#Accessibility Toolkit

[wild-at-mind]

I used to have an idea that I could get an investigative podcast to look into the scam gofundmes and find out where they are all coming from, so that it could finally break the spell they have on tumblr's userbase and increase scam literacy. We all agree that money should be going to fundraisers with a high chance that the money will be sent by the trusted organiser to a person in Gaza. Right? So sifting out scams is a really good idea as it will increase donations to the legit ones. Right??

But recently I realised it wouldn't fucking work. They would just say it was a huge conspiracy. Look at what happened with the Russian bots. No one has ever heard from the 'activists' who were removed before or since...if you know anything about tumblr you know that when real people get removed for an unjust reason, they come right back with a new username, especially if they feel they have something important to say. But that never happened with these 'activists ' (in quotes because the blogs they ran weren't really about activism, it was social justice shitposting of the kind very popular on tumblr c2015). And despite that, plus the fact that actual investigative journalism work was done to identify them, a good portion of tumblr still thinks it was a huge injustice, a conspiracy to silence powerful and necessary activism work.

So I think that idea is a lost cause. I'm just going to keep telling people to look at the organiser and beneficiary section till I'm blue in the face.

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than sickness

Lost Caverns of Ixalan is coming out on Arena tomorrow and I've avoided looking up any spoilers, aside from a few individual cards I stumbled across that didn't have any reminder text, so I have no idea what the new mechanics are. I looked up a list of the NAMES of the mechanics on the mtg fandom wiki, and I decided to make mechanics based on those names to see how close I get and also because it's fun.

Also I made this card for the descend mechanic at first but I didn't like the mechanic. How dare WotC make such a parasitic mechanic, they should really hire better designers smh. Also I realized that craft would probably be more interesting with artifacts that have tap abilities.

[cannibalhalflinggaming]

Weekend Update: 9/21/2024

Welcome to the Cannibal Halfling Weekend Update! Start your weekend with a chunk of RPG news from the past week. We have the week’s top sellers, industry news stories, something from the archives, and discussions from elsewhere online. Continue reading Weekend Update: 9/21/2024

[sandsoftide]

gonna be honest I really miss more linear zelda

[wirewitchviolet]

Sudokuvania: Digits of Despair is one of the most impressive works of pure game design I have ever seen.

Before I say anything else, I am going to be talking about a game that is VERY new and has pretty terrible search optimization, so in case this blog post somehow came up near the top of results for someone, here is the as-of-this-writing-current 1.02 release, and for good measure, here is the official FAQ page with the full version history, any future patches, and an FAQ for some of the more confusingly worded stuff that crops up later into the game. Now on with the praise-heaping!

So... Sudokuvania pretty much exactly what the name implies. It's a -vania, that is, a Metroidvania, and specifically one styled after one of the ones that's actually in the latter Castlevania series so that naming convention actually makes sense. Exploring a big castle, fighting bosses, getting various items letting you explore more areas, maybe breaking out of the borders of the map to find cool secrets here and there.

Also, it's a variant of sudoku. And I don't mean someone sat down with some videogame designing toolkit and made a videogame where some of the gameplay is solving logic puzzles on a grid you fill with numbers (I mean, I guess technically I do). I mean that link to the game I posted takes you to a website with a little built in standard app for solving sudoku puzzles and weird variations thereof, and the particular puzzle it's pointing to, somehow, manages to have a big map to explore, boss fights, special items that give you new powers, NPCs, and for good measure, fog of war. It is, again, an absolutely amazing hacky thing and I'm flabbergasted at how well executed it is. Now you're probably wondering how that even works, and that's why I'm writing this big gushy blog post. Here's what you see when you first load it up:

You're going to notice there is some absurdly small and kind of important text you can't possibly read, and that's because again, this is kind of a hacky thing this site so was not designed for. So it's kind of annoying but if you access this through the proper introduction page, it'll explain that the first thing you need to do is click the little gear icon in the floating tool palette, toggle on Visuals: Draw arrows above lines and Disable emoji replacement, then scroll all the way down to Experimental and turn on Test Large Puzzle UI. That enables you to zoom in and out with the scroll wheel, and right-click drag to pan around. It's... a little clunky because again, this website was NOT built for this, but tada, now you can zoom in, read the text, and start solving at a reasonable size. Then there's a couple gameplay concepts it does its best to explain, but... most people I've shown it to myself included needed extra explanation of a couple important early concepts. So let me just do a little color coding here to make this easier to get...

