iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Dyvers Hands Productions

Thought Punks 🎲 TTRPGs + Punk 👩‍🎤 @thoughtpunks.com · 18/08/2026

An evangelical mega-church with unearned power. A group of hot messes on a splatter mission to paint its halls. And rescue Jesus because Lucifer asked. Hot messes who can't die, only become stranger. Check the full thread. Then support the game you didn't know you needed: ko-fi.com/revcasey/shop

Black background, black and white + low color image of Jesus on the cross against a stone wall, money in the shape of the cross transparent overlaid on the crucified Jesus, blood red letters in an arc around and above it ("BLOOD.MONEY.GOSPEL"), white stamped letters in black area at bottom ("Written by Rev Casey" + "Published by Thought Punks")

The Gist
Jesus Christ came back. Of course He came back. He said He would. The problem is that He came back gentle and confused and asking questions about sparrows and rent prices.
Before He could get His bearings, Pastor Dominion Crale of the First Church of the Perpetual Tithe had Him zip-tied in an Escalade and driven to the compound in forty-seven minutes flat. That was eighteen months ago.
The main Cathedral now operates HIS PRECIOUS BLOOD™, a multi-level wellness sacrament pipeline moving vials of genuine messianic blood at a year’s Toronto/London/Paris professional’s salary per unit (Blessed Faithful Anointed Healing Moment™), the cost of a large luxurious home in Tokyo or NYC (Chosen Hosts Exclusive Miracles Package™), a tier only reachable by mega-millionaires and billionaires (The Perfected Saints Full Indulgence Membership™), and a newly launched Divine Disciples Triple Elite Plus Eternal Covenant™ option for the most wealthy that comes with a personal blessing, concierge,

They operate on artificial scarcity (above and beyond the limits of their gruesome extraction process). The First Church ensures that even the Eternal Covenant™ tier has a waiting list. Lower tier lottery winners can wait in line even through the night to receive their “blessings” on High Holy Days™. (Universal Love For All™ financing plans available.) The Vatican filed a complaint. It is in a drawer somewhere one guy has the keys to, and nobody’s seen him in a while. The SEC wrote a memo about drafting a proposal to explore a process to review the complaint. It’s in another drawer.
Jesus is in the Sanctum Sub-Basement, connected to the Eternal Harvest Array. He cannot die. He cannot leave. He has been patient about this. He waits, faithful, hoping, suffering. He waits for you.

You have been recruited by Lucifer. Yes, THAT Lucifer. (Please don’t call them “Satan” or “The Devil.” I would say if you value your life, but that is the least of what the Morningstar can take.)
Lucifer (pronouns variable and flexible, presentation business casual, stress beginning to show through the seams) sought you out personally. The pitch ran for almost two hours and included a PowerPoint with extensive citations.
The end of the pitch: “I know how this looks. I know you have questions. That’s too bad. It’s none of your business, really. What I need you to understand is this situation is more personally offensive to me than your little brain can grasp. I pursued every available channel for months. I am standing in this awful parking lot talking to you, exactly because there are no more channels. Please. You will be well-treated for your help. And I am asking nicely. I am… not good at asking nicely.”

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

I liked it, and it helped me with The Launch.

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

The Launch is at 0.4, nearly all of it from watching people play. Tables kept reaching to play out Decisions, so now they each call for a Scene. A new Act I Scene card lets the crew build their ship. www.dyvershands.com/games/Auspic... Ashcan alpha until someone runs it without me. Have you?

Cover for The Launch, an Auspice story game. A rocket climbs through deep blue-green twilight, its lit trail crossing the image, and three cards from the deck fan out at lower right. The text reads: an Auspice story game. The Launch. A story game of exodus, the long dark, and taking root. Three to five storytellers, one evening, no game master.

The Ship, a Scene card hidden in Act I. It reads: Set a Scene on the ship we're readying for launch, go round the table, each of us adding one true thing about the vessel and our place in it, until it feels real and ours.

The Decision, the Scene card that closes Act I. It reads: Do we launch? Set the remaining prompts aside and weigh the stacks. Promise well above Peril, it goes Clean. Peril well above, it goes Hard. Near even, you go on, Wounded. Then play out a Scene of how it goes, go round the table, each of us adding a moment, colored by the Tilt.

