Problems of imbalance in value: When companies get greedy and skew more toward business-value-first instead of customer-value-first, quality declines or crashes outright. This is enshittification. Cory Doctorow coined the term to encapsulate this problem of overextending into maximizing shareholder value and revenue at the expense of everything else, especially at the expense of customer experience. […]

I'll never forget over twenty years ago now when a friend helped tune me in for the better I occasionally struggled to learn in my small town because I trusted people and new ideas far more than I should have. Now that I understand how to interrogate new ideas and problems, I don't have this […]

The rules are simple in this little game to help you warm up for drawing or unwind at the end of the day. It is best played in groups where you share screenshots of your creations, but it can also be played solo. Draw a random animal (decided at the time) in 3 minutes using […]

The sink constantly drips in room 6. Every twenty seconds, a flit in the light and a metallic plunk. I wonder how much water that is over a year. Do all drippy sinks drip at the same cadence? How many drippy sinks are there in the world? I search on my phone "how many doctor's […]

Lessons from Dungeons & Dragons and Disingenuous Debate The recent online exchange involving Elon Musk and Grummz, talking about Gary Gygax, and changes to Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) texts raises important questions about how we engage with the past, adapt to societal progress, and conduct debates in the public sphere. It says a lot about […]

I have been playing Ironsworn: Starforged for a couple of weeks now. I love how its open-to-interpretation rules push me to build a dynamic world, allow myself to be surprised, and take weirder gaming risks. The starter downloads for both Ironsworn and Ironsworn Starforged are free, so I definitely recommend checking it out. Here are […]

I just watched Ladyhawke for the first time. Yes, I know I'm late to the party. However, it gave me a great idea for collaborative solo play in TTRPGs. Many of us play solo TTRPGs because we can't align schedules with others. What if we didn't have to? What if the lack of alignment was […]

I've been playing Fabled Lands, an old game book series from the 80s that was part of the evolution away from the chaotic lethality of Choose Your Own Adventure series, incorporating more RPG and legacy elements of play. I really like these books, and I can see myself delving deeper with newer series like DestinyQuest […]

I've been playing a lot of Ironsworn: Starforged lately. While I will definitely be creating my own assets eventually, the first thing that actually frustrated me enough to create a tool was location placement on sector maps. Location placement currently operates off of your own choice of where to put things. I'm sure you could […]

I've been exploring a lot of different game systems over the last year, doing a lot of solo-gaming and research. I did a game design course through California Institute of the Arts, have been doing other related courses, and in general trying to expand my knowledge of game design, methods, and play. Recently, I've started […]