Corwin

Save 25% on Misericorde Volume Two: White Wool & Snow on Steam White Wool & Snow is the second visual novel in the Misericorde series.

It's Steam sale time again! Misericorde Volume Two has its deepest discount yet, and Volume One can be picked up for 50% off (!!!). Read it for the first time or give the gift of miserable failnun to a friend 🗡️

Good point, I know I've played with people who struggled with reconciling game mechanics vs in-world stuff for DND...

I'm curious about how common this is, I thought "RPG set in litRPG world" becoming common might be the next wave of this story->game->story cycle but apparently it's already here!

TTRPGs started as simulations of settings that didn't have those mechanics, right? And early tie-in fiction like Dragonlance doesn't have characters who know and understand the mechanics... When did this start? I don't think DnD was designed this way, even in recent editions, but I could be wrong!

When you play a TTRPG, do you treat the game mechanics as diegetic?

I have never played this way, but I just learned from TikTok that some people play DnD with characters knowing about class levels and stats.

To me that means they are roleplaying a character *in a litRPG setting.*
#litRPG #ttrpg

Space Unicorn!

PLEASE SHARE! Writers! Uncanny Magazine is OPEN to Short Story Submissions from August 25 to September 8! We can't wait to read your stories!!! buff.ly/xB0IZOX

I grew up reading Brin off my dad's bookshelves; my paperbacks of The Uplift War, Glory Season, Earth, and The Practice Effect are falling apart from rereads and I have an ARC copy of Practice Effect from the 2021 SFWA/Worldbuilders auction.

So I freaked out when I saw the confirmation email 😅.

Personal Worldcon 2025 Highlights 1/?:

@davidbrin.bsky.social's "Writing Hard SF" workshop, where he described writing as 'incantatory magic' and 'a sadomasochistic relationship' between author & reader, and also threatened to slap us if we put a POV char's last name in the opening paragraph.

Well, that's my first Worldcon wrapped up. Just waiting for the train home now. I met a bunch of cool people, learned a lot, and am absolutely exhausted.

Not a huge event by headcount — but so information-dense. I'll be digesting for a while, and there's gonna be *more* as recorded panels go up.

I accidentally summoned some spam the other day.

I don't know if it's all AI shills, but some of it definitely is.

And it's depressing as hell to think about people getting tricked into paying a middleman flimflammer to deliver them unfiltered vomit from the plagiarism machine.

Broadly. The prototype was 22 blank cards that I scribbled on with sharpie pen. Print production needs high-res image files (scanned or native digital) with consistent quality and style, but not necessarily 1:1 w/prototype images. There is also a non-art side to each card but I can handle that part.

I want to be very excited but I'm also just so overwhelmed at this point by the whole year to date + ahead - I just bought a new roof, I'm struggling through treatment for sleep apnea, my first Worldcon is coming up, the government is attacking my friends, I'm crashing out editing a novella...

Picture of two messy pen drawings - at left, almost unrecognizable as a theater mask and jester hat, at right, a rabbit in front of a magician's top hat.

I accidentally had a successful test of a board game idea this weekend. Including someone asking about getting copies for resale.

Awesome.

Except I have no idea what I'm doing and my dev art looks like this, so to go to print I'd need to commission... 22 to 42 illustrations? Plus box art?

Bit of a longshot to post here, but I'm hosting a sort of "critique mixer" for the writing meetup I organize and I'm looking for links to guides on etiquette, how-to's, etc.

I'm writing my own guide for it too, but I'd love to have more to share with people. Drop a link if you have one?

#writing

The world is a nightmare but at least I can occasionally cheer myself up with cheeky little PRs. 225lb Zercher for shits and giggles on warmup and 415lb x1 back squat today. Might have more in me on a good day but I was having trouble hitting depth on it, so I'll be working on that for the next bit.

Save 20% on Misericorde Volume Two: White Wool & Snow on Steam White Wool & Snow is the second visual novel in the Misericorde series.

Misericorde Vol. Two: White Wool & Snow is on sale as part of the Steam Visual novel sale! You can also pick the first volume up for 50% (!!!) off if you haven't read either of them. Pretty good deal if I say so myself... store.steampowered.com/app/3035990/...

My idea of "little-known" is probably SUPER wrong, as I was born in 91 and read these in the 00s, but I rarely meet people who've read:

Jack the Bodiless, May, 91

Psychoshop, Zelazny & Bester, 98

Phule's Company, Asprin, 90

No YA, but Phule's is a comedy if you want something lighter.

PseudoPod 962: Hemorrhage It’s a dumb fight to pick, but I only learn that later. By the time they drag me out the back door of the bar, my face feels the way a Picasso painting looks. All rearranged, and probably the wrong…

Oopsie doopsie I totally didn't notice that my story went live on @pseudopod.org on Valentine's Day!! Luckily it's never too late to have a bad time in fiction :) pseudopod.org/2025/02/14/p...

One notable implication of this, for all #litRPG stories, is that characters have access to meta information about the narrative: Stat blocks and system screens can carry information across the fourth wall without breaking it.

That's a powerful storytelling tool!

Game abstractions reflect game focus. D&D is focused on fantasy combat and exploration; socialization is largely lumped into one stat (CHA).

Making the abstraction diegetic has implications for the setting and themes of a litRPG.

I'll be thinking about how to use that better in my next draft.

Still thinking about litRPG (that novel I wrote in 2019-20 isn't going to edit itself).

Real world strength is a complex interplay of muscle, body proportion, neurology, and skill.

D&Dlike games abstract that into a single number.

LitRPGs make the abstractions diegetic.
#litrpg #editing #writing

Small deadlift PR today, 510lbs with versagrips and belt.

Deadlift is weird. It's the most fatiguing lift I do, heavy singles wipe me out, but it progresses on the least volume if I'm going heavy and staying consistent with my other lifts. Right now grip is a limiting factor even with the wraps 😔.

Prior to my perceiving of that particular person - with a pleased but predatory expression plastered under the perpetratress' periwinkle peepers - I'd been prepared to predict a day of pleasant perambulation, but presently I became perturbed as I pondered possibilities not pleasant, but pterrifying.

- for it was that well-known dish inherited from Italy by way of Chicago, dough overlaid with sauced tomato and fermented bovilactic extractions - had been inundated with condensate from the cooling humid atmosphere, and the mycological garnishes which had been specified were wholly absent.

had regrettably yielded to entropy, resulting in a reduction of the mean kinetic energy of the composing particles, furthermore the baked dough of its substrate -

The contents of the cardboard enclosure, which had been purchased remotely for transport to the point of consumption and intended to arrive in a state retaining thermal excitation to the tune of 330 degrees Kelvin,

Given that my brain is 100% only obsessing over getting this novella ready to self-pub as a distraction from Everything Else, it would be nice if the Ol' Thinkmeat™ would choose between "you're gonna lose money on this, edit yourself & learn typesetting to save money," and "commission an audiobook."

Feels like I'm finally making progress in the gym again, for the first time in months.

Between COVID, an ear infection, trips out of the state, a sinus infection, the holidays, and... Everything, my training has been rough.

A new 5RM on bench isn't huge, but it really feels like a win today.

As a reader, I'm glad you decided to publish instead of financing a Porsche. That expense ratio doesn't reflect the quality of your writing.

Growing as a writer sucks, because what do I mean I didn't understand the emotional core of the story I wrote? I'm really going to stand there and tell myself I expect *me* to do the work to fix it, too? Who the hell do I think I am? The gall of me!

If you were to revisit the DragonCrown War Cycle for a sequel or epilogue, who of the surviving cast would you be most excited to write about?