#luka rejec

[educationaldm]

Deep in the Purple Worm.

Amazing Map from Luka Rejec.

[victusinveritas]

Art by Luka Rejec. Go follow him on Instagram.

[haveyouplayedthisttrpg]

Have you played ULTRAVIOLET GRASSLANDS ?

By Luka Rejec

Heavy Metal/psychedelic/point crawl/Oregon Trail. Journey through bizarre lands, meet cats with people hands who run the joint, be weird freaks, try not to die. Featuring one of the best carousing tables ever written.

[indierpgnewsletter]

New Itch Games for April & May

Been quiet on here but I'm back now!

It’s the itch.io round-up of new games! Now coming to you once every two months because that sounds easier. Usual disclaimer: This comes from be browsing itch.io and people self-submitting through the form. I haven’t played these games and mostly am just going by how interesting they sound to me. Okay, let’s go:

The Hollow Queen: This is a GM-less horror game from Venezuelan designer, Felix Rios, about a dark force haunting the streets and the people trying to uncover it. It uses the diceless Ten Coins system and is available in Spanish.

Contact: A game where you use a music playlist and tarot cards to play through a story about trying to make contact with aliens. I think the idea is that the songs contain encoded messages from the aliens, which is a neat reversal of the Voyager Golden Record. By j strautman.

Tangled Blessings: This is a solo dark fantasy game set in a magic school. It’s a solo/duet game, building on Anamnesis by Sam Leigh. You explore the secrets of this weird school while dealing with a rival who’s making your life difficult. Designed by Cassi Mothwin.

Strike Force Omega: This is LUMEN game about science-fantasy supersoldiers coming back for one last stand, defending their homes in a time of war. By Chris Longhurst, designer of See Issue X and Pigsmoke.

Thirty Foes  (OR Once again, we are defeated): In a similar premise, but much more focused on the drama rather than tactics, this is Seven Samurai but cosmic cowboys. They sling cosmic power and defend against bandits. And they’re probably going to die. From Rat Wave Game House.

Thief and Druid: Two games from Stéphanie Dusablon. Both are solo games with an optional journaling element. Thief uses the Push system and Druid uses the Firelights system. I’m not sure if this is a series that will expand to all the D&D classes but it’s a neat idea.

Skyrealms: This is a fantasy bestiary, setting, and solo adventure game about three floating islands in the misty heights, full of secrets and strange creatures. It’s from Iko and Armanda Haller. You can also use the bestiary as a colouring book apparently!

In The Blind: This is a sci-fi horror game about working class people trying to do their job and instead facing the darkness of space. This is a free preview and showcases how good Riley Daniels, designer of As The Sun Forever Sets, is at visual design.

Queenless: This is another Firelights game from solo game blog, Croaker RPGs. You play as members of the hive, exploring the world and protecting your home from destruction.

When Prophecy Fails: Nick Wedig makes a game about cultists and what happens when their foreseen apocalypse doesn’t happen. I’ll give you a hint: they often get even more radical. Based on the For the Queen. (PWYW)

The Score: Tin Star Games GM-less storygame where you tell a heist movie in 18 minutes using 18 cards.

SDM: Eternal Return Key: Luka Rejec follows up Ultraviolet Grasslands with a full OSR-style rulset and more weird setting. It has the same much-loved psychadelic vibe from the original and there’s a free art-less version as well.

the city begins to exist: A citybuilding game with some solid prompts. I can always use more citybuilding games! Designed by kay w.

[ladytabletop]

Fronds of Benevolence by Andrew Walter

This adventure for Troika! makes me want to play Troika! (which is more than I can say for the core book). It's one that, like Witchburner by Luka Rejec, has a ticking clock so that things HAVE to happen in the adventure.

[tgirlwithreverb]

Cute little peice by Luka rejec, shoulda workshopped that last joke just one more time though, it's obviously: "I suspect roleplaying as a folk art will do just fine, Hasbro or Hasbron't

[thegaminggang]

The Vastlands Guidebook: Bootleg Beta - Early Release PDF is Available Absolutely Free - ...

