iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

There's a lot going on with my system, but I feel I did a really good job at trying to understand different tables and playstyles and cater to as broad an audience as I could. If my writing and exposition is as accessible as the content, I will have made something truly special.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Crap I did Discord emoji code on reflex. I meant 😭. Sorry, force of habit.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Chloe I'm literally considering plasma donation as a means to afford your art while I'm going through some financial stuff. Please believe in yourself. :sob:

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I've played around with a similar concept but couldn't get it to stick; would love to see how far you get with this one.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Technically Robin Laws did actually codify the the player type of "guy always playing out a very specific power fantasy scenario" but I really don't wanna call the "let my inner racist out" guy a "Specialist" 🤮

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Thing is for every designer who wants nothing to do with anything under 200 pages, there's thousands of players who want the same. It's still something people want.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

There's still another take that's since fallen out of favor due to evolving social awareness whew the "corruption" is just a metaphor for premarital sex, that they take from innocent maidens. Thankfully that's less of a boogieman nowadays 🤣

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

I think that both the vamps-as-opptessed-minorities and vamps-as-predators takes can coexist, just probably not well in the same media. They're both just different ways to use the same tool. There's definitely something to your angle I hadn't quite considered.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

I processed that like "Hulking out". Don't give me spicy food. You wouldn't like me when I've had spicy food. 🤣

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

I mean it's easy enough to hack for any game with a TN, as most define margin of success ("beat it by 2" or whatever). It's a question of HOW you want it to mechanically matter.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Caramelize em, makes a great condiment for all sorts of protein and other dishes. Mix it with ketchup for a more complex flavor for fries. Or mix the caramelized onion with cream cheese for a really great bagel spread.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

GURPS does stat for target number and does use difficulty modifiers. I do think the cultural idea has some merit.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

This is like drawing all your conclusions about sex from porn and literature from the MCU.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Saw a video on "the illusion of player agency in TTRPGs" where the first 20 seconds made it abundantly clear that all examples were going to be drawn from Actual Play (Dimension 20) and... yikes bro. I don't even need to hear your argument to know you don't know what you're talking about.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

I've never heard of them before and was already blocked so yes your script theory has some merit.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

I have to agree; I do really hate when people complain about anyone with better marketing than them as "not indie" or "less indie" or whatever and it goes into this weird purist notion of who doesn't want to be bothered to actually tell people about their games more.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Big examples: Fire Emblem's "True Hit", the card game "Mao", children playing Tic Tac Toe versus adults doing so.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Brilliant middle-of-the-night-wakeup realization I'm going to share without fully unpacking: a games claims about the mechanics present in the game are itself game mechanics. These are very often actual tools you can use as a game designer.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

You're a better coder than you think. That said you may DM me if you're looking for a programmer teammate.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

Thanks for letting us know, hope you're feeling better. Looking forward to the new batch. 😀

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

No, but you should consider your design goals and adjust accordingly. Who is this game for? That said, having "French vanilla" creatures (creatures with only keywords) is usually indispensable for players to learn the game.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

I'm not ready for bluesky man. Realized today that the guy I was talking to about a thing awhile ago was the creator of said thing. I didn't say anything stupid but still feel silly.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Orville was literally my gateway to Trek 🤣 with how much thoughtfulness the stories had I realized the source material had to be great.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Very interesting. Ive been doing research on accessibility in gaming so that's cool anecdotal data point, thanks for sharing.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

I think anything that gives someone what they want out of the world can't be unnecessary. And very often those are the random details that serve no real gameplay function.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

Have a pretty challenging math problem for a game design, while trying to find time to write up a solver in Python I sent it out to my friends and they've generated pages and pages of work for me and they've had a blast riffing off it and getting stuck. This is what LLMs want to take from us.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Oh Sandwich can already recognize 60+ words at 2 and a half in part because we read to her every night. She's too smart for her own good 🤣

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Well, think about it statistically. If you've consumed 3 times the amount of literature I have (and I think that's maybe right), even if only 20% of the books we've both read are kid lit, then you've still read 3 times as much. I probably have you beat on Suess though.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

One thing you have to understand is the expertise effect. You are probably more well read than something like 90% of the population.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

It's unreasonably good. Like, incredibly vulnerable and raw and dark. Just the kind of art piece I don't even know how to draw comparisons with; best in class of one.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Given the fact GenCon is technically short for "Geneva Convention" and there exists a thing called the Nuremburg Toy Convention, I think we can afford to make up some new con names.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

TTRPG folks: Trying to figure out why people are so hostile towards roll under (and to a lesser extent, bell curved dice mechanics). I have some pretty good hypotheses, but any insight would be appreciated.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Also when you said "crowdfunder with boobies" I thought you were oddly trying to sidestep calling the creator a woman which made the rest of that sentence a very odd read.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Biggest issue is they didn't hire you to consult smh. You think they'd know better by now. 🫤

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

There's a guy who's whole science job was "Yo does this sugar water taste spicy to you?" and he got a thing named after him and everything.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

First I'm seeing of this, already following.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Was not intending to use it as a gendered noun.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

I was addressing the commenters as well as this appeared to be a common sentiment, using the second person plural. I intended no offense and apologize if I offended you. I'll do better going forward if we ever speak again.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Guys you can still find copies. It's not even that hard, I think it might still be in print. Treat yo'self. Don't let your dreams be dreams.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Yeah await is notorious for causing bugs, if you go to the official Discord's quick help with that the first thing they'll say is to cut await. Another pro tip: default timers are set to loop, make sure to fix if this isn't intended 🤣

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

I think you put some light mechanical backing here. I can't possibly judge borrowing other mechanics, my game would be the size of a post-it without outside ideas 🤣

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Having never seen anything like this before, it seems like a solid include to allow for storytelling while still having a more-lethal campaign. Good work (even if you cribbed it from somewhere, that's how all good design works 😉)

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

We do imagine the outfit, that's why we don't need to wear it.

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StrangerSide @strangerside909.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Hey you're good, take your sweet time on Katalina, you're cooking up something truly special. Don't forget to rest when you need it, you're really great at all you do.

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