The map is not, in fact, one great big grid. It's 9 squares (and one rectangle that's not quite square over on the east side). Each of these is its own 9x9 Sudoku grid (well, the starting one is 6x6 and has those mutant 2x3 cells instead of the usual 3x3, and there's that weird eastern mutant). If you're solving stuff in one square, you completely ignore everything outside that square, except for where they overlap, in which case the numbers you're placing have to fit for both puzzles. So if we look at the light grey/green intersection on the left, those three overlap cells respectively can't be 4 6 or 5 (and whatever use you deduce in the grey box, but the pure green cells completely ignore all that, you're just focusing on the green 9x9 (which is going to have the overlap as a starting point, naturally).

The next bit that through me off a ton is the way fog of war works. Let me reasonably zoom in and do a little solving here. One second...

Here's the whole starting area all marked up to hell like you do when you're kinda bad at Sudoku and don't know how to spot a starting point. Penciling in little numbers in the corners. You'll also notice a that... most of the map is covered in this dark grey fog of war. A lot of in-game stuff mentions that you shouldn't go clicking out into the fog of war, because it'll show you names of later areas and preview certain special rules and all, but that's talking about clicking WAY off from what you can see. You are 100% allowed to solve stuff out in the fog of war, and it's pretty stingy about de-fogging. Don't go blindly guessing because then you can maybe end up sequence breaking but... yeah. Sorry I'm spoiling the Front Gate, it's basically the tutorial though. Anyway, first move is obvious, only one place we can put that 6, and suddenly...

Tada, important space so it rewarded us with a little fog clearing. You can also see that this will handily point out stuff in your pencil notes that can't be true, but only if A- it's untrue for standard sudoku reasons not special stuff, and B- it's not in the fog of war (or on the other side of some. You also maybe noticed that weird green thing under that first hint 6? That's something we need a tool for, you don't worry about it until you have that tool. Solving this out some more...

Little more de-fogging, both of the puzzle area and the margins where we're getting new information on playing the game in general. Now right here if you're observant, you'll see that bottom right corner has to be a 6. It's out in the fog of war, but you can mark it if you know what it is. And...

I was cropping it out before but the big purple number pad is always floating off to the side there, and the green text box over it, which among other things has an area name and flavor text for whatever grid you're in. This won't ALWAYS happen when you place numbers in fog of war, but there was a trigger on this 6 to load in a little piece of the first real area, and oh hey, we unlocked "Guide THERMO!" That's our first tool, and it's described up in the upper left.

So tada, from here out in addition to standard sudoku stuff, you've got these "bronze Guide THERMOs" that show up here and there and have this extra rule. You basically never get free numbers in the grid past the Front Gate, it's all slow-marching into new areas using what you're bringing in plus some easy starting examples of how your new tools work, plowing on from there. The fog of war is pretty stingy but it keeps you focused. You'll also notice the rules here mention bosses, all the 9x9 ones have one. It's clearly marked, and you should PROBABLY expose it from the fog first, but any time you're in the area really you, if you scroll around in that green text box or hit the rules button when in a grid, there's a link you can click to go fight it. The boss fights are all separate puzzles (site's good about auto-saving so don't freak out if it takes over your tab and you have to hit back after). These are very themey, sometimes VERY evil (especially boss #1, feels a bit overtuned) self-contained 9x9 puzzles, probably using the same tools their area is themed around, and I don't think there's a single pre-placed number in any of them. Beat the boss puzzle, it gives you some flavor text and a number to place in its cell back in the main castle puzzle, plug that in and you're always going to unlock something cool. Usually a new item, sometimes other weird stuff, and it just goes on like that.

Don't expect to be able to fully solve a given grid in one go. It's a Metroidvania, backtracking is expected. Even if you've fully de-fogged a grid, later stuff might reward you by straight up adding new symbols you couldn't see before or doing weird stuff with fog. It IS all solvable with pure logic... but there ARE a few places that do that thing I hate in tougher sudokus where you just kinda have to pencil in in a different faction and explore 2 possible futures for a bit to see which eventually contradicts itself. And of course the last couple of grids do some really evil mind-bendy stuff.

