#TABLETOP SPAM...

[prokopetz]

If anybody's been waiting to pick up one of my non-PWYW games (or if, like an inexplicably large number of this blog's followers, this post is the first time you're learning that I write tabletop RPGs in the first place), they're all 50% off from now through January 5th.

This sale also includes Zach Welhouse's Cerebos: The Crystal City, a surrealist travelogue RPG about death and trains which I didn't write, but which is published under my imprint, so if you're in the mood for something a little more serious than my usual fare, that's definitely one to check out as well.

(Also, not strictly related to the sale, but there have been some review-bombing incidents recently involving certain parties systematically one-starring every single game on itch.io with my name on it – even ones I didn't write, apparently simply because I'm listed as an editor or consultant – and itch.io doesn't seem inclined to take any corrective action, so if you've been meaning to leave a positive rating on a Penguin King Games title that you'd previously picked up and just haven't gotten around to it yet, there's no time like the present!)

[meraxes-of-new-albion]

Curious about Baldurs Gate popularity, so a poll:

Please reblog for sample size!

[ineskew]

played a session of d&d the other day that reminded me how much 5e isn't designed for investigation and diplomacy. it's a combat game; actual roleplay is barely supported by the rules

we spent half the session going in circles trying to convince someone to do something without knowing anything about him, and even with insight & persuasion checks to help it still took us 2+ hours to get to the heart of things. we wanted more information but couldn't figure out how to ask the right questions in character; the dm wanted to tell us but didn't know how to get us there without breaking the fourth wall. we only made a handful of rolls, and most of the session was just unstructured talking (not a bad thing, but further evidence that d&d isn't really designed for this)

i would have killed for a pbta-style "discern realities"/"read a person"/"assess the situation"/"investigate a mystery" roll to give the conversation more structure. instead of making me roll a general insight check and parceling out information my character could realistically intuit, give me the chance to ask questions directly. with the right gm, "what here is not what it appears to be?" or "how could i get your character to ___?" would have cracked that negotiation open without giving the whole game away. instead we just... kept going in circles

[jesuistrestriste]

Calling Art ‘Artemis’ in public while out with a group of friends and he gets hard IMMEDIATELY. desperately trying to his it from the other while he whimpers from the lack of friction..

i’m literally losing it my god #ovulating (also sorry for spamming your asks all the time)

venus real as fuck.

like you’re out with art and a handful of other tennis players at some catered banquet, gathered around a table and conversing casually. neither of you really know these individuals; it’s all small-talk, and polite smiles, and laughing at the right times.

you’re sat right next to the blonde, and he’s engaged in what-seems-to-be an interesting conversation. your knee knocks his, but it doesn’t do much except make his breath catch subtly for a moment. and then he’s back to talking.

you talk with some others at the table, and then a hostess arrives with an anticipatory smile and opens her notepad. “what can i get for everyone?”

the others order, going around the circle, and then it gets to you before it gets to art.

you hum, looking over the menu of different expensive wines and luxurious dishes, and you sigh. your eyes pour over the options. your knee bumps art’s again, and he jolts slightly in his seat.

“what are you thinking, Artemis?”

everyone at the table looks to the man next to you, completely confused. artemis? no, that’s art. what’s going on?

but art knows what’s going on. he looks to you, a whine bubbling up in his throat that he has to swallow down as his cheeks tint a bright red up to his ears. his real, full name was something you were only supposed to use against him in the bedroom.

not in public. not here.

and because the only other times he’s heard it come out of your mouth have been when you were praising him or telling him he had permission to come, his cock starts to involuntarily swell in his dress pants.

he shakes his head and clears his throat as he tries to push down the nervousness and arousal that he assumes is as clear as day on his face.

“i— i don’t know yet, im still deciding,” he says to you, an embarrassed chuckle spilling forth.

you smile at him softly, innocently, and nod.

now his knee is pushing against yours under the tabletop, harder than you had tapped his minutes prior, and you know he’s silently begging for you to do something.

he shifts in his seat, basically writhing, and his breathing falters. the person sitting on the opposite side of him gives him a funny look like ‘this dude has ants in his fuckin’ pants’, but they remain oblivious to the pulsing boner art has fully popped in his clothing. poor guy.

Artemis, Artemis, Artemis.

it rings through his skull, in your voice, as he sits there and waits for you to order so that he can do the same. he wants this whole fiasco to be over so that he can excuse himself, stand up from his chair, cover the tent in the front of his pants, and wobble his way to the public bathrooms to take care of himself.

he’d curse you out if he could, but he’s too busy squirming in his seat against the hot pleasure starting to bubble in his lower abdomen. no, it’s boiling now. his shaft rubs against the inside of his boxers in the wrong way, and the smallest of noises leaves his lips.

you’re evil.

[the-polls]

For my fellow lovers of pushing buttons. I just wanted to have a post to shout out different poll blogs that I can link to and add to. If you want me to add your blog or shout one out, let me know.

EDIT: I've reached the tag limit and realized there is a link limit so I have a carrd I'm using as a poll directory so continue to let me know of poll blogs! I'll add blogs here as links but there's also a link limit, so the carrd will probably be most up-to-date.

I've crossed out the ones that seem to have been deleted/deactivated, but if it's still there and just changed urls let me know.

General Polls ● the-polls (this blog) ● incognitopolls ● apolladay ● anonymous-polling ● anon-polls-for-you ● justcuriouspolls ● oddpolls ● swarm-of-polls-in-a-trench-coat ● thisthat-ortheother ● yesornopolls ● parttimepolls ● reblogforsamplesize ● whatcha-thinkin ● i-reblog-every-poll-i-see ● augmentedpolls ● polls-drugs-etc ● lamp-polls ● pollforthesoul ● poll-boy ● curiositysavesthecat ● anonpolls ● just-a-blog-for-polls ● yayornaypolls ● pollsforpondering ● themostrandompolls ● poll-position ● anonym-polls ● pollsgalore

NSFW (18+) Polls ● spicypolls

Poll Adjacent ● poll-stats ● seeresultssweep

Identity Specific Polls ● aspecpolls - Aspec ● aro-polls - Aromantic ● asexualpolls - Asexual ● gaypolls - Gay/Lesbian ● lesbianpolls - Lesbian ● mspecpolls - MSpec (Bi, Pan, Omni, etc.) ● transgenderpolls - Transgender ● nonbinary-polls - Nonbinary ● gnc-polls - Gender Non-Conforming ● queer-questions-and-polls - Queer ● queer-polls - Queer ● plurality-polls - plurality / systems ● plurality-polls-2 - plurality / systems

Fandom Polls ● pollsnatural - Supernatural (TV) ● tmapolls - The Magnus Archives (Podcast) ● onepiece-polls - One Piece (Anime/Manga) ● anon-scp-polls - SCP ● middleearth-polls - LOTR, The Hobbit, Tolkien ● bts-polls - BTS (Kpop) ● swiftpolls - Taylor Swift (Singer) ● dragonagepolls - Dragon Age (Game) ● sdv-polls - Stardew Valley (Game) ● tally-polls - Tally Hall (Banad) ● loonathepoll - Loona (Kpop) ● dungeonmeshi-polls - Dungeon Meshi ● animalcrossingopinionpoll - Animal Crossing Character Opinions ● nether-have-i-ever - The game "never have i ever" but for Minecraft