[jamesdavisnicoll]

Bundle of Holding: Ultraviolet Grasslands

A bundle focusing on the Ultraviolet Grasslands, the psychedelic fantascience Rainbowlands caravan pointcrawl campaign setting for Old School tabletop roleplaying games by designer-illustrator Luka Rejec at WTF Studio.

#BundleOfHolding

[makeshiftcoop]

Mugshots and Moodboards (Or: Who are you?)

Misfits, in this version of the game, are made of two things: A Mugshot, their PWRZ, their Freakness, the reason that they are a Misfit in first place, the reason why they are feared, persecuted and also admired and fetishisized. And a Moodboard. Their style, their vibe, a part of their personality and cultural niche. They are a mix of the zoomer way of talking about aesthetics with the -core suffix and other clichés that i think we see in comics and related medias.

At the moment they are the bone and meat of a Misfit but not all: Misfits also have useful Stuff that they carry around, a Path that is a general purpose of life (to help think about Misfit's priorities) and a Transgression that is the first accusation that got them in trouble with law. It can be true or a bullshit accusation.

My goal with them is making they simple enough to exist various (maybe even some overlapping) and also with thematic abilities like Spire, Heart, Luka Rejec stuff and so on. I think that some games can have interesting ans different themes and systems but boring classes are always a turn off.

Here are 5 Mugshots and 5 Moodboards to make your own Misfit (Things are totally unbalanced right now in terms of PWRZ and honestly, i think it makes thematic sense to be unbalanced)

MUGSHOTS:

1. SUPE - GENETICALLY CONDITIONED AND TRAINED SINCE THEIR CHILDHOOD BY POWERFUL CORPORATIVE HOUSES TO BECOME A KILLING MACHINE, A SUPERSOLDIER, A POSTER TO THE CAPACITY OF HUMANITY TO DEFY IT'S GODS. YOU ARE ALSO KINDA TIRED OF IT ALL. STRUGGLING TO COPE WITH THEIR PLACE IN THE WORLD.

- Stats: +2 Body

- Moodboard (Select from the Moodboard table):

- Stuff: a slick looking handgun (D8), a contact from the Corpo that did this to you, a relatively steady way to access your vice, cellphone, a hunting knife (D6), sleepbag, first aid kit (3).

PWRZ (Pick 1 from the 0 Tier and select the rest according to how many weird points you have) - Passive: Overachiver (Can do a Plan with half the success required), Bones of Steel (D6, close, punches very hard), Unbreakable Tissue (A3), Overindulgence (get another Reckless Excess)

- D4: high (C, heightened senses), dark (C, sixth sense and seeing in the darkness), deep throat (C, can consume anything, gets insights from it), jumper (jumps really high),

- D6: numb (C, ignores one body strike), marathon (C, tireless for the next day)

- D8: superman (C, superhuman strenght, 2d12), killshot (once focused, can't miss the next shot)

- D12: jet (C, almost reaches sound speed)

- D20: titanskin (C, unable to be physically damaged for, like, 5 minutes tops) , godslayer (C, the strenght of a god. for a scene)

- Quirk: Compound (C) (A type of chemical compound made by the Corpos that can grant extreme capacities to Supes. They wreck your health. They need to be injected. You need to stole it from the Corpos)

- You have a Reckless Excess (others methods for clearing stress are twice less effective. doing it with dedication can clear a strike once a while) 1. Bottles 2. Pills 3. Sex 4. Games 5. Party 6. Gamble 7. Shopping 8. Brawl 9. Smoke 10. Kill

2. MINDFUCKER - AN INVOLUNTARY VOYEUR OF MINDS. DEAL WITH SECRETS. FEED THE COLLECTIVE UNCONSCIOUS. BE PRETTY WEIRD

- Stats: +1 Brains, +1 Weird

- Moodboard (Select from the Moodboard table):