But yeah aside from a couple gripes where the way a tool works could maybe be a lot more grammatically clear, that first boss being a lot to deal with as you're first getting your feet wet, and a particularly cruel twist later on, I don't really have any complaints. Well, it might need a cool soundtrack. Maybe play some Castlevania music. Maybe switch it up for some real proper boss music when you're nearing victory.

Again I am just completely blown away that someone made something so meaty in a standard sudoku site's normal UI, and really managed to make it feel so much like playing a DS Castlevania. Some real proof of game design being an art form here. And now you too can just completely lose a day or two to it!

[cassiebnuy]

the furry fandom is mostly concerned with literal representation

theres tons of symbolism and intention applied but its usually just in character design and to a lesser extent stylization (u can only go so far w it before it steps on character design)

bc the purpose of the art is v specific - its exploring sensory experiences and desires, its often not just a standalone piece but an imagination aid to make something with only an abstract internal existence more concrete and real.

past a point its hard to project urself into abstract art

theres nothing wrong with this, a lot of rly lovely art comes out of these ways of thinking. i do a lot of this kind of art myself

and of course there *are* other artists doing furry abstraction! im far from alone. paul peng does some next level shit that continues to inspire me, scribblechicken makes glorious surreal works w fields of repeated images, teddywitchs recent abstract sketchbook work has been rly inspiring to me, mariken has been playing with abstraction in ways tht make it feel rly accessible

and of course there are alternate models of furry besides patricia taxxons autistic model (from the "ethics of boinking animal people" video) which while rly useful for understanding the bulk of furry culture leaves out other types of brainweirdness that draw ppl to anthro animal imagery in different ways. pawberri posited an additional schizotypal model that seems v useful and made some of my favorite artists work click in a way it never did before

anyway i think on the scale of the fandom this results in the de-emphasis of non illustrative artforms. there are furry sculptors and painters and ceramicists doing incredible work but it doesnt seem to get the same love (with the exception of fursuit makers bc theyre making a v literally representational form of wearable sculpture)

i could go on abt material conditions, economic motivations, art literacy, etc but instead i just wanna make my case

we can all agree that postfurry is where the most interesting stuff in furry is being made right. i saw yall gushing abt sinkdog i saw the fanart i see my sog painting still getting notes years later. but postfurry is still limiting the furry toolkit to character design i think we can go deeper

u can apply that toolkit to pure abstraction and leave characters and backgrounds behind. u can plant it into the intentionality behind not obviously furry work. patricia taxxon used a term in the video i mentioned earlier, "transcendental furriness" tht i think gets at this a little. u can make pure abstraction furry. u can make furry food if u rly lean into animalistic eating experiences and evocative flavor combinations. furry doesnt have to just be a character design trope it can be so much more. it can be layered fractally into the process and intentionality of a work, if that makes sense. twisted into every fiber and woven in

*thats* the kind of art i wanna make

anyway thank u for reading my manifesto

[liminalweirdo]

This zine aims to be a conversational guide, toolkit and love letter for Black people that mask and take COVID/virus precautions. We face unique issues including difficulty with mask fitting, (hair)styling and access to resources. These topics are discussed with other Black people but are not easily found in mainstream COVID resources. This zine centers info sharing in a more accessible, sharable way.

The main sections are "Mask Fitting and Fixes!", "Self Expression & Hairstyling with Masks!" and "Dreaming, Masking & Staying Grounded". Sabrina draws on her experiences of masking as a Black disabled person and love of mask & COVID resource distribution. The pages are full of detailed virus safety information along with mask comparison charts, vibrant illustrations and styling examples from the author.

44 pages, half-letter booklet on glossy 80-lb paper.

Sliding Scale & Mutual Aid Digital Versions available at itch.io -> Color and B&W

source

[nikjima]

So my friend Alithea notified me that there's a level in Baldur's Gate 3, unfinished and inaccessible in game during playthroughs. It can be accessed via the modding Toolkit or via mods such as EasyCheat. It's called The Wedding Chapel. I'd never heard of it before. But there was a reason she told me, specifically, about it.

