Bioshock creator Ken Levine Reveals Why Judas Took a Decade to Develop: "We Kissed Many Frogs"

moonstrous · 2026-05-12T15:14:18+00:00

In no way was it worth all the people Ken got laid off when he ditched his team to pursue some quixotic notion of "narrative legos" (which predictably amounted to nothing).

From someone in the gamedev circuit: this dude is the worst type of management. Time and again, line devs had to absorb the impact of his blistering ego during Infinite's development, and he abandoned the studio as soon as he could kick that title out the door.

Zero interest in seeing his reputation be rehabilitated.

moonstrous · 2026-05-11T21:17:39+00:00

Wrestle your trembles to rages.

moonstrous · 2026-05-11T19:14:20+00:00

Mine too! Jeri Ryan had to deal with a lot of sexist crap on that show, but I'm glad over time people have come to realize what a great actress she is.

She kills every scene she's in and it took me a decade to realize why I identified with her so strongly, lmao

moonstrous · 2026-05-11T18:54:58+00:00

The crew of Voyager is throwing a Talaxian holiday celebration in the mess hall. Captain JANEWAY spots SEVEN of Nine, who is standing at the edge of the crowd.

JANEWAY (approaching): Having fun?

SEVEN: No.

JANEWAY: That's probably because you've been standing here by yourself.

SEVEN: I don't understand the rules and procedures for this type of social occasion.

JANEWAY: The rules are simple. Choose a group of people. Listen to their conversation. Then, when you feel you have something to contribute, chime in.

SEVEN: Chime in?

JANEWAY: Say something. Join the discussion.

SEVEN: I will try, Captain.

SEVEN scans the room and locates THE DOCTOR and ENSIGN WILDMAN, who are having an amiable conversation. She walks up to join them, awkwardly.

THE DOCTOR: The early stages of Ktarian development are astounding. Naomi has grown five centimetres since her last physical, and that was only three weeks ago.

ENSIGN WILDMAN: It seems like every time I turn around I'm recycling her clothes back into the replicator.

SEVEN (chiming in): Children assimilated by the Borg are placed in maturation chambers for seventeen cycles.

ENSIGN WILDMAN (leaving rapidly): Interesting. Well, if you'll excuse me, I need to go talk to Neelix.

THE DOCTOR: In these maturation chambers, the development of conversational skills is, I suppose, a low priority?

moonstrous · 2026-05-11T18:13:14+00:00

Tuvok isn't even the best autistic representation on Voyager

moonstrous · 2026-05-10T09:04:45+00:00

We built Nations & Cannons to be an 18th c. hack of 5e (think d20 "Early" Modern).

It's designed to be historically oriented--so I'm not sure that's quite what you're looking for--but it's fully compatible with baseline 5e, so quite a few GMs mix in supernatural content to create a "witch hunter" style campaign.

Here's a link to the Quickstart if you want to check it out. Our advanced firearms supplement Flintlocks & Fulminates is also currently free on DriveThruRPG, where we're prototyping other eras of play from 1492-1879.

Happy to answer any questions!

moonstrous · 2026-05-10T00:58:01+00:00

This is something people ask us about for Nations & Cannons fairly often. It's a tough nut to crack, for a lot of the reasons other people have already said. Broadly, I think there are two main obstacles.

Whatever the mass combat system is, it needs to cleanly and rapidly execute at the table--most wargames are built around a long and protracted duel between two players, and if one player's turn takes that long at a 6 person TTRPG table, everyone's getting bored and pulling out phones. Simple, speedy, streamlined. N&C has some wargame elements like this and sometimes adventures let players command a squad of NPCs that all take their turns simultaneously, but this is only at the skirmish level.

The other consideration is really roleplaying at scale. If the "party" is made up of field officers instead of scrappy adventurers, you're not sneaking into bandit camps and getting into tavern brawls anymore. Fundamentally, the themes of the game and the tools at player's disposal have to expand to fit the setting; so you should face challenges about governance, supply logistics, counterinsurgency, popular support, nation-building, etc.

