@errantcanadian.com
Philosopher, educator, writer, game designer. Sue & Harry Bovay Assistant Teaching Professor & Director of the History & Ethics of Professional Engineering at Cornell University. 🏠 trystangoetze.ca 🏢 ethics.engineering.cornell.edu 🎲 errantcanadian.itch.io
My End of Year video is on the "Golden Age of Indie RPGs," from roughly 2010 to 2025. I start with Apocalypse World's release, work through the Google+ Era, and follow design lineages and historical events that have impacted the hobby up through 2025.
• Other: You don't achieve what you wanted but things don't get worse either. Narrate a flashback to a scene between your character and another PC using the vibe of the recording as an emotional prompt.
[3/3]
4. What was the vibe of that snippet of recording?
• Triumphant: You succeed and get an additional bonus.
• Neutral: You succeed, but get only some of what you want.
• Weird: You succeed, but things also get worse somehow.
• Melancholy: You fail, and things get worse somehow.
…
[2/3]
Before playing, go to a thrift store and buy a mix of random cassette tapes, based purely on vibes.
Whenever your character does something risky or dangerous:
1. Pick a random cassette.
2. Fast forward the tape to a random spot; press play.
3. Listen to exactly 3 seconds of the recording.
…
[1/3]
## Endnotes
*Custom ruleset with lower risk of loss & a mystery-solving mechanic
†Lasers & Feelings hack by @coastalkat.bsky.social & me
# 2025 #TTRPG year in review
## Games Run
Trophy Gold/Dark*, Fate, Girl by Moonlight, Hearts & Haunts†, Brindlewood Bay, Star Wars (Genesys)
## Games Played
Star Trek Adventures, Tremulus, Monster of the Week, Wildsea
I think it would be fun if writers who love language started intentionally writing more strangely as AI flattens written "content" into a mono-voice. it would cool I think if writers responded by focusing their individual efforts on cultivating a really unique voice that's hard to copy
Je viens de réaliser que Tolkien a commis une erreur de cohérence dans le SDA.
Une énorme. ÉNORMISSIME.
Les hobbits vivent dans des trous.
Leur pays ne devrait donc pas, ne peut pas s'appeler la Comté, mais l'Emmenthal.
Ce sera tout pour aujourd'hui minuit approche.
one of the coolest things about ChatGPT is how you can actually just never use it. you can fill your whole entire life with simply not once using it. it's incredible.
Quite an opening.
As Langdon Winner put so well 40 years ago, don't fall into the trap of accepting "RISK" as a good framework for these conversations. Business interests love framing their violence in terms of "risks & rewards" bc as a society, we love to heroize & reward risk-takers. Talk instead about "HAZARD."
ko-fi.com/quietsnooze/...
Oops I opened a very limited amount of portrait commissions 🫣 #commissionsopen
Help! My Executive Function is borked! (A cartoon illustration of a fox half-buried head-first in the snow.) Self-control: I’m having trouble stopping & thinking before acting Self-Monitoring: I’m having trouble seeing myself clearly Self-expression: I’m having trouble saying what I need to Emotional Control: I’m having trouble managing my feelings Flexibility: I’m having trouble adapting to changes Task Initiation: I’m having trouble getting started Organization: I’m having trouble keeping things organized Working Memory: I remember, but I’m having trouble using it Planning: I’m having trouble figuring out what steps I should take Demand Avoidance: Suggestions, reminders, & instructions are making it harder
Neurodiversity means… What’s easy for me isn’t easy for you! What’s obvious to you doesn’t make sense to me! What’s common sense to me is mysterious to you! What you need isn’t what I need! I’m not being opaque or obtuse. You’re not either! When I do something upsetting or something that isn’t what you wanted or expected, please don’t be hurt or take it personally. It’s just our brains. Cutting slack goes both ways! Cut slack unto others as you would have them cut slack unto you. (A cartoon illustration of a couple of foxes and birds sitting together under a tree.)
We've had these two little posters hanging on our wall for basically ever. They helped our kids get through middle school and high school and I personally still take a second to read them often.
