I'd been eager to use those bonus art spreads included in Wares Blade's Ryude Edition to showcase some of the funkier fan-made designs submitted to RPG Magazine during the '90s, but since that plan got spiked due to rights issues...
Io Black
@ioblack.bsky.social
Co-creator of drugsandwires.fail (on hiatus). Tech, gaming, roleplaying, occasional moments of lucidity. Marketing was a mistake.
The quarantine of the Hieronymus Bosch Lyceum is almost at an end... but not for everyone 👀 omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/09/Hieronymus_Bosch_Lyceum
joannes@playthroughline.com · 6d agoIt's time for the antepenultimate episode of "Fuck This School In Particular Holy Shit." Some answers are dropping, but are they the right ones? omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/08/Hieronymus_Bosch_Lyceum Also it's my birthday so you're morally obligated to share this and say nice things about it 😙
In news that should shock precisely nobody, Dates & Wires is on sale for the duration of Steam's Cyberpunk Fest, which runs until 10 AM PT on the 10th. That 60% discount, though? That might raise an eyebrow or two.
Save 60% on Dates & Wires: Augmented Edition on Steam
The year is 1995, and you're newly single and ready to mingle in Stradania, the dysfunctional micronation whose chief exports are pig iron, human misery, and radioactive souvenir mugs. Sample the nigh...
store.steampowered.com
Daily reminder that GDscript supports the Sumerian clay table alphabet, Akkadian cuneiform of ancient Mesopotamia. This is perfectly valid code you can write in your game:
It's time for the antepenultimate episode of "Fuck This School In Particular Holy Shit." Some answers are dropping, but are they the right ones? omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/08/Hieronymus_Bosch_Lyceum Also it's my birthday so you're morally obligated to share this and say nice things about it 😙
joannes@playthroughline.com · last wk.The fourth episode of is now online, bringing with it some wiki vandalism and another gorgeous illustration from @netizenses.bsky.social! Are these youngsters the real culprits or just scapegoats? You decide... omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/07/Hieronymus_Bosch_Lyceum
Once upon a time, this would have been a great prompt for a short story. Now, it’s just our new, dumb reality.
Rebecca Watson@skepchick.org · 5d agoA company convinced a school superintendent to spend $58,000 on a robo chatbot for the classroom and don't you dare say it's a sex doll skepchick.org/2026/07/i-ha...
The fourth episode of is now online, bringing with it some wiki vandalism and another gorgeous illustration from @netizenses.bsky.social! Are these youngsters the real culprits or just scapegoats? You decide... omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/07/Hieronymus_Bosch_Lyceum
joannes@playthroughline.com · 2w agoMysterious agents! Unethical experiments! Student protests! All that and more in today's episode of "What The Fuck Is Happening In That School" omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/06/Hieronymus_Bosch_Lyceum
In 1984, Tsukuda Hobby released Roads to Lord. As one of the first original Japanese TTRPGs, Roads to Lord paved the way for the expansion of role-playing culture in Japan. I discuss the context surrounding the game’s release, its systems, and history: ogrerun.com/2026/07/26/r...
Roads to Lord and the Japanese Fantasy TTRPG
Tsukuda Hobby may have been the most reliant on adapting franchises, but they would also be the company to perhaps produce the most successful domestic TTRPG out of the crowd of early titles, Roads…
ogrerun.com
I'm usually the first to argue that those stereotypes about German bureaucracy are blown way out of proportion, but this right here is the textbook you're expected to memorize if you want to apply for a fishing license.
Mysterious agents! Unethical experiments! Student protests! All that and more in today's episode of "What The Fuck Is Happening In That School" omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/06/Hieronymus_Bosch_Lyceum
joannes@playthroughline.com · 2w agoThe next episode of The Mysterious School Quarantine is now available for your sleuthing pleasure! omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/05/Hieronymus_Bosch_Lyceum It may just feature some incendiary information that won't stay up for long, so get it in your eyeballs while it's hot 🫣
The next episode of The Mysterious School Quarantine is now available for your sleuthing pleasure! omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10/05/Hieronymus_Bosch_Lyceum It may just feature some incendiary information that won't stay up for long, so get it in your eyeballs while it's hot 🫣
joannes@playthroughline.com · 3w agoFive years ago today (it was actually yesterday but who's counting), the very first episode of Neurocracy saw the light of day! To commemorate this occasion, I'm overjoyed to present the first of three new stories on omnipedia.app, coming from @baroness.bsky.social: omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10...
Certain concepts have been nested in our collective gaming experiences for so long that it's very easy to forget every single one of them started off as somebody's particularly bright idea. (From Jon Peterson's Playing at the World: Second Edition, Volume 1)
![Passage from a book: "This idea of some sort of quantified "goetic energy" expended by spell-casting, which commonly became known as "spell points," quickly began to gain traction. In the following issue of APA-L, John Hertz replied to Johnstone, "I rather like the idea of using up spell-points. I do think they should be restorable by rest." One issue later, Hilda Hannifen expressed more qualified enthusiasm: "I agree that spell casting should be rejuvenated at a faster pace than Lee allows but also at a slower pace than you [Johnstone] would allow: say, one point per hour game time. I like to see limits on magic use as that tends to make a more wary, challenged game group." These deliberations are remarkable for their complete dismissal of the published clarifications of spell memorization in the Strategic Review, of which all parties surely were aware by this point."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:mzww46qhsbn232vzr7gsyjt5/bafkreidmufnl3o7my34apu6qeq77kd4tj7kd45qo6dl43r2wmi7m5asatm)
Not just a new Neurocracy content drop, but the first Neurocracy content drop I actually get to participate in as a player. That's a win-win in my books.
joannes@playthroughline.com · 3w agoFive years ago today (it was actually yesterday but who's counting), the very first episode of Neurocracy saw the light of day! To commemorate this occasion, I'm overjoyed to present the first of three new stories on omnipedia.app, coming from @baroness.bsky.social: omnipedia.app/wiki/2049/10...