"Do you know..." or "Have you seen/played/etc" Polls ● haveyouseenthismovie-poll - Movies ● haveyouseenthisqueerfilm - Queer Films ● haveyouseenthis90smovie - 90s Movies ● haveyouseenthishorrormovie - Horror Movies ● haveyouseenthisromcom - RomComs ● haveyouseenthismusical - Musicals ● doyouknowthischaracter - Characters ● haveyouheardthispodcast - Podcasts ● doyouknowthisanime - Anime ● do-you-know-this-youtuber - YouTubers ● haveyoureadthisbook-poll - Books ● haveyoureadthistransbook - Trans Books ● haveyoureadthispoem-poll - Poems ● haveyouplayedthisgame - Video Games ● haveyouplayedthisirlgame-poll - IRL Games ● doyouknowthistmntau - TMNT AUs ● doyouknowthisdisabledcharacter - Disabled Characters ● areyouthisidentity-polls - Gender/Sexuality ● haveyouplayedthisttrpg - Tabletop Role-playing Games ● doyouknowthisactor - Actors ● doyouknowa - Names ● fictionalfoodpolls - Would you eat [x] fictional food? ● watchlist-poll - Movie Watchlist

Tournaments ● whoishotteranimepolls ● chuunibyou-showdown ● hotvintagepoll ● vgtrackbracket ● mlmshipbracket ● spicymalepolls (18+) ● which-is-the-very-best ● does-it-like-women ● adaptations-polls

Other ● which-item-poll ● rate-a-spam-bot ● daily-oc-polls ● horrorpolls ● hypothetipolls ● trivia-polls-daily

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hello Mint!

I discovered roleplaying through Lancer, and it made me love tactics with a little emergent behavior (with the occasional surprise super silly combo), the sort we also have in some tactical puzzle games like into the breach or tactical breach wizards. Do you know some tactical RPGs with combat that can almost feel like puzzles at times

THEME: Combat with Puzzles.

Hello friend! I think I have some solid recommendations here, but don't sleep on what I've already written about! You can check out some other recommendation posts at the bottom of this.

Celestial Bodies, by Charlotte Laskowski @binarystargames.

Adrift Among the Bodies of the Dead

For a generation after the calamity, the infinite dark between the stars felt cramped, crowded by refugees on ships meant for fewer people and shorter trips.  In the second generation, those who survived in their home-ships now cannibalized the metal skeletons of the less fortunate ships.  The third generation did not just expand their ships; they expanded their mecha and their operations. They fled to farther stars — populations in space stations and on surfaces booming as quickly as lives were lost in petty disputes.  The fourth generation discovered the Titans. No probe had yet reached these dead gods whose frozen bodies spanned hundreds of miles across. You are the fifth generation.

Celestial Bodies uses an inventory system that feels similar to Mausritter; you have to fit your weapons and other gear inside a grid in order to carry everything. Your “puzzle’ involves constructing your mech to work effectively in battle according to the strategy you prefer. You’re also tracking resources gained and resources used; it seems like you have to keep fighting in order to get access to the things that keep you going.

Ultraviolence Radiation, by KintaroTPC.

Ultraviolence Radiation (UVR) is an experiment in action.

Deflect bullets with a knife! Grab a guy and use him as a weapon against another guy! Take a smoke break in the middle of a hail of gunfire! Get your revenge and look cool doing it.

Featuring 100 enemies with unique Intros, Attacks and special things they do when they die! 28 Abilities to make the action hero you want to play! A rule set which takes inspiration from Beat-Em-Up arcade games and applied them to the Tabletop genre.

In Ultraviolence Radiation, one person is a player, while everyone else at the table plays the baddies. The fighter can’t use moves that draw from the same stat back-to-back; a limitation that points towards having to think carefully about what you’re going to do. There are also moves that have cooldown limitations; you can’t spam the same move, but rather have to time everything to make sure you still have access to good options. Additionally, the fighter has access to passive moves, which have no cooldown, and in some cases, might be consistently in effect. They also have interrupt moves, which can be used outside of your turn. This gives you a fairly complex list of options to choose from, which I think is an integral piece to a good combat game.

Mutation, by OneFootWall Games.

The World as we know it has changed. Two centuries from now a comet strikes Earth. This hunk of interstellar rock was an attack by some Klendathu wannabes. “Goddamn bugs whacked us, Johnny.”

It wasn’t really a comet or meteor, or even an asteroid. It was a seed bomb for terraforming sent by some alien species. This thing detonated a mile up over the Florida Keys and scattered radiation, some kind of bio-gel, and spores around the globe. It wiped out 80% of life on the surface. And we never even got to see the damn aliens…

The world was a little weird and quiet after that. But like Dr Ian Malcom in Jurassic Park says, “Life, uh, finds a way.”

A 3d6 system with a reasonable amount of crunch, distance matters in Mutation, and turns have an action economy. This plus the attacks, talents, psychic powers, skills, and gear which all constitute your character mean that you have a number of different distinct tools that can be used to overcome obstacles, especially in combat. Your character also has the opportunity to inflict and also take different conditions; having different ways to affect and damage your opponent feels like another layer of tactical precision to me.

There is a free quickstart if you want to take a peek behind the curtain before you buy.

Thrones and Threads, by OpalBreeze Games.

Throughout the land, warlords hire mercenary champions to try and dethrone one another. Once hired, these champions don cloth adornments embroidered with threads of vibrant colours that signify their allegiance. Endowed with formidable power, champions are tasked with cutting through enemy lines and destroying fortified strongholds until no obstacles remain between their forces and the enemy throne.

Thrones and Threads is a role-playing battle arena based on Songs and Sagas, product of Fari RPGs, developed and authored by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas.

This game comes with 5 pregenerated characters and feels very much like an arena battle; combat is front and centre. Each character has a special move that makes them unique, and many of their traits are determined by different sizes of dice. Because each character has flavoured ways of using their stats, if you are inventive in how you describe your characters’ actions, you’ll likely be able to play to your strengths.

Strike Force Omega, by potatocubed.

It is the far future. Humanity spreads across the galaxy. Led by a council of corporate interests, the Imperial Core reaps the benefits of plunder and exploitation on an unimaginable scale, teeming trillions of human beings kept docile by mass media and the never-ending war against every other sentient species humanity has encountered.

You were a soldier in that war. Not one of the grunts, given basic training and a gun and shoved towards the enemy, although you might have started there. No, you were part of Strike Force Omega. Omega, because you ended things. Given the best training and equipment, remade by your corporate masters into a terrifying god of war, and expected to achieve the impossible on a regular basis. Which you did.

Until you got out.

But war has found you, even here. Not all the threats in the corp newsrooms are overstated.

The people of these worlds are frightened, but they will defend their homes against the oncoming tides – and they will fail and they will die. Even in their millions they cannot win.

Unless…

War is what you were made for, after all. You’ve killed and destroyed for far worse causes than this, so why not take up arms one more time and maybe try to claw back a little part of your soul?

LUMEN is generally a great system for strategic combat, all about creating combos that make you feel powerful and effective. Strike Force Omega is a setting that allows you to play with both magic and technology, and it includes 6 sample campaigns, one for each enemy faction written for the setting. Since the lore and world-building is built in, your characters already have a strong reason for fighting, something that sometimes I struggle to put together in Lancer.

demon blade ultimate, by Peach Garden Games.

