Justin Alexander

Art of Rulings 15 – Making Plans Go to Part 1Consider two scenarios. In the first:Player: I want to hack the Lytekkas mainframe.GM: Make a DC 20 Hacking check.And in the second:Player: Okay, I’ve seduced the secretary

Do your players refuse to make plans and instead default to the most boring options?

It might be your fault.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/53...

Quietly, calmly and forensically, BBC just dismantled the Trump communications shitshow on Iran.

No hyperbole, just laying out an unprecedented military, diplomatic and reputational shambles.

Worth a watch.

(🎥 BBC News/BBC Verify)

It's incredible how much of the Republican Party's platform is just Fuck Dem Kids.

I'll always be obsessed with this edit made by @tommchenry.bsky.social

The Art of Rulings In response to the Update from the Crypt of Luan Phien, Poe asked me:Out of curiosity, do you rely solely on the players' expertise when developing maps or do you use some form of skill checks t

Check out the previous entries in The Art of Rulings here:

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/42...

Art of Rulings (Patron PDF) | Justin Alexander Get more from Justin Alexander on Patreon

Patrons of the Alexandrian can download an exclusive PDF collection of THE ART OF RULINGS, including the upcoming brand new installments.

www.patreon.com/posts/art-of...

The cover of a new DORK TOWER collection - The Dork Web. Matt, Kern and Carson are staring aghast at whatever Igor if looking at on his "bubble" 2001 iMac...

Just posting this here for accountability:

I am giving myself a March 31 deadline to finish compiling this first-ever collection of the web strips.

The series will contain 400 comics in each volume. There are currently close to 2,500 strips in the archives - plus assorted comics for GameSpy, etc.

On second thought, not going to get into an argument with someone who thinks 1975 CE happened before 1970 CE.

Maybe they're Merlin.

Mega-Franchises & Shibboleths If you’re a geek older than forty, one of the tough/weird adjustments you’ve had to make in your life is that there was a point where you could reasonably expect to at least sample every signi

We live in an era where an INCREDIBLE amount of high-quality media is being produced.

Paradoxically, we are individually consuming ever smaller slices of it.

Mega-Franchises & Shibboleths.

Bayt al Azif issue 5 just reached the Gold Best Seller level!

A side benefit of a new issue coming out is sales on the previous issues go up too.

Issues 1 & 2 are Platinum, 3, 4 & 5 are Gold!

You can get all six issues of Bayt al Azif here if you missed any:
www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher...

Art of Rulings – Addendum: Let it Ride on the Death Star Han Solo: We’re caught in a tractor beam. It’s pulling us in.Luke: There’s gotta be something you can do.Han Solo: There’s nothing I can do about it, kid. I’m full power. I’m gonna h

What does it look like to "let it ride" at the table?

Let's take a look back at a session from George Lucas' classic actual play.

This is so fabulous. Thanks, @eoinglackin.bsky.social ! ❤️

Ah! An allegory for modern society.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that sort of high-brow stuff is what the audience is looking for right now.

The timing isn't quite true, but it would obviously be a parody of XXX that would pop out of the cryogenic chamber.

Lost 19th century film by Méliès discovered at the Library | Timeless Library conservators recently made a startling discovery in a batch of decaying film reels -- a long-lost 1897 film by early cinema icon George Méliès. The French magician-turned-filmmaker's

"The 45-second film, made around 1897, was the first appearance on film of what might be called a robot"

HELL. YES.

This is a Nazi move. Stripping people of rights, invalidating their IDs, setting them up for criminalization and imprisonment.

If you don't support trans rights, you support fascism.

Trump, the convicted felon and adjudicated rapist currently embroiled by allegations that his administration is covering up the sex trafficking crimes of a pedophile ring, went on a racist tirade during the State of the Union.

Reminder that this is what all unbiased news reporting should look like.

NEW Certificate of Deposite Terms! 6 or 7 year terms!

My bank sent me an e-mail with the subject line "6-7!"

We're cooked as a society.

Explain.

Firefox has been barraging me with pop-ups about all their "cool" new features.

You know what new feature I want?

Get rid of the frickin' pop-ups.

Random GM Tip – Memorable NPCs Colin R. asks: "What tricks or devices do you have for generating memorable NPCs? Especially for creating them on the fly when players go in unexpected directions."This will not attempt to be an

Creating memorable NPCs for your D&D, Draw Steel, Call of Cthulhu, or any other RPG campaign.

thealexandrian.net/wordpress/43...

Perfect timing!

Japonism 2024, 3 Call of Cthulhu scenarios set in modern day Japan by Japanese creators Aka あか, Lom ろむ, and Byoushin 秒針, interviewed by @mjrrpg.bsky.social in Bayt al Azif issue 6.

Get both @drivethrurpg.com

www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/4...
www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/5...

Is Node-Based Design Prepping a Plot? If you’re using node-based design, does that mean you’re prepping a plot?No.We’re talking about “plot” in the sense of Don’t Prep Plots:Don’t prep plots, prep situations.Pl

Imagine that I created a room in D&D and I said, “This room has a door and two windows.”

And then Bob said, “THAT’S A PLOT! You are predetermining that the PCs will enter the room through the door or the windows!”

I’m very hopeful that you can understand that Bob’s not making any sense here.

Looking at the orig. study, conclusions seem to be:

- Romans were getting lead from more places than just the pipes and sapa.
- Lead was definitely causing problems, but maybe not as many as some other studies have suggested.

The article presenting this as "dismantling a myth" seems... inaccurate.

"No one is more skeptical than I," says man about to argue that the Earth is a parallelogram.

MARVELS is an all-time