justin achilli

The first step in regaining some amount of humanity is a reckoning with our unwillingness to hold accountable those who exercise their power to make things worse for people who just want to live their lives.

Two young parents hold up a baby to look at a giant sloth fossil skeleton

How to fall in love with the world, step 1: come to the museum.

"I think — don’t you — that there are some things one is not meant to know, and some things one is meant not to know. You see the distinction?"
— E. Nesbit, "Hurst of Hurstcote"

Target locker
Line baiter
Net spreader
Man catcher

one time i sold some (4) of my teeth

Consider also what it says about your game world when things like this are absent: if your world is so bountiful that no one has to sweat (even artificial) scarcity of food, for example.

But back to the original intentions, the urgency, scarcity, and tension makes for good gameplay and both before-and-after decision-making. It's especially evocative for horror games, but also in games where moment-to-moment developments like running out of arrows matters.

OBR flexes this a bit with Portfolio, which is ticked off as it's used, but replenishes at a rate slower than the player can exercise it. The scarcity is deterministic, but it allows the player to show the GM, "This is what's important to me; I'm going to replenish it and I want to use it."

...potentially something similar for Mage 5th, in which the mage not only has to test for mastery of the sphere but also the temptations of Hubris, or fall prey to "I am so much more than this situation is asking of me and these frail Sleepers around me." But I left before true systems work began.)

Unsurprisingly, this thinking is behind the 5th-edition switch in Vampire from previous editions' Blood Points to Rouse checks, to see if engaging the Beast-proximate powers of the Blood riles that monstrous Hunger. Same for Rage checks in Werewolf 5th. (And in its nascent stage during my tenure...

"Shopping" in TTRPGs is largely not an engaging activity (especially with multiple people at the table), but the stakes imposed by possible consequences matter. Are you trying to show off to an adversary? Are you and the party relaxing after a grand adventure? Are you down to your last copper?

This can work in less "survival" situations as well. While it's a nice detail that the tavern's luxuriant meal is 1gp while the standard is 2 sp and meager fare is 5cp, what this really translates into for gameplay is the question of whether the character has overextended themselves.

In my experience the question of scarcity in TTRPGs yields more interesting output than bookkeeping or raw resource management. A quiver that depletes one die step on a 1-2 after an encounter is more tense than ticking down 20 individual arrows. Survival items like rations &c. give the same tension.

Achilli as a Service

I did delivery and restocking of drink and snack machines for a year or so in my youth and it was always better to just lug two cases of assortment to each site than to check the inventory level via internet and hope it was correct.

Carbuncular caught Schlitzmaxxing while co-grunglemogging at the heckapunk meatspace octoshare. GigaDingo: "No!"

The Oak and the Larch A majestic cultural and environmental history that reveals how forests have made—and resisted—Russia’s many empires., The Oak and the Larch, A Forest History of Russia and Its Empire...

Grabbed this when it came out because the premise sounded amazing: a history told from the perspective of the forests of a region as human history transpired around it. It's also been a boon addition to the "game library" for introducing myriad ideas I want to bring to the GM's seat at the table.

I would say, “Enjoy!” but, uh, they’re tough.

Castle is situated on a high rocky peak, dominating the medieval town of Foix below

Chateau Fort, Foix
Ian Strang, 1934

Great image! Rocamadour (also in France) has a similar arrangement. It’s also mythologized as the place where Roland left Durandal in a hunk of the mountain.

I tried to get a chapter of an Assassin’s Creed game set in Rocamadour but the project ultimately didn’t happen.

Oh, man, same for me. Fantastic film that I never want to see again.

Also, Once Were Warriors (harrowing) and We Were Soldiers (multiple reasons).

The pace at which US wealth concentration is rising is simply staggering

The concentration of AI wealth into the hands of a few tech barons + plutocratic capture ==> unchartered territory

John Wick x Fast & Furious

Still one of my favorites, even if it shows its age mechanically. One of the most joyous settings for handling “A ninja, a sorcerer, a water elemental, and a boxer walk into a bar and a Shadowloo robot bear menaces them.”

Anyway, we didn’t actually have anything to do with the character designs or gameplay. It was purely a licensing thing, but I remember that cabinet making two or three moves as the office relocated a few times. Even back in the CCP days, I remember seeing it shrinkwrapped on a skid in the warehouse.

…could perhaps charitably be described as “button-mashing chaos.” No tactical approach, no strategy or methodology, just an adamant refusal to learn anything about the game and thus enter play as an absolute cipher. Maddening to play against because it was pure ex miscellanea.

…having done the Street Fighter TTRPG.) I have fond memories of being an absolute terror at the game, doing things like letting opponents choose what character I’d play or even choosing which single button I could use in a match against them. My sole nemesis was of course Chad, whose playstyle…

In the US, Darkstalkers 3 was released as a collaboration/ license with White Wolf as Vampire Savior: World of Darkness. I don’t know the financials of that deal, but I know we got a full-sized cabinet of the game delivered to the office. (WW and Capcom had some history together, with WW…

Donate to Darryl Is Paralyzed and Needs Financial Help, organized by Darryl Mott This is a long story to understand the full irony of the situation, but the s… Darryl Mott needs your support for Darryl Is Paralyzed and Needs Financial Help

After a fall on my kitchen on Christmas Day, I broke my back and am now paralyzed. I'm now in long term care and in a difficult financial situation because of it. If you can help, please donate and share this fundraiser. gofund.me/609b599d1

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