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 000
Reposted by KhantalasNebula @nebula.tv · 01/10/2026Jacob Geller is no longer a part of Nebula. Ongoing projects have been terminated effective immediately, and his content has been removed from our catalog. 432954386
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”. 130
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Another 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. 152
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026One 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. 121
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026AW 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. 151
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Here'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): 153
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 ittheguardian.comThree people dead, including a child, in attempt to cross Channel to UKOfficial says deaths – and dozens of injuries – were probably caused by crushing on boat carrying 105 people 121
Reposted by KhantalasAmal El-Mohtar @amalelmohtar.com · 24/09/2026Pals 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. 14489247
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 24/09/2026As 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. 110
Reposted by KhantalasPaul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Burnham reappointed Shabana Mahmood. That made it clear that he’s not the man to deal with this. 922347
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Something 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. 100
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 19/09/2026because 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 000
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 18/09/2026I have a joke about Mythender but oh forgive me for my presumption Master Mythender please do not end me where I stand 000
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 18/09/2026One 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. 110
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 17/09/2026wake up babe new lasers & feelings hack just dropped 020
Reposted by KhantalasOlivia Hill @machineiv.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Democrats: 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? 1428
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 16/09/2026A 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. 020
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 16/09/2026so 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 020
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 16/09/2026Hearing 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: 100
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. 192
Reposted by KhantalasKhantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 15/09/2026I 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?” 101
Reposted by KhantalasBOOles @awawa.pics · 14/09/2026"why are all these trannies being so rigid and mean?" 634880
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 14/09/2026also 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 032
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 14/09/2026maybe 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 070
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 14/09/2026The 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. 121
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 14/09/2026When 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. 121
Reposted by Khantalas🍁 Levi Kornelsen @levikornelsen.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Need 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. 096
Reposted by Khantalas🍁 Levi Kornelsen @levikornelsen.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Let'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! 524415
Reposted by KhantalasOlivia Hill @machineiv.bsky.social · 11/09/2026The actual trolley problem nobody seems willing to address. 718159
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Saw 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. 120
Reposted by Khantalas🍁 Levi Kornelsen @levikornelsen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026There'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. 0136
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Inspired 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. 142
Reposted by KhantalasKhantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 07/09/2026I 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.comControl, 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” 142
Reposted by KhantalasPaul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 08/09/2026No, you can’t. The line on immigration is exactly what fuels the fascists. The line is ‘immigrants are bad’. That’s a fascist line. 161078211
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 08/09/2026A 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. 120
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 08/09/2026So 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. 110
Reposted by Khantalas🍁 Levi Kornelsen @levikornelsen.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Fresh hot theory for y'all. 041
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 07/09/2026I 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.comControl, 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” 142
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Kemı 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 010
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 02/09/2026A 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". 120
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 30/08/2026dear britons can you explain if this is a warning (stop, cock ahead) or an order (stop, you cock), asking for a friend 100
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 30/08/2026Games 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 010
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 29/08/2026wake up baby dr pepper got tenure and decided to act cooler at lectures 000
Reposted by KhantalasKeith Stuart @keefstuart.bsky.social · 29/08/2026This 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 315025
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 28/08/2026it 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 020
Reposted by KhantalasLarryLegend @bwtrainer.bsky.social · 27/08/2026if someone tells you you don't need a union, you 100% need a union 13835263
Khantalas @khantalas.bsky.social · 27/08/2026at this point it would take extraordinary evidence to overturn the finding that unconditional handouts are a net good for everyone except the owner class 010
Reposted by KhantalasScott 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.comWhat Happens If You Give Everyone $700? A Local Economy ThrivesA project in Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, aims to demonstrate how aid might work in future. 314859