iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 29/09/2026

I'm convinced people think they're good liars even though lying's usually obvious because it's gauche to just call it out. The hard part is usually distinguishing lying to others vs. lying to themselves.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 29/09/2026

Most NPCs should be defined by motivations and actions, not whether they're bad guys or good guys. Leave space for your players to create their own meaning at the table. As a GM you are not an omniscient god, you should experience your world unfolding through play just like your players do.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 29/09/2026

Gamemastering is essentially a magic trick. You play with attention to make the world feel bigger and more compelling than your actual plan. But remember stage magicians and con men use similar techniques; the difference is how they relate to the audience. travelcheck.dylanwolf.com/p/gamemaster...

travelcheck.dylanwolf.com

Gamemastering is a Magic Trick

What do we think we're doing when we're gamemastering?

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 29/09/2026

Heck, I think even if you've tried earnestly to persuade 2-3 people in your life and failed, you at least carry a fear of what you're up against.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 26/09/2026

Sometimes when I move my hands a lot while talking my Fitbit registers it as a swim.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 21/09/2026

If it's Sunday School it needs to be felt board versions of the characters

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 12/09/2026

I hate how much of 90's pop culture has felt like the setup for heel turns in the last decade.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 07/09/2026

I think I would end up teaching myself to buy singles rather than packs.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 07/09/2026

The frustrating thing about the "misinfo X wouldn't exist if we fixed Y" is that it obfuscates the fact there are people intentionally creating propaganda around X and they'd just find some other target if Y was fixed. The claim itself is a propaganda win for the people pushing misinfo.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 07/09/2026

Yeah, the real irony here is if there's anyone who makes their money from keeping you sick and in the dark about what's happening with your body, it's wellness grifters.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 07/09/2026

I think because it's sort of manufactured, the assumption is it's this thin layer of belief you can just peel off by redirecting people's attention. When really, the problem is it's built on a deeper foundation, become load-bearing to some people's identities, and taken on a life of its own.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 01/09/2026

I don't think it substitutes material reality, but I think being online too much can give you very fixed narrative boxes that you try to force material reality to fit into.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 24/08/2026

I think we don't like to consider that someone else could learn to fluently speak the language of a topic that moves us emotionally or morally and still be misinformed, hypocritical, using it cynically or dishonestly, etc. Seems like the fastest way critical thinking gets short circuited online.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 21/08/2026

I grew up on the evangelical side of this, so I have no idea what that side of things looks like. I think there's more willingness across the board to shift theology to keep political and cultural commitments, because there's more to lose from breaking those.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 21/08/2026

I feel like most evangelicals would've been weirded out by the free-association theology it takes to get here ("devotional relationships" etc) which would be seen as questionable charismatic ideas. But orthodoxy is based on politics and not theology in those circles now so you let that stuff slide.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 21/08/2026

There's a lot of different social dynamics that go authority/power into these sorts of environments (I think especially if they're prone to big supernatural claims). All official, authoritative leaders are men, but that doesn't mean any given man is an authority, the other dynamics shape who is.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 20/08/2026

If you've gotten really efficient at doing certain things with personal preferences (e.g., paper calendars), AI feels less direct and more flow-breaking/context-switching. I think some of the tension around it comes from people hyping it up as obvious improvement without understanding that context.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 17/08/2026

There's an experience where you think you're going into a discussion as a negotiator or a diplomat, but surprise it's actually a temper tantrum.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 17/08/2026

I had Blue Cross, now have Cigna

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 17/08/2026

Yeah, I've gotten a couple of those with my new insurance and they kind of happened in the background. That's kind of my theory here, people caught up in the discourse suddenly paid more attention to those and connected them to the story.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 17/08/2026

Yeah, and I feel like there's more of a "we don't pay attention to what we're paying attention to" problem coming from social media these days.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 17/08/2026

I wonder how much of this is cherry picking from social media and confirmation bias. I've had a bunch of fairly serious medical stuff over the past few years with no issues, mostly on a bronze marketplace plan, but a lot of people seem to assume basic routine stuff gets denied most of the time.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 15/08/2026

I think some people had an immediate twinge of "serves em right" and just didn't try to wrangle with the complexity of an understandable feeling you don't want to feed. In the week of no leads, you could also watch people solidifying their own narratives about what type of person must've done it.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 14/08/2026

I think this type of thing ebbs and flows with the conservative zeitgeist. Just after the 2016 election my talk radio listening dad asked why Obama didn't just let people buy into Medicare. Suddenly it's not a third rail to just ask questions about things when they're not on the table at the moment.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 14/08/2026

Contradictory narratives are really useful when you need to pick the perfect angle to justify the point you want to make in the moment.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 14/08/2026

When deconstruction really went mainstream a few years back, it was weird to see it treated as subversive and cutting edge when it'd been happening in ex-evangelical spaces (often still identifying as Christian, to your point) for years, often with more scholarship and less woo involved.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 11/08/2026

I suspect privacy issues around ads are part of this reaction, and there's a realistic-to-tinfoil hat continuum there. But that's so many layers deep and mostly unexamined so I don't know how you get people on the same page for this conversation.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 05/08/2026

It's also hard to get from anecdotes to rules here. I've had really good experiences with brands that others think are crap and vice versa.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 04/08/2026

Yeah, it can only work if you drive a hard wedge. The reason it's so risky is people can adopt much of its language, epistemology, and obsessions while thinking they're against it, just because they don't go all the way over any red lines.

