Alternate Defense for Forgotten Ballad

Over the summer, I had tons of fun playing Fellipe da Silva's Forgotten Ballad with the kids at a camp I worked at. There is a ton to love about this acutely minimalist system! I've been cleaning up and posting some of the things I made for my students over on itch for the Forgotten …

A half-idea about rumors

I just had an idea for generating rumors that are false but contain some grain of truth. Basically, you write down something fact, then you change it slightly twice with two completely different angles. Then you combine those two angles to create something incorrect. The players might hear any one of the instances without knowing …

Realistic-ish Violence for Odd-Likes

This is my own elaboration on this post from Underground Adventures about ttrpg combat systems that emphasize the real-world messy, dangerous, non-strategic realities of violence. If you've read much of my blog, you'll know that I have complicated thoughts about the relationship between fictional violence and real-world ethics. (This one and this one discuss my …

Wordle Hex Map Expansion

I just came across this year-old blog post on Loot the Room. Basically, they share a method for generating hex maps based on the color key of a given day's Wordle. Check that out first because I don't feel like reiterating too much of it. What I'm sharing here is my own elaboration on the …

Comparison of Odd-Like OSR Systems

This is the first in a series of posts detailing design variations between Into the Odd and a variety of games that have been derived from it. My aim is to create a design vocabulary to streamline the creation of systems in this sub-genre. Eventually, I will simplify a lot of this information for easy …

Ability Scores are NOT Concrete

If anyone else has thought or written about this let me know in the comments! I'll be using Into the Odd's roll under system and the inventory system from my own Ouroboros and Ouroboros(OnO) system for my example. Let's imagine a character called Ludovic who has a STR score of 18 and another character called …

A 5-Year-Late Theory about Adventure Time: Elements

Lumps is "the force that orders reality into its true shape," but why? I have a theory. ...I know this is very late. It's because of who I am as a person.

What The Name You Chose For Beauregard’s Wurmple Says About You

Move over Astrology. There's a new game in town.

What we know so far about Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley

As a huge fan of both the Moomins and video games, I decided to do some digging into all of the information available about the upcoming Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley being developed by Hyper Games. In addition to information from the most recent development updates from Hyper Games (you can sign up for the Hyper …

Archived Japanese Moomin Flash Games

I found these while looking through the Wayback Machine for anything possibly related to Moomin's Tale and although you probably cannot play them in your browser, you can download them to play via a Flash emulator like Ruffle. Archived from here on July 28, 2021. Download the games here. FILE NAMEmoomin4.swfTITLE(J)ムーミン谷のかくれんぼTITLE(Google Translate)Hide and seek in …

The Ethics of Fiction: Pokémon Sword and Shield’s Chairman Rose, Deepwater Horizon, and the Corporate Aftermath of Man-Made Disasters

This essay started life as a script for a YouTube video but after I remembered that speaking on camera makes me anxious, I changed it into a part of my Ethics of Fiction series. Thanks for reading and if you like the article consider supporting me on Patreon. Without further ado, let’s talk about wealth, …

The Ethics of Fiction Mini Response: “The Unexplored Ethics of Body Swap Stories”

This is not my full monthly essay. It’s going to be a little different so think of it as a bonus. Basically I started writing a long YouTube comment before I realized that everything I had to say was fit for a mini entry in my Ethics of Fiction series. The YouTube video in question …

The Ethics of Fiction: Pokémon Battles

In this essay, I will examine the ethics of Pokémon battles within the core series games. I will address various defenses of Pokémon battles and why they don't win me over. Then, I will examine a core question of this series: what are the ethical responsibilities of a piece of media? Before getting into it, …

The Ethics of Fiction: Introduction

This is the intro to a series of short essays about the relationship between morality and media. Roughly speaking, the topics of these essays will fit into one of two categories. Inside the text and outside the text. Essays of the ‘inside’ variety will ask questions like how does this tv show determine who/what is …

Why I’m Volunteering with ACLU Rights For All

This initiative has already started national conversations, leading candidates to go on record about things including (but not limited to) the mass incarceration crisis in communities of color, reproductive healthcare access, and voting rights for people with felony convictions.

Rewriting Part of the Indigo Disk

Not that anyone asked,  but there was one part of the Indigo Disk that did not work for me. Why would Geeta, Rika, and Briar all agree to intentionally send in a group of children into Area Zero? Rika even scolds the player for going in previously while sending them back in. I know the …