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Reposted by Dyvers Hands Productions

Alex Roberts @helloalexroberts.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Briefly alighting on a branch of bluesky to say 1. USA-based fans, For the Queen is back in stock! shop.critrole.com/collections/... 2. Friends at GenCon know that I am with you in spirit <3 <3 <3

shop.critrole.com

For the Queen

Hear ye, hear ye: Your Grace is primed for her voyage, and has chosen you to accompany her! For the Queen is a card-driven collaborative storytelling game that invites you to tell a dramatic narrative...

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

As always, we'll have our quick-start box: Microscope, A Quiet Year, Once Upon a Time, and more. I'll also be playtesting "In Confidence", my next Auspice game, prompt-forward in the tradition of "For the Queen". Bring your own favorite, or is there one from my library you'd want me to bring? 2/៚

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

We host a monthly Story Games evening in Lafayette, CA, on the 2nd Monday at Town Hall Theatre, 3535 School St; we take over the lobby, plenty of tables, and our hosts open the bar for a soda or a beer. Our next is Monday, August 10, 6:30–9:45pm. Free, with a suggested donation to the theatre. 1/🧵

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Reposted by Dyvers Hands Productions

Alex Roberts @helloalexroberts.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Yes! This is the kind of iteration on my work that gets me really interested - from what Chris aptly calls "the useful kind of wanting," not a frustration at lack but a yearning for more.

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

I have the same problem. Run any of my articles from 2 decades or so ago, and it will be identified as AI, for m-dashes, triples, etc. I have had to alter my voice.

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Reposted by Dyvers Hands Productions

Vox Orbis @voxorbis.itch.io · 20/07/2026

Hey, Gamers! Anybody who loves Forged in the Dark and Supers (Heroes OR Villains!) and is in the Seattle area, is invited to come join me at Go Play NW and try out the game - Disruptors - in which you can take a stand and try to change the world! (Okay, so a bank-robbery might be involved...)

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

And if you want the why behind it: "The Fate You Make" is my design diary on giving a prompt game an ending your table earns, not one the deck just hands you. I'm always curious, what's an ending your table made together in a prompt game, such as For the Queen, that still sticks with you? 4/៚

dyvershands.com

The Fate You Make

On the empty space where For the Queen ends, and the two things I built The Launch to do about it. My last note ended on a small complaint I could not let go of. For the Queen stops the instant you a...

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

If you'd rather see it before then, the deck is pay-what-you-want, free if you like. It's rough on purpose, and I most want to learn where it holds and where it breaks: 2/🧵

rpg-trader.com

The Launch on RPG Trader

An Auspice story game of leaving, the long dark, and taking root.

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Auspice: The Launch is a rough ashcan alpha, and what I want most is to watch how it really plays with people I've never sat down with. I'm running it at Go Play NW this Friday at 7pm. Come launch a ship with me: 1/🧵

goplaynw.org

Auspice: The Launch

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Descending the Stairs is in the GM-less Games Bundle, 106 games from 106 creators, until Monday 6pm Pacific. 11/៚

rpg-trader.com

GM-less Games Bundle on RPG Trader

106 games from 106 creators all across the RPG Trader community

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

I cannot borrow her as is. A bouncer belongs to a club, and lifting her into a game about a generation ship would leave the meaning behind. However, she has changed how I think about this. 10/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Both Avri's design choices do the same thing, now that I look at them together. Put what you are handing someone where they can see it, and make it easy to hand back. The prompts do it with a line break. The Bouncer does it with a shoulder. 9/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

You tap a person rather than mark content, and the next card tells you how to repair the gap: redraw the question, or narrate a different answer. I have always designed such that safety and story constraints should stay apart. She is a good argument for fusing them. 8/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

The Bouncer does both jobs too. It does not separate them. What it does is make the doubling make sense, because a bouncer removes the rowdy guy and the dangerous guy with the same walk across the room, and nobody has to say which one you are. 7/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

In For the Queen, the X-Card does two jobs at once. Safety mechanism, and tone-steering tool. "That would hurt me" and "that is not the story we are telling" are different requests, and reaching for the same card makes you decide which one you are claiming. 6/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