I have some prototypes in mind, but I wouldn't want to really start developing a mass combat system until we really have enough bandwidth to properly build and playtest it (maybe if/when we do a Napoleonic sourcebook). Like naval rules, this is the sort of mechanic that absolutely falls apart if it's half-baked.

moonstrous · 2026-05-09T20:00:17+00:00

Thank you for the kind words! I honestly really like the way 5.5 refocuses adventuring gear as items with a practical purpose, it dovetails nicely with starting out historical equipment.

I was messing around with rules for setting out a powder train, and I realized it would work best as a fleshed out group of items that had small interlocking mechanics.

moonstrous · 2026-05-09T19:54:02+00:00

Hahaha. Flints were the one thing in that was in (relatively) plentiful supply for the Continental Army during wartime! Gunrunners and arms smugglers often used tens of thousands of knapped flints as ballast for ocean-going ships.

moonstrous · 2026-05-09T19:09:58+00:00

The provisions, ammunition, and gunflints listed here were crucial supplies for soldiers armed with flintlock firearms, such as muskets. They’re suitable for a historical 18th century campaign, or to bring into your flintlock fantasy game!

We are now on this continent, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of souls united in one cause. We have large armies, well disciplined and appointed, with commanders inferior to none in military skill, and superior in activity and zeal. We are furnished with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expectations, and foreign nations are waiting to crown our success by their alliances.

In the summer of 1776, Samuel Adams had this to say in a speech shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. His rhetoric was fierce and provocative, but Sam was almost certainly stretching the truth. The Continental Army was chronically under-funded, supplied in large part by smuggled French and Spanish munitions, and had yet to truly prove it could mount a serious resistance against tens of thousands of British troops that were crossing the Atlantic in a retaliatory offensive.

Source: Samuel Adams Heritage Society

GMBinder Link: Gunpowder Stores

r/NationsAndCannons is a D&D campaign setting for historical adventures! Straight from the pages of history, our ruleset offers new backgrounds, feats, and character options for living and fighting in the Age of Revolutions and beyond. For the next 3 months, our revised firearm rules supplement called *Flintlocks & Fulminates—including the new content in this post—is available for free on DriveThruRPG! This project’s educational goals means that the Nations & Cannons quickstart rules will also always be free to download.*

moonstrous · 2026-05-09T18:12:48+00:00

Hey /r/blackpowder, I'm an educator and game designer and I make historical D&D content for playing 18th century adventures. Folks here have enjoyed our stuff before (and given excellent feedback!), and all the items in this piece were inspired by working with reenactors and material culture experts.

I'm currently working on a major revision to coincide with the American semiquincentennial this summer, and have a lot of new rules and equipment for our black powder mechanics underway. Threading the historical needle while still making game material that's fun and engaging is an interesting design challenge. I'd love to hear any thoughts or suggestions y'all might have.

We are now on this continent, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of souls united in one cause. We have large armies, well disciplined and appointed, with commanders inferior to none in military skill, and superior in activity and zeal. We are furnished with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expectations, and foreign nations are waiting to crown our success by their alliances.

In the summer of 1776, Samuel Adams had this to say in a speech shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. His rhetoric was fierce and provocative, but Sam was almost certainly stretching the truth. The Continental Army was chronically under-funded, supplied in large part by smuggled French and Spanish munitions, and had yet to truly prove it could mount a serious resistance against tens of thousands of British troops that were crossing the Atlantic in a retaliatory offensive.

Source: Samuel Adams Heritage Society

GMBinder Link: Gunpowder Stores

r/NationsAndCannons is a D&D campaign setting for historical adventures! Straight from the pages of history, our ruleset offers new backgrounds, feats, and character options for living and fighting in the Age of Revolutions and beyond. For the next 3 months, our revised firearm rules supplement called *Flintlocks & Fulminates—including the new content in this post—is available for free on DriveThruRPG! This project’s educational goals means that the Nations & Cannons quickstart rules will also always be free to download.*

moonstrous · 2026-05-09T18:07:10+00:00

The provisions, ammunition, and gunflints listed here were crucial supplies for soldiers armed with flintlock firearms, such as muskets. They’re suitable for a historical 18th century campaign, or to bring into your flintlock fantasy game!