Take up your Demon Blade and do battle against the oppression of the imperial army, put an end to the shaded cities, and bring the people of the undercity back to the sunlight.

Demon Blade Ultimate uses the Arts Grid, a character creation and power system pioneered in the legendary Horse Girl Infinity by Jordan Cuddlefish. Choose powers from the grid, unleash powerful summoning magic, and know that nothing is truly beyond your reach.

The grid system in Demon Blade involves choosing three powers on a grid. The spaces between the thing you want to do and the thing you are good at determines the difficulty of an action. Advancement allows you to increase your strengths, making you more powerful as you play.

This game takes a lot from shounen battle anime, so expect narratives about striving to improve yourself until you can vanquish the evil that threatens your people.

Other Recommendations:

Loot, by Gila RPGs.

My Dragoon Recommendation Post.

Fantasy With Tools Recommendation Post

Weapons & Weapon Customization Recommendation Post

Spatial Puzzle Recommendations

Combat Recommendations

If you like what I do and want to leave a tip, you can always stop by my Ko-Fi page.

[quizzicalwriter]

Love Her Madly

Pairing: Modern!Dallas Winston x Fem!Reader

Summary: Dallas is more than willing to lend a helping hand, even on film.

Warnings: SMUT. MDNI. Camgirl!Reader, fingering, dirty talkin’, all that good stuff.

Word Count: 4.6k

Everyone had a career, whether it was accounting, mechanical engineering, or meteorology - everyone had something that provided monetary income. Something to survive, hell, some people even loved their jobs. For you, work was a bit more personal. You interacted with customers frequently, purchased things to pull in newer eyes, and you were damn good at it. 

Questions directed your way on the topic of your career were quickly, and skillfully deflected. Most dropped the subject, willing to delve into the next conversational topic, others were persistent. Your friends were the ladder, childhood companions who knew you better than you knew yourself. They’d nudge your arm with their elbow, teasing you with their theories on what you did for a living. 

Hitman, masseuse, dog trainer. All of them were incorrect. 

Except for one, one whispered statement into the crook of your neck on a night when all of you found yourself way past the point of inebriation. It had caught you off guard, admittedly sending a flush of heat across your chest and cheeks. If it had been anyone else, you might’ve gotten away from it unscathed. 

But you didn’t, because Dallas had been the one to guess correctly. 

Luckily for you, Dallas had no issue keeping a secret he found amusing to himself. However, his keeping of your secret included a few ill-made quips at your expense. Whenever company dwindled low, leaving only the pair of you sitting together, he’d inquire about your line of work. His words always came off hushed, almost near a whisper, but the questions were genuine nonetheless - and his intrigue was palpable. 

Usually, your work centered around yourself, toys and props were included every few clips, but it was mainly you on your lonesome. Your viewers seemed to love it enough, and if one tipped particularly heartily, you usually indulged in a little fantasy-making. Every few days you’d check your inbox, mainly to clear out spam messages and the occasional creep, but one caught your eye as you scrolled through the monotonous topics. 

A regular, a nearly fifty-year-old man with enough wealth and boredom to stock your tip jar with obscenities tied into compliments. He was kind, and lascivious, but nice enough to leave you genuinely considering his request - it certainly helped that he’d stuck a hefty tip onto the end of it all. 

All you had to do was find someone to sleep with, no biggie. 

Right?

Whatever method you’d used in the past to hype yourself up had failed you, miserably, leaving you drumming your fingers against the cool tabletop of your booth in feigned hope to ease your worried mind. Out of your friends, and coworkers you were acquainted with, only one struck you with genuine possibility. 

Dallas.

You framed your meeting around buying him lunch, which admittedly, you had promised to do after he bought you lunch the past fourteen times. It didn’t take much convincing, and after a whopping thirty-second phone call you found yourself waiting at your local hole-in-the-wall diner. 

The complimentary fries were enough to keep your mind distracted, the sharp sting of the salt against your well-bitten lips keeping you settled in the present. You weren’t worried about embarrassing yourself, you had walked in on Dallas with enough women to officially blind yourself. The worries flurrying around your mind centered around your friendship with Dallas, one you’d had since the both of you were scraggly teens. 

“Hey, kid.” Dallas quipped with a sharp push to the back of your head, quickly snapping you from your mind with a groan. He only laughed at your reaction, a lopsided smile crinkling the skin by his eyes as he plopped himself down across from you. 

“Ass.” You murmured, fighting away your smile with a rub to the back of your head. “Go ahead, order what you want. I’m like, what- fifty dollars in debt?”

“More than that.” Dallas replied with a sigh and a reach across the table, grabbing a few fries before tossing them into his mouth. “Who’s countin’? I ain’t.” 

You had spoken to Dallas on nearly every topic under the sun; sex, academics, money, drugs - all of it. Yet you were left feeling uneasy about raising such a premise with a lifelong friend. As you two finished your orders, you found yourself willing your silent mind into words, hopeful that there would be an eloquent way to word wanting your best friend to fuck you on camera. 

“Dal-“ You started with a clear of your throat, free hand grasping one of the few remaining fries from the basket between you both. “I wanted to ask you something.”

Dallas hummed, not bothering to hide his intrigue as he relaxed back against the leather booth, legs spread in a manner that left nothing to the imagination as the denim of his jeans clung to his upper thighs. You weren’t sure if he noticed your blatant staring, the way your eyes couldn’t decide if they wanted to focus on his parted lips or his parted thighs, he wore a smirk nonetheless. 

“You know what I do for work, so I don’t have to explain that part.” Before you could finish your words, he leaned forward, resting his elbows against the cool tabletop between you. “I was wondering if you wanted to film something with me?”

“You want me to fuck you on camera?” He asked, tone full of nonchalance and loud enough to turn a few heads from those seated close to you. You were half-inclined to leap across the center table and clamp your hand over his mouth, but you knew Dallas well enough to know that would’ve fueled him more. 

So, with a crimson-tinted face, you nodded. 

To your surprise, he lifted his drink to his lips with a shrug of his shoulders and a quick, “Alright.”

Relief flooded your senses quicker than relative confusion on his quick decision, your mind not wanting to jinx things or have him second guess it all. Dallas had done risky things before just to say he’d done it, maybe he viewed this under the same lens? 

Some childlike part of you was left wondering if he still saw you the same. It wasn’t every day that someone called their best friend over for a lunch date, only to spring on in the middle of it all that they wanted you to fuck them on camera. 

“Dal-“ You began, clearing your throat halfway through the word. “Do you- do you look at me the same?”

His brow quirked, confusion written clear across his face as he chewed away on another fry. Once he saw you were being genuine, his eyes rolled and he let out a lengthy sigh. 

“‘Course I do.” He mumbled. “Everyone does something for cash. I don’t mind lending a helping hand.” 

Even though his words ended in enough insinuation to leave you choking back another laugh, you were thankful for him. He was an odd friend, one you were constantly worried about the mental and physical well-being of, but you knew that he’d seen enough shit in his lifetime to leave him perpetually unbothered.

“Cool.” You chimed, beaming him a genuine smile as you lifted your hips, fishing around in the back of your jeans for your wallet. “Little weird you’re willing to do it with no convincing, but I’ll take it.”

He snorted at your words, leaning back against the cracked leather of the booth with his drink in hand. “You make me sound bad, kid. Just want to help you out is all.”

