Rob Donoghue

And worth remembering that your friend’s terrible taste may well be a gift they share with you and not the rest of the world.

Public Access - RPG Actual Play - YouTube Our Actual Play of the very nearly complete - if as yet unreleased - second edition of Public Access by Jason Cordova

We’re kickstarting a brand-new edition of Public Access (maybe you’ve heard of it) on March 17th!

I ran a full campaign of the new edition on @thebadspot.bsky.social YT channel. It’s a great watch—and a great way to learn the game!

youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Absolutely!

#2 is probably the most important. The examples of people who cannot pull themselves apart out of that hole are truly depressing.

But for all that, #3 brings me the most joy.

Last, and most critically, there are fee things as truly wonderful and human as loving something terrible and being vulnerable enough to passionately share that love. It’s genuinely awesome.

Second: the line between “I only like good things” and “only things I like are good” is so thin as to he nonexistent. If you cannot accept that things you like might not be universally good, you will never not be on defense against the world.

I feel like that one’s pretty intuitive, but I’m a poor judge, so on the off chance that sounded counterintuitive, there are several important reasons why this is true.

First: “good” is pretty fuzzy, and if you never leave that space, you either lack the curiosity or willingness to try and find out

I never really trust anyone who only likes good things.

Something we learned early in the launch of Designed in the DMV is how retailers see events as a competitive advantage vs Amazon. The forward-leaning ones saw that doing events with us doubled that advantage by showing the community how we are all interconnected. 🌐

It could not be any more blatant in its christian rock-ness, but for all that, Mister Mister’s Kyrie Eleison is permanently inscribed into my bones as a song I will turn up.

I found the reread to be tremendously rewarding, so I’m definitely all for it.

There is no fun like needing to bulk update a thousand Jira tickets, but ONE of them has a hidden data problem that will bollix any attempt to do so, so you get your spend the next 40m trying to Xeno’s
Paradox through the pile.

"Could our support for facists be the reason for our stock dropping 30%?" "No, it must be that we're off trend."

This lead to me thinking about the dogs. Caleb, Ablilard and Zeddig. And, somewhat humorously, maybe Kat.

Not sure about Temoc.

Weirdly, there are a lot of dogs in Ruin of Angels’s supporting cast: Raymet, Gal and Isaak all.

That may speak to some of my fondness for that book.

That is depressingly on point

Caleb is one of the very few dogs in an entire series about cats, and has not noticed because he is so busy convincing himself he too is a cat.

Caleb in self narration: all calculation and game playing and reading people and gambling metaphors, cool as a cucumber.

Caleb in action when someone’s in trouble: *immediately does the dumbest, most dangerous and most heroic thing possible*

I adore a good self-contradiction.

I *love* that cover.

(David Bautista 100% plays Temoc in the movie in my head)

Not looking forward to the History Channel specials on World War Epstein

And yeah, the first chapter literally ends with someone in apparent danger and Caleb throwing himself into doom to try to save them without a moment of thought or hesitation.

That’s my boy.

Chris Spivey

I have just read a fantastic article in the new @baytalazif.bsky.social issue, a magazine for Cthulhu Mythos Roleplaying Games. It's a deep look at Chris Spivey, @darkerhue.bsky.social , whom I already knew to be an excellent rpg designer, but I did not know the full extent of his range

Harlem Unbound

Chris's bibliography is astonishing, he has worked on literally dozens of games, scenarios, etc. He is the creator, among other things, of Harlem Unbound, and Haunted West, both works are fantastic and bring diversity to the Lovecraftian universe and to westerns. Lovecraft was a dreadful racist...

“Know unknowns” is paradoxical sounding, but actually a tremendously useful concept in multiple areas of risk and information.

“Go proactively in a defensive way” on the other hand, is gibberish.

It is a good summary of how competent-but-evil has been eclipsed by grossly-inept-and-still-evil

"and guess what? surprise! this whole post was written by AI! bet you couldn't even tell."
we could. and the fact that _you_ couldn't speaks volumes...

Photograph of the Khaliat Nahal — Honeycomb Bread — from Bahari: Recipes from an Omani Kitchen and Beyond by Dina Macki

Photograph of Bahari: Recipes from an Omani Kitchen and Beyond by Dina Macki

This week’s Guest Recipe from the #CookbookCorner archive is the Khaliat Nahal — Honeycomb Bread — from Bahari: Recipes from an Omani Kitchen and Beyond by Dina Macki. It’s served traditionally in Oman on the 14th day of Ramadan, which is today!
www.nigella.com/recipes/gues...

Mexican drug lord 'El Mencho' buried in golden coffin Nemesio Oseguera led the feared Jalisco New Generation Cartel until his death as a result of a firefight in February.

Plot hook: your heist crew plans to steal a cartel boss’ golden coffin.

The twist: your character sheets say “Night’s Black Agents.”

The trick with a culture of elite impunity is that you also have to protect the law enforcement baronial class to keep them on side.

This isn't something I had particularly thought about on my first read through, but the back to back nature of the re-read makes it stand out a little more.

It's not a *bad* thing - like, it all works and hangs together, esp. re: Tara - but it's something I'm chewing on.

That said, I am a little bit torn on how many things ended up circling back to Alexander DeNovo. He's a great villain, no question, but given the number of powers and people in circulation in the setting, it ends up striking me odd how many things trace back to him.

The re-read has also been tremendously beneficial for helping me remember things (or in the case of 4 roads, finally actually read them), so that the many references and nods in Wicked Country are more than vague recollections, most especially the "Save Him" bit in the Wicked Problems prelude.