This Wedding Chapel Is a single room, sparsely furnished.

Sparsely furnished with PORTRAITS OF RAPHAEL, and made up almost exclusively of materials from the House of Hope. The walls are all from the HoH, and the 'door' is the fence used in the boudoir.

Larian? LARIAN?! LARIAN WHAT THE FUCK?!?! WHAT IS THIS? WHY IS THIS?! Maybe he really did slip a marriage clause into the contract. 😍

Maybe it was meant to be a 'church' for a scrapped cult of Raphael? Devils can have cults, afterall. Though if that was the case why is it specifically called a wedding chapel? I can only conclude we were going to marry him. I refuse to accept any other explanation. It's unfinished, and located in an empty void. It's listed as belonging to the city (CTY prefix), as opposed to the lower city, which has the LOW prefix. LOW is where the House of Hope is assigned, so presumably it wasn't part of the House of Hope, unless it was originally classed as CTY at some point then reallocated after this room was, presumably, scrapped. You can inspect the portraits.

I couldn't resist the opportunity to take some romantic screenshots. 🥺

What if we made out in your wedding chapel? 🥺👉👈

I assume incubi are the Hell equivalent of sleazy Vegas wedding officiants. Ding, dong, devil, the wedding bells have rung.

[geezmarty]

Had the opportunity to work with the wonderful @naladraws on these two pieces for the upcoming "How to GM Romance" TTRPG toolkit - it's a really cool project so I was very excited to take part in it 💖

More info + preorder here!

[intersex-support]

Intersex Support Resources

Intersex 101: 

http://4intersex.org/#yourself

Intersex Organizations 

Intersex Organizations by Country 

Intersex Variations 

Intersex Variations Glossary by InterACT

Intersex History, Art, and Politics 

Compilation Post

Intersex Flag 

Morgan Carpenter on the Intersex Flag

Intersex Surgery 

“I Want to be Like Nature Made Me” Report from Human Rights Watch

Intersex Human Rights by Bauer et al, 2020

Legal Discrimination 

US Anti-trans bills also harm intersex Children by Human Rights Watch 

Intersex Legislative Toolkit by InterACT

Medical Records

InterACT Guide to accessing medical records

Intersex Health

Intersex affirming hospital policies from InterACT

Intersex affirming Primary Care from National LGBTQIA Health Education Center

Intersex and osteoporosis from Intersex Support Australia

Sexual Health 

Intersex Inclusive information for Sex Ed from Puberty Curriculum

Scarleteen Sex Ed

What Intersex People Want you to Know about Sex by Maddie Rose

I’m Intersex. Here’s How That Affects My Sex Life by Mark Hay

Intersex and Disability 

Liberating All Bodies: Intersex Justice and Disability Justice in Conversation

Intersex Mental Health 

Mental Health

Intersex Justice and the Care We Deserve: “I Want People to Feel at Home in Their Bodies Again” by Zena Sharman

A national study on the physical and mental health of intersex adults in the U.S. by Rosenwohl-Mack et al., 2020

Crisis lines that don’t call the cops: 

Trans Lifeline 

Thrive Lifeline

For Parents of Intersex Children 

Supporting your intersex Child by IGLYO

[pintadorartist]

THE TRUMP-MUSK FUNDING GRAB: THE QUIET COUP

Since taking office, President Trump and Elon Musk have worked together to defund the federal government from the inside while consolidating power into the hands of a right-wing elite. Their goal is clear: gut federal agencies, strip public resources, and redirect power and money into their own hands.

Agencies Are Starved of Ability to Help People: Key federal agencies—including the Departments of Health, Education, and Transportation—have been forced into bare-bones operations, unable to implement vital programs we depend on.

FEMA and Disaster Relief Blocked: Funding for emergency relief programs is being deliberately slowed or denied, leaving communities vulnerable.

Social Security and Medicare Under Threat: Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” has gained full access to the U.S. Treasury's federal payment system, which processes Social Security, Medicare, and tax refunds. His team now has access to millions of Americans’ financial data and can manipulate payments.

DOGE is a Smokescreen for Dismantling the Federal Government: Under the guise of “efficiency,” Musk has proposed cutting $1 trillion in government spending, targeting social programs, education, healthcare, and regulatory agencies that protect consumers and workers.

