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Nicholas Orvis

@nsorvis.bsky.social
176 followers 190 following 150 posts

Dramaturg, director, critic, and scholar working at the intersection of theater and games. Co-creator @dndramanerds.bsky.social. Opinions my own.

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Reposted by Nicholas Orvis
Authenticity Trip | 200-Proof Games @200proofgames.bsky.social · 15h
People think that dice are the engine for RPGs, because they’re so visible. The d20 is so iconic. We think apocalypse world “runs on 2d6.” It doesn’t. It runs on moves. *Moves* are the resolution engine - the dice are *only* the randomizing agent, which is an important piece but not the heart!
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Spokane Rising @spokanerising.com · 29/09/2026
Send Stephen Miller to The Hague.
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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Reminder that in Canada upon becoming an engineer you get an iron ring made of a collapsed bridge, purposely designed to be uncomfortable, to remind you that your ethics demand you give a fuck even about the boring grudgework of such as double-checking your math. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
en.wikipedia.org
Iron Ring - Wikipedia
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
My latest essay is up on Playtest Material! Looking at the points of contact between theater and RPGs. If you want a sense of this "gameful theater" thing I've been banging on about, I get into a bit of that near the end!
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#StupidSuez @diplomatofnight.com · 16/09/2026
The 1948 Genocide Convention does not require one person being killed. Read the Convention.
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Playtest Material Magazine @playtestmaterial.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Thank you all so much for such an impressive subscription drive so far! We are at 49/75 subs: Nearly two thirds of the way to what we need, and we've more than quadrupled our original subcriber base in less than 24 hours.
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I've got an essay on theater, TTRPGs, and critical spectatorship in the inaugural issue of Playtest Material, a new quarterly journal of serious RPG criticism. And they're having a subscription drive right now! If RPG crit interests you, check out some of the previews and consider a sub.
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Dilek Sayedahmed @dileksayedahmed.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I truly, deeply, sincerely do think the guy flipping burgers at McDonalds should be able to afford rent, bills, and groceries with his paycheck alone. That's kind of the whole point of having a job and I can't believe this is considered a radical position.🤷🏽‍♀️
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Mark Simpson-Vos @simpsonvos.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Reader, I sobbed at the end of this. Because ALL our children deserve better than the world we are bequeathing them.
nytimes.com
In Fighting for Every Black Child, Did I Betray My Own? (Gift Article)
A decade ago, I made a decision about my daughter’s education that I hoped would challenge New York City’s separate and unequal school system. Now 16, she thinks I made the wrong choice.
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Maid Mocha @spacemocha.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Good thread altogether but the end is the most important part imo - a boycott needs an *end point*. If you are not gettable, if nothing they do will ever get you to shop there, then they have no reason to change practices in response to the boycott!
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cayce @cayce.zone · 06/09/2026
it's called "dukkhamaxxing". kids are cultivating attachment at unheard of levels on the streets to experience whole new levels of suffering
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Colin Dickey @colindickey.com · 07/09/2026
“I got your ‘eat shit’ loud and clear” is, unfortunately, an objectively very funny statement. Point: AI
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Charlotte @fireantprincess.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
when conservatives say “facts don’t care about your feelings” you need to understand that it is not meant to say they are committed to facts but that they are committed to creating a form of epistemological dictatorship where no one is able to disagree with their obvious lies.
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The Stillfleet Studio ☉ more than play 🇵🇸 @stillfleet.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
News: I'm very excited to support the new critical journal of TTRPGs, Playtest Material, as guest editor of Issue 2: Histories playtestmaterial.org/issue-two-hi... @playtestmaterial.bsky.social @laurieoc.bsky.social
playtestmaterial.org
Issue Two: Histories
It’s my great honour as guest editor to introduce the second issue of Playtest Material, “Histories.” The call for submissions for this issue will open to the public September 15 and close October 15....
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Pop Syllabus.
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grant @grantpardee.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"Tiny Tim, who DESERVED to die,"
Gonzo in Muppet Christmas Carol delivering the line "And Tiny Tim, who did NOT die"
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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 30/08/2026
“Why didn’t scientists warn us?”
Newspaper clipping:

