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Khantalas

@khantalas.bsky.social
94 followers 47 following 1.7K posts

Cat was mine (RIP Junior). Any gender neutral pronouns (e / em preferred). RPG enthusiast. Happily in a monogamous marriage. It is not OK to solicit this account for lesbian sex.

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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 19h
“How did you get into ttrpgs” there is only one way to get into ttrpgs, and that is an older cousin comes back from college having been indoctrinated into a sex cult with a sinister gleam in their eye
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Nebula @nebula.tv · 01/10/2026
Jacob Geller is no longer a part of Nebula. Ongoing projects have been terminated effective immediately, and his content has been removed from our catalog.
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Jacob Geller @jacobgeller.com · 01/10/2026
Jacob Geller | Sexual Assault or Sexual Violence | Definite suspension for one semesterMany of you have seen the results of my college Title IX investigation. I can confirm that the findings are true. The records were recently shared without the permission of the victim and, without knowledge of their wishes, I do not want to provide any more potentially identifying details. She and I spoke about it the day after and agreed — I had assaulted her. She later reported this to the university’s Title IX office, I cooperated with the investigation, and I was given the (very mild, I concur) sentence of a semester suspension. 

Suffice to say, it is the greatest regret of my life. I traumatized a brilliant person who trusted me, hurt them in a way I can never undo. 

For more than a decade now, I have attempted to reckon, grow, and recover from the version of myself who did this. I think about it every day. I’ve previously shared this history with many of the people close to me, including early in my relationship with my now-wife, and I’m deeply sorry that this has now hurt so many of you. My continued drive to make myself and the world better is closely tied with the pain I’ve caused.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
“Shadowlands” sounds like an edgy fantasy location (and it is in Exalted), but it is also a first season Bluey episode that I think all game designers need to watch and internalize, with a message of “games have rules because rules make it fun, and ignoring the rules make games less fun”.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Another way I see people screw up the rolled move structure, even with this simplified spread, is by equating “miss” to “fail”. To “bad things happen to you”. All a miss often means the guest doesn’t get to have narrative input *now*, because the host gets to make move, hard as they like.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
One of the moves we had was “when you act around senpai, roll (don’t add any modifiers)”, because it didn’t matter how skilled or clever or powerful or not you were, everyone was equally bumbling around their senpai, and none of the outcomes could get senpai to notice you, nor could any other move.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
AW is one of the few games I've played where *not* rolling dice for a long time still feels like playing the game, because the players *want* to roll dice & narratively push themselves towards a move trigger which will let them roll. If you have a generic rolled move, that all falls apart.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Here's a flowchart as to some (non-exhaustive) ways how information discovery rolls can work in TTRPGs, in an attempt to explain why I dislike investigation / insight / perception checks in D&D (shout out to @levikornelsen.bsky.social for his insightful play loop flowcharts that inspired this one):
Flowchart titled "A brief flowchart for information discovery rolls":

* 1st level: Does the information already exist?
** 2nd level: If yes: Can you roll to discover the information?
*** 5th level: If no: Pixel-hunting: information must be discovered by identifying the host's preferred solution
*** 3rd level: If yes: Is the information guaranteed to be found after the roll?
**** 5th level: If no: Missable content: information might be undiscoverable after bad rolls
**** 4th level: If yes: What does the roll determine?
***** 5th level: If what it costs to get the information: Quick-time event: Roll determines how much time or resources it costs to discover the information
***** 5th level: If how much information you get: Breadcrumb of clues: Roll determines how much extra detail you can discover
** 2nd level: If no: Can the guest help decide the information?
*** 3rd level: If yes: Can the guest proactively attempt to introduce information?
**** 5th level: If yes: Fully automated information communism: Roll determines whether guest introduced information is accurate
**** 5th level: If no: Scales of information justice: Roll determines how much of the information is decided by the guest vs the host
*** 3rd level: If no: What does the roll determine?
**** 5th level: If does any information exist: Schrödinger’s information: Roll determines whether any relevant information exists in the scene
**** 5th level: If what does the information mean: Carrot or stick: Roll determines how favorable the information discovered is for the guest
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
“British government accomplice to child murder through deliberate inaction” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it
theguardian.com
Three people dead, including a child, in attempt to cross Channel to UK
Official says deaths – and dozens of injuries – were probably caused by crushing on boat carrying 105 people
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Amal El-Mohtar @amalelmohtar.com · 24/09/2026
Pals I see you sharing links to London Daily & need you to know it's AI bullshit. The Louise Michel is real, Banksy really funded it, but that started in 2020 & the LD link people are sharing is timestamped to today but written as if it's 2020 & elides all the actual journalism about it.
Screenshot reads as follows: 

Welcome to London Daily, an innovative and unique news experiment driven by advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

Our AI system conducts extensive research and fact-checking, presenting a non-biased and diverse perspective on each topic. It meticulously filters out biased or manipulated content, offering you factual summaries essential for your knowledge as an informed citizen.

