Matthew Cmiel (VanishXZone)

Tell me about them! You are after my heart, I am a big lover of system changing story and play meaningfully and a loather of the “generic rpg” thing that most games are so tell me details!

Nice! Why is this a good sign for you?

Whoa! Wild and makes sense! I love fantasy/history crossovers

Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe: I am a certified fantasy hater but this fucking rules. It's also devoid of the stuff I hate about fantasy though (no elves or orcs or halflings or whatever). The hero being a disgraced member of an evil bureaucracy also deeply endearing to me

“Here I pause. If you wish to walk no farther with me, reader, I do not blame you. It is no easy road.”

-Gene Wolfe

Today the #ttrpg question is this: what first draws your personal attention to a new game?
What keeps it?
Share an example!

No critique of gurps, really! It’s where I started and one of my online buddies is a big believer.

Awesome, will check it out

I’ll check with my groups see if anyone is game for it

I've learned (and I am still learning) how to run a game studio for the last seven years doing both creative and biz. Here's a list of guidelines that work for us and might be useful for others that were lessons I've incorporated with our experience and guidance from others. 🧵

Oh I love that! Nothing quite like escalation from the premise to the most epic form of the premise!

How is gurps for you? It was my first rpg, but I haven’t really gone back to it in a long while. Thinking about it again, though.

I hope it goes great for you! I ran it with a group and we found ourselves struggling a little. I think my take away was that the density of the text hurt our experience and I need more time to internalize everything before trying again. Hope yours goes great!

I don’t know the last caravan? Tell me more? I’m so intrigued!

Whoa! Exciting! Sold!

YouTube video by After Everything So Live! by Matthew Cmiel

Ok! Gonna share my latest!

Here is a piece of music I wrote. Two pianos. It's called "So Live!" and is about the moment when you have a turning point in your life towards doing something better, more positive. It is a short song of rebirth
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzdd...
Check it out!

What #ttrpg is making your brain light up in happiness right now?

Tell me why! What story, or mechanic, or character is getting you jazzed?

I genuinely want to know!

Ok, I'm gonna start posting on social media again. Apparently.

Probably games (ttrpgs), movies, and music (classical).

The trick is to find the right balance of posting and not getting too sucked in.

Buckle up, buttercups. Tomorrow, we bring Eat the Reich from @rowanrookanddecard.bsky.social to the channel. This game is a self-contained fever dream of Inglorious Bastards, Kill Bill, Suicide Squad, Where Eagles Dare, and The Dirty Dozen. It may be the perfect no-prep one-shot game.

The storefront for Powell’s Books

Questlings RPG by Banana Chan and Tim Devine

Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous by Sadia Bies & Banana Chan

The Revenant Society by Banana Chan & Sen-Foong Lim

Went to Powell’s Books in Portland and didn’t expect to find so many of me and my codesigners’ games there 😭 @senfoonglim.bsky.social @sadiabies.bsky.social @timdevine.bsky.social

I'm kinda shocked at how dark they can be. I certainly think the 1974 Murder on the Orient Express is pretty dark, cause that hole story is dark.

At some point I watched a BUNCH of the David Suchet ones, and they got progressively darker and darker. Late seasons are darrrrrk.

Wow I loathe this idea so much. Oh well! Happy gaming to you!

What was most interesting to me was that my players BELIEVED I was a rule of cool GM, whereas I am definitely on the rules lawyer side of things! That contrast of perspectives was interesting to me

I’m of the opinion that lone wolf and rules lawyer tend to be game design problems, more than table problems, and me cellphone is often that as well, though sometimes it’s just a normal cope for adhd and other things in which cases I don’t care.

But isn’t really meaningful at tables.

Interesting!

I had a fun experience where a group of my players were talking about getting into fights about the importance of the rules of cool online, and I was shocked cause I run a straight raw game. They just assumed and were shocked I didn’t agree! I think a lot of this is in our discourse

Hence the question! If it was the same sentence I’d be regurgitating, I’m moving forward, cause I’m curious

Sorry I honestly forgot Bluesky existed, and came back to these notifications, I apologize.

I find the topic interesting! Some people find the idea of adherence to the rules at all to be disruptive, and so a rules lawyer is in the eyes of the beholder. It’s interesting to me. Sorry

Hmmm, interesting. Thanks!

I guess I find that to be a fault of the game more often than the player.

Or at least, in better designed games I’ve played lone wolves either don’t exist, or are not disruptive.

Yes.

Games are collections of interesting and interacting rules which encourage interesting decision points. Decisions are what I find interesting in characters, what will they choose???

If there is no restriction, the characters make choices I find dull and uninteresting.

So if I care about and find rules interesting, and encourage us to play by them, or I’m the GM and I enforce them, but it doesn’t disrupt the table, am I a rules lawyer or not?