One of the more surreal aspects of doing deeper research into Japanese pen-and-paper history is that you'll occasionally stumble across a mention of SoftBank as a completely normal, run-of-the-mill book publisher, as opposed to... you know, all of this.
Ed Zitron@edzitron.com · last mo.SoftBank’s investor presentation is one of the greatest things ever made. I’ve been thinking about it all day. These are the real slides shown in a speech where Masayoshi Son said he wouldn’t retire for at least another decade. The goose stuff is truly demented. Bravo group.softbank/media/Projec...
Ask me to rank manga by their likelihood of going animated, and the dystopian series where people get surgically transformed into the only plant life capable of surviving on a sunless Earth probably wouldn't even be within glancing distance of the Top 100. In this instance, it's nice to be wrong.
Fool Night | Official Teaser | Netflix Anime
YouTube video by Netflix Anime
youtube.com
Anybody who's come to appreciate the grim, almost gothic tone of 19th century paleoart needs to give Antediluvian a watch. Packed with knowing detail, it's a labor of love in the truest sense.
ANTEDILUVIAN - Animation Short Film
YouTube video by Mario Lanzas
youtube.com
Probably need to start tapping the brakes on RPG Kickstarters for a bit. Much as I love supporting cool and innovative projects, paying €10 in customs duties on top of €32 in shipping for a €40 book just isn't sustainable in the long term - especially when I'm only in three sessions a year at best.
I kind of miss the days when franchise blockbusters came with their own risible scent-based tie-ins. A real lost art.
Very excited to see Neurocracy launching a new phase of storytelling - as always, there’s a fabulous lineup of talent to look forward to!
joannes@playthroughline.com · 2mo agoOn July 15, Neurocracy will shift into... 🌐 ANTHOLOGY MODE 🌐 ✅ New individual stories added to omnipedia.app ✅ Each one stretches across a month of updates ✅ You influence what happens 👀 More info: talk.omnipedia.app/t/new-stories-are-coming-to-neurocracy/397 #scifi #epistolary #hypertext #TTARG
Fabulous as the Dishonored series is, it's hard not to feel a pang of FOMO knowing there's an alternate universe out there that actually got to experience that Arkane-designed Blade Runner im-sim.
The creators of Dishonored react to their own game after 14 years | Devs Play Part 1
YouTube video by Raphael Colantonio
youtube.com
It's always a treat when reality decides to go and pinch your Neurocracy plot threads.
Maggie Harrison Dupré@mharrisondupre.bsky.social · 3mo agoA Sportico editor accused Sports Illustrated of plagiarism, suggesting that AI may have been used to generate the plagiarized piece. SI deleted the author and his entire archive from its website. Social media profiles associated with the author have also disappeared. futurism.com/artificial-i...
With Sword World and Wares Blade coming out in the English language for the first time, @crapstacular.bsky.social talks to the publishers about how they're overcoming the challenges of translation.
Why localizing Japan’s decades-old fantasy RPGs can be a behemoth task
Meet the studios bringing Sword World and Wares Blade to the English-speaking world.
rascal.news
This campaign snuck under the radar on my end - Jay was one of the first webcomics connections we made after launching D&W, and it's great to see The Pale back in action after all these years.
The Pale Vol. 2 | A Western Supernatural Mystery
A face-blind FBI agent hunts a killer in a small Arizona town—only to be drawn into the complicated lives of its locals
kickstarter.com
I've been dimly aware that my uncles were hardcore Maoists in the early '70s, but didn't really appreciate how deep in they were until leafing through one of their notebooks from back in the day. It's heady stuff, page after typewritten page of spy thriller-level dossiers, reports, and polemic.
If you're nostalgic for my cyberpunk stuff but somehow missed or didn't get to read this series I finished back in 2020 (has it been this long??), it's now available for free.
Finally got the YouTube algorithm re-trained to serve up the good stuff again.
Thai Psychedelic Techno like you've never heard before | The Hymmapan Electron
YouTube video by Tuktuk Radio
youtube.com
How To Train Your Vampire is officially a Webtoon! Will be figuring out other platforms for it eventually but in the meantime please share and subscribe, I'm gonna need all the eyes I can get on this thing 🧛♀️🙏 www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/ho... #webtoon #vampires #bl #comics
Drugs & Wires turns 11 today, rapidly sprinting towards adolescence and - god help us - drinking age. For a little added hit of nostalgia, you can now download the 12-page Fear_and_Loading zine originally offered as a digital extra for backers of our Down in a Hole Kickstarter.
Extras - Fear_and_Loading Zine.pdf
drive.google.com
The thing that'll forever keep me poking into the lesser-known corners of RPG history is the prospect of unearthing buck-wild artifacts like this: a "Limited Edition" Korean boxed set from the '90s bundling Basic D&D's Companion and Master Rules with the Japanese Crystania RPG.