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Reposted by Dylan Wolf

The Carbuncle Chronicle @carbunclechronicle.com · 04/08/2026

So this past weekend we got a very special opportunity to get an interview with Michael-Christopher Koji Fox and Toshio Murouchi aka "Foxclon!" It was a lot of fun, and we got some really interesting answers. Keep a lookout later this week at carbunclechronicle.com! #FFXIV #FF14 #Otakon #Otakon2026

Coming Soon cover art for The Carbuncle Chronicle Issue 39, where we got to interview Michael-Christopher Koji Fox & Toshio "Foxclon" Murouchi!

The episode is coming out later this week! You'll be able to find it at https://carbunclechronicle.com as well as all our past episodes.

From Left to Right: Koji, Basil, Anna, Foxclon

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 03/08/2026

To engage with it you have to keep in mind that within that framing, the fact it's an extremely vague term used by both extreme and normie folks is often a feature not a bug.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 01/08/2026

Now that we're several decades into the right wing media project, more true believers are starting to run things. And true believers don't necessarily know what's rhetoric to keep the base tuning in vs. what's actually core principles.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 26/07/2026

There's also a question of what's a real signal you can trust (and I don't think this is as gendered). Compliments are easy from people who don't have to follow through; if they never translate to real world experience (including the advice you get) you start learning not to trust those signals.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 26/07/2026

I feel like I'm more stable when I can separate preparing emotionally for various outcomes including the worst possible (good, helps you avoid rug pulls) and expecting it (bad, catastrophizing and anxiety).

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 23/07/2026

Honestly I think this is the whole ballgame here, it's just couched in the language of electoral strategy and procedure. I feel like there's a conspiratorial assumption floating around that this is a far more massive cover-up than it likely is, and a triumphal revealing needs to be forced.

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Reposted by Dylan Wolf

Basil @itsbasiltime.com · 21/07/2026

Oh hey, more badges! All 22 current jobs are represented, plus the two for youth and child badges. (If you haven't seen some of the designs show up yet, there are some other badge types around like industry, guests, exhibitors, artists, etc.)

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 18/07/2026

In the social media age I think there's a "feature not a bug" quality to this. If someone can get the sense they're far closer ideologically to someone else than they actually are, they're more likely to misplace trust or run cover where they shouldn't.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 12/07/2026

I am too old to understand any of the words in this headline.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 12/07/2026

I wasn't expecting this level of psychic damage scrolling bluesky today

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 12/07/2026

Spent my whole life having my name mispronounced and misspelled and now I'm in "why should I change my name, he's the one who sucks" territory.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 08/07/2026

We really want to think of this as 1984, where someone is crafting the bad info for an intended purpose and forcing it on an audience. When often it's that someone came up with a self-flattering talking point to get people to keep tuning in and oops they made it load-bearing to their identity.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 02/07/2026

I think sometimes it's a desire for permanent, instant trust playing out. It's a case where you have to think about how loosely trust may need to be held, how it may come with caveats, and how it's possible for someone to change in a way that existing trust in them might not account for.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 02/07/2026

It's weird when it gets participatory. People writing their own full narratives off a headline or post and not realizing they've added anything. Completely contradictory narratives in the replies treated as equivalent or additive because they're all mad at the same thing.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 30/06/2026

My first thought when I saw this post was "it's weird that it's a screenshot without a source or a link to the article" and that should be a basic sniff test for things like this.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 28/06/2026

Still a couple of days left on this Free RPG Day bundle of 250 titles (including one of my Ryuutama adventures).

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 18/06/2026

Yeah, I don't worry about most people going dangerously far on *the current* Glonzo (I do think it ironically makes them less able to meaningfully push back against the real issues involved). It's that bad actors will use people's lock-in to smuggle the next, worse Glonzo past their skepticism.

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Dylan Wolf @dylanwolf.com · 13/06/2026

Tonight in D&D: I finally got to reveal that the plane the party has been in for the last 6 sessions (and 1.5 weeks of in-game time) is Ravenloft. They also now have 1 charge on their Amulet of the Planes to get home, but they're also fairly invested in the turmoil in the realm.

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Reposted by Dylan Wolf

Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Unlike many other franchises of comparable size and longevity, there is a definitive best place to get started with Warhammer 40k and it is by making an appointment with the loan officer at your bank

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Reposted by Dylan Wolf

The Carbuncle Chronicle @carbunclechronicle.com · 25/05/2026

Thank you to everyone who showed up for either of our #FFXIV panels on Saturday at #MomoCon! It is always an amazing experience to see and hang out with only the most high quality of folks. You are all the best. Hope you enjoyed the panels!

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