It may be related to other thing different: the safety tool. There is no X-Card. She is the BOUNCER. (I appreciate the gender!). "If you encounter a question, an answer, a situation that you do not want included in the game, just tap the BOUNCER on the shoulder. She will keep everyone safe." 5/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Hide the assumption and it gets ratified by the answer. Nobody agreed to that world, it just became true. Set it above the line and it stays refusable on its own. What Avri gives up is the trick where a storyteller feels they invented what they were handed. A tradeoff. But why?... 4/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

For the Queen hides its assumptions inside the question, and so do mine (what I call the tri-fold prompt). Avri sets his above the line where you can see them, and THEN asks (written using italic). Same goal, opposite technique. What you are handed and what you invent stay visibly apart. 3/🧵

dyvershands.com

The Power of the Prompt

A Design Diary, on writing a question that does three jobs at once. A while back, my friend Deanna got me thinking about exposition, about how a storytelling-game prompt can hand the storytellers a w...

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

The story is of a last night at a club that closes forever, for one to six storytellers, about two hours. Its prompts come in two pieces. A plain statement of fact: "There's a request list at the DJ booth." Then the ask. "What do you ask for tonight? Why does your request surprise the DJ?" 2/🧵

nycavri.itch.io

Descending the Stairs by Avri

A storytelling game of nightlife and nostalgia.

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Avri Klemer's (@nycavri.bsky.social) Descending the Stairs is in the RPG Trader GM-Less bundle, and it is the fourth openly Descended from the Queen game I have found in there. Two things in its design have had me thinking this afternoon. 1/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

The Launch is a GM-less story game for 3-5: a crew who built a ship to leave a home that can't hold them, crossing the long dark to try to make a colony live. It runs in three acts, and every prompt tips the ending toward Promise or Peril, so the crew earns the fate it lands on.

dyvershands.com

The Launch

The Launch is a GM-less story game of leaving, the long dark, and taking root. Three to five storytellers crew a ship, cross the void, and try to make a colony live.

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Ithaca in the Cards is in the GM-less Games Bundle through Sunday, blackjack, ghosts and all. I look forward to playing it! If you have played it: did anyone reach home, or did you all end up haunting the road? 5/៚

rpg-trader.com

GM-less Games Bundle on RPG Trader

106 games from 106 creators all across the RPG Trader community

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

I built The Launch so a deck tilts toward an ending, a Fate, that you earn. Ithaca runs the same trick in reverse: the cards pile toward a doom you cannot dodge. Same idea, opposite mercy. Lim offers a real tragedy by leveraging a blackjack mechanic. 4/🧵

dyvershands.com

The Fate You Make

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

And when Fate beats you, the game does not just subtract a number. You turn to another player and ask them, in character, what the loss has cost you. A failed hand becomes grief you have to say out loud. You can also self-sacrifice to save someone else, offering them a memento or to haunt them. 3/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

What stuck with me is how the cards do two jobs at once. You add up dealt cards each round, trying to hit exactly 21 and make it home. But the same total that carries you home also kills you: bust past 21 and your character is lost. The arithmetic that saves you is the arithmetic that dooms you. 2/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Wandering more through the GM-less Bundle, discovering new islands of interesting game design ideas: Apropos tonight's movie premier, Ithaca in the Cards, by @ehronlime.bsky.social, is a GM-less Odyssey story game where you "play blackjack against Fate" to get home. 1/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

The Solace Solution is part of the GM-less Games Bundle through Sunday if you want to brew one, along with my prompt & card based The Launch. If you have played it, I'd love to know: when you reached the last ingredient, did you drink the potion, or pour it out? 5/៚

rpg-trader.com

GM-less Games Bundle on RPG Trader

106 games from 106 creators all across the RPG Trader community

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

This is why I keep saying that crafting the prompt can be the key to the whole game engine: it is not just the question, but who it is about and which way it leans. Kluth gets a lot of ache out of a plain deck of cards. Thank you for it, @aratlon.bsky.social. 4/🧵 www.dyvershands.com/design-notes...

dyvershands.com

The Power of the Prompt

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

And that is the design, not a bug. You alternate, so it slowly evens out, and a Joker can flip a card's colour, turning "what they did to me" into "what I did." Every memory has a second face. The truth sits in the middle, and the deck walks you there. 3/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