At the same time, Trump and Senate Republicans are fast-tracking Russell Vought as OMB Director to oversee this attack on federal funding.

VOUGHT IS THE ARCHITECT OF PROJECT 2025

Vought wrote a chapter of Project 2025, which starts by outlining the role that OMB should play in implementing the massively unpopular playbook. If confirmed, Russell Vought will control federal spending. That means he will claim to have the power to:

Freeze funding for critical programs like Medicaid, public schools, environmental protections, and infrastructure.

Redirect federal dollars to right-wing priorities, including tax cuts for the wealthy and corporate handouts.

Defund regulatory agencies that keep corporations in check and protect workers and consumers.

THE PROCESS: HOW THE SENATE WILL PROCEED WITH THE VOUGHT CONFIRMATION VOTE

Monday: Motion to Proceed (MTP) passes, allowing debate on the nomination.

Immediately After: Republican Sen. John Thune can file cloture, starting the two legislative day clock before a cloture vote.

Wednesday: Cloture vote happens, kicking off 30 hours of debate.

Wednesday - Thursday: Senate Democrats must use the full 30 hours to expose this crisis and block the nomination at every turn.

Thursday: Final vote on Vought’s confirmation. If he is confirmed, the Trump-Musk takeover accelerates.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

1.THIS LINK BY INDIVISIBLE LEADS TO A PAGE WITH RESOURCES INCLUDING POSTERS TO USE WHEN PROTESTING AND WHAT TO DEMAND FROM YOUR SENATORS

2. THIS LINK LEADS TO A CALL TOOL THAT PROVIDES A SCRIPT FOR YOU TO USE WHEN CALLING YOUR SENATOR. TELL THEM THAT WE ARE IN A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS

3.Fax: use this link and send a fax to your senator

4. Read through the list of Senate leaders and call a number

5. Contact Your State Attorney General by phone and email:

Minimal script for ALL state attorneys general: We are all learning that Elon Musk, a man who can’t even get the security access he needs to enter parts of SpaceX, and a band of unaccountable teenagers and business cronies, walked into the GSA, TTS, the U.S. Treasury and the USAID offices and took whatever private information they wanted, firing any civil servant who tried to stop them. [Your Stateians] records have most likely been invaded in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, and as he’s now embedded himself in the Treasury department computer system, payments for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other federal programs are at risk if the Trump administration decides to punish our state, [as he’s currently doing by holding fire victim funding hostage in exchange for extremist voter ID requirements.] Even the short pause from Trump’s executive order to freeze federal disbursements caused panic. We want you to sue the federal government to stop this corrupt and possibly treasonous attack on the privacy rights of our states’ citizens.

6. Contact the Secretary of the Treasury Department! – 202-622-2000

Minimal script for Secretary Scott Bessent: I’m calling to demand that you remove Musk’s access from all systems under your control, that all his equipment is confiscated, that his team is interrogated as to all actions they took under his direction, and that a computer forensics team is assigned immediately to check the system for integrity of its security systems.

More info on: https://indivisibleventura.org/2025/02/01/the-guy-nobody-trusts-with-a-full-security-clearance-now-has-access-to-all-your-private-data/

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Reference: 5 Symbols

for your next poem/story (pt. 4)

CROW’S FOOT

The crow’s foot is also known as the Witch’s Foot, and was feared as an indicator of death, used in casting spells against enemies.

Crows, like ravens, were associated with the witches and warlocks who were believed to be able to transform themselves into these black birds so that they could travel unnoticed to their sabbats.

The name “crow’s feet” is also given to the lines that radiate around the outer corners of the eyes with the coming of age and the inevitable approach of death.

CRUX DISSIMULATA

In 3rd century Rome, early Christians were persecuted to such a degree that their lives were threatened and the symbols of their faith had to be disguised.

One of the ways they recognized one another was by the sign of the fish or ichthus; another way was to disguise the Cross cleverly as something else.

The meaning of Crux Dissimulata is “disguised” or “dissimilar” cross.

One of the more ingenious forms of this secret symbol, shown here, was the anchor. The top of the anchor is formed like a cross and, in addition, the anchor is plainly a symbol of stability. Because anchors are associated with the sea, too, the fish symbol could easily be incorporated into it.

