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That gave me some whiplash between “design feedback presented as universal maxims” and “QA observations that should be made distinct from design feedback”
07.03.2026 04:59
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That gave me some whiplash between “design feedback presented as universal maxims” and “QA observations that should be made distinct from design feedback”
When running other games for my kid, I replace their character creation rules with everything before the last paragraph above, and then just loosely map the results to their resolution system with a vague shrug.
I tend to ask her, “What are three cool things Batgirl has, or special things she can do?” (It’s gonna be Batgirl.) And she’d probably say something like:
GADGETS
NINJA MOVES
DETECTIVE STUFF
And then she’d get to roll bigger dice when she uses those things, making it more likely it’d go great.
(Oh, not you, you’re good. Sorry people are babies. 😂)
I’ve struggled to identify where to draw this line. Totally agree—and have seen critics (at least I hope) unwittingly point mean-spirited audiences directly at amateurs giving away labors of love, which seems wrong to me. Really appreciated the last post in the quoted thread for noting that nuance.
How I arrived on BlueSky:
in a more just world i would be teaching a semester-long game design unit about 2400. it's probably the single TTRPG thing i've evangelized the most!
jasontocci.itch.io/2400
You’re the best though, for real
Wait wait wait
I just realized
Pandy, on Gabby’s Dollhouse?
That thing he always says? It’s a PUN.
“Are you kitten me?”
MAN, those writers know how to commit to the bit.
DID YOU KNOW?
When startup leaders refer to candidates as "hungry" as if that's a good thing, you cannot be prosecuted for biting them
It’s great to live in a country where the insecure 12 year olds and the Waffen SS jerkoff wannabe’s alternate power on a day to day basis.
What happens when a motley group of thieves sets out to rob an ancient spacefaring tomb before it falls into a black hole? Find out this November in ETERNITY'S TOMB. dmoren.com/writing/eternitys-...
What do you suppose sets an homage apart from a knockoff?
Here's a handy summary of the stuff I say over and over.
www.journal.designlabs.net/p/erika-hall
Would really prefer real news to stop echoing historical headlines from the post-apocalyptic RPG I’ve been running, replete with supposedly over-the-top satire
Or at least that’s what I tell myself so I don’t feel guilty spending an absurd amount of time adding “How to Hack This Game” chapters to personal projects that should’ve been done long ago.
I feel like “use these rules … or don’t? 🤷♂️” (which I’ve likely done) is a weak attempt to communicate something that COULD be useful if framed clearly. Like: Some of these rules are “load bearing”—tweaking them has knock-on effects. Other tweaks are less risky.
My point is that it takes very, very little to get a mob of internet randos to say, “damn, dude sucks.” The average person’s bar for “wildly unethical” is in a different county from the aggrieved gamer’s.
I think there’s an argument to be made that it puts pressure on the reviewer to say good things about the game so that they can resell it for a better price.
I’d be more inclined to swallow that argument if this weren’t such a wildly niche market, I guess.
It IS a matter of opinion. I don’t know either of these people, but I know margins in game review & resale are so low, this is browbeating over peanuts.
Meanwhile, screenshotting a conversation to share with 5000 people implicitly, even if unintentionally, invites strangers to gang up on them.
Suddenly wondering what they go for if you can find one without exposed metal wires. I was not gentle with my toys.
How did I not know this was an official AD&D toy
How on earth did I come to possess it at age 3, years before anyone in my orbit knew what AD&D was
What have you done to me
I didn’t realize anyone was debating this, but it’s a great read. Brutal takedown that may make you wince if you’ve ever been in a creative writing class, but great read.
Oh, I don’t mean to the heartless ghouls of the world, but whoever the lovely people are who periodically message me with, “really looking forward to the full version this!”
Can’t do anything about the unreasonable negative voices. Happy to draw motivation from the positive ones.
I hope to look back on this time as a temporary lull in creative output, saying, “Thanks for your patience while I got better and my kid got bigger”
Excited to follow this account so I can gush about this kind of project where the world can see when you have momentum, rather than stumbling in two months later 😂
Mike Mignola once said of Hellboy/BPRD—or was it the Amazing Screw-on Head?—that he tried to make characters that would make cool action figures. Anyway, solid advice in superhero comics, Saturday morning cartoons, and adventure-oriented RPGs alike. You’ll find a way. I believe in you.
(Said a bunch of people trying their damnedest to create characters that would help their bosses sell more toys, I guess)
There’s gotta be a tactical value to being disguised as toys
