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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 · 22h
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 · 24/09/2026
Please do let me know your thoughts if you get a chance! I engage with your amazing work heavily here and I hope I do it at least some justice.
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Put* this together...this is why I value editors so highly...😅
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Many thanks to @laurieoc.bsky.social and the @playtestmaterial.bsky.social team for helping out this together! It was a pleasure! ❤️
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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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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
That was my response!
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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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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Absolutely would.
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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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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
...yet in this thread. Feel that was phrased poorly on my end
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Haven't seen her yet but I'd absolutely recommend @momatoes.com both for art and layout (which, as with many of the best, are essentially the same thing in her work).
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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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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I'd be curious!
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
It's been a wonderful process! I am (as you might have guessed) too swamped right now to pitch for issue 2 but I can't wait to read it!
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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
You understand why I took issue. 😛
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Anyway Snakes and Ladders is the Oedipus of game design send twete
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
I mean, when's the last time you interacted with a piece of culture that's survived with almost exclusively cosmetic changes over 2 millennia?? I'm making my students read OEDIPUS TYRANNOS but since I missed the Bway production last year I haven't actually seen it live.
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Anyway if you're going to diss a game by comparing it to a children's game, I do think it puts egg on your face if you later say, "It turns out people love [children's game]?!" ...when the game in question is 1900 years old. Yes, I think it's safe to say that people like that game!
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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
It sure did! 😛
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
A student production of Stephen Sondheim's ASSASSINS.
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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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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
It very much is! And we need a term for it! (I will share the essay when it's out - it's in rough shape but I am trying to get it straightened out!)
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
...there's no term or systematic pedagogy of managing it for actors, at least so far as I've found. A couple of people have called for one over the years, but it hasn't really made any headway in the profession.
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Absolutely. My experience is less deep than yours by far (and more in TRPG than larp) but that's been my experience too. Conversely (this is the other part of the essay lol) it is FASCINATING and kind of shocking to me that theater doesn't have a term for bleed. Everyone knows it exists but...
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
...and established practices/techniques/aesthetics wholly designed toward promoting critical reflection (e.g. Brecht, Boal, etc.)
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Most interesting thing about my work as a dramaturg, for sure. The "frosted glass magic circle" is fascinating to me. I've been working on an essay that suggests (in part drawing on your excellent work!) that one thing theater can offer to RPGs is a culture of critical spectatorship...
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Oooh this is exciting to me as a person who thinks about theater and games. Watching this thread with interest!
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Nicholas Orvis @nsorvis.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Lmao I'm pretty sure I saw the take that prompted this, based on the rest of the thread. It was a strange one! (I think really this person just doesn't like the swinginess of a d20? Which is fair? But I'd FAR rather have crit fails than endless static turns as in previous editions...)
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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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