Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 1d

I'm playing Strange Antiquities, which I love, but then I loved the predecessor game so it's not surprising

Plus Outer Wilds, which I love parts of, but also find really hard.

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 3d

This is an amazing deal from Chris, don't miss it.

(I once did a "Pay What I Want" sale and got several complaints that everything was at its normal price.)

Chris Longhurst @potatocubed.bsky.social · 3d

Spooky Season is upon us, so I am charging FULL PRICE for my spookiest game!

potatocubed.itch.io/bleak-spirit

Bleak Spirit by potatocubed

A tabletop RPG of a lone wanderer in a strange, melancholy place.

potatocubed.itch.io

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Reposted by Graham Walmsley

Chris Longhurst @potatocubed.bsky.social · 3d

Spooky Season is upon us, so I am charging FULL PRICE for my spookiest game!

potatocubed.itch.io/bleak-spirit

Bleak Spirit by potatocubed

A tabletop RPG of a lone wanderer in a strange, melancholy place.

potatocubed.itch.io

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 4d

Oh that's you! Thanks so much for playing.

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 4d

I'm at Concrete Cow, a friendly RPG convention in Milton Keynes. Alien Archaeology went well and surprisingly smoothly

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 5d

I've just made a note in Google Keep to write a game called "Urinal" and I hope your evening is going well too.

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 5d

This went beneath my radar, but my goodness, it's a crowdfunder for a reprint of some of the most respected and seminal indie games. Please repost, please back it.

Central Michigan University Press @cmichpress.bsky.social · 5d

We have some AMAZING news! In less than 48 hours, YOU helped us meet our crowdfunding goal! Check in at our BackerKit page for a forthcoming announcement about stretch goals! https://bit.ly/4mIpcbG

Most of all, THANK YOU so much for your support!

Golden text reads WE DID IT over a transparent red collage of covers from The Mountain Witch%2C Princess with a Cursed Sword%2C and Dog Eat Dog.

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 6d

Oh, yeah, Lady Blackbird and to some extent Blades in the Dark. Lady Blackbird takes Keys from Shadow of Yesterday, tags from Fate and elsewhere, etc etc

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 7d

You know, the language-deciphering mechanics of Alien Archaeology are both incredibly hard and one of the most fascinating design challenges I've ever had.

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Reposted by Graham Walmsley

Sarah Cole @irny.bsky.social · 8d

Folks, I'm closing late pledges on the TERMINUS Kickstarter tomorrow evening!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/pat...

Post-Kickstarter copies will cost a little more and probably not be available before Dragonmeet (end of Nov).

This Blighted Isle: TERMINUS

Missing people, a new train line, and buried secrets combine in this system-flexible TTRPG horror scenario set in modern London.

www.kickstarter.com

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 8d

And, while I'm posting music, I watched this this morning and it made me happy.

www.youtube.com/results?sear...

YouTube

Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

www.youtube.com

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 8d

I've been singing the theme tune to There Are No Ghosts At The Grand for days.

store.steampowered.com/app/3725190/...

There Are No Ghosts at the Grand on Steam

Inherit a crumbling English hotel and restore it by day—while battling ghosts by night. With a sardonic cat, a talking power tool, and a twisting supernatural plot, this is a musical mystery unlike an...

store.steampowered.com

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Reposted by Graham Walmsley

Malcolm Craig @malcolmcraig.bsky.social · 9d

And here we are! The latest, greatest issue of @wyrdscience.bsky.social, incorporating an article on the Cold War and RPGs by...me!

@ljmuimpact.bsky.social
@ljmuhistory.bsky.social

The cover of Wyrd Science magazine issue 7, with the magazine opened to show the first pages of my article titled 'Playing Games in the Bomb's Shadow'.

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 10d

That's beautiful! I want one.

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 10d

This is interesting to read - most of this stems from Apocalypse World, I think.

Ronan@Thedicepool @thedicepool.bsky.social · 10d

New post on the dice pool dot com! I’m still looking at the GM advice in Blades in the Dark by @johnharper.bsky.social . Today’s post is about GM goals, actions and principles. #rpg #ttrpg #bladesinthedark

thedicepool.com/2025/09/28/b...

Blades in the Dark GM Tools

I’ll be honest, I don’t usually think about the games I run in terms of goals, beyond a vague desire to do my best to GM competently, engage the players and make them entertaining.

thedicepool.com

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Reposted by Graham Walmsley

lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 14d

What on earth brain it's 11:59 on the countdown clock and you're rewriting basic moves?

ARE YOU TRYING TO FUCK WITH ME, BRAIN?

I WILL DENY YOU CAFFEINE DO NOT TEST ME

www.kickstarter.com/projects/lum...

Coming soon: Apocalypse World: Burned Over

The 3rd edition of the groundbreaking original.

www.kickstarter.com

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 11d

I love Pasión de las Pasiones! I *sort of* like that, but even so, the mechanical success/failure penalities aren't my thing. I like it when having a Condition/Wound/etc makes fun things more likely to happen, in some way (which I think is what Mothership does).

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 11d

Oh interesting, have you got an example?

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 11d

They both do reverse death spirals, yeah

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 11d

Oh yeah, I love that kind of thing. You don't see it much these days.

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 11d

I feel I often see it used unthinkingly, as part of "Roll 2d6 + skill against a Difficulty Level set by the GM, subtract 1 for every Condition you have".

It's fine when it's used...thinkingly? And the design of Blades in the Dark is very thoughtful.

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 11d

One thing I like about Vaesen's conditions is that they add interesting character traits you can roleplay. I like Vaesen a lot.

(I hadn't realised I was talking about Forged In The Dark games! Whoops.)

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 11d

Please stop doing Failure Spiral mechanics. That is, don't do mechanics in which doing badly leads to penalties on future rolls. You see this mechanic everywhere - wounds and "conditions" are a common variant - and it's not fun.

(Mothership's Conditions have a bit of this but are more subtle.)

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 11d

A thing I love about Mothership's game design: when you fail, you gain Stress.

But Stress doesn't make you less likely to succeed at rolls. So you don't get the annoying "failure spiral" you get in many other games. It makes you more likely to Panic, which is fun!

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Graham Walmsley @grahamwalmsley.bsky.social · 11d

Is that "a relationship that springs out of a particular situation", for example, when you go on holiday and meet someone there? It sounds like one of those words that got talked about but wasn't really used.