- Stuff: 3 strong painkillers (clears weird and brains stress and one strike), cellphone, knife (D4), sleepbag, first aid kit (3). betablockers (3, diminish the effect of your pwrz for the day, clears all stress)

PWRZ: - 0: Attune (access the collective unconscious of a place and get it's vibe), temple of mind (one day away at the oniric heals stress and one strike) - D4: mindfuck (D8, close, can induce pleasure or pain), disorientation (D4, every foe gets lost for a turn), extraction (steal thoughts of the surface mind) - D6: hijacking (close, capture someone mind, making it obey simple and reasonable actions), inception (close, implant an idea), harm's way (make someone put their own life at peril), One Mind (heal Brain strikes by altering cleaning the deep unconscious of someone) - D8: The Mind Stream (enter the collective river. learn an impossible ability for the day) - D12: boom! (explode a head), Eraserhead (erase days from someone head) - D20: New Beggining (Erase your identity from the Collective Unconscious)

QUIRK (Work in progress!):

3. PSYÖNIC - A DOOMED DISGRACE THAT CAN BEND REALITY AND DEFY PHYSICS WITH THEIR MIND AT EXPENSE OF THEIR HEALTH. THE MORE BEATEN UP, THE MORE POWERFUL THEY BECOME. ADDICTED TO THE SENSIBLE WORLD

Stats: +2 Vibe

Moodboard (Select from the Moodboard table):

Stuff: Luxury Smartphone, party drugs, knife (D4), sleepbag, first aid kit (3)

PWRZ: - Passive: paranoical personal borders (A1 shield when awake), multitasking (can move small objects around), seventh sense (you can sense danger and weird stuff) - D4: force field (contains shit up to 8 stress), chokehold (D8, strangles), going up (levitate. not too high), party tricks (transform water in an alcoholic beverage) - D6: crush! (D10, smash stuff. metal, bones, wood), Constructo (make human sized stuff with your matter altering psyönic energy. Can give damage or armor as appropriate), Vitakinesis (stitches molecules together, heal body strikes or destructed terrain), Stasis (freeze someone in time) - D8: sever (2d10, separe a limb from it previous owner. bleed), - D12: Matrix (you can redirect any projectile attack to where you please) - D20: bleeding nose (collapse everything around you),

QUIRK: All stress and the overrall scale of the Psyönic PWRZ grows with Strikes taken. On the deadly strike, if not obliterated, the Freak can unload a Reality Crush. It will be ugly.

4. KAOIST - A BASEMENT "MAGE" THAT STRIKE DEALS WITH FAKE GODS. CAN STORE STRESS AND AVOID IT COMPLETELY IN EXCHANGE OF PARANOIA.

Stats: +2 Weird

Moodboard (Select from the Moodboard table):

Stuff: an unpratical dagger scribed with sigils (D6, unreliable, burns) or a shotgun with silver bullets (D10, close, reloads, extra damage to unreality related stuff). Overcoat with lots of pockets. Cellphone, knife (D4), sleepbag, first aid kit (3)

PWRZ: - 0: Subliminal Jihad (Deny stress to fuel Paranoia), Unlinear Progress (Fuel your Paranoia to resolve Projects. One tick at the time) - D4: Finger Gun (D8, close, annihilates), Smoked (3d4, burns, ignites cigarette smokes), Many sided coat (can transform completely the style of an outfit) - D6: Cash out (Spills money outta bank machines), Mirrorland (travel between mirrors), Houdini (Escape a place or situation), "It's like a movie!" (Succed at an nearly impossible feat of showmanship action) - D8: Skin Costume (steal their face. for a limited time), Lucky Strike (Deny a fatal Strike), Liminal absorption (make one entry to ban someone or something to the Liminal Space) - D12: Cultural Wars (Transform bystanders in an army against a common cause. They will adopt extreme measures) - D20: The Uncontrability of the World (dismantle the social logical of an local institution)

- QUIRK: Stress can be transformed into PARANOIA. Roll a D20 following the same rules that exists to Stress. Paranoia makes the Everyday more Unreal and less trustworthy. The only way to clean Paranoia is spending time away from your PWRZ. All Strikes suffered by the Kaoist are more or less involved with their deals with Unreality.

