iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 30/09/2026

I quite like Dolmenwood's edit to the old TSR D&D saves. It still focuses on the danger rather than the mode of saving, but they feel way more intuitive.

The spread of saves in Dolmenwood: Doom, Ray, Hold, Blast, and Spell.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 15/09/2026

The Exeter Book 44 Riddle. Answer: A key, you pervert.

A curious thing hangs by a man's thigh,
under the lap of its lord. In its front it is pierced,
it is stiff and hard, it has a good position.
When the man lifts his own garment
above his knee, he intends to greet
with the head of his hanging object that familiar hole
which is the same length, and which he has often filled before.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 21/08/2026

Mud+Laser has just been updated with new item token sheets featuring the art of the inimitable @hodagrpg.bsky.social ! Coming soon: an updated rulebook with all new spot art by Hodag. bad-quail.itch.io/mud-and-lase...

A 1 inch by 1 inch item token depicting a "laslock dragon", a heavy laser pistol of some sort.

A 1 inch by 1 inch item token depicting an "icon blade", some kind of energy rapier.

A 1 inch by 2 inch item token depicting a "void skin", some kind of lightweight space suit with a bubble helmet.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 08/08/2026

For International Cat Day. Thus is among my favorite picture of my boy Mal.

A cat pretzeled around a hand giving it belly rubs.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 04/08/2026

Cats don't love you? This dude rests his head on my mouse arm when I'm doing computer tasks. I am his happy place.

A cat sitting in the lap of a person working on the computer. His fuzzy head rests against the wrist of the person's mouse arm.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 03/08/2026

Ooo. The page design has a lot of details that feel like artifacts of the layout process. I quite like it.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 31/07/2026

Thinking of trying out some variant of the Wolves Upon the Coast hexfill method for a Mud+Laser campaign. Preparing a letter-size map for experimenting using a variety of Highland Paranormal Society Hex Kit assets. (WUtC Hexfill blog post: lukegearing.blot.im/wolves-upon-...)

A 12 x 12 hexmap depicting a lush area in the southeast becoming a barren area to the northwest, with some scattered mountains dividing them.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 25/06/2026

The trek to the con in the middle of two other cons commences.

A man with fluffy hair in a denim vest, thick rimmed glasses, and a seafoam green flo mask pro.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 08/05/2026

And, just now, I discovered a use of "Fiction First" in Masks: A New Generation (2016). Here, it's used to add context to the "to do it, do it" ethos of Apocalypse World. A lot of references I find to "Fiction First" in rulebooks are like this. Used more like a slogan than a term of art.

A passage in the 2016 PbtA superhero game Masks, reading:

Often when you trigger a move, you roll dice to see what happens next.
These are the only times you roll dice in the whole game. You might want
to roll dice to resolve a situation at other times—don’t, until you’ve actually
done something in the game that triggers a move. Sometimes you might want
to trigger a move and go straight to rolling without describing any action in
the fiction—don’t, until you’ve done something in the game that triggers it.
Fiction first.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 08/05/2026

The reply is discussing playing The Burning Wheel, and by "Fiction First," they seem to refer to making decisions based on what makes the most sense for your character in the fiction rather than what's mechanically optimal. Also, how the FoRK mechanic links narration and mechanics.

An RPG dot net post, reading:

"Fiction first" is our guideline. Sometimes it bites, because you don't always get to do the most mechanically optimal thing, but them's the breaks. The roleplaying affects all aspects of the game (though I can freely admit it does tend to affect combat a tad less, since it's the more rigorously defined in terms of mechanics). In Burning Wheel (which we play a lot these days), it's worthwhile to put some effort into your descriptions of what you're doing, even if it's a non-social and non-combat roll like navigating through a forest, because that's how you earn extra FoRK dice! By bringing up related skills in the roleplay of the action you're performing you can add a die per related skill to the roll. If you just said, "I want to navigate through the forest," and left it at that, I'm not even sure I'd let you roll without telling me how you were going about it, and even if I did you certainly wouldn't qualify for any bonus FoRK dice (which make the task easier).

-B

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 28/04/2026

This time the Fox King's get sought to win the People's Favor with the even hand of law. Alas, the Chancellor won the day again with hoarded treasures.

A game of Oath. The red fox pawn occupies the Tribunal with a warband and a keep.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 21/04/2026

Played Brink for the first time last night. An interesting mix of worker placement and area control, with a bit of set collection and tableau building. Would play again (I won 😋).

An endgame board state of Brink. A bunch of colored cardboard hexes on a stark black board with colorful plastic spaceships distributed around.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 14/04/2026

Got a game of Oath in tonight. The Chancellor managed to beat the Red Exhile in a race to victory. The result coming down to a die roll at the end of turn 6.

An exhile board in Oath. A foxy swordsman bears the Banner of the People's Favor.

The board of a game of Oath. The Red Exhile hides with a large warband in some spooky woods while the Chancellor protects their Banner of the Darkest Secret in a cliffside fortress.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 04/04/2026

Always a joy to get Illimat to the table. It's a lovely little trick-adjacent card game with a slightly witchy vibe. Plays excellently at 2, 3, or 4 players in about 45 to 90 minutes.

A witchy-looking card game played in a black and white cloth mat with a box in the center.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 26/03/2026

Work from home lunch. A thin crust pizza. Sauce, jarred bell pepper, and black olives on a flour tortilla. Cooked in a skillet under the broiler.