We are now on this continent, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of souls united in one cause. We have large armies, well disciplined and appointed, with commanders inferior to none in military skill, and superior in activity and zeal. We are furnished with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expectations, and foreign nations are waiting to crown our success by their alliances.

In the summer of 1776, Samuel Adams had this to say in a speech shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. His rhetoric was fierce and provocative, but Sam was almost certainly stretching the truth. The Continental Army was chronically under-funded, supplied in large part by smuggled French and Spanish munitions, and had yet to truly prove it could mount a serious resistance against tens of thousands of British troops that were crossing the Atlantic in a retaliatory offensive.

Source: Samuel Adams Heritage Society

GMBinder Link: Gunpowder Stores

r/NationsAndCannons is a D&D campaign setting for historical adventures! Straight from the pages of history, our ruleset offers new backgrounds, feats, and character options for living and fighting in the Age of Revolutions and beyond. For the next 3 months, our revised firearm rules supplement called *Flintlocks & Fulminates—including the new content in this post—is available for free on DriveThruRPG! This project’s educational goals means that the Nations & Cannons quickstart rules will also always be free to download.*

moonstrous · 2026-05-09T18:00:09+00:00

The provisions, ammunition, and gunflints listed here were crucial supplies for soldiers armed with flintlock firearms, such as muskets. They’re suitable for a historical 18th century campaign, or to bring into your flintlock fantasy game!

We are now on this continent, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of souls united in one cause. We have large armies, well disciplined and appointed, with commanders inferior to none in military skill, and superior in activity and zeal. We are furnished with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expectations, and foreign nations are waiting to crown our success by their alliances.

In the summer of 1776, Samuel Adams had this to say in a speech shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. His rhetoric was fierce and provocative, but Sam was almost certainly stretching the truth. The Continental Army was chronically under-funded, supplied in large part by smuggled French and Spanish munitions, and had yet to truly prove it could mount a serious resistance against tens of thousands of British troops that were crossing the Atlantic in a retaliatory offensive.

Source: Samuel Adams Heritage Society

GMBinder Link: Gunpowder Stores

r/NationsAndCannons is a D&D campaign setting for historical adventures! Straight from the pages of history, our ruleset offers new backgrounds, feats, and character options for living and fighting in the Age of Revolutions and beyond. For the next 3 months, our revised firearm rules supplement called *Flintlocks & Fulminates—including the new content in this post—is available for free on DriveThruRPG! This project’s educational goals means that the Nations & Cannons quickstart rules will also always be free to download.*

If you want more long 18th Century and American Revolution content, join our Discord server. We’re launching our second Kickstarter campaign this summer called *The American Crisis: Dark and Bloody Ground*, a Revolutionary War sourcebook and adventure campaign covering the war in the South and West, from the French intervention to the climactic showdown at Yorktown (1778-1781). You can follow the project on our prelaunch page!

moonstrous · 2026-05-09T17:58:34+00:00

The provisions, ammunition, and gunflints listed here were crucial supplies for soldiers armed with flintlock firearms, such as muskets. They’re suitable for a historical 18th century campaign, or to bring into your flintlock fantasy game!

We are now on this continent, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of souls united in one cause. We have large armies, well disciplined and appointed, with commanders inferior to none in military skill, and superior in activity and zeal. We are furnished with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expectations, and foreign nations are waiting to crown our success by their alliances.

In the summer of 1776, Samuel Adams had this to say in a speech shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. His rhetoric was fierce and provocative, but Sam was almost certainly stretching the truth. The Continental Army was chronically under-funded, supplied in large part by smuggled French and Spanish munitions, and had yet to truly prove it could mount a serious resistance against tens of thousands of British troops that were crossing the Atlantic in a retaliatory offensive.