5. COSMYK - A STRANGELY BEAUTIFUL SIGHT, STUNNING LIKE LOOKING DIRECTLY AT A STAR. RAISING THE TEMPERATURE, MELTING WEAPONS, IRRADIATING COLORS THAT DOESN'T EXIST AND DISINTEGRATING FOES WITH RUTHLESS SUPRALUNAR ENERGIES

Stats: +1 Vibe and +1 Body

Moodboard (Select from the Moodboard table):

Stuff: Cellphone, knife (D4), sleepbag, first aid kit (3), an otherkin friend that gets being out of place.

PWRZ: - Passive: Lights (you shine at will), stoneskin (A2, the impossible heat changes your meat), antigravitrons (fly around), weird brain (your mind cannot be read or attacked by human-like things), Xenotongue (you can communicate with unreality beings) - D4: Plasmacrackers (2d6, burns), Starcrossed (they are all looking. wanting. waiting), Drought (evaporates liquids), - D6: Unbreakable (Survive extreme pressure, no oxygen, space, etc), Undisturbed (A4, create a small artificial habitat for you and 3 more people. It has oxygen and 2 features) - D8: Superhot (the room starts to melt. 2d6 per turn to everyone inside), Ultralightbeam (2d10, critical melts corneas, annihilates) - D12: Megaton (d20, blasts, annihilates, your body become a energy missile), Void Overflow (A3, barely understandable energies overcharge you with power. until the end of scene, you can use every PWR that you already know), Vanishing Flash(an impossible bright flash of light that disintegrates everything with 4 or less resistance) - D20: Terraformation (you can change the weather, fauna and flora of a region with the alien like force that emanates from your body), miracle maker (revives someone)

QUIRKY: Strange Physiology: A Cosmos can endure with minimal water, food and sleep for weeks. Their bodies also have a natural resistance to damage of A1. Clearing stress should take an extra effort.

MOODBOARDS:

1. Capercore: Spandex, latex, full body suits, swimsuit, capes. Unpractical, but show off. #branding with colors or symbols. Some armoured parts integrated into a costume. Bright and flashy colors. Stuff: Some groupies (name 3 of them), a signature weapon (D6, a free tag), advantage to talking with the press

2. Techwear: Black, stealth black, graphite. Details in white, yellow, pink, prints with japanese writing, pockets, clasps, straps, tactical jackets, shoulder bags, waterproof clothing. Stuff: Conceleable vests (hides identity), swiss army knife (D4, has a wine opener), some parkour capabilities.

3. Cozycore: Pastel tones, green, beige, white, deep browns, dark reds, maroon. Warm undertones. Flannels, comfy clothes, sweaters, sweatshirts, sweat pants. baggy t shirts. Stuff: A small flat with lots of pillows, a comfy bed and snacks (full day here clears all stress). A plushie that can really calm down friendly faces.

4. Vaporwave: Neon and Pastel tones, pink, blue, white, magenta and cyano. City lights. Street fashion. Greek art and japanese writings, fast cars, beaches in retro games. Automobilistic team jacket, brands patches on white t shirts, biker pants, sportswear. Stuff: Good LSD, a retro console and a beated up 80s sport car.

5. Gothcore: Black, purple, some white, magenta, darker shades of red and purple. Eyeliners and eyeshadow, darkness, emptyness. Nights, the void of consumerism, the nihilistic liberty. Jeans, skirts, fishnets, obscure bands shirts, ripped jeans, scary movies and christian motifs, long and short dresses, spiked jackets. Stuff: A musical instrument, a secluded spot to chill and hide (ideally near something macabre) and a paranormal trinket (can really scare some people)

[vintagerpg]

Longwinter: Referee’s Book (2021) is the second volume of Luke Rejec’s chilly OSR adventure/setting. This one, as the title implies, is eyes only for the GM. I shan’t spoil it. Suffice it to say that while the valley and the mountains and towns described in volume one offer plenty of adventure on their own, there is a bigger picture that exerts its will on the players through this book. It’s a tricksy book, for sure, and if the feel of the valley doesn’t remind you of Witchburner, then then twists and turns this story will open up surely will.

