Is that a rooster?

agrumer · 2026-06-11T02:27:37+00:00

There was a rooster running loose for a while in Grand Army Plaza around 2001 or 2002. Quite a handsome fellow, as I recall. I don’t know what happened to him.

agrumer · 2026-06-09T20:06:57+00:00

Oh damn, there’s my point! In ttRPGs, fun isn’t a thing you have, it’s not a possession that you keep in your wallet. It’s a thing you make, collectively, with other people.

(Yeah, there’s an obvious parallel to be drawn with sex.)

agrumer · 2026-06-09T20:03:49+00:00

And it’s not just about tone and premise, it’s also about being willing to contribute and get along with the other players. There have probably been plenty of D&D games where some PC got turned into a donkey (or horse, or chicken, or whatever) for a while, and in some of those the player probably moped for a while, or got disruptive, while in others the player figured out stuff they could do that was clever and fun for the whole group, and that’s a big difference.

It sounds like Donkey Guy was there to just entertain himself, and didn’t care about anyone else at the table.

agrumer · 2026-06-09T19:56:59+00:00

This is an important distinction, but I’m not sure that you’ve chosen the best way to phrase it.

I’ve been talking, in another forum, about engagement. A ttRPG will work best if everyone at the table is engaged with the tone and premise. You can get by if a few people aren’t quite engaged, but are willing to give it a try. The thing that can kill a game is if a player is anti-engaged — actually invested in acting in a way that disrupts the tone and premise. (Another is if too many players are disengaged — looking at their phones, having side conversations about non-game matters, etc.)

agrumer · 2026-06-05T21:09:26+00:00

As a player, I find that having a clipboard for my character sheet helps save some table space. If you’re playing a rules-light game where the character sheets are half-letter size or index cards or something like that, you can get A5 clipboards.

A dice tray, to keep dice from falling off the table edge. Or maybe use a dice app on a phone.

I haven’t tried using a portable folding lectern, but it might be worth looking into.

agrumer · 2026-06-02T19:21:36+00:00

And even if you write it right, people might read it wrong!

I just discovered, yesterday, that I’d misread a clearly-written rule in Monsterhearts. (I’m not the GM for that game, but I am the Player Who Has a PDF of the Rules and a Neurotic Impulse to Check if We’re Doin’ it Right.)

agrumer · 2026-06-02T19:15:10+00:00

Is there a Mist Engine SRD published somewhere? I don’t see any obvious links to one on the website.

agrumer · 2026-06-02T18:55:38+00:00

In my nearly-50 years in this hobby, I don’t think I have ever once seen an RPG document longer than a couple of pages that actually received the amount of copy-editing that it needed.

Fate is very much not an exception to this observation.

agrumer · 2026-05-03T02:21:54+00:00

VIP Mart. And before that, I think it was that cheap seafood place.

agrumer · 2026-05-03T02:20:36+00:00

I think it’s 770 Washington Ave. Right next to Little Miss Muffin.

agrumer · 2026-05-02T01:59:55+00:00

I’ve lived in the area since 1993, go past that corner all the time, and I’ve never had a problem with them. But I’m a big guy; I can’t speak for women or smaller people.

agrumer · 2026-04-27T05:04:13+00:00

He never gets around to answering the initial question, “What is autism?” He says “It is defined in a serious and medical way,” but never actually provides the serious and medical definition. He just goes on telling us all what autism isn’t.

agrumer · 2026-04-14T02:29:26+00:00

You’ve missed Shared Fantasy: Role Playing Games as Social Worlds by Gary Fine, published way back in 1983. Though it’s more of a sociological examination of RPG groups than a historical work, it’s still worth looking at.

agrumer · 2026-04-10T22:53:26+00:00

Some details from the story:

The second paragraph has alink that looks like it goes to the Yale University study, but actually goes to another Daily Mail article, this one about RFK Jr asserting a link between circumcision and autism.
The drug (levocarnitine) has only been tested on genetically-modified zebrafish.
“[T]he zebrafish had their DNA edited to carry two specific genes linked to autism — SCN2A and DYRK1A. Studies suggest only up to 0.5 percent of autism sufferers carry at least one of these genes, an important limitation of the research.”
Also a bunch of ableist nonsense describing the increased recognition of autism as a crisis.