“Is all?” You asked, placing down enough money to cover your tab and his, along with a hefty tip in a silent apology to your waitress for having overheard Dallas’s filthy mouth. “You realize what I’m asking you to do right?”

His eyes flickered up to yours, a look within them you hadn’t seen before, it left your stomach flipping in on itself. With a quick placement of his empty glass against the table, he leaned closer to you. 

“I’m going to fuck you on camera.” He stated, once again, not quiet enough for your liking. “And when you post it, you get paid. Helping hand, right?”

A ‘helping hand’ was a different frame of mind for it all, but you agreed with a shallow nod and a quick sip of your drink. 

“There are people here.” You whispered as you fished an ice cube from the bottom of your glass. “Don’t need them knowing my business.” 

“You ain’t seeing these people again.” He quipped with a quick reach across the table for your glass, his thick fingers slinking to the bottom of the cup for an ice cube of his own. “I’ll make it up to you later, how’s that?”

“You better.”

You tried to ignore the cocky smile that overtook Dallas’s lax features, the way his lips wrapped around the ice, the droplets of water curving around his wrist. While you lost yourself in the flex of his jaw as he chewed away at the ice, Dallas let his mind run wild with everything he could do to make you regret your words. 

Your apartment was modest, never something you bragged about, but you felt comfortable and proud enough of it to have people over several times a month. The guys had made their home in your apartment, each having their own designated spot they’d relax in for the time being until they moved onto something else that captured their attention. 

Dallas’s was your couch, pressed tight against the exposed brick wall, directly underneath one of the bigger windows overlooking the land beneath the building. He’d always push the window up, leaving the screen down to ensure no bugs crawled in as he smoked half a pack of cigarettes while talkin’ to whoever had come with him to bother you. 

Just as you assumed he would, he kicked off his boots and slung his jacket over the back of a nearby armchair, giving you a short-lived grin that sent your stomach careening in on itself before he made his way down the adjacent hallway. You followed behind him, abruptly kicking off your shoes as well before padding after him. 

“Dallas?” You called, watching as his form disappeared behind the beads you kept stapled to your doorway. They served as a makeshift curtain, only Ponyboy and Johnny seemed to love them as much as you did, Dallas always swatted at them - not that day, however. “Hell are you doin’ in there?”

As you parted the beaded curtain to the side, you caught sight of Dallas making himself comfortable on your bed, legs sprawled out before him as he struck a match against the side of his belt buckle. His blown pupils gave away his internal thoughts, so you decided against wasting time. You already had a set-up near your bed, it took no time at all to have everything propped up, and with the click of your camera, Dallas looked up to you. 

“Strip.” He murmured, a sharp inhale following the order as he took a drag from his cigarette. “Come closer, doll. You want the camera to see, don’t you?”

You nodded, moving closer to the end of your bed. His hips lifted as he not-so-discreetly adjusted himself through his jeans. The sight of his cock straining against his jeans sent your confidence through the roof, and with little more than a smile directed his way, you lifted your shirt up and over your head, letting the fabric fall to your feet. 

“Shit-“ He breathed, eyes widening as you began unfastening your belt. You didn’t try to contain the giggle that left you at his comment, you knew you’d feel the same in only a matter of minutes. 

“C’mere.” He murmured around the filter of his cigarette, a soft smile toiling with the corner of his full lips. You listened without wasting a second, kicking your unbuttoned jeans off your thighs until they were a crumbled mess against the hardwood floor. 

His eyes watched you as you moved over to your bed, how your chest flushed a deep crimson, the heat spreading up your throat until it turned your cheeks the same hue. You noticed the faint lift of his hips as you sunk to your knees, the soft bedspread enveloping your legs as you crawled over to him. 

“Sit between my legs, doll. Want them to see how pretty you look.”

You were used to holding yourself to a certain degree whenever you filmed your videos, a personal disconnect from your real self. Dallas had done away with it, his eyes coaxing you in, deep brown hues echoing each pant that left your parted lips. As you moved to sit between his legs, he hooked an arm around your middle, effortlessly pulling your back flush to his chest. 

The smoke from his cigarette left your eyes watering, but all you could focus on was the steady throb of arousal between your legs, every atom of your body screaming for his touch. Your hips shifted, twisting, inadvertently brushing your ass back against his lap. You felt the rumble of his breath circling his chest, the reflection of his head falling back reflected on your nearby camera lens. 

“Stop that.” He laughed out, words muffled as he kept his cigarette steady. “Already hard, doll. Gonna make me cum before I get to show you off.”

Wherever Dallas had learned to talk filthy, you made a mental note to pay homage to. Each word sent shockwaves through you, leaving your cunt clenching down around nothing, cum dripping down the cleft of your ass. As you tried to refocus yourself, Dallas leaned back behind you, snubbing his half-gone cigarette on a nearby windowsill. 

With a slow exhale, his hand moved to cup your throat, tilting your head back to face the camera fully. You could see yourself in the reflection of the lens, face, and chest flushed, lips parted - pitiful. 

“Come on, pretty girl.” He urged, tone a centimeter away from being an all-out beg. “Spread your legs, show them your cunt.”

He spoke of your body as if he’d seen it, mapped out your being beneath his skilled tongue, and left kisses in places unseen by your own eyes. You obeyed, lips parted in a silent moan as his hands helped your thighs apart with a gentle push to your inner knees. His chin rested on your shoulder, eyes fixed on yours in the reflection of your camera lens. 

“Look at that.” He whispered, tilting his head to see you, a coy smirk written across his face. “Soaking wet already, huh? That desperate?”

You watched yourself, your cunt twitching around nothing, dripping cum onto the bedsheets below. His hands moved from your knees, slowly caressing your trembling thighs until his fingertips brushed against the swell of your sex. 

His left hand slipped back, fingertips digging into the hollow before your hipbone, pressing down in a manner to keep you steady as his right slipped down your cunt, fingers parting your soaked folds with ease. You allowed your head to fall back, eyes shutting in a relief so packed with bliss you could’ve thanked Dallas until your voice gave out. 

With a chaste kiss to your shoulder, his middle and ring finger pressed into your cunt, gently curling up in a ‘come hither’ motion. Your hips rocked into his touch, pulling his fingers deeper, your body doing a better job at voicing your neediness than your vocal cords ever could. 

“Think you could cum from this?” He asked, even though you were both keenly aware of the fluttering of your cunt around his digits, the pants of breath that left you with each push of his fingers. You nodded, and he smiled. “Want to make you cum on my fingers first.” 

You turned your head, tucking your face into the crook of his neck as his fingers plunged into your cunt, the heel of his palm brushing against your clit. You lifted your arm, curling it around the back of his neck, holding onto him as though you were petrified he’d vanish beneath your grasp. 

A ravenous pleasure blossomed in your lower stomach as you rocked your hips into his palm, small pants and whimpers of his name tumbling past your parted lips. He whispered praise against the shell of your ear, gaze set on the reflection of you in the camera lens, legs spread, hands clinging to his forearm and along the back of his neck, cunt stretched around his fingers. 

“Dal-“ You whined, voice breaking off into another desperate moan as your cunt fluttered around his fingers. He hummed, pressing a kiss to your temple as he pushed his fingers deeper, curling them upward with each thrust. He sent you careening over the edge with a gentle circle of his thumb around your clit, continuing the same blissful motion as you cried out his name into the crook of his neck. 