This is the clever part of the card draw mechanic: the suit sets the reading. A red card is a good memory, and its question is about you. A black card is a bad one, and its question is about your partner. So you keep crediting yourself and blaming them, exactly the way a real argument feels. 2/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Rummaging the GM-less Bundle today: The Solace Solution, by @aratlon.bsky.social is a 2-player game about brewing a potion to repair a relationship one shared memory at a time, then choosing together whether to drink it. The way it is built has stuck with me. That final sip is the whole game! 1/🧵

aratlon.bsky.social

CiTyKey-Design (@aratlon.bsky.social)

(he/him) left handed, father of Smal-Key and Little-Key, husband to Key-Key, office worker by day, TTRPG creator by night. https://linktr.ee/citykey_desing

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Godbout's Ringmaster and my The Launch, both inspired by For the Queen, are part of the 106 story games by 106 makers in the GM-less Games Bundle, only $30 through Sunday. If you've played Ringmaster, I'd love to know which ending stays with you: the home saved, or the prison burning. 5/៚

rpg-trader.com

GM-less Games Bundle on RPG Trader

106 games from 106 creators all across the RPG Trader community

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

What I love about this little form is that the prompt deck is a shared skeleton every designer reshapes. I wrote once about why one good prompt does so much work; Godbout grows a whole ending out of that same trust in the question. Thank you for building it, @pg-yyz.bsky.social. 4/🧵

dyvershands.com

The Power of the Prompt

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

That missing "and then?" is the gap I could never leave alone in For the Queen. It set me building The Launch: every prompt you answer tilts toward Promise or Peril, across three acts, so the ending is earned. My own answer to the same itch. 3/🧵

dyvershands.com

The Fate You Make

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Instead, some prompt cards carry a crisis symbol, and once three are answered you draw a Crisis card to close, then each storyteller narrates an epilogue. The stake it has been holding all along: save your home, overturn the Ringmaster, or watch your prison burn with glee. 2/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

For the Queen, and the games descended from it, stop the moment you answer the last card. Ringmaster, a circus game by Pascal Godbout (@pg-yyz.bsky.social), doesn't. When the mob comes for the Big Top, the troupe must answer one question together, and the game is built to carry you there. 1/🧵

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Reposted by Dyvers Hands Productions

Pelgrane Press @pelgranepress.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

A Brief History of Narrative In RPGs #ttrpg #gmtips #dungeonmaster

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Definitely the OG of gmless games — The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, is part of the RPG Trader GM-Less Bundle. Check it out!

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

The Launch is free, pay what you want, and it's in @tenacregames.bsky.social's GM-less Games Bundle on RPG-trader.com: 106 games from 106 creators, live now through Sunday. 7/🧵

rpg-trader.com

GM-less Games Bundle on RPG Trader

106 games from 106 creators all across the RPG Trader community

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Honestly: The Launch is an ashcan alpha, my first in the prompt tradition, not yet run with me away from the table. It trades some of For the Queen's held-breath shock for a shape you can see coming. Real trades, and I think worth making for the story I wanted. 6/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

The second thing: somewhere to go when it breaks. It runs in three acts, and failure carries between them: the trouble you load into one is what the next is answered in. Multiple acts aren't mine either, Avery Alder's (@lackingceremony.bsky.social) The Quiet Year. 5/🧵

buriedwithoutceremony.com

The Quiet Year - Buried Without Ceremony

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

I didn't invent reading an ending out of a table's own mess. Jason Morningstar's (@jmstar.bsky.social) Fiasco, from @bullypulpithq.bsky.social, taught a generation that a story can turn on a twist and reach its reckoning from what the table built. The Launch takes that bet. 4/🧵

bullypulpitgames.com

Fiasco

Fiasco is out of stock!But don't worry, a new printing is in process and we expect to have the game back in stock in September 2026. Fiasco is an award-winning, GM-less game for 3-5 players, designed ...

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

So the first thing The Launch does: it lets you weigh the ending yourself. You answer a prompt, then set it on the Promise or the Peril, the reasons the venture will hold or break. When the deck runs out, those two stacks are your ending. Earned, not delivered. 3/🧵

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Dyvers Hands Productions @dyvershands.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

I wasn't alone in feeling it. Reviewing For the Queen for @meeplemountain.com, Andrew Holmes called the ending "narratively jarring" and wished for "follow up question prompt cards," somewhere for the story to go once the last card turns. 2/🧵

meeplemountain.com

For the Queen Game Review – Meeple Mountain

Find out whether Alex Roberts’ role-playing games is worth defending in Meeple Mountains For the Queen review.

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