The Crux Dissimulata was used as a secret symbol and a rallying call for adherents to the new and dangerous faith.

CRYSTAL BALL

Combining the sphere’s perfection and totality with the clarity and brilliance of crystal, the crystal ball is a part of the toolkit of the professional clairvoyant or seer.

The clarity of the crystal matches the “clear sight” of the psychic.

When used for scrying, the crystal ball acts as a focus for meditation, enabling the adept to access a place that is out of time in order to be able to see into the future.

This practice of scrying is carried out in various ways:

Instead of an expensive crystal, cheaper methods are apparently just as effective for the talented psychic.

A bowl of water, a mirror, a drop of blood, or a pool of ink can be used.

However, the glamor of the genuine crystal ball is hard to beat.

DOORWAY

The simple doorway—an everyday object that goes unnoticed most of the time—is symbolic of a transition between one world and the next.

Such a doorway may take different forms, as a dolmen, a torii, a gateway, but the meaning remains the same.

In C. S. Lewis’s Narnia novels, the wardrobe into which the children step to enter the magical world of Narnia is a good example of this symbol.

Both Heaven and Hell lie beyond gates or doorways, and the threshold of such a place is seen as the place where two worlds meet and sometimes collide.

Many rituals involve the initiate stepping through a doorway of some kind.

The vesica piscis represents a doorway where the world of spirit enters the world of matter.

DREAMCATCHER

The forerunner of the Dreamcatcher was a Native American spider’s web of feathers and beads, a simple little charm made from a small hoop of flexible wood, such as willow, with an interlacement of plant fibers designed to look like a cobweb.

Used particularly as a protection for babies and small children.

Hung over their cradles and beds, it was thought to entrap any negative spirits that came in the form of nightmares.

These malevolent entities, entangled in the web, were sizzled in the heat from the rising Sun.

The spider’s-web shape gave homage to Asibikaasi, the mythical Spider Woman, whose magical webs could catch anything.

The elaborate Dreamcatchers of today, an essential part of the kit for any self-respecting New Ager, were invented in the 1960s and ’70s as part of the resurgence in Native American culture and belief.

Source ⚜ More: On Symbols

[theresattrpgforthat]

THEME: RPGs for Accessible Gaming

The RPGs for Accessible Gaming Bundle is currently live, and it's raising some money for a great cause: DOTS Braille Dice, which makes tabletop gaming more accessible for blind gamers. Here's a few great games that you can find in this gigantic bundle!

Arkyvr, by Alewood Games.

ARKYVR is a multimedia MOTHERSHIP 1E setting & toolkit to play documentary filmmakers in space for 1-4 players and 1 GM.

Equipped with only their camera gear, ARKYVRs will attempt to document life in space and expose corporate client atrocities while surviving the void’s unspeakable horrors. Players will make ends meet through corporate media contracts but with each assignment they will also find horrible truths hidden just under the surface of their mission. If the ARKYVR crew survives their film shoot, they must then decide how to distribute their footage. Some clients will pay a handsome price to cover up their atrocities while others will use it to lead a revolution. How will players use their recorded stories to shift the balance of power? Will they even live long enough to tell the story?

Created by and in collaboration with industry filmmakers! ARKYVR is a 60 page zine that brings a unique vision to deadly space adventures through the lens of a camera!

ARKYVR only works if you have a copy of MOTHERSHIP to play with it with, but since the core rules of MOTHERSHIP are free to access, this shouldn't stop you from being able to pick up the game and enjoy it's film-making twist. Each character concept comes with duties: elements of the role's job that help you define your character and give them some bones to build a personality off of. The core rules of the game are re-contextualized around missions that involve capturing footage, rather than investigating jobs gone wrong.

I feel like ARKYVR has the potential to combine the horror of space with the lovely irony present in horror movies that involve artists getting in way over their head for the pursuit of the art that they love. How much will they sacrifice for the perfect shot? What kind of art does their team want to make? What kind of art can their team afford to make? What dark secrets will they uncover in the process?

Fang, by Joel Happyhil.

You’re a Fang, an ageless super-powered being living among humans, you live in city that doesn’t matter surrounded by people who won’t live to see a fraction of your life, yet you can’t help but be intrigued. You are driven by your desire, an ever-growing thirst that has the power to reduce you to something less than human, but who knows how long that could take.

