ARBco

ARBco

@j-k.games

Julian Kay ⁕ Neurodiv TTRPG Designer/Writer ⁕ Designer: Mutants in the Now, Faith & Sails ⁕ Freelancer: WotC, Green Ronin, Pelgrane, and 2x Ennie-winner Planewalker! ⁕ TMNT SME, FYI ⁕ Avatar by @retrodynamics.bsky.social ⁕ https://linktr.ee/juliankay

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MUTANTS FROM THE ARCHIVES: PET SHOP BLUES is now available! It's got playable dogs, cats, and every sort of pet you can imagine; and some you haven't! With new character types, villains, and an illustrated section on genemodded species, it's ready to adopt! Links below- #furry #scalie #tmnt #ttrpg

One thing that strikes me about talking with / listening to ex-D&D devs is a fixation on that you *have* to design parts of your game for people not actually interested in engaging with the game and that feels like a very specific corporate sort of design trauma to keep with you. #ttrpg #dnd

Maybe that's how you just make money at pretend games is getting the surface-level hobbyists to keep you afloat on a sea of disposable income but it feels mildly horrific to be like "now design part of your game for the most incurious person you can imagine".

I have to wonder how much of that is just a D&D thing, or if it's a broader thing with the hobby, it could be that anybody who steps off the D&D train is more likely to wonder what the things on their character sheet actually mean. I hope? I don't know.

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And the winner is… Your 2026 International Mollusc of the Year is 𝘾𝙪𝙢𝙞𝙖 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙖, the Vampire Snail! It will be the first blood-feeding mollusc to ever have its genome sequenced. Huge thanks to the nominators & @sgn.one for unlocking its DNA secrets! 🧬🩸 #IMOY26

An ad comes up that's like "Why doomscroll when you can gamble?" and I'm like, wow, a strong case for doomscrolling...

Recently grabbed a discount bin item and when I scanned it I realized I'd swapped the discount amount and actual price in my mind. I called over a worker to cancel it and they asked "how much did you THINK it cost?" And then changed the price to that, saying, "It's a discount item, nobody cares."

jab lung@mobute.bsky.social

thinking fondly again of the college girl at the donut place, who made a little muslim boy bounce giddily out the door after she told him his donut was free, and who waved me away and said "you're good" when it was my turn to pay and then, when asked if there was a deal that day said "i hate my job"

And for Powergamer and Minmaxers on the Patreon, but free for all to peek at, it's time to vote for what marsupials will be ready to mutate in November. It's a pouchful of peculiarities! #ttrpg #tmnt www.patreon.com/JulianKay/po...

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Three years ago, my dad said that all fish are the same shape. Out of spite, I decided to draw all 478 families of bony fish listed in Nelson 2016. There's still some stuff I need to edit and some fish I want to redraw but, after 985 days, I finished my big dumb fish project last night.

Granted, like all Smash clones, it struggled with the cold fact it exists in the same world as Super Smash Bros., and probably wasn't helped by the fact most other TMNT games at the time felt very much made for the license, but for a Wii brawler on a modest budget, it was better than you'd expect.

Also it was probably the only time you'll get to beat people up as noted pacifist robot Fugitoid, I suppose. I'm sure he's very sorry! (And low-tier.)

And for out next Bioware Magic trick, we're going to make the company... disappear! Obviously terrible for folks' livelihoods, and I'm not dismissing that, but the studio had been Ship of Theseus'd into something unrecognizable to fans by this point, and the treatment of staff was just nasty.

I've finally playing through Baldur's Gate 2 and I admit Bioware's output had always been a mixed bag for me, where the writing was the fun reward for slogging through the moment-to-moment gameplay, and AD&D just doesn't make for a great top-down tactical experience, IMO.

I think Mass Effect was the main series I loved, and even then you had planet-scanning and similar minigames that just seemed to be present to eat time or check some box management put forth for them. I was fond of Sonic: the Dark Brotherhood? It did have some really sloggy random battles, tho...

A real classic, and you can go (re)play it now! It's free! Just watch out for those rebounding discs.

Vlambeer@vlambeer.com

Super Crate Box turned 16 today! Still very proud of this one. Big shoutout to @royndegroot.bsky.social @pietepiet.com & @strotchy.bsky.social

Those guys? The folks that write D&D? Or the other D&D? Or the other another D&D? They don't appreciate D&D. They hate D&D. They're trying to DESTROY D&D. Give your money to me, the only living D&D appreciator. Well, except for you. And me. We will keep the wolves at bay.

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Just got all my boys together to take on the wandering ronin who came to town. There’s like 15 of us and only one of him so pretty much the only thing that would give me any pause is if he was master of the devastating and lightning-fast iaidō style. But that’s not likely. Coward hasn’t even drawn h

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Also once again I am struggling to afford bills and expenses, I have under $10 and there are nearly two weeks left before I get paid again. Please help disabled traumatized trans woman afford living expenses. #helpsky #transcrowdfund paypal.me/mollymetroid

I try not to gatekeep about about what's "indie", but seeing tabletop games using world-famous licenses from billion-dollar companies marked as "indie", that's... not it, right? That's not just me?

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Drone photographer Theresa Graham (tgraham.photography on IG) captured this Ornate Eagle Ray (Aetomylaeus vespertilio) off Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia. These rays are called the "unicorn of the sea": fewer than 100 sighting have been documented. We suspect they're critically endangered.

Today on Throwback Thursday, free to all readers, I look back to Gygax's Epic of Ærth, and how his focus on categorization led him down the rabbit hole of race science, genetic determinism, and bizarre shade thrown at Afghans. No reading between the lines here: it's right on the page. #ttrpg #dnd

patreon.comThrowback Thursday: Ludosophy! - Lust for Lists | Julian KayOriginal Commentary - December 18th, 2020 This week in Ludosophy!, I talk about how lists and categories can aid players and gamemasters--or

An editor beat em-dashes into me a half-decade ago. They're not used a lot in everyday, layperson writing but they're normal for professional writers. AIs using them isn't just a weird quirk, it's evidence of the stolen slurry that fuels their sloppy syntax.

This is all disgusting. I've had people accuse me of using AI when I do shit like use an em-dash. I struggle to avoid yelling but HUNDREDS OF ARTICLES AND AT LEAST TWO BOOKS I WROTE have been scraped by OpenAI. I'm part of why your chatbots write the way they do. They're copying me.

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Yesterday, Wizards informed us that it doesn’t intend to voluntarily recognize the D&D or Studio X units of our union ahead of a vote. We remain committed to creating a workplace focused on wellness, transparency, and collaboration by winning our coming election.

Of course, it highlights that such just is a more violent, phrenologic flavor of the "no one will love you unless *product* that has chiefly (but not exclusively) been foisted on women for ages.

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Replying to @handle.invalid

These boys have posed for me many times this year. I am very grateful.

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Sorry to keep begging but I manged to get gas before the overdraft fees hit. I hate my bank so much. Could use another round of help before I get home. Kitty pics free as always. paypal.me/tknyarly Venmo - @sashad3ath

Help!!! A bills situation left me badly overdrafted while I'm in Utah visiting family. I have no way of making this up because my sick pay doesn't go into DailyPay. Gas is expensive as hell out here and I need to get home on Tuesday. paypal.me/tknyarly Venmo @sashad3ath.bsky.social Deli pic 4 free