Our aim is not to replace mainstream media but to provide you with succinct summaries of key headlines, encouraging you to explore these stories in greater depth through your favorite mainstream news sources.

As a privately funded, non-profit initiative, our mission is to provide a concise and comprehensive overview of current events as part of a broader project to enhance fact-checking and AI journalism for journalists and publishers worldwide.

We are building a tool that will help professional journalists and traditional mainstream news outlets enhance their news delivery, boost their readership, ease their workload, and lower their costs while increasing their productivity—all aimed at improving content reliability and readability.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
As a non-smoker and very occasional drinker, I urge everyone who thinks this is in any way workable to understand that addiction is not a disease, it is a symptom of widespread public health problems. You cannot stop addiction by taking away the substance or the act, only by fixing the actual cause.
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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Burnham reappointed Shabana Mahmood. That made it clear that he’s not the man to deal with this.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Something I read today that rings so true, paraphrased: trans people cannot simultaneously be *both* a minuscule minority that they are not worth alienating the ostensibly "moderate" voters over, *and* a large enough group that losing their support with your transphobia can cost you elections.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
because autistic babies will die due to preventable diseases but so will allistic babies and at the end the ratio will not change in any meaningful way after all the baby murders the US government does
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I have a joke about Mythender but oh forgive me for my presumption Master Mythender please do not end me where I stand
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
One of the recent brainfarts I've had regarding TTRPGs is how underappreciated DIE: the RPG by is for giving the host a character sheet & stats & rules for what they can & can't do & rules regarding how they can cheat those rules & I think more TTRPGs should have a host character sheet.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
wake up babe new lasers & feelings hack just dropped
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Olivia Hill @machineiv.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Democrats: If the next election was a tie, and there was one voter left, and he said “I’m willing to vote to stop Trump’s third term if you eat this hot dog,” would you eat the hot dog? Okay. So what’s to stop you from supporting basic human rights?
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
A big issue for me is thinking of TTRPGs as games where you tell a story. To me, that is wrong, because TTRPGs are games where you *draft* a story. You cannot tell the full story & know what the plot is until you are finished drafting. TTRPG stories are not written in ink if you still roll dice.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
so i had just recently started an essay on “ttrpgs viewed through the analogy of music as a medium” two days ago and i run into this out of nowhere
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Hearing the phrase "create and enslave god" in the context of AI (not ever going to be true except in a cultist mentality) made me think about how many ways I have portrayed gods in my works, be they novels or games, a thread:
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"Story happens after play" is one of the best phrases to describe a strong TTRPG performance, and a big part of why I am wary of (even invisible) railroading and pre-written scenarios. If the host has even a semi-solid idea of what the story should be, that feels like a missed opportunity.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I think the way I said it was “wouldn’t it be strange if every movie started with a scene of the director looking at the camera, explaining to you why you should be watching these images shown in rapid succession accompanied by sound? if every novel started out explaining what books are?”
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BOOles @awawa.pics · 14/09/2026
"why are all these trannies being so rigid and mean?"
survivorship bias plane
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
also broadly true for a lot of cases of oppressor vs oppressed, imperialist vs imperialized, fascists vs perceived minorities, etc. some fights can only be safely ended unilaterally by one side because the alternative is complete subjugation or extermination of the other
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
maybe compare how many democrat politicians have lost healthcare or jobs or been assaulted or died as a result of trans people's words to how many trans people have suffered those things as a result of democrat politicians' words I can assure you the former is basically, if not actually nonexistent
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
The most contentious part of the applications of Debate Theory of TTRPGs has been that I think this should apply to all players, host included, but many more traditionally minded folk think this should only apply to guests, with regards to what happens to their characters.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
When I think about the Debate Theory of TTRPGs, i.e. TTRPGs are a debate to reach consensus on a piece of fiction, building it up as part of the debate, the biggest issue I run into is many people don't view debating as a form of deliberation. They view it only through the lens of political debates.
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🍁 Levi Kornelsen @levikornelsen.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Need to get this up to a couple hundred responses before we can pull even the softest conclusions from it, so: Please do share this one along.
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🍁 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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Olivia Hill @machineiv.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The actual trolley problem nobody seems willing to address.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Saw a poster describing communism as a system where the state owns & controls everything, & the society is highly stratified between the gov’nt & everyone else, then described its end goal as “a classless, stateless society for all”. The mental gymnastics you’d need to make those fit confound me.
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🍁 Levi Kornelsen @levikornelsen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
There's a fascist (and openly so) with money working on getting "Agentic Linux" going, as "Omarchy". So if you meet a Linux Guy who's into Omarchy, block.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Inspired by @levikornelsen.bsky.social sharing the WIP on Geomantic, I thought I'd put up something I've had idling for a while: This is the character sheet for Demonpunks, a WIP game where you play cyberpunks fighting the good fight against megacorps, who are also possessed by demons.
Character sheet, top left corner has crude circuitry diagram sketches and says "circuitry & lights here", and a bar at the top says "cyberpunk character information". Four identical rows are in the middle. Each row has a circle on the left saying "skill" at the top, and a small half rectangle saying "augmentations" at the top. On the right is a reversed half rectangle, and a box saying "stress" at the top. In the middle are two opposed half arrows pointing from one side to the other forming an ellipse.