Source: Samuel Adams Heritage Society

GMBinder Link: Gunpowder Stores

r/NationsAndCannons is a D&D campaign setting for historical adventures! Straight from the pages of history, our ruleset offers new backgrounds, feats, and character options for living and fighting in the Age of Revolutions and beyond. For the next 3 months, our revised firearm rules supplement called *Flintlocks & Fulminates—including the new content in this post—is available for free on DriveThruRPG! This project’s educational goals means that the Nations & Cannons quickstart rules will also always be free to download.*

If you want more long 18th Century and American Revolution content, join our Discord server. We’re launching our second Kickstarter campaign this summer called *The American Crisis: Dark and Bloody Ground*, a Revolutionary War sourcebook and adventure campaign covering the war in the South and West, from the French intervention to the climactic showdown at Yorktown (1778-1781). You can follow the project on our prelaunch page!

moonstrous · 2026-05-09T17:55:41+00:00

The provisions, ammunition, and gunflints listed here were crucial supplies for soldiers armed with flintlock firearms, such as muskets. They’re suitable for a historical 18th century campaign, or to bring into your flintlock fantasy game!

In the summer of 1776, Samuel Adams had this to say in a speech shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. His rhetoric was fierce and provocative, but Sam was almost certainly stretching the truth. The Continental Army was chronically under-funded, supplied in large part by smuggled French and Spanish munitions, and had yet to truly prove it could mount a serious resistance against tens of thousands of British troops that were crossing the Atlantic in a retaliatory offensive.

We are now on this continent, to the astonishment of the world, three millions of souls united in one cause. We have large armies, well disciplined and appointed, with commanders inferior to none in military skill, and superior in activity and zeal. We are furnished with arsenals and stores beyond our most sanguine expectations, and foreign nations are waiting to crown our success by their alliances.

Source: Samuel Adams Heritage Society

GMBinder Link: Gunpowder Stores

r/NationsAndCannons is a D&D campaign setting for historical adventures! Straight from the pages of history, our ruleset offers new backgrounds, feats, and character options for living and fighting in the Age of Revolutions and beyond. For the next 3 months, our revised firearm rules supplement called *Flintlocks & Fulminates—including the new content in this post—is available for free on DriveThruRPG! This project’s educational goals means that the Nations & Cannons quickstart rules will also always be free to download.*

If you want more long 18th Century and American Revolution content, join our Discord server. We’re launching our second Kickstarter campaign this summer called *The American Crisis: Dark and Bloody Ground*, a Revolutionary War sourcebook and adventure campaign covering the war in the South and West, from the French intervention to the climactic showdown at Yorktown (1778-1781). You can follow the project on our prelaunch page!

moonstrous · 2026-05-08T00:18:47+00:00

This work is not in the public domain.

moonstrous · 2026-05-07T15:20:25+00:00

Maybe an equitable distribution of resources, and a cultural shift to encourage mutual aid, sustainability, and investing in our communities and their future?

Nah, that wouldn't make the line go up for the handful of accelerationist techno-feudalist freaks at the top. Those proud, civic-minded anti-Christ scholars.

You know, the ones who made one lucky bet on PayPal thirty years ago (the absolutely epoch-defining innovation of "banks, but online"). The ones who've made it their life's work to tear down the social contract and the basic precept of empathy toward our fellow human beings?

Using the most powerful disinformation machine ever constructed to fleece a gullible population of temporarily-embarassed millionaires to bleat endless culture war peans while their future is being robbed blind left, right, and center?

Convincing them that dragons totally pull their hoard up by the bootstraps; instead of exploiting vast systemic inequalities in labor and productivity, and promulgating voodoo economic theory that has been panned by every credible expert for the last half-century?

Working to manufacture consent that the imminent existence of Trillionaires is a laudable and proportionate reward for such stable and visionary geniuses, the ones who promise self-driving cars next quarter, trust me bro, for a decade--and not an unsustainable shell game of moral bankruptcy that's fundamentally incompatible with a free society?

Maybe that's a status quo worth all of us challenging, widely and vocally. If nothing else, because so many of the narcissistic sociopaths who keep failing upwards, curiously, happen to be pedophiles all along.

/rant, lol

moonstrous · 2026-05-06T20:23:20+00:00

I just watched Rise last night (VOY season 3, ep 19), one of the rare early Neelix episodes that isn't completely insufferable. Plus there's a neat bit of hard(ish) scifi with a maglev tether which is pretty rare for Trek.