“That’s it-“ He hushed, cheek pressed to your temple. “Good girl, so fuckin’ good.”

Cum dripped from your cunt, dampening the comforter beneath you. Dallas caught sight of it in the reflection of the camera lens, pride swelling in his chest at the realization that he’d made you cum hard enough to coat his fingers and the bedding in your arousal. Only when your moans broke off into desperate pleas did he slow his movements, fingers still gently rocking forward into your cunt, leaving you teetering on the edge of mind-shattering oversensitivity.

He lifted his arm after slowing his movements to a halt, exposing his glistening fingers to the warm sunlight pouring through your bedroom window. You watched with bated breath as he brought his fingers to his lips, his eyes locked on yours. It was as if the air was knocked from your lungs when he parted his lips, pushing the soaked digits against his tongue. You could hear the deep-set groan reverberating within his chest as your saccharine taste coated his tongue, all but making him drool as he sucked your taste from his fingers. 

His left hand moved to cup your jaw, tilting your head back as he lowered himself to meet your lips. His right grabbed at your breast, smearing his saliva along with the remnants of your arousal across your skin as his lips met yours. The moan that fell from your lips was pure, completely instinctive. He swallowed it with a moan of his own, fingers tightening their hold as they slipped down to cup the curve of your throat. 

You could taste yourself on his tongue, the muscle swirling around your own, ensuring you tasted yourself just as he had. It was lewd, debaucherous, leaving you clenching around nothing as you sucked on his tongue. His fingers tweaked your nipple in between rolling squeezes of the tissue, you couldn’t help but notice his tongue moving in sync with his fingers. 

“Dallas-“ You panted, eyes fluttering open to meet his, recognizing the same carnal desire reflected in his irises. He nodded in response to your unspoken question, placing another chaste kiss on your lips as his hands hurriedly moved to unbutton his jeans. You smiled into the kiss, elated laughter bubbling in your chest as your hands moved with his, nearly tearing the fabric of his boxers in haste to have him. 

It was as if there was no camera, no incentive to keep you both pawing at each other besides the heavy lust hanging in the air, polluting your mind into nothing but a heavy daze of desire. Your cunt ached, desperate for some form of attention, but you refused to appease yourself - you wanted Dallas, and by God, you’d have him. 

“C’mon.” He urged, wetting his lips as he reached behind him for a pillow. You hardly understood what he wanted from you before he pushed the pillow beneath your hips, his free hand settling against the small of your back, gently guiding you over the bunched-up fabric. You could feel his fingers spreading your folds as you settled yourself against the pillow, face turned toward the camera. 

“So fucking wet.” He whispered, tone riddled with equal parts amazement and disbelief. A wet squelch sounded through the silence as he pushed his middle and ring finger into your cunt, a sharp hiss leaving him at the feeling of your warmth enveloping his digits. Part of you wanted to be pissed, to yell at him for not fucking you, but the way his fingers curved inside of you left you pushing your hips back against his hand. 

As soon as you grew accustomed to the feeling of his fingers writhing inside of your cunt, he pulled them free, using your arousal to lubricate his already leaking cock. You pushed your face flat to the mattress, arching your back in a display so riddled with desperation it made Dallas’s cock twitch. His hand grasped at your hip, steadying your trembling form as he swiped his tip along your folds. 

He was a performer, a natural before the camera. Each movement was fluid, and effortless in a way that made you pine for him. With a gentle push forward of his hips, he bottomed out inside of you, stretching your cunt in a manner that left you whining into the duvet. You could hear him steadying his breathing, hands tightening their hold on the flesh of your hips.

“Move-“ You ordered, or more so begged. “Please.”

He responded with a grunt and a sharp push forward of his hips, bullying the tip of his cock against your cervix. Once he was sure you had grown accustomed to his size, he pulled out, pushing back in rough enough to force the air from your lungs. You wove your hand down beneath yourself, circling your middle and ring finger around your swollen clit. 

“So fuckin’ tight-“ He rasped, right hand releasing your hip for a moment to smack at the plush of your ass, leaving a red imprint of his hand behind. You felt his hand smoothing up your back, fingers pressing into the muscle of your upper back before slinking around your shoulder. 

His hand wrapped around your throat, fingers pushing your jaw up, forcing your attention onto the camera in front of you.

“Look at the camera, doll.” He grunted, fingers tightening around the curve of your throat. “Let them see how you look taking my cock.”

You could only moan in response, the noise strangled due to his impeccably tight hold around your throat. You pushed your hips back against him, eyes bleary with tears from the combination of sheer pleasure and lack of oxygen. 

His thumb pushed into your mouth, pressing against the wet muscle of your tongue as he fucked you. You sucked at the digit, your moans concealed for nearly a second before his hips jerked against you, pushing his cock deeper into your cunt. You could feel your spit dripping down your chin and onto your breasts, breaths haggard the longer he kept you pressed back against him. 

Your breathy moans were no deterrent for him, his thumb against your tongue all but forcing your noises to be heard by anyone nearby. His free hand held you by your hip, his thighs slamming against yours with each eager thrust of his hips. You could feel the tip of his cock brushing against your cervix, deep enough to knock the wind from your lungs. 

Pleasure swirled within your lower stomach, settling heavy. The chase of your climax urged you to push your hips back, the sound of skin meeting skin echoing throughout your bedroom. Your cunt squeezed around his cock, each roll of his hips leaving you both breathless, hands grasping desperately at each other as your arousal built to a fever pitch. 

“Dallas-“ You whined, tone carrying enough of a warning for Dallas to trail kisses along the hollow of your throat in between rough groans of your name. Your hand slipped between your slick thighs, fingers finding home against your clit where you eagerly swirled your digits. “-I’m gonna cum.” 

“C’mon.” He urged as he smoothed his hand down your side, grasping the other side of your hip. “Cum for me, doll.” 

A broken, garbled mess of a moan tore its way from your throat. Your eyes squeezed shut as pure euphoria shot through your veins, igniting every facet of your being as your cunt spasmed around his cock. You could hardly register the curses that slipped past his gritted teeth, how his hold on your waist tightened as he fucked himself into you, pushing his cock deeper. 

Your hands reached behind you, blindly fumbling against his dampened skin as he continued to bully his cock into you, fucking you into mind-numbing oversensitivity. His hands moved from your hips, both lacing around your wrists, pulling you back to meet each eager thrust of his hips. Your moans broke off, well past incoherent, delving into the grounds of depravity. 

“Sound so good for me, doll.” He rasped, his voice mirroring yours in its spent nature. “Want me to fill your cunt up, huh? Don’t you?”

Without giving you a moment to reply, not that you could anyhow, given your fucked-out state, he buried himself to the hilt inside of your still spasming cunt. You felt his grip on your wrists tighten to an almost painful degree as he grunted out your name, his hips jerking with each mutter that fell past his lips. Warmth flooded your cunt, spilling down your inner thighs, leaving a mess beneath you. 

As soon as Dallas released your wrists you crumbled to the bedsheets below, deep, ragged lungfuls of air heaving your chest as your mind tried to remain in the present. Dallas kissed along your spine as his hands smoothed up your sides, muttering words of praise lost on your fatigue-ridden mind.

“Doll?” He asked as he shifted behind you, left hand moving to cup the underside of your jaw, gently tilting your head back to meet his gaze. “You alright? Didn’t fuck you dumb, did I?”

