base

🧵 @BuzzFeedNews searched public business records for Yuga Labs, the company behind Bored Ape Yacht Club, to find Greg Solano and his links to Wylie Aronow.

They checked with the CEO of Yuga Labs, who CONFIRMED both names.

The two engineers remain pseudonymous.

It's the 40th birthday of the Codex Seraphinianus, an encyclopedia from a world that doesn't exist. Hundreds of pages—numbered in a base 21 system, not base 10—of colored pencil drawings and a constructed language.

I happen to own a copy, so let's flip through it together. 🧵 Chapter 1 is about plants with unusual root systems or fruits. These avocado-like migratory trees uproot themselves to swim to new lands.

We even get a diagram of a plant that grows naturally into a chair shape and is harvested whole to produce chairs.