That’s all I’ll say. Enjoy the art. Get intoxicated by the mysteries it shows you. Buy the book for your GM and convince them to run it for you when the leaves start falling.

[hydraco-op]

Luka Rejec’s Witchburner: Burner Edition. Available now! For FREE!

[firelightwilltell]

Welcome the Ultraviolet Grasslands; Session 2

Here is my write up of the second session of the Ultraviolet Grasslands, a heavy metal steppe-crawl to the end of the World, by Luka Rejec. I’m am running the Patreon Edition with Lamentations of the Flame Princess, including a few tweaks to fit the UVG.

Heroes

Chloe; 3rd level Halfling (Half-ling in the UVG)

Delian; 3rd level Elf (Half-elf in the UVG)

Guest Heroes

Vigo Brastec; 3rd level Cleric

Sid Cadmium; 3rd level Specialist

Migo the Dark & her pet Jor leu-Gro; 3rd level Magic User

Zika; 3rd level Fighter

Obritish Krat; 3rd level Dwarf

Hirelings

Menrek Zero Running; 1st level Specialist

The session started off with some Bluelander pilgrims who had heard Chloe’s death cult pitch, and decided to abandoned their quest for the Dead God Rot to follow the party. As she was making her pitch, a slow comet burned across the sky towards the West. Although the comet was likely just coincidence, they gained 8 new followers and a group of 5 mercenaries who were travelling with them. As they joined, they saw Gertie the Corpse Wrangler coming across the grasslands with 6 zombie thugs for the CAT construction company and a robed character the disappeared into the grass. Gertie was there to confront the party, who had ran away from their debt in the Violet City. The fight broke out and ended with all of assailant’s dead and Chloe bleeding out. A bit of healing in the name of Rot by Vigo Brastec the Bluelander Cleric had the Chloe back up. After a week more of rest and trading supplies their now larger caravan departed towards Potsherd Crater. They saw some ceramic centipedes who seemed to eye their mules, but kept their distance. Sim Cadmium the dog-headed Specialist did the scouting when they arrived at Potsherd Crater, and caught word of the Waterlogged Quarry and the Mad Autofarm, but not before the caravan spent a day lost in slightly poisonous flower patches. Needing to restock up on supplies and trade the caravan pressed on towards the Porcelain Citadel. Unfortunately, their extra days caught up with them and they ran out of food. They cooked a mule, ate some wild garlic, and only had 2 deserters: one Bluelander pilgrim and Menrek Zero Running, who wasn’t keen on finding her former parent sentience as an escaped polybody.

They were greeted by Porcelain Prince Leopard Lithophane 4-dyad** **as they arrived at the Black House at the Porcelain Citadel. The party split up, some of them trying to meet potential trade partners in the Porcelain Princes who frequented the Black House. A few stayed at the House of the Unavowed Cardinal for some grey antelope BBQ. The group at the Black House became friendly enough with Lithophane 4-Dyad for the group to get let in past the Laser Defense Columns to trade their Whiskers at Two Serais, and to scope out the High Houses where they hoped to find some extra polybodies for Yansa, their financier. Porcelain Prince Bone Kaolin 2 Body had offered to sell the party some illicit trade goods (Karma Dust), behind the House of the Unavowed Cardinal, but it was too expensive for the party’s funds. Sim went to party in up and Your Life Burns Faster in This House, where he me the Syruss Sensible and found a secret passage in the “dungeon” where Syruss and Bone Kaolin 2 Body would trade elicit goods. The party decided that they could use the tunnel, whose entrance was in the field next the Houses of Many Colors, to escape if needed.

