Hamish

Screen cap of parodic version of William Blake's "The Tyger" that begins: Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright (Not sure if I spelled that right) What immortal hand or eye Could fashion such a stripy guy? What the hammer that hath hewn it Into such a chonky unit? Did who made the lamb make thee, Or an external franchisee?

In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:

Dog Eat Dog is my pick for the best designed TRPG, full stop.

I hadn't heard about EX TENEBRIS and it's kickstarter, but this (looong) interview-meets-description definitely sold me on it. If "40k investigation but you don't play as fascists" sounds good to you, have a read.

Text clarifying that the early bird tier is the same as the basic tier but costs more.

Honestly, *chefkiss* right here.

CRINGE WIZARD: A TTRPG Isekai Light Novel A light novel about a guy forced to live through the terrible TTRPG campaign he ran when he was a teenager.

(I still need backers for my light novel about a guy surviving a badly-run RPG campaign, so if you like my work (or posts) I'd appreciate it if you spread the word! Tell your friends, your parents, your Discords, your subreddits, buy a haunted pizza joint and then tell the ghosts about it)

More people need to understand that saying only “criminals” should be subjected to expanding state violence around us is what led to the broader public being targeted by it, too. Criminality is subjective, and power determines what it is or is not.

Govt and union trade blows over strikes New data shows there has been 22 “work stoppages” - strikes and lockouts - in New Zealand this year so far, adding to 47 in 2024.

Fuck off Judith

It's your government that have caused people to take the extreme measure of striking, not the Unions
#nzpol

Buried in the detail about reducing earthquake strengthening is the removal of requirements for disabled access and fire safety. You know who does that? Sociopaths.

Just to be blunt, if you want Wired and 404 and The Verge to employ reporters who understand the memes on bullet casings and can connect them to gaming culture while having the legal and support resources to deal with waves of harassment when we do it… you have to subscribe and pay for the work

is there any kind of logical reason as to why stuff keeps publishing fluff nonsense on these far right personalities

(I usually take "long" as "unending multi-year campaigns that fade out rather than have an ending".)

Normalise arcs and endings.

Another useful thread, this one expanding on AW's cycle of play and the tension between "gets good after 6 sessions" and how some people interpret "not good for long campaigns"
bsky.app/profile/supe...

Another useful discussion of AW and it's play cycle. bsky.app/profile/supe...

Even if you don't vote for your council (pls do but), tick that box for the referendum.

It is BINDING for three terms - so if it fails, no Māori ward for nearly a decade.

And EVERYONE votes, not just Māori. Tāngata Tiriti step up, Pākehā mā, you need to vote.

One could definitely get bogged down in minutiae, still not satisfy everyone, and also make the whole thing unwieldy. I like the length of the manifesto as published.

I don't have anything coherent to share here; something else to mull over, re-read jay's manifesto and re-read the source texts (because this is one of those big source-based games I do).

One thing reading the manifesto and some reactions prompted was some thoughts on (damage) Conditions, the part of one particular design that I'm currently lightly stuck on.

* It's not really a counter-manifesto (depending on how you define that), but as a philologist the aesthetic appeal of certain words and phrases is absolutely part of how I design games. (Kratophagia is probably my purist expression of that.)

Similarly Natalie's counter*-manifesto proposing their own category/lens for viewing games is interesting.

bsky.app/profile/luck...

I've seen a couple of interesting response to jay's use of art historical/intellectual history terms. Tanya's thread is a great example: bsky.app/profile/floa...

I wish there were more examples to clarify the big ideas jay has included, but big respect for making an Expressionist Manifesto expressionist in form.

There is a good chance I will re-read after mulling and reading other reactions.

Support structures for other books and papers!

Indeed.

Also the authors of the piece in question are a disgraced former professor fired for cause *through tenure* for sexual misconduct with students (plural) and his wife and former undergraduate student (the latter a member of the publication's editorial board).

So, you know.

Gross.

‘AI tech shows promise writing emails or summarizing meetings. Don't bother with anything more complex.’

I’ll ask again: What is the trillion dollar problem that this trillion dollar technology is supposed to solve?

A difficulty writing emails?

BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT! @mahliann.bsky.social, @marcuscarter.com, and myself have combined our collective brains and written a wide-reaching introduction to the complex and interdisciplinary field of Game Studies in this forthcoming book for Polity. www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...

The Mind of the Slave The Mind of the Slave untangles the double nature of slaves as property and as human beings under the law in the Roman world. As human beings, slaves had free will and legally recognized autonomy whil...

Look out for Nicole Giannella's forthcoming monograph: press.umich.edu/Books/T/The-...

Tory Whanau, Te Paea Paringatai, Mathew Reweti at Vic debate

One thing I’m relieved about is the calibre of candidates running for the Māori Ward. Te Paea and Matt are great and would both make a very fine Councillor.

In saying that I still want to win it so vote for me 😂 #nzpol

The only people more delulu than Ray Chung's merry gang of financial illiterates are the reported 13% of Wellingtonians who both answer phone calls from Curia and support Ray Chung's merry gang of financial illiterates.

These people deserve your contempt and mockery.

Or trying to have their cake and eat it too by mentioning the boycott up front before immediately violating it in the same breath/paragraph.

"Reporting Xbox news in direct violation of BDS but shaking my head the whole time so everyone knows I disapprove"-ass theory of politic.

I see you check your Bluesky more often than your messenger ;)