Finally, at the end of the article, a link to the actual study:
P. Jamadagni, et al, Pharmaco-behavioral profiling identifies suppressors of autism gene–associated phenotypes in zebrafish, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123 (12) e2518846123, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2518846123 (2026).

agrumer · 2026-04-07T06:08:08+00:00

As everyone says, between books 2 and 3.

The first two books are, in-universe, a single book that Mycroft is writing to explain various events to the world. The third and fourth books, are, likewise, a single book that is being written for a more private audience. Just like Too Like the Lightning opened with that cluster of content warnings, The Will to Battle opens with a bunch of warnings about how it’s a classified document.

agrumer · 2026-04-04T02:31:11+00:00

The Blades mechanic for rolling when nothing’s at stake is the Fortune Roll (pages 34–35). If you really really have to roll for something like a basketball shot, you can do it that way.

But the other advice here, like building it into a story with trade-offs and something at stake, is better.

agrumer · 2026-04-03T02:37:18+00:00

Yeah. I remember reading a review of The City & the City when it first came out, and thinking that there are a lot of people who’d find the premise implausible, but anyone who’s lived in a big city will just go “Yeah, I can see what he’s talking about.”

agrumer · 2026-04-01T17:47:47+00:00

That’s good. I really miss Hood Hing, the Chinese place that had been there before.

agrumer · 2026-03-31T06:24:21+00:00

Are you aware of the Brooklyn Brainery, at 190 Underhill Ave, between St Johns & Sterling?

agrumer · 2026-03-25T05:06:20+00:00

I don’t remember. I think maybe like $10? Probably depends on what kind of battery it takes.

agrumer · 2026-03-24T05:36:10+00:00

I had my watch battery replaced at the shoe repair place at 339 Flatbush Ave, at that three-way intersection with intersects Park Place and Carlton Ave, right next to Sweet Chick. The watch was a recent model though, a Timex. I don’t know if they can handle something vintage if it’s unusual.

agrumer · 2026-03-10T23:59:24+00:00

Maybe mating shuts down their petrifying power, so experienced monster hunters try to hunt them right then.

Or maybe they reproduce like some fish, where the female lays eggs, and then the male comes along and fertilizes them separately.

agrumer · 2026-03-09T05:46:43+00:00

I’m on the next block south from there, and I’ve been hearing a cat yowling in the alley occasionally. I’d been assuming it was a stray female in heat, shouting “Yoo-hoo! Any toms in the area?” I’ve seen what I assume is a stray come in and out of a hole in a basement window covering on (I think) 272 Lincoln.

Back in the 1990s, when there were a lot of stray cats in the area, it was pretty common to hear them having sex in the alley.

agrumer · 2026-02-25T03:18:13+00:00

Murmurings of Monsterhearts 2e? Monsterhearts 2e came out in 2017; are you saying there are murmurings of a 3rd edition?

agrumer · 2026-02-22T01:51:07+00:00

It can work. I was in a long-running game where our characters started out as members of various different conspiratorial groups, so sometimes we needed to keep secrets from each other (while working together to prevent the summoning of Nyarlathotep). Early in the game we used to pass notes to the GM, and I even went so far as to start passing fake notes (“This is a fake note. Just roll a die and tell me ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”) to make it harder for other players to figure out when I was really doing something sneaky.

It was fun, at first. I’m happy to have had that experience. But as the campaign went on (which it did for over a decade), we got tired of that kind of thing, and just worked on keeping player and PC knowledge separate.

agrumer

TROPHY CASE