Printable PDF here: lumpley.games/wp-content/u...
To clarify, I don't have children, but I am a stoic father when the bit demands it.
For @flagconithaca.bsky.social I updated the Lasers & Feelings hack @coastalkat.bsky.social & I wrote in 2020—We had a blast telling how the ghosts of a caveman, beatnik, bootlegger, and knight dealt w/ paranormal investigators in a haunted coworking space errantcanadian.itch.io/hearts-haunts #ttrpg
Many of you fine folks might have heard about Cosmopolitan Fantasy Games Sig: Manual of the Primes and Sig: City of Blades. Did you know that they are available in an affordable bundle with some extra goodies over on DriveThruRPG? www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/4...
THIS Monday!! T minus 2!!! Whaaaa!
New from 404 Media: libraries are scrambling for books after a giant distributor shut down. This is a huge disruption to public libraries across the country, some of which are warning their communities the shut down will limit their ability to lend books.
www.404media.co/libraries-sc...
📣THREAD: It’s surprising to me that so many people were surprised to learn that Signal runs partly on AWS (something we can do because we use encryption to make sure no one but you–not AWS, not Signal, not anyone–can access your comms).
It’s also concerning. 1/
Someone: Thank goodness we millennials grew up before online brainrot!
Me, at random intervals for the last 20 years: "Toons! Games! Eeeee-mail!"
More pdfs up on my itch today! this time a PWYW sketchbook of character designs: sorcererscatalogue.itch.io/adventurers
promptober list of prompts on a light orange background. here is what it says: Promptober 2025 Use #promptober or #ttrpgpromptober when you post! Create a pitch for a game, design a mini-module, draw a quick map-- anything ttrpg related, according to the prompts! 1. Free space (do whatever) 2. spells 3. potions 4. Dark woods 5. masquerade 6. myths 7. secrets 8. spirits 9. thriller 10. moon 11. Thalassophobia/thalassophilia 12. Liminal space 13. Abandoned locations 14. stars 15. Free space (do whatever) 16. hauntings 17. blood 18. sorcery 19. Wizard’s tower 20. Lost book/lost knowledge 21. Sword in the forest 22. Summoning circles 23. aliens 24. Colossal beast 25. cryptid 26. Trail cams/found footage 27. Dreams/nightmares 28. Gods/goddesses 29. flowers 30. harvest 31. halloween
#Promptober is here! This time I included two free spaces, for people to make whatever they want (or to even take that day to rest). As usual, please use the #promptober or #ttrpgpromptober tags when you post! please also don't feel shy about tagging me in them so I can reskeet.
At a book talk this afternoon Laurent Dubreuil said something that's going to stay with me for a while. Paraphrasing, it was like this: Social media has made communication so unpleasant that the mediocrity of what ChatGPT is capable of seems impressive—but we should strive for better than mediocrity
LLMs learned about em dashes from their master--me! And now people want me to use them less so as to not resemble the plagiarism machine? I say thee NAY!
Last week, Reuters published two articles by journalist Jeff Horwitz reporting concerning details about Meta's AI chatbot policies and products and how they affect children and vulnerable adults. Tech Policy Press invited experts to submit reactions to the reports—here are their responses:
Our history weeks are over, which means today is the final day you can get 6 months of Rascal for 25% off with the code DJNAY.
Get access to hundreds of articles and directly support independent journalism
Worth a watch:
Head of Signal, Meredith Whittaker, on so-called "agentic AI" and the difference between how it's described in the marketing and what access and control it would actually require to work as advertised.
(2) Since the move doesn't just give you creative control over an area of lore, but compels you to add to lore when asked, it orients you to relationships, community, and history as central themes. In D&D, the game's relative lack of attention to these three themes implies that they are peripheral.
(1) The move signals strongly that you're playing in a shared world and each person is responsible for some worldbuilding. Contrast with D&D, which encourages you to think of the DM as responsible for all of the lore, and players get to, at most, add a few characters or places from PC backstories.
