iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Jesse Burneko

Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Did you know I wrote a fantasy novel that's perfect for the Long Halloween Season? It's got ghosts, demons, and witches. There's a skeleton on the cover! Pick it up now and you can have it read by the 31st. (Or just reshare this post to help get the word out plz.) mybook.to/ornamentalwo...

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 01/10/2026

Correct. When I talk about “bad game design” I am backdoor questioning people’s creative/social priorities. But if I did that directly it would come off as mean. 😆

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 30/09/2026

THIS WHOLE THREAD. But also, a contributing factor is people thinking that nothing consequential can happen without a roll and reaching for "Act Under Fine" when nothing else fit. When really all that should have happened is the MC makes a move even if it's a bad outcome and consequential.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

cavegirl @cavegirl.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

right! in my experience, you don't get to experience that high of *good art* until you buy in enough to take the game seriously and not treat it as silly funtime muck-about where nothing really matters and you can just make it up.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 24/09/2026

This. Except, for me, you can replace "power gamer" and "rules lawyers" with "creative vulnerability", "authentic expression" and "difficult and meaningful subject matter." (Of which I think cavegirl is selling herself short on in this thread. Have you seen Dungeon Bitches or The Yellow Curtain)?

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 24/09/2026

I think we're also overly obsessed with making it so simple "anyone can do it." I believe "anyone can do it" but I don't believe "anyone can do it without effort, curiosity, attention and dedication to learning" like any other art form.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

🍁 Levi Kornelsen @levikornelsen.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Let's do this right here: Time recording in your TTRPG play: Do you do it / have you done it to any significant extent? I mean everything from "We mark days on an in-world calendar of events" to "Someone notes down what happens during our dungeon crawls (mostly in order)" and beyond. Tell me!

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 12/09/2026

Does… does it come in elegant black?

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 07/09/2026

I got the chance to play “Nighthawks” this weekend and I loved it. I continue to marvel at how some of my fellow role-players are ever reaching for stranger characters, I just want to play a divorced man in a diner looking for answers in classic literature.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 07/09/2026

I was last child standing for the first time while playing “The Extraordinarily Horrible Children of Raven’s Hollow” (a game I made). Still lost to the angry mob.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

Jack Guignol @jackguignol.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I don't really want "revolutionary" genre fiction. That feels like asking for "an Ayn Rand for the left."

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 01/09/2026

It will never cease to amaze me the way people talk about consumer culture like it’s a natural phenomenon. To me, it’s indistinguishable from bio-essentiallist rhetoric. Like, sure, people’s consumer habits have certain trends because of cultural indoctrination. BUT WE COULD WORK TO CHANGE THAT.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 30/08/2026

Quite honestly this. I’ve always thought a lot of the criticism came from reading the flat contextless entries in the monster manual which I never loved either. But adventures in context clearly have actual harm being done by its villains.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 29/08/2026

The Art Theater in Long Beach is showing all of Twin Peaks one episode at a time every Sunday at 11am for however long that takes.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 29/08/2026

grounded subject matter, character centric, choices and procedures determine the outcome.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 29/08/2026

Three people disassociate to varying degree.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

JC (they/them) @sentienthominid.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I would love to make a business claiming to sell indie movies only, call it Indie Films Evolved, but sell everything not labeled Disney. My excuse "Its all *basically indie* because Disney is just so garsh darn big." That'll keep the marks....err customers in line

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

Joshua Rivera @jmrivera.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Man it is WILD to me that people are so mad about a single writer laying out why they think a thing is bad on a website they own! Where did people who read games writing get this sense of fairness they demand from everyone, this notion that all things must be treated as good, no yums be yucked

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 20/08/2026

This. I state a lot of my opinions as hard statements because I believe in the authenticity of my conviction. Not because I’m trying to tell you what to do.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 19/08/2026

Love Songs of the Void Goddess.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 19/08/2026

I call "Tides of Numenera" Choose-Your-Own-Wikipedia for a reason.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 15/08/2026

Drove home from LFG Con for the 10pm screening of remaster of Manhunter at the Art Theater.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 14/08/2026

15 minutes into Mork Borg and I was killed trying to hunt a boar to feed a giant snake.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 14/08/2026

“Somebody once said that religion was deemed by the commoners as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. The only thing I believe is that my name is Jonathan Preest. And tonight, I'm gonna kill a man.”

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 13/08/2026

A Cure For Wellness. I saw it opening week because I knew it would bomb and be out of theaters in a heartbeat because it was made for exactly one person: me in particular.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

cavegirl @cavegirl.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

The problem is that we see discussion of game design as a medium shut down by this trivial observation. When people want to discuss game-structures and are shut down by somebody pointing out that play-events can be anything, the result is that we ignore game-structures as a topic.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 04/08/2026

Without downloading new pics, what is it like dating you?

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 04/08/2026

In the screening I went to, someone was audibly SOBBING during this same moment.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

Frankenstein Iscariot @deaconblues1979.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

The problem is not hobbyists devaluing the industry, the problem is *there isn’t really an industry*, and you’re too boneheaded to ask someone who’s been around before you risked it all on a gamble that was never going to pay off.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 29/07/2026

RPGs, pre-1980s fantasy, detective fiction, and 18th Century gothics all have their own shelves. Fancy decorative editions of books are on top shelves in a common area. Everything is loosely grouped by subgenre and author. Graphic novels are mostly on bottom shelves.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 27/07/2026

“What is the value of suffering if it isn’t to be enjoyed?” - Roger Collins, Dark Shadows Episode 281. I want this on a T-Shirt.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 26/07/2026

Saw “Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat“ today. If you like musical theater, it’s one of those shows that’s worth seeing for its place in the history of the medium but otherwise all it has going for it is that it’s “fun”.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 25/07/2026

Badly promote your ttrpg: 1) Do you want to be shamed for multiple sessions? OR 2) Do you want to fantasize about murdering children?

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 24/07/2026

I was compelled to create a whole podcast of my own to counteract.... whatever all that is.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

JC (they/them) @sentienthominid.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

The TRPG scene could learn a lot from this. (We need to stop trusting books by nostalgia poisoned collectors showing their shelves off or industry types dancing around subjects and engaging in shallow marketing speak).

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 23/07/2026

I won an egg coloring competition.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 19/07/2026

I have now seen Sweeney Todd, Jekyll and Hyde and Phantom of the Opera in live performances inside the more adult half of my life. I saw all of them previously before I was 21. I had also seen all three in recorded format in recent years but not live.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 19/07/2026

30 mins to Phantom of the Opera at The Pantages.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

cavegirl @cavegirl.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

but real edginess has something to say and is confrontational and a bit uncomfortable, and can be off-putting and alienating and if you're like that you risk losing customers so a product like deathbringer cannot *actually* be confrontational

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

cavegirl @cavegirl.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

so instead deathbringer presents a fascimile of edge, something the same shape, making the same gestures, but without that countercultural core its a mere simulacrum devoid of actual heft.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 18/07/2026

Stop scrolling and post two characters who bring you happines.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 17/07/2026

Three people disassociate to different degrees.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 17/07/2026

This was my problem. This isn’t 70s fantasy. It’s a marketing guy’s idea of 70s fantasy after consulting a focus group of people who only know 70s fantasy second hand.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

JC (they/them) @sentienthominid.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Indie RPGS should just mean creator owned and creator published. Mechanics can't be indie. People who say that are not worth listening to, never have been, never will be. Publishers marketing themselves as Indie are scummy. Lots of self-actualize by selling out types in those spaces.

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