Jason Tocci

I have been stuffing bits of food in my pocket in hopes at least one of the PhDs occupying my pants remembers to eat

The Rascal community recalls their first ever RPG session A little experiment in collecting and sharing personal histories.

In our latest History Week piece, @newmadras.bsky.social collected our community's first brushes with tabletop RPGs and turned them into blackout poems.

Rascal Subscriber Drive: History Week News blasts about the past.

History Week! Rascal's bi-annual subscription drive accompanies a themed week of articles diving into tabletop's past, both professional and personal.

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Been trying to remind myself of this.

(Though “Damage” is clearly a keyword in RPGs that could lead to confusion, especially if you actually have a combat system, so some creative rewording might be necessary if you wanted to go in that direction.)

Depending on what you want to emphasize and the tone/period of setting, I might suggest “Fell” or “Dread” (for archaic fantasy), maybe “Volatile,” “Destructive,” or something more broadly connotative of “Damage” (in both directions) if going for more modern sensibilities.

Adjective or noun?

#ttrpg bluskies.
What's a good adventure module for a one shot that I could run with little prep?
Something newish, I have kept up with what's been coming out lately.

I appreciate this detailed breakdown, as I honestly had a tough time getting past my initial, visceral reaction (i.e., "This will almost certainly lead to fatal car accidents just so people can work more").

I love* starting a new text frame and getting unexpected settings I definitely do not remember using. Sometimes I'll start with CLEARLY temporary colors just so that when text frames start doing wacky things, I will go, "Aha! I see what you did there!"

*I do not love this.

If you want to share a screenshot of your Text Frame panel and your Paragraph panel while you have a text frame selected, that might help.

Weird. That’s happening in every text frame? My first thought was whether it might actually be set to an independent baseline grid specific that just happens to align with the top of the document’s baseline grid…

Not a fan of Itch’s “secret lockdown mode” tone, but I try to give the benefit of the doubt (especially to folks who welcome publishers to set their own percentage). A good faith reading suggests this is a no-win situation. Hoping they figure out a better solution soon.

Fari RPGs | René-Pier Deshaies | Substack Rules-Bright and Actions-Packed TTRPGs. Click to read Fari RPGs, by René-Pier Deshaies, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.

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🚨( It might be a good time to take off nsfw tags from your itch.io games! they are optional search tags and you don't need them!!! )🚨

i struggle with this too

“but nova, you literally release games and modules, a review or more every week, and often another article”

this is how i do it 1/🧵

I genuinely don't think Mythic Bastionland would exist if not for the conversation I had with Zedeck here open.spotify.com/episode/2URP...

When you're a nerdy little striver, and you're white, you can go anywhere—libraries, museums, stores—and no one will question your right to be there. People will excuse your fuckups and find ways to help.

To be an adult and not admit the extent and impact of this advantage…you're an asshole.

(I’ll tell you the story later, @mattwetzel.bsky.social)

Ran this open-world #TTRPG over a year before slipping up last night and saying in-character where the MacGuffin is that the players have been looking everywhere for. Covered for it, made it look on purpose, but ugggggggh. 😂

Depends what you mean by “worst,” I think.

That is literally the most disappointing version of Spider-man I can imagine because it’s more plausible than “evil Peter,” so it’s a pretty good contender.

Meanwhile, Homelander reminds me Superman’s genuinely scary once you take away selflessness.

My daughter is almost 8 years old. She is excited about games, computers, and math. She has no idea what a geek is and she only knows of nerds as a candy.

Maybe it’s different elsewhere. Kids here exclude each other and freak out over different stuff, of course.

Still—nice to see a shift here.

I would read your diatribe someday, if you ever get around to it

Are there any rules in 5e that you prefer not to use when you play, or would be happy to see excised in a later edition?

What D&D class or character have you enjoyed playing most?

We both know I was just buying time to think of a less annoying way to say, “It depends”

I am a big fan of Nate’s work.

Incase you missed the announcement yesterday: @jorphdan.bsky.social and I are hosting an Itch Jam!
It's all about making mini #OSR modules inspired by fake book titles.
Check it out: itch.io/jam/appx-n-jam

Look, the style guide is very simple.

Sometimes you use hacked material, this is important because it's a principled stance to report newsworthy stuff. Sometimes you refuse to use hacked material, because it's unethical.

To decide which one you do, just pick the one that benefits the far right.

(Actually really fortunate to have a spouse with a union job & health coverage. Angry & anxious for others. Using bleak humor to grapple with how frustrated I am with the GOP. Still prefer to use social media for work & fun rather than political venting. Mostly.)