Thr Rodnen & Otamatea Times
WAITEMATA & KAIPARA GAZETTE
PRIOE~10s perannum in adrance
WARKWORTE, WEDNESDAY AUGUST 14, 1912
3d per Copy.
Science Notes and News.
COAL CONSUMPTION AFFECT.
ING CLIMATE.
The furnaces of the world are now
burning about
2,000,000,000 tons of
coal a ycar.
When this is burned,
uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the carth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries.
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austin_walker @austinwalker.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Impossible to add up all Avery's done for the medium. But easy to say how much her work helped me come to understand how to play, facilitate, and design games. Also, they're fun as hell, you should buy them!
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Recent TTRPG mini-discourse lodged in my head has me thinking about the value of Thomas and Sharp's "Fun, Taste, and Games," which IIRC has an entire chapter patiently explaining that, yes, many people do enjoy Monopoly. Because most people don't play games like game designers and scholars do.
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
As someone who took his student newspaper editors to task over email because they changed "zany" in my lede to "ribald," yeah, you really should not let an LLM just tweak your language either.
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Mark Jacob @markjacob.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
I feel like I’m living In a dystopian novel written in 1993 that was rejected by dozens of publishers because it was incredibly stupid.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
They have whiplash. Is A.I. the future or is it the end of jobs? It can't be both (they took 1900 hours of AP classes so they know they can figure that out for themselves). Where are all the professors and why are they all in a seminar about A.I. instead of inspiring them or telling them what to do?
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Joel Calahan @joelcalahan.com · 28/08/2026
My son starts college in two weeks, and his decision really boiled down to finding a place where he thought faculty and students did learning old-school: small seminar discussions, field work, etc. He wants a tech-proof degree. Many of the colleges made no attempt to sell this to him!
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Rook @boxen.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
You already had several good reasons to boycott Starbucks, but here's another one
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Monsterhearts and Dream Askew are both delightful games! Great for an evening with friends. The Quiet Year is fascinating. But Brave Sparrow, anthologized in "Variations on Your Body," changed my brain chemistry. And the essay "We've Been Stranger Things" in the same collection is stellar!
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Avery Alder, Buried Without Ceremony @lackingceremony.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Do you love any of the games that I have created? Whether it's Monsterhearts, Dream Askew, The Quiet Year, Going For Broke, or a deeper cut, now would be a great time to hit quote-tweet and tell your friends about it! It's been a slow month. 💕✨ store.buriedwithoutceremony.com
store.buriedwithoutceremony.com
Buried Without Ceremony
My name is Avery Alder, and for the past eighteen years I’ve been designing tabletop roleplaying games. These are games about community, relationships, doubt, queerness, and the collapse of civilizati...
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Jes Steele ✌️ @piratito.com · 25/08/2026
Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris performing “Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow” on The Dolly Parton Show (1976)
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Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Let me get this straight. Sometimes a famous person dies and everyone is nice about it? Merely because of their deeds during life?
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austin_walker @austinwalker.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
A screencap of Gimli kneeling to Galadriel
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All In with Chris Hayes @allinwithchris.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
“This isn’t a problem that started with the storm. We are a predominately Black city that tends to get ignored,” says Grammy award-winning rapper Freddie Gibbs as his hometown of Gary, Indiana remains without power after two weeks.
youtube.com
‘IGNORED’: Rapper Freddie Gibbs SPEAKS OUT on Gary, Indiana’s power crisis 
YouTube video by MS NOW
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I will add, long before this became federal, red state legislatures have been working hard to destroy academic freedoms about what faculty can even say. In Oklahoma, we were told that we could be fined and/or jailed if we provided "material support that led to a student getting an abortion."...
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Ray @sireviscerate.myatproto.social · 22/08/2026
This isn't a "surprising message of support for trans adults". This is a bigot whose arm is being twisted into doing public relations damage control by the media network that invested billions into a franchise she's been poisoning with hate for the last decade.
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Jon Phillips @jowiph.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
WSJ giving Cofnas a platform to insist that he's just a brave truth teller but also a small bean birthday boy. People should lose their jobs over this.
WSJ piece from Nathan Cofnas: "How I Became the Scapegoat in the Jason Arday Affair
Thave been smeared as a racist and threatened with violence. My university suspended me. All I did was tell the truth."
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Uncle Duke @uncleduke1969.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
him: license and registration please me: *hands them over* him: *eats license and registration* me: now wait a min- him: *burps* insurance card please
A goat leans into the passenger side of a vehicle.
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Jeremy Antley @jantley.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Archival work is both time and resource intensive but if you can swing it, nothing beats looking at primary sources. I’m a big believer that everyone should visit their local archives and just start digging. You will feel more connected and be better informed for the effort.
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Soraya Nadia McDonald @soraya.press · 20/08/2026
So there was a racist mass media smear campaign that got repeated louder and louder and louder until people assumed there had to be at least *some* truth to it just based on the sheer volume of allegations? This is flooding the zone with shit. This is Bannonism.
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Soraya Nadia McDonald @soraya.press · 20/08/2026
Wait a damn minute. The things Arday did, like the marathons, had been previously covered, with first hand primary sources, by English news orgs, contemporaneously?!?! And yet the Telegraph and others just kept repeating that he'd lied about them, despite tons of documentation they happened?! 🤬🤬🤬
middleeasteye.net
Jason Arday's marathon challenge and football claims found to be true after his death
Claims the late academic made which were widely derided as false in media and online discourse this month appear to be true, an MEE analysis has found
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The Onion @theonion.com · 19/08/2026
Democratic Socialism: Myth Vs. Fact theonion.com/democratic-socialism-m…
MYTH: The government will take away your money and give it to the poor.

