We're about to play Mothership as a gaming group, with me as our first Warden (read: Dungeon Master or Game Master, if you're more used to those terms). After having played (and recently finished our campaign of) Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition, and a few other smaller TTRPGs, I know my memory in a moment […]

If you follow me elsewhere, you know I value ethical and universal design. You should want to keep playing a game because it's fun or rewarding, but not because it's addictive or trying to get something from you (like your money, data, etc). I've been replaying the Metal Gear series and was struck by the […]

The first time I experienced a game using the light of day to influence things, it was an approximation of daylight in Pokémon Silver. You input your local time into the game when you start it and the cartridge itself would track it like any other digital watch, affecting Pokémon availability, day and night effects, […]

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 […]