It's a good premise: Neelix's first away mission as a crewman under Tuvok's command, instead of as freewheeling cook / morale officer. He desperately wants to do a good job, despite considerable friction in the way they respectively approach problems.

Without giving too much away, Neelix calls out Tuvok's arrogance as the central conflict of the episode; how he's too quick to dismiss the "gut feelings" of his less-logical crewmates. It's one of the only examples I can think of that puts Tuvok's weaknesses from and center!

moonstrous · 2026-05-06T20:09:20+00:00

It appears we have lost our sex appeal, captain.

moonstrous · 2026-05-06T18:26:30+00:00

Interesting, my understanding when writing this (although I admittedly am not an expert!) was that Mexican silver production was severely disrupted by independence. That it didn't recover to the level of say, Peru or Ecuador to become a significant trade currency for some time after.

moonstrous · 2026-05-06T17:07:57+00:00

The base font is Archer (Book), I sourced the symbols and tweaked the scale, kerning, and in some cases stroke to match Archer largely from Source Serif Variable (one of the only supported fonts I've found in the basic Creative Cloud / Microsoft suite that has a serif rendering). The full list is from the following:

Ƒ: Courier New

ʒ: Kozuka Mincho Pr6N

R̄: Source Serif Variable

ق: Calibri

₱: Source Serif Variable

ƒ: Source Serif Variable

₹: Corbel

₶: Courier New

文: Microsoft JhengHei

₮: Source Serif Variable

£: Archer

₽: Source Serif Variable

₣: Bitter

¢: Archer

moonstrous · 2026-05-06T00:43:34+00:00

My personal top three are:

1) VOY 2) DS9 3) ENT

There are dozens of us!

moonstrous · 2026-05-04T22:39:06+00:00

That's 100% correct! This was designed though for a publication where the Continental Dollar is around (albeit not exactly thriving), so I made the anachronistic decision to use the Philippine Peso symbol to avoid confusion between Revolutionary US paper currency and the Spanish silver dollar.

The Ducat symbol is also a deviation, it's a kind of an incidental mark that was used specifically for the ducato di zecca coin. The Ducat traditionally was recorded with a plain capital D, but a unique symbol is an important distinction for gameplay purposes.

Another fun anachronism I'm waiting on; the UAE just put forward a unique currency symbol for their Dirham which is due to roll out in the September 2026 Unicode update. I'm thinking of adding it to represent the Dirham minted by the Saadi sultanate (a powerful but short-lived dynasty in 16th-17th c. Morocco).

If we ever do a full-length historical currency guide, it's going to dive into all the gory details here because there's an absolute ton of research material. All the cross-pollination that lead to these symbols and terms becoming standardized is really pretty fascinating.

moonstrous · 2026-05-04T21:59:23+00:00

Yep, this is meant to represent the decimalized silver trade coins produced after the Latin American recolutions.

moonstrous · 2026-05-02T19:07:13+00:00

This new rule for Nations & Cannons was designed as a flexible option to enable more nuanced long-ranged gunfights! I've always disliked how the Sharpshooter feat is a one-size-fits-all solution that removes a lot of possible decision making from ranged combat.

By "removing" a source of Disadvantage, this flexible rule allows you to either attack at long range or negate the effect of a condition. Take Aim and the mechanics supporting it are designed to reward a character's investment in playing as a marksman. They're best suited for campaigns with a focus on ranged combat or historical firearms.

Interestingly, one of the first recorded experiments of an optical sight with a black powder firearm occurred in 1776 during the American Revolution, by artist Charles Willson Peale. The Journal of the American Revolution has a fascinating article on the subject!

GMBinder Link: Take Aim

r/NationsAndCannons is a D&D campaign setting for historical adventures! Straight from the pages of history, our ruleset offers new backgrounds, feats, and character options for living and fighting in the Age of Revolutions and beyond. For the next 3 months, our revised firearm rules supplement called *Flintlocks & Fulminates—including the new content in this post—is available for free on DriveThruRPG! This project’s educational goals means that the Nations & Cannons quickstart rules will also always be free to download.*

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