Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by SupernalClarity

Gareth DAMIAN MARTIN | Jump Over the Age @jumpovertheage.com · 12d

Today is the very last day you can back Ex.Mag Volume 6 and get my and @decassette.bsky.social's ecological sci-fi story "Aeon Orbit" (I've seen the finished pages, they are gorgeous) along with many other awesome graphic short stories

Go now: www.kickstarter.com/projects/peo...

25 110

Reposted by SupernalClarity

eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social · 17d

Dear friends,
As have become a habit, I mark each #autumnequinox by sharing a small poem by Xin Qiji. I also start my translation cycle of Chinese and Japanese poems and prose that mark the twenty-four lunisolar micro-seasons. Translation notes blogged here:
#everynightapoem

21 210 650

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 20d

Kobayashi Issa, translated by Robert Hass 💛

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 20d

The world of dew
is the world of dew.
‎‎ ‎ ‎ And yet, and yet—

1

Reposted by SupernalClarity

Yanni 🧿 Ambition is Live! @theurbanavian.bsky.social · 25d

(WIP) Ambitions volume of meaningful player choice is immense. An Ambition to define you, 6 dispositions with 6 voices each tailor your perceptions and subconscious.

Choose how your Archetype, BL, and Culture express at every level with features that change how you interact with each mode of play.

(WIP Art for the Gamefound Page) Techia the Sphinx Witch, stands anxiously under an Arch. The choices of her sleeping are displayed in sigils on the left, the choices of her waking displayed in sigils on the right.

4 23 62

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 24d

Love this concept! 👀

1 1

Reposted by SupernalClarity

Tess "The Egg Prime Directive" Tanenbaum @drtanenbaum.bsky.social · 24d

This is a great thread and discussion about risk awareness and mitigation for game. In the same way that the kink community has had to grapple with risk as a central aspect of BDSM, games need to be intentional about it. Because risk is a necessary component of meaningful, pleasurable, experiences.

jay Dragon has firmware updates @jdragsky.bsky.social · 25d

i think a lot of conversations about whether or not a game "is safe" would be more productively shaped by:

- how risky is this game
- are players aware of and consenting to this risk
- what are tools players can use to mitigate risk

1 3 11

Reposted by SupernalClarity

lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 25d

Back in, I dunno, '15-'19, the G+ years, the worst person in the OSR* made the argument that rpgs can't foster empathy, but no matter what can only put you in a position to reiterate your prejudices.

*Contested, not the only strong candidate.

4 12 110

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

I believe Communities were introduced here, in the 2024 playtest materials (pg.7): lumpley.com/index.php/window/installment/271

lumpley.com

1 2

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

If you want to see community in your Apocalypse World, you’ll have to find or invent your own way to make it real.

And I absolutely love that. ☢️

22

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

Only: there’s no rule, anywhere, that can bring them into the game. Following the rules as written, there will always be warlords and brutes and grotesqueries—but there will NEVER be a Community.

1 16

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

This might just be a quirk of the playtest material, but right now, in the upcoming AW: Burned Over, there’s a new threat type called Communities. They’re groups of Reliables, who’ve set aside the base threat impulses to seek each other’s mutual success & wellbeing. A truly rare thing.

2 11

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

Throughout AW, yes, there are a handful of rules which give you a glimmer that a different world is *possible*.

But they don’t tell you how to get there. They don't take you all the way. They can’t.

1 11

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

In 2e they’re called Allies, in Burned Over they’re Reliables: they’re friends, lovers, confidants, true comrades, who are, singular among all the NPCs in this world, not longer a threat to you.

If you're fortunate, you might get one! One singular ally, against the otherwise broken world!

1 12

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

Throughout AW, there are a handful of rules which give you a glimmer that a different world is possible. For Smith’s player, the turning point, the first time she’d seen it, was when a move introduced an NPC who she could actually trust.

1 11

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

NPCs, who had invested themselves in maintaining the violence of Apocalypse World, threw themselves against her hold, & the hold proved stronger.

1 9

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

One by one, we wrote our own improvements into being. This is what they looked like:

NPCs, who the world had broken, came to her hold and were made whole.

NPCs, who the world had set against her as enemies, came to her hold and found common cause.

1 12

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

We didn’t have a blueprint for what that would look like. “Your walls are tall, deep and mighty, +1 armor” isn’t the kind of security she was interested in. “For gigs, you have lucrative raiding opportunities, +1 barter” isn’t the kind of prosperity she was interested in. We started from scratch.

1 9

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

Then one day Smith’s player came to me. She’d been looking at her playbook and told me: if I keep getting XP, all I can do is get more ways to push people around or to mess with their heads.

She asked if she could just stop improving her character—and start improving the hold he’d built.

1 14

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

In my longest-running game there was a PC named Smith, a self-serving mindfucker who stumbled into a position of leadership (Brainer > Hardholder). Barter rules pushed him to do violence on behalf of bad people. Threat rules pushed him to horde power & influence. Etc.

1 12

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

As a player in a game where every rule bends toward a cycle of scarcity, violence, and want… how are you ever to make something different—something beautiful, something abundant, something that heals—unless you tread a path the rules haven’t already laid out for you?

1 15

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

I’ve taken this stance before, and I’ll take it again: custom moves are the “secret endgame” of AW.

2 2 23

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

RULES AS WRITTEN, you’ll forever be stepping from one instability to the next. Forever addressing problems with hard-edged or blunt tools. Hurting people, even when you don't want to.

So, then, what?

1 15

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

Small chance that anything in your playbook or your move list will bring you permanently closer to fulfillment, enrichment, self-actualization. The rules resist it at every turn. What you do leads to harm & consequences. Moves snowball. Threats compound, escalate, emerge to replace each other.

1 16

SupernalClarity @supernalclarity.bsky.social · 29d

Where has all your gun-lugging, brain-picking, & hard-holding gotten you? What do you actually want out of this broken world? Deeply, truly want? Is it something you can seize by force? Manipulate your way into, or drop jingle to speed along its way? Doubtful.

1 20