You shook your head as you smiled, a small bout of laughter following the movement as you threaded your fingers through his, feeling your damp skin against your pulse point. His words didn’t shock you, if anything you might’ve been worried if he babied you for too long without jabbing at you - that was simply his nature. 

“Alright-“ He groaned, moving his hand from yours to pat your cheek as he moved from your bed. “Stay here, I’ll go get a washcloth.”

As the bed dipped from his departure you took a moment to catch your breath, stretching your legs out beneath you. You were sure you could’ve fallen asleep right then and there if it hadn’t been for Dallas’s return. 

The mattress dipped beside you and a cool washcloth wiped away at your inner thighs and cunt. Dallas cleaned himself off, tossing the dirtied washcloth to a nearby corner of your room before moving back to your side. 

“Turned your camera off.” He stated as he stretched his arms over his head, leaning back afterward to retrieve his nearby pack of cigarettes. You responded in a thankful hum, or what you attempted to make sound thankful. “Figured you wouldn’t want to use your legs for a while.”

Cockiness laced heavily in his words, but you were in no state to dispute it - even if you did, you couldn’t deny he’d fucked you until your legs were jelly. You glared at him through your tired eyes, taking note of his self-satisfied grin as he leaned back against your bedroom wall, a lit cigarette hung between his lips. 

“Ain’t arguing, are ‘ya?” He asked, to which you swatted at his exposed thigh with a stifled laugh. “Hittin’ ain’t denyin’.” 

“Shut up.” You responded, not bothering to hide your smile. “You’re too cocky for your own good.”

“Still ain’t sayin’ I’m wrong.”

A/N: I’m not dead! Or inactive! Life has put me in a chokehold recently, but lately it’s been better! Writing has been a sanctuary for me, and while I can’t do it as often as I could before, I still have more time than I did prior! So, thank you all for your continued love and support of me and my work! I hope you guys enjoy this, see it as a late Christmas present, or holiday gift thing.

[wirewitchviolet]

It is absolutely ridiculous that I have no way to contact people I care about in 2023.

So I got up today, and saw a big announcement about a certain particularly large company in the games industry did an absolutely massive round of layoffs despite an amazingly good year. You know, as they do. As it so happens, this is a company that, last I checked, employs several people I consider to be pretty good friends, and I feel compelled to toss them a quick message asking if that affected them, ask if poke around on their behalf for freelance work or slap a project of my own real quick they can collaborate on, or whatever.

And it's suddenly sinking in to me that I can't actually do that.

Tabletop game work is writing work, and that means 90% of the networking for most of the past decade or so happened over Twitter. Someone announces they're working on a thing, you message them, e-mails get traded to formally send stuff around. I was on there until I wasn't, so normally, that'd be where I'd be doing my checking in. But that of course is off the table. And like, I don't even have read-access to the site to check if anyone's announcing anything there.

Well, we've traded e-mails, right? We absolutely have. Back when everyone I'm worried about was at this other company, which let this same pile of people I care about and then some go several years ago now. So... those e-mails are no longer valid.

Well, what else is there? Oh right, the one friend has a discord server. It's been super dead for years now since he stopped doing the big weekly social thing it was there for, but it's still - oh, no. It's actually closed out. Same with the one for this freelance artist in that same general orbit... and oh Discord redid usernames and forced everyone to pick new ones. Damn.

Well, there's tumblr here, maybe? Like, there isn't really practically any direct messaging on here but... no, no wait, none of them have posted anything on here since bad policies drove a bunch of people out years back.

There's Facebook? But no, I don't have an account, they're all real legal name focused, and for personal security reasons, I never actually use my legal name anywhere even if I could make one (see, they also insist my name "sounds fake" over at Facebook). Well surely I can just find people's personal websites and send an e-mail but... no, people just don't have personal e-mails anymore, and spam got so bad decades ago now that I can't remember the last time I saw ANYONE post a personal e-mail address anywhere visible. Used to be phonebooks, but I don't think they really adapted to everyone just having a cellphone, and even if they did, they're a local thing.

So yeah. I've got nothing here. Uh... on the off chance anyone's reading this who I'm concerned about, hey, I hope you're OK? I'm still at least periodically checking the e-mails you last used to send things to me? Feel free to reach out and let me know how things are going?

But yeah this just sucks.

[sluggybunny]

"Cipherjack Tuesday". Well. Kind of. Don't have much a lot of coherent cool stuff to post but I would like to talk about it anyway.

The premise is "Internet is magic" and then go off from there. Originally there was a more fantastical fairy element to it but it's shifted more towards scifi over the years. The internet is still very much magic, though, with sentient beings that exist in it that are associated with demons, fairies, angels, etc. You got goblins that steal code, devils spamming you with pop up porno game ads and scams, and Things Whispering To You on the deep web.

Most of day to day life is like, some what AR'ififed. You can't really go about the world without having something that allows you access to the Net (sometimes called the Cipher)

I always start with the magic system in my worlds, so the magic works as "code" that you construct and then 'launch' or cast. So it's like typical incantation magic where you write a spell except you don't write it on paper or use mystical ingredients, you code it, run it, and hope your rig can handle whatever you just did.

the notes i have written

"Languages" are the 'schools' or types of magic.

Codes are cast through devices. There are different types of devices that can be used. Mainstream hardware is often severely limited by companies so Codebreakers need to jailbreak their hardware.

The device needs enough CPU power to cast certain spells. If it's too much, the device might break, burn, explode, etc.

Code also requires mental load, especially if you are casting off the cuff. You can preload spells to reduce the load but this takes a long time to set up and requires planning.

You can buy premade code or create your own. Premade code will always be weaker as it has to be designed for general usage and there's a limit to what you can find on the market.

Code can be used as many times as you want but like everything, it is susceptible to bitrot. Cheap/Low quality code will degrade fast and eventually become unusable.

Overloading yourself with too much code can cause lasting mental damage and even physical damage.

Overusing magic causes data corruption that bleeds into the real world: glitched objects, people phasing out of sync, memories overwritten.

i can go into more later.

general notes for the actual world

The highlights

the USA is now DSA (divided states of America)

Texas seceded first (although California claims they did it first) it didn’t go well because of infrastructure issues now they’re heavily tied to the Triad, now known as the Texas Triad

a computer virus threatened the world and it’s origins… Ohio. They used the DELETE bomb and now all that’s left is a smoking crater and is now a Glitch Zone (reality is corrupted)

a mister mouse has wakened and began his plans for his utopian police state. Florida is now ruled by a mouse mecha with a frozen head atop it. He is simply known as The Animator now.

a good chunk of what remains in DSA is owned by CostCorp. They sell every conceivable good and hold immense power and sway.

The game i'm working on is set in Eerie, which is a big city/sprawl place built in lake erie

well that's all I can think of at the moment.

i keep getting stuck on this project and that's likely because I don't talk about it to other people and get trapped in my own head, so I'm gonna try to force myself to post more about it. if you're interested in talking about it or are curious or whatever, hmu.

originally this was a tabletop setting I was gonna run but I don't get to do tabletop anymore, so now I've been writing a computer game(tm) for it. But I might do other stuff with it, who knows. it's just fun

[efangamez]

Introducing: The Pride in the Fall Jam!