FACT: You are the poor.
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Prof. Anthea Butler @antheabutler.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I didn't really want to write this becIse it's complicated and sad but 3 things..1. not the title I would have chosen 2. What weny wrong was long before Cambridge and 3. Racism www.ms.now/opinion/jaso...
ms.now
Opinion | As flawed as he was, Jason Arday deserved better
Anthea Butler: There's more than one tragedy within the Jason Arday story
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Mo Ryan @moryan.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
“Those are not my beliefs.“ Oh really? See, the thing about beliefs is, unless you act on them, they are just words you say to make yourself feel better and you don’t truly believe those things at all. Hope that helps!
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Scott Dworkin @dworkin.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
NEW: Trump is moving to open 45 million acres of national forest to logging and development. 45 million. Acres. Land that belongs to you, that your grandparents protected, that nobody gets to replace. We just launched this. Tell Congress to stop him: actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...
actionnetwork.org
Tell Congress: Stop Trump from destroying 45 million acres of our National forests
Contact Congress today!
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Evan Torner @guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I'm definitely reading those higher ed articles about the US brain drain and the total denigration of our higher ed institutions, but make no mistake: there isn't a country in the world primed to "save" academics or "science." Every university I know is quietly or loudly dealing with draconian cuts.
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molly conger @socialistdogmom.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
it was a generational fumble for the dems to pull back on letting coach tim, our gentle midwestern uncle, stand in front of a mic and express disgust and bewilderment at what an absolute grab bag of misfit freaks this admin is. this is weird! these people are fucking weirdos!!! it’s yucky!
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I sincerely believe they could have ridden “They Weird, Yo” all the way to the White House.
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Anna Holmes @annabookwriter.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Once again and over and over until it gets through: archives and libraries scanning something for preservation is an entirely different story than private citizens and companies doing it, because there are strict ethical standards for the former and the latter consider them annoyances.
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POCGamer aka PanzerLion! @pocgamer.com · 17/08/2026
I've hated AI slop since it launched, and I hate it more now. There's a bunch of channels on TikTok now that are, on the face of them, "history" channels. The information they give is, by and large, accurate. The imagery they generate? Literally feeding white supremacy. How? They're making...1/3
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Jen Taub @jentaub.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
“A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.” ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
ysph.yale.edu
Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it
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Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Reminder for those who might not remember that a scholar in my subfield was, c2013, credibly accused of plagiarism, found guilty by an independent committee, had the book revoked by the press—& was not fired or dragged in the press but (over objections from 13 of her own colleagues) made into a dean
browndailyherald.com
After plagiarism allegations, prof. was named dean
Serving the Brown University community since 1891
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