That’s exactly right. A great cookbook tells me something about the recipe when I first read it - to get me excited about cooking it - and then gives me only what I need when I’m actually cooking it.

I also don’t think the situation you’re describing really exists.

I think there are two groups of audiences for RPG material: those who read them to dream, and those who read them to play.

But my contention is that most everyone in the second category also dream.

I want poetry in my games.

But I mostly like the right better than the left.

Not only because it’s better for play, but because it leaves more negative space in which to dream.

Funnily, I think the right example is closer to the @samsorensen.bsky.social books I’ve read (which are great).

There’s two audiences for RPG books: those who read and dream about playing, and those who buy them to run and play.

Everyone in the second group also dreams, but I have a feeling they appreciate bullet points and bolded text a lot more than the first group.

There’s a balance to be struck.

There’s a difference between “having read the book” and “having created my own notes from the text“.

I‘d read through it plenty, but I ran Time After Time by @samsorensen.bsky.social straight from the page without making any extra notes ahead of time. And it was easy because of the bullet points!

this cliffhanger has me checking in every day, i am more invested in this than the straits of hormuz

i like this weird guy

It's rude to show AI output to people | Alex Martsinovich Feeding slop is an act of war

Not sure what "entirely generated" means, exactly, but I feel we need new norms around this. Here's a blog I like about "etiquette", "consent", and what should be considered "rude" when sharing AI-generated content. Disclosures after the fact do not cut it, IMO. distantprovince.by/posts/its-ru...

I think it's an important lesson in not jumping to the worst conclusions (something social media is very bad at encouraging).

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

Deathloop is an absolute banger of a game. I think the weird online-invasion element of it turned people off - it’d otherwise be right up there with Dishonored in the gamer canon.

had some strange thoughts that wouldn’t go away after spending too much time on @jdragsky.bsky.social’s seven-part pact and @olddog.games’s blades 68

In Fires Deep - Session 0 & 1 Character Creation Following the principles from Mindstorm's Person-Shaped Hole, we started with the death of the dwarven runepriest Haldor Khadanson, a wel...

cavortingwhorl.bearblog.dev/in-fires-dee...

is this a good map? no. is this an original name or idea for a dungeon? also no.

but are we having a great time? absolutely.

this is the shit (currently running my first real dungeon since high school courtesy of Josh and Warren)

The gradient between your use in August and your use in January matches my experience (mostly useless > highly useful in specific use cases)

My fear is: if it continues at this pace or faster, I’m not sure “major labour market disruption” is sufficient to explain what’s going to happen.

Human Centric Game Design: A Manifesto Exploring how we make games designed for humans to play with humans.

Hi. If you design games, I think you should read this blog post. It's short! I agree with everything Markus says here.

personable.blog/human-centri...

…are they? I’ve only read the first one and it’s about as subtle as an axe to the head; I dread to think what the show is like then.

Keith Baker cooked with Sharn, let’s be real. Mixing the vibes of Luc Besson’s
insane vertical future NYC with Chandler’s Los Angeles and Gibson’s Sprawl, inside D&D, where a dwarven mob boss and a fallen angel cult cutting a drug deal in the city sewers makes perfect sense? Perfection.

I don't know who keeps doing this but you have to stop I'm begging you

pretty clear what happened here was journalistic misconduct

your response is intensely reasonable

i am sorry you went through this

I’d like a refund of the US$1 I spent to read the paywalled article.

The work necessary to receive such a refund outstrips the value of the refund, of course.

So I’ll settle for saying this: after the failures in this article, I won’t subscribe to Rascal or pay for news from Rascal in the future.

have you heard that it's a stochastic parrot

specifically, a stochastic norwegian blue

fashion exists solely in a lunch-free world

at least in Marx’s nightmare the humans got to be the dancer (Spufford, Red Plenty)

the feverish rush towards an AI-dominated economy always reminds me of this quote from Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty; Marx’s depiction of unfettered capitalism rendered as a zombie dance disconnected from human value…

…except in this nightmare the dancers were still human.

Blue Sky Democracy, Part 9: Expanding the role of the Remuneration Tribunal Make staffing political offices more transparent and equitable by letting the Remuneration Tribunal decide resourcing levels.

for more on this issue I recommend the following article by a wise scholar of our democracy (although I do not agree with every one of his recommendation)

grugstan.medium.com/blue-sky-dem...

(all irrelevant questions because the division of Opposition staffing allocation is 100% the gift of the Leader of the Opposition, who can allocate staff amongst their frontbench as they see fit, and indeed they don’t even have to publicly report on who received what staffing allocations)

(there is in fact no such thing as an Assistant Minister or Shadow Assistant Minister)

per last Shadow list yes

worth noting though that currently the Shadow Assistant Treasurer (a Shadow Minister outside of Shadow Cabinet) is the same person as the Shadow Treasurer (in Cabinet) but the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury is not the same (nor are they a Shadow Assistant Minister)