Migo and Chloe departed from Two Serais, slinking along the Houses of Many Colors before they tried to get into the High Houses. Migo had left her human in one of the human-sized dog cages in the “dungeon” at Your Life Burns Faster in This House and was able to sneak into a window, while a failed stealth check Chole got caught outside the door by Porcelain Prince Sherd 7 Extension. Migo continued deeper and found one of the polybody storage labs. Chloe failed to escape Sherd 7-Exstention and was led to the same storage lab to be turned to a poldybody drone. Migo was able to use Charm to grab one of the polybodies of Many Cracks 5 Body who was passing by. The polybody of Many Cracks 5 Body convinced Sherd 7 Extension that they could handle putting Chloe into the vat. After Sherd 7 Extension left Migo had Many Cracks 5 Body depart to catch up with the rest of his polybodies. With all the Porcelain Princes gone, Chole and Migo mind-linked with a pair poly-bodies and headed out of the lab. Migo left with her new polybody back to the Two Serais. Chole failed another stealth check and barely dodged the laser beam of the Column Defense Golem, escaping into the tunnel that Sid Cadmium found that leads to the “dungeon” of Your Life Burns Faster in This House.

 //

Session Reflections

This session had some guest players from my other game group. I pregenerated the characters based off the Hireling chart in UVG. Running a game for 7 players was a bit outside of my comfort zone but it worked decently. This session was still pretty role-play heavy due to the location, which wasn’t the best for a group that large but it was where the session was headed. Next session is when I will invoke my baseball rule: Try the campaign for 3 sessions and if it sucks, move on (to a different one). Because of the actions of the party, there is a lot of fun things/terrible consequences set in motion for next session. They haven’t gone many places for treasure, so they are far away from leveling up of paying back their financier but there are still several stops before then. They will encounter and Avatar of the End next session, so that should help to flesh out their Save the World Plot. Onward to the Black City!

[dungeonspossums-blog]

I review modern day renaissance man Luka Rejec! He draws, he writes, he does layout and graphic design, he runs a blog, he runs a Patreon, he finds time to read interesting books and eat interesting foods, and he still manages to be the most wonderful and humble dude in the RPG business. Come see him talk about everything from Witchburner and Ultraviolet Grasslands to Hydra Coop and the future of his own studio!

[sorcerersskull]

Old promo for the still-forthcoming, What Ho, Frog Demons witha rt by Luka Rejec

[zedecksiew]

Sentimental thoughts about the OSR

OSR -- Old School Renaissance? Revival? A style of making and playing games, where the focus is on the experience of shared imagined space, not narrative plots or arcs.

A style fostered by a community.

That community was ugly. Many alt-right-leaning white dudes. It sheltered abusers, like Zak S -- a person who, to my shame, I'd been a fan of.

That community was good. Many key figures were queer / trans. More so (to my impression) than any other RPG community (even other indie groups). Non-white folks, like me.

The popular TTRPG eye remembers the OSR for its ugliness, not its inclusivity. Probably because the assholes were loud. And because the non-white / cis / het-ness of folks was rarely advertised as a community selling-point: "Look at how diverse we are!"

The latter aspect made me feel welcomed. My work -- entirely informed by my SEA context, as it's always been -- got attention based on its merit, not its topicality.

+

The OSR as I joined it was based on blogs, and on G+. When G+ was shut down, the community had a diaspora.

You hear about BOSR (British OSR), or NOSR / NuSR. You used to hear about SWORDDREAM? I think FKR (the Free Kriegsspiel Revival) is an offshoot of the old community? There are a million Discord channels. Questing Beast, on Youtube.

The blogs are still going strong.

I can't keep track of all the places folks have ended up. I do feel bad about that -- that I'm less community-oriented, that I work more in isolation, now. I squat Twitter mostly. Twitter is not a good place for a creative community.

But it is what it is.

+

An article Ewan Wilson was writing about the OSR got spiked at Polygon. I was one of the folks he emailed questions to.

Ewan's questions prompted this bout of sentimentality, I guess?

Here are bits from email I wrote him, in reply:

+

The OSR scene began on blogs? That's certainly how I discovered it. I can actually remember the specific post that hooked me:

Patrick Stuart / False Machine, reading James C Scott's "The Art Of Not Being Governed" -- a history of the Zomia region of mainland Southeast Asia, a place of fluid cultures and peoples that have traditionally resisted the settled states surrounding it -- riffing on the historical information in Scott's book, spinning them into RPG campaign ideas.

+

A facet of the OSR scene is its willingness to use popular rulesets as a shared language.

Dungeons & Dragons (tm) not as a WOTC corporate property, but D&D as a community vernacular. (And D&D is just one example.)

Folks like Emmy Allen and Luka Rejec have talked about this quite eloquently, I think?

I think the OSR prioritises making stuff for games rather than crafting the bestest, most elegantly-designed game possible. If you are stuck arguing about which language works best for poetry, you'll never get to the point where you actually start making and sharing verse.

+

I associate the OSR style with possibility, too. I'm not sure why.

Mainstream WOTC D&D is trapped in a self-referential loop, recycling its own Forgotten Realms-adjacent tropes. Then you have the vast forest of licensed RPGs: "Alien: The RPG", "Avatar: The RPG"; "[Insert Popular Nerd IP Here]: The RPG".

Many indie-RPG communities prize genre-emulation -- here's a game where you can mimic the narrative shape of a slasher film; an urban-fantasy novel; Legend of Zelda.

Not that there is anything wrong with this. But if emulation is where you start and end you doom RPGs to a secondary role -- forever in the shadow of other arts.

For sure the OSR has its pop-culture and games-media touchstones; the scene loves to riff on metal album covers and Dark Souls a lot.

But I'd argue that -- relative to other RPG subcommunities, in my experience -- OSR creators are willing to push further down the rabbit-holes of their particular obsessions more often.

So, yes: Dark Souls and metal music. But also references weirder, personal, and as-yet-untapped: Zomia, punk zines, walks in backyard forests, Birkenhead folklore, the Permian Period, Moebius, East Malaysian myth --

Composted together to the point they become game things utterly unlike anything else, and the stories / experiences you can have in those game things you can have nowhere else.

+

The blogs are still going strong.

Today I was reading this series of posts, a theory-based critique at D&D, the OSR, and games design in general:

"the goal of what we call "old-school play" is not to create a story but to traverse a fantastic space guided by desire, such that any story which emerges is incidental and retrospective (much like stories that emerge from 'real life'). edwards prescribes that the goal of play is to create a story, elevates this prescription into a truth about play as such, and then claims that players who do not play with this aim actually fail to meet this aim because they are mentally damaged. perhaps this can be remedied by playing the correct game, or maybe not, but regardless the implication is that by playing the correct game, one can avoid brain damage.

my take is to not let salespeople convince you that you must buy their products to be politically or mentally correct, and on the flip side do not entitle yourself to the enjoyment of other people."

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4. All four are worth reading.

Today I was also reading the very first OSR blogpost I ever read, about Zomia. It is still as good as it was, six years ago:

"The Lisu, aside from insisting that they kill assertive chiefs, have a radically abbreviated oral history. "Lisu forgetting, Jonsson claims, "is as active as Lua and Mien remembrance." he implies that the Lisu chose to have virtually no history and that the effect of this choice was to "leave no space for the active role of supra-household structures, such as villages or village clusters in ritual life, social organizations, or the mobilisation of peoples attention, labour or resources."

18 Radically forgetting tribes. How far can you push that? Ancestor free tribes, then further away, one-year tribes, then in the reaches of the deeps, the one-day, impossible even to understand as they remember only for one day.

Patrick's blog turned 10 this week.

The blogs are still going strong.

[eldritch-muck]

fuck. UVG is great. get it. i did and never returned from Deep Country once.