Welcome to the Pride in the Fall Jam!

In this game jam, your objective is to create or submit ANYTHING that involves queerness in some way in content or by the relation to yourself!

There are no rules on genre or topic OTHER THAN it is REQUIRED for all submitters to be under the 2SLGBTQIA+ umbrella (and some other stuff you'll see below)

Queerness is a subjective term which means a different thing for different people. For this jam, queerness means something that defies cisgender, hetero-normative and/or western ideals of both. Your games are encouraged to either have been CREATED by a queer person AND/OR contains queer themes. It's a pretty general game jam, so as long as you are queer AND/OR are queer and submit a game with queer themes, you're good! <3

Your games can be tabletop games OR digital games. Anything that gets your mind in the realm of game design is all that matters to me!   

IMPORTANT: Participants may submit previously-made games from no more than a year ago, but it is encouraged to also submit an original piece for this jam! This is a chance to exercise your creative skills AND get your game out there, not just one or the other! ALSO, NO AI ART OR WRITING IS ALLOWED! Also, Under no circumstances are people who submit games with bigoted tones, ideologies, or dogwhistles allowed in this game jam. If your work is bigoted in any way, it can and will be rejected for submission. You have no place in my community, and please do not play my games at your tables. Also, please no NSFW submissions (you know what I mean by that). 

IF YOU ARE SPAM SUBMITTING A GAME WITH NO ADHERENCE TO THE RULES ABOVE, I WILL ALSO DECLINE YOUR SUBMISSION! PLEASE BE AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT!

[prokopetz]

This Kickstarter is five hundred bucks short of ts goal, and I know for a fact there are enough RPG-playing Ultraman nerds following this blog that we could double their total without even trying. These are the same folks who published the Belonging Outside Belonging based Henshin!, so they've got a track record backing them up.

[delphi-shield]

classified intel // jill valentine

Jill x GN!Reader Fluff wc: 1,543 read on ao3 suggestive themes bc reader sends jill a tasteful nude, reader implied to be civilian, post-di!Jill.

this almost turned into angst, but i excised the sad parts and it turned into another wip. tbh i should be prepping for my tabletop tomorrow but i miss my wife.

Jill's on a work trip, but that's never stopped you from texting her before and it sure as hell's not going to stop you now.

also known as:

i am ruminating on a relationship with jill once more. 😔

Technically speaking, your relationship isn’t long distance.

Just because Jill spent a large portion of her time overseas, god-knows-where, doing god-knows-what, did not mean that you were long distance. Yeah, maybe you do have to schedule calls, fighting timezones and your responsibilities to carve out a measly half hour with each other. That doesn’t qualify, technically, as long distance. You tell this to your friends over and over again. Still, they roll their eyes, hum their doubt, and insist that you may as well be long distance.

Their point remains. You and Jill are apart far more than either of you would like. She’s a busy woman by her own design. Her drive had been something that you had admired about her, even if it was the very same thing that kept her from you. You hadn’t entered this relationship blind to the fact that she would be gone sometimes. You had learned to be okay with it, learned to handle the distance that was often double-edged. 

Texting was usually infrequent when she was away. Her personal cell phone was usually left behind when she went out for assignments - and if she did have it, it was turned off and shoved to the bottom of her pack. You texted her throughout the day, leaving behind a collection of your thoughts for her to come back to. She had taken to responding in one text, a bullet-point list to catch up on everything that she had missed.

 Once, you had gotten anxious about bothering her, about the egregious amount of notifications she would be flooded with when she finally turned her phone back on. You had sent her just one text, telling her to be safe, that you loved her. She had called you the moment she had service, demanding to know what was wrong. Thought something happened to you, I don’t know, she had grumbled, dismissing her paranoia easily over the phone. You had let it go unchallenged, quietly returning to your text spam. The next time she had a chance to talk to you, she had saved her bullet-points for a phone call.

The last time you had heard from her, her plane had landed safely. Her day was going to be packed with intelligence meetings - not really the kind of thing she could be on her phone during. You’ve just gotten home from work when your phone chimes. You take your time checking it, not expecting your girlfriend to be able to chat. She was at least three hours behind you, still in the middle of her work day.

It's a pleasant surprise to see a text from her. Instead of her usual bullet-point reply, she had sent an unflattering picture of a pitbull. Jill’s arm came in from the side of the frame, her hand blurred in the motion of a head pat. The text accompanying it simply read:

5:12 PM: PB&J.

Before you could even ask what that was supposed to mean, Jill sent a second text.

5:29 PM: His name is PB&J.

You grin at your phone, sending her an array of emojis to show how cute that is. You flop back onto your bed, your phone held over your face.

5:31 PM: can you call? just got home lol

5:35 PM: Sorry. Waiting for my next meeting to start.

Shit. You push down your disappointment and look for the silver-lining. At least you could text her for a little bit before she got wrapped up in work again. The dishes in the sink were forgotten in favor of the back and forth between you and Jill. It was hardly the most thrilling conversation. You exchanged the daily monotonies with each other - what sort of coffee she had that morning, how terrible traffic had been for you on your way home, your coat forgotten over the back of your chair at work and Jill’s pen borrowed from an embassy, blue ink, ballpoint and scratchy. It’s easier to superimpose the memory of her alongside you when you have the little details to work with, when you can fill in the gaps in your imagination with the particulars.

Naturally, this devolved into teasing.

5:47 PM: what are you wearing?

5:47 PM: That’s classified.

5:48 PM: tank top and jeans again, huh was kind of hoping for a pantsuit 👀 i know u packed that navy one send pics

You scrolled through your photos, searching for a set of pictures you had taken a few nights ago. If you were going to ask for pics, it was only fair that you send one in return. You had taken them early in the week, consumed by a swell of confidence that had been flushed away the moment you had to scroll through them. You had scrutinized every angle, pinpointed every flaw, every way the light played off of your skin. Your motivation to send them had dwindled quickly. They were filed away into a password protected album, a break in case of emergency stash of photos that may never see the light of day.

Rip the band-aid off, you tell yourself. Send it before you can second guess yourself. You pick your favorite photo, your thumb hesitating over the send button for a fraction of a second before you decide fuck it. She’ll like it. Hopefully.

You drop your phone facedown onto your chest so you don’t stare anxiously at the conversation. It takes all of ten seconds for it to chime again.

5:55 PM: You know the BSAA monitors my texts, right?

Your heart lurches. No way. No fucking way. She’s got to be bluffing. The idea of Jill’s colleague scrolling through your messages with her was mortifying. It wasn’t like this was the first time you had sent her pictures like that. Even if you hadn’t sent those, there were still plenty of texts that you didn’t need anyone else seeing.

She’s bluffing. Has to be.

5:57 PM: bullshit lol 5:57 PM: very funny 6:13 PM: youre not serious right 6:14 PM: ?? 6:14 PM: jill pls 6:24 PM: omg ur not joking are you

Logically, you knew that Jill’s meeting had started. That was why she wasn’t responding. You knew there was no way the BSAA monitored her personal communication 24/7, and you knew that if they did she would have told you about it the first time you had sent her a picture like that, not the hundredth. However, you also knew that she loved keeping you in suspense. No matter what she said to the contrary, you knew that Jill loved to watch you squirm. She found it cute, or so she had confided in you one night, half-asleep and tangled in your sheets.