Here's a game for the vampires and their human companions. FANG has a lot of common hallmarks when it comes to what you think about ttrpgs: stats with ratings attached (in this case in the form of dots), playbooks that define your character type, and a method of advancement, to show how your PC grows over time. Similar to Blades in the Dark, there's dice pools and staggered resolution levels. There's also a thirst track that increases and decreases as your vamp experiences the visceral parts of life, like physical harm, strong emotions, or the thrill of victory.

What I love in games like this is when you see what happens when you hit your character's limit. In FANG, this limit is Starvation - when your Thirst track hits 12. Your character has an outburst, or breaks down, pushing you closer and closer to getting taken out of the scene. On the other side of the coin, Human characters have a Passion track, which is less powerful than Thirst, but also exempts them from the consequences of Starvation.

If you want a game about a desperate character having a terrible time, you'll likely find some really satisfying moments in FANG.

Be Seeing You, by Tanya Floaker.

This roleplaying game contains dangerous levels of dystopian science fiction, social allegory, and psychological drama.

Influenced by fiction in the vein of The Prisoner, Stalker, and Utopia, and real struggles against mass surveillance, the Hostile Environment, and the alienating effects of capitalism.

Be Seeing You is a game about surveillance and dystopia, but it's also a collaborative world-building exercise, building a story through a series of short vignettes. No character is controlled by one single person; each player will pick up the role of the Prisoner throughout the story, focusing on how this central character is treated by the village and its residents.

The game itself is diceless; things change in the story based on the kinds of choices you make when it comes to answering the prompts and following the parts of the story that are interesting to you. This is a game that thrives with a group that feels comfortable in the dystopian genre and loves hitting thematically resonant story beats.

Pretty Beastly, by Em Hubbard.

Calling all disaffected furniture, oppressed appliances, and humble housewares ready to rise up against monstrous monarchists! You were once simple servants in the household of an overbearing oligarch. Years ago, you were victims of an unfair curse and now you really are objects - dishes, chairs, mirrors, and ornaments. The time has now come to rise up against your Prince, defeat the vile sorcerer, and fight back against an oppressive social system!

Pretty Beastly is a collaborative roleplaying game for 2-5 players. Players work together to create a story of cursed household servants struggling against their oppressive social system. A deck of cards will help determine your challenges, successes, and failures.

Taking inspiration from animated musicals and dramatic historical epics, a fantastical (problematic) fairy tale collides with the French Revolution. Quirky and political, this game will take you on a wild anti-establishment musical adventure.

Welcome to the story of Beauty and the Beast, from the furniture's point of view. Set firmly in the setting of 18th century, this is a game of rage and revenge; working as a group to escape, defeat, or break the chains you find yourselves under as the servants of cursed and cruel monarch. The game is played over a series of scenes, using playing cards to provide inspiration for challenges as well as the means by which you can overcome those challenges. There's also a hilarious addition of musical numbers, where your characters break into song if you draw a low-enough card.

Corporate Fae, by ryland.s.

You’re a really weird fae, as far as everyone knows, you’re the only one who’s got an obsession with human corporate work life. Fortunately for you, you can stand in as someone’s secretary, manager, or the barista across the building. Unfortunately for humans, they don’t remember you before and after you temporarily take up someone’s position.

A close human friend asks you to attend some company galas and parties to do some corporate espionage and learn some gossip your friend can monopolize.

All you need is a deck of standard playing cards without the jokers, a way to record, and some time to play.

Hello solo gamers, I haven't forgotten about you! Corporate Fae is a prompt-based solo game that uses a deck of cards to generate details that allow you to imagine a story about a fae trying to commit corporate espionage.

The game is rather simple; you draw to determine the role you've taken and the kind of party you attend, and then continue to draw various juicy pieces of gossip that your fae will overhear. I think it might be interesting to try and piece the bits of gossip together, to paint a portrait of a slowly unraveling secret being pieced together from the various bits of information you gather while socializing at the party.

The only criticism I have for this game is that there isn't a great way to wrap up the game in a neat little bow at the end - I think I would have loved some kind of tension underneath getting found out, or perhaps a timer that gives you a hard limit on how much time you have to gather information before you need to leave the party - maybe like a clock-strikes-midnight situation or something like that.