A thin crust pizza with red pepper and black olives.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 24/03/2026

It's just a tiny bit creepy when you subsume a protoframe huh? #Warframe

A teenage girl in a sci-fi getup with some kind of antimatter reactor strapped to her chest being absorbed into a horrible alien flesh wall.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 21/03/2026

Last night played Root for the first time in ages. Played the Hundreds against the Alliance, Dynasty, and Conspiracy. Thought I had a pretty good showing for not having played in something like 7 years.

An end game state of the strategy board game Root. Red rat meeples are all over the map, crowding out green mice, blue raptors, and purple corvids. The score track shows that the crows won.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 16/02/2026

Of all the first round of Bloggies mashups, having to make this decision is criminal. You should read them both. Hot damn.

A screenshot of the first round of Bloggies: Theory posts. "The Language of D&D Imply a Specific Setting" against "There is a point to Tom Bombadil (or how I approach lore)."

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 14/01/2026

Drifted from Soulframe to Warframe lately, and just did The New War quest last night. Kind of wild they dropped a ~5 hour single player campaign that opens with vignettes where you play random mooks in the world and mostly doesn't use your progress from core gameplay.

A pale teenage girl with a black bob haircut wearing cybergoth makeup and a yellow-and-black spacesuit has a mental breakdown in the dark.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 03/01/2026

Played FRACTAL for the first time yesterday. About one half a Twilight Imperium I'd say. And some stuff I like better. I tied for second place. First place researched some tech that got them +2 VP on every objective and kind of ran away with the game.

A map of hexagons representing space, with blue, yellow, red, and green plastic minis representing a mix of infantry, mechs, and small and large space ships.

My game board towards the end of the game. I'm playing as the Saura: militaristic dinosaur chameleons. I've put almost all of my colonies off my board.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 01/01/2026

Ushering in the New Year with a game of Rebellion.

A midgame board state of Star Wars Rebellion. Plastic Rebel and Imperial ships are scattered around a game boars depicting planets in galaxy far far away.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 18/12/2025

The Soulframe winter event is really cute.

A fantasy character with a fucked up magic right arm and blue leathers holding both hands cupped. In said hands are a male and female cardinal, looking all cute and shit.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 07/12/2025

Greetings from me and my traitorous vizier.

A white man with light brown hair and thick rimmed glasses hugging a very demure orang and white creamsickle tabby cat.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 27/11/2025

"You'll be visited by three spirits" The spirits:

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 26/11/2025

In tonight's Old King's Crown the Clans took the victory from the Uprising and the Gathering, thwarting a gunpowder plot with a swift and fiery raid.

And end state in the board game The Old King's Crown. A gorgeous card game that takes up entirely too much table real estate.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 14/11/2025

Yup. This is what I was afraid of. The Old King's Crown is a beautiful game and I had a blast with it. But. It is too big! At least for the tables where I unusually go to play board games.

Mid game of a 3 player session of the Old King's Crown. A huge board depicting a stylized view of a fantasy kingdom with lots of gorgeously illustrated cards. It is quite cramped on the coffee shop table it sits on.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 30/10/2025

If you don't want to update to the new Affinity all-in-one app and have a license to v2 or v1 of Designer, Photo, and/or Publisher, you can scroll to the bottom of the Affinity by Canva page to access them.

A screenshot of the bottom navigation bar of the Affinity by Canva page. Including links to "Affinity V2" under the "Help" heading.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 30/09/2025

Watching the Appendix N Jam awards live stream last night, I was curious about the relationship between entries the judges thought worth mentioning and the community rankings. I'm not really a stats guy, but there are some interesting surface level observations.

A screenshot of a spreadsheet showing various entries in the Appendix N Jam that got mentioned in the awards live stream, along with their community ranking and number of jam ratings.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 27/09/2025

From a section on who at the table is responsible for what decisions. Probably more impactful than ye older "here there be an X Cars." I have some quibbles with the exact wording, but I like the spirit of "hey, it's your responsibility not to (re)traumatize each other."

"Is the situation at the table making anyone uncomfortable or unsafe? Each player has a duty to stop the game at any time for the wellbeing of any other player."

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 27/09/2025

I do love when a game is this up front about what it asks from participants.

"Each player strives to bring their paragon to life as someone who is interesting and daring, who reaches boldly beyond their current safety and means. All players share the same responsibility: You engage with the premise of Sword Opera by driving play towards interesting goals, risky decisions, and melodramatic circumstances."

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 27/09/2025

Yesterday received Sword Opera: an RPG of Melodramatic Relationships and High Powered Violence. By @ericfarmer.bsky.social and Eli Kurtz. Backed on Kickstarter.

A perfect bound softcover book. The cover depicts a vaguely Italian Renaissance skirmish with swords fought by attractive and fashionable young people. At least one sword glows with supernatural power.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 17/09/2025

I have a bunch of tarot and oracle decks, but don't mess with them much. Hanging out at the coffee shop after work, I decide to take a pull . . . ft. The Wormsong Oracle Deck by @helveticablanc.bsky.social .

A simple spread of three oracle cards.

The past: the Shepard. Depicting a large, weary bull sitting beside an equally weary teacher.

The present: the Teacher of Wings. Depicting a winged teacher giving cautious instruction to three pupils.

The future: the Teacher of Eyes. Depicting a four-eyed teacher giving inspired instruction to three pupils.

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Bad Quail Games // G. Michael Truran @bad-quail.itch.io · 06/09/2025

Forgot that Mass Effect: Andromeda makes you do sudokus.

A 4 x 4 quadrant grid with a bunch of alien symbols. It's a puzzle you solve sudoku-style.

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