Upside down text at the bottom right corner says "organic demon stuff here", with a crude sketch of a claw and a three eyed toothy beaked demon face in profile. and "demon character information" in the bar at the bottom. The boxes on the right (on the left when the page is turned upside down) say "instinct" at the bottom in the same upside down text, and the reverse half rectangles each say "blasphemies" at the bottom. The circles on the left say "damnation" in upside down text at the bottom. All upside down text is in a cruder-looking typeface than the rightside up text.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I tried to write a short one, but then things got out of hand even as I stuck to the disciplined outcome of the verbs, and found out a world of wonders I had not predicted.
medium.com
Control, and the Axes of Narrative / Interface Pervasiveness / Robustness : Shoot Gun, Toss Rock…
or “Hammers Work Even When You Do Not Understand How Wood is Formed”
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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
No, you can’t. The line on immigration is exactly what fuels the fascists. The line is ‘immigrants are bad’. That’s a fascist line.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
A thing I realized today is that there is no real, intentional equivalent of doodling sketches or warm up exercises and etudes in TTRPGs I can think of, and the only way to practice performance is sit down and perform. Which is an issue, because TTRPG performance is time and planning intensive.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
So many polls are like “pick three biggest issues facing the country today” & list immigration under there. Sure, I do think immigration is an issue. We don’t have enough of it under a repressive government. That’s not what the poll will think, because it assumes high immigration is always bad.
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🍁 Levi Kornelsen @levikornelsen.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Fresh hot theory for y'all.
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I tried to write a short one, but then things got out of hand even as I stuck to the disciplined outcome of the verbs, and found out a world of wonders I had not predicted.
medium.com
Control, and the Axes of Narrative / Interface Pervasiveness / Robustness : Shoot Gun, Toss Rock…
or “Hammers Work Even When You Do Not Understand How Wood is Formed”
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Kemı Badenoch, hasn’t anyone told you you cannot do one bad thing (cutting welfare) to do another bad thing (getting more money to kill people) and expect people to like you
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
A TTRPG group I moderate has a simple, three question quiz we expect prospective members to answer before we let them in. One question is "do you agree to the rules". The second question is "what is your favorite RPG that is not D&D or PF?". The third question is "do you agree to the rules".
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
dear britons can you explain if this is a warning (stop, cock ahead) or an order (stop, you cock), asking for a friend
metal lid on the ground saying “stop cock”
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Games that have a clear design goal, games that make intentional design choices towards that goal, & games that stand behind those choices & not expect them to be supported by ad hoc choices during performance bonus: games that understand the host is a player & not entertainment delivery mechanism
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
wake up baby dr pepper got tenure and decided to act cooler at lectures
lined up bottles of knock off soda at the bargain store, the label says “professor peppy zero sugar”
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Keith Stuart @keefstuart.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
This is something I have come up against sooooo many times in my career - TV and radio programme producers saying “sorry but we covered games last month”. Can you imagine them saying that about films, books or music? And it’s STILL happening
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
it is amazing how the military or steel industry or banking or data center costs are also always running out of control, and the government’s response is to throw more good money after bad at them, but when it’s a public health service that will make back the investment, suddenly there is no money
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LarryLegend @bwtrainer.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
if someone tells you you don't need a union, you 100% need a union
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Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
at this point it would take extraordinary evidence to overturn the finding that unconditional handouts are a net good for everyone except the owner class
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Scott Santens @scottsantens.com · 27/08/2026
"Research shows that for every dollar distributed, $2.50 of economic activity is created over the next 30 months and prices only rise marginally... Other benefits include a fall in child mortality, as pregnant women can pay for transport to clinics and stop working in the weeks before childbirth."
bloomberg.com
What Happens If You Give Everyone $700? A Local Economy Thrives
A project in Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, aims to demonstrate how aid might work in future.
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