Darkest Hour, by Emmeryn.

Here, a night like any other.

Rays of sunlight slowly recede over the wilds, the cabin, the steeple, the mausoleum. A gathering of friends, allies, comrades, hunters, united in their cause. They may not yet realize the danger they are in, but a cruel eye turns upon them. Something cursed awakens, stirring to life with the fall of dusk. A hunger claws free from the pitch black.

In the darkest hours of night, hearts tighten as untold horrors bear down. Fangs, claws, the glint of rusted steel and the scrape of bone. Howls and screams resound in the darkness, creeping ever closer.

Will you live to see the light of day?

Darkest Hour is a horror tabletop game designed for one-shot horror sessions. It can be played as a GMless game or with a GM, and can accommodate 2 to 5 players (with or without a GM) for one to two play sessions totaling 2 to 5 hours. It can be played with as little as the book and three six-sided dice.

Say hello to a one-shot horror game that can provide multiple sessions of fun, thanks to the various settings and horrors you can combine for a different theme each time. Your characters are hunters, pursuing a monstrous and terrible haunt that has trapped them somewhere. You use six-sided dice to try and overcome the challenges this story throws at you, each obstacle becoming harder and harder to overcome the longer the story goes.

The author refers to the work of Avery Alder, but I feel that in some ways, there's also a little bit of Ten Candles hidden in the roots of this game, especially with the rising doom the further into the story you go. That being said, the Haunt does have a weakness, and defeating them is much more likely to happen than in a Ten Candles game. If you want a game that's dripping in monster vibes, you probably want Darkest Hour.

Other Games I've Recommended in the Past…

Teenagers With Attitude and Post Apo Calypse, by CardboardHyperfix.

A Witch, A Gallows Bird, by Jellyfishlines.

Protect the Child and Copper Shores by me!

Wrath of the Undersea, by EfanGamez.

If you like what I do, you can always leave a tip at my Ko-Fi!

[autisticadvocacy]

Today is the 15th Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)! The ACA has made it easier for many people to access health insurance, including those of us with disabilities. Learn more with our toolkit: https://autisticadvocacy.org/policy/toolkits/aca/

[phulge]

i haven't really been engaging in discourse because i've been sick but i do have a few things to say now that some dust has settled and im not sleeping 16 hours a day.

the phandom is not a radical space. i dont think it ever will be. thats not saying we cant fight for fair treatment and community care within it, but as long as it is orbiting around two privileged white men it will not be a radical space. the only thing radical about this space and the only real tool we have in our toolkit is how we treat each other.

its disgraceful seeing that there are phannies out there throwing out racial slurs in inboxes. its disgraceful seeing us fracture over what is honestly kindergarten shit.

like rudy said, we need to remember that dan and phil are just some white guys from england. and honestly their biggest crime probably is not knowing many if any poc. theyre privileged people who unfortunately as time goes on and their wealth increases and they stabilize, they will share less and less in common with their fans. theyre going to become more unreachable than they currently are no matter how down-to-earth they remain.

so forget dan and phil. sure, theyve done shitty things in the past and will continue to do so. but insofar as we are fans of them, no matter how much they tell us that they listen to us and care for us, we will never have their ear to change in the ways that we want them to. and honestly? years after the fact apologies done out of fear of a hit to their reputation is not an effective means of repairing anything. it is a bandaid over a deeper problem we need to admit we do not have the means or the leverage to fix (at least while maintaining a space recognizable to us). not to say we can and should not hold dan and phil accountable, but we need to be realistic about what is really important to us. is it celebrities doing and saying the right things or is it us taking it upon ourselves to be better people?

so how are we going to hold people accountable for the things they do in the moment? how are we gonna call people in? how are we going to turn to the people on our dash and at our live shows and treat them? how are we going to log off and show up in our communities?

there is a conversation to be had here about fan culture and how it can/cannot coexist with the idolization of white figures, but that's a different post.

the phandom is not a radical space, but we can be radical people within it. rich white men will always disappoint you, so how can you show up for the people actually accessible to you? and really in the end if it comes down to it, do you have the capability to walk away?