It took a full hour later for Jill to get back to you. During the course of that hour, you damn near paced a track around your bedroom and filled your google search history with plenty of things to ruin your targeted advertising. Choice examples include ‘employee handbook bsaa north america’ and ‘bsaa employee phone policy’. 

Your phone doesn’t even finish the first ring. You see Jill’s name flash on screen, and you’ve already got your phone up to your ear.

“Please tell me you’re joking,” you blurt out, your thumb wedged between your teeth.

Jill blurts out a confused what, her voice wobbling with a laugh. It clicks for her a moment later.

“Oh - the ‘monitoring my texts’ thing?” She says, voice lighting with amusement. “Yeah, no. They don’t do that. You look good, though. Did I buy that?”

You let out a relieved groan. “You are such an asshole,” you huff. “I was worried the entire United Nations had just seen my ass.”

“Oh, c’mon. I would have told you not to send stuff like that if they were pulling my texts.” You can’t argue with that. She may have liked to see you squirm, but she was well aware of your boundaries.

“Got any other angles? I remember that outfit having more straps.”

You snort. “Maybe. Gonna need some reciprocation first, though.”

You hear Jill hum over the phone. A door opens in the background, a deep voice drifting over the phone, indecipherable. Jill pauses, listening.

“I’ll see what I can do. Gotta go.”

You hurry to say goodbye, squeezing a quick love you in before the call cut off.

The quiet creeps back into your apartment. You’re left staring at Jill’s contact photo. You tap it to view it in full. Jill’s arm wrapped around your shoulders, your head thrown back in a laugh. You were cuddled up on the porch swing of a bed & breakfast, an impromptu weekend trip Jill had taken you on a month ago. You had cropped the photo, centering it on Jill - on the way she looked at you and smiled, her eyes soft in a way that you had never seen before.

Your phone buzzed, and you nearly swiped the notification away out of habit. You caught yourself just in time, catching Jill’s name.

8:53 PM: 1 attachment

Your eyes scoured the picture, grin crinkling the corners of your eyes. Goddamn - you knew she had packed that pantsuit. You’re typing a reply when she sends another text.

8:54 PM: Do not say awooga.

You delete your draft and think of a different way to express your appreciation.

[raul-volp2]

Tabletop rpgs are a interesting case when it comes to game, not only it's a very social and open form of game but because it's also the most difficult game (tabletop or digital) for people to actually play it.

By nature a tabletop rpg require effort, time and a sizable group of friends. Digital games most of time requires only a single player to boot the game, if it's multiplayer you usually can play with random people online. Tabletop games requires a little more effort reading the rules, setting up the game and having people to play it (there is also solo games), but when compared to ttrpgs the reading is a lot smaller and even the players needed depending of the game is very small than a optimal group size for a ttrpg.

But the biggest effort that ttrpg requires is time, you and your players have to commit to a campaign that even if it's short can spam multiple weeks to finish, and being adults in this capitalist hellscape having time to join with friends to play for 2-4 hours is kinda rare.

But Im not saying this as something bad, while it requires effort ttrpg is a beautiful and unique experience, where players join together to immerse themselves in a world and have fun with the game. But looking this as a game designer I started to see a big risk of developing a ttrpg, and the risk is that there is great possibility that our game even if it's bought by people might never be used in a single session.

People are afraid to change, to try something new, and this include games, that's one of the reasons Dungeons and Dragons dominate the scene, they use this attachment people have with things and products very well, and people see the idea of play another game as a risk, they dont want to risk using their rare ttrpg time to play something new and be unsatisfatisfied, and that's makes sense. Even group of players that plays multiple ttrpgs have difficult to play all the their library because while they are able to play multiple campaigns, it's very difficult to play all the games that are releasing.

So rambling all this my conclusion is that a ttrpg game designer need to have in mind that they are making a game, and try to make a good one please, but also have in mind that a lot people will read their book as a book, they will have fun reading the lore, studying the rules, imagining the sessions they might play but actually never play it, and I am starting to realize that this is ok. But even being ok having a game no one will play even if they get the book and enjoy the reading, another skills that is part of a ttrpg writer and designer that I see most people not paying attention to it, is that the book have not only the job of explain the rules and present the world, but to convince the reader that the game they are reading is something they want to play.

Saying this sounds obvious, because in part we all must know that, but it's usually a skill that a lot of designers don't pay too much attention, and not only designers, look at Mork Borg, it is a OSR rpg like many others, but the book with it's unique layout, art style and writting does a amazing job to convince you to play. Same with Blades in the Dark, John Harper does an amazing job showing great examples of play when explaining the rules, showing the possibility of many cool things you can do in the game. This is not something easy to do, and ttrpg designers have to deal with so many things already, and specially indie ones, but it is something necessary.

All games have voices, and we need to find the voice of our games and make them speak and convince the readers and players that our games is something they want to play it... but also knowing that it's ok if in the end our games end up being just a good reading with cool art on it.

This might feel very confuse and wrong, I work mostly with game art and my game design methods are very confusing and my game (City Noire) will probably fly very unnoticed, so don't pay attention if you feel im talking nonsense.

Thank you.

Raul.

[the-creative-lounge-blog]

The video features custom community emojis by @azuzeldraws

We're ready for you to join The Creative Lounge Discord Community!

Community rules & guidelines are below the cut for anyone who'd like to preview them before joining.

Members must be at least 18 years old.

The Creative Lounge Community Invite

The Creative Lounge is a Discord community of creators and lovers of different genres, crafts, and talents that, together, foster a positive creative environment.

A good portion of this community is dedicated to content creators who work with different mediums. That's by design. We inspire one another and often collaborate. I hope The Lounge makes it easier to do both!

There's also room in here to play. I'm arranging the ability to stream art and video games in here, as well as host virtual tabletop games (these adventures are fantastic fodder for art, animation, stories, and audio works)!

Art and storytelling have been part of the human experience since our beginnings. They withstand disease, war, natural and unnatural catastrophes, and most impressively, time. Be proud of what you contribute.

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[definitely-not-an-alias]

Taking a brief break from my mental breakdown to consider the B1 Series Battledroid from Star Wars. I love those guys. I want 100 of the Lego minis of them. I miss Star Wars Force Arena (a really cool RTS mobile battle game that is now defunct) in part cause I could happily spam them, and play Count Dooku. I wanna get into Star Wars Legions (a neat-looking tabletop wargame) so I can spam them.

They're the sci-fi version of fantasy skeletons: cheap, numerous building blocks of an army. Weak in small numbers but a true threat in vast quantities. They even look kinda like skeletons with how skinny they are. I love them.

[allyheart707]

We be moots now :D

I noticed you started to follow me on New Year's after I posted my take on Jelly's DTIYS, and I recognized you as the person who made the super cute separated AU comic. I meant to follow back then, but I got distracted by my friends making it their life mission to spam reblog that post as much as humanly possible.

Anyway, now I'll never miss an update of Little Subjects again! It's so adorable, can't wait to see more!

Ahhhhhh oh my gosh thank you! I had no idea you ever saw that I followed you- I love your art!! A-and you think my AU is cute? ;0; thank you so much!!! :D

I found your art through the DTIYS but fell in love with your Tabletop Turtles AU- it is such a cool idea and I love d&d!! Your Mikey is so friggin adorable with all the little freckles- ;0;

Anyways! It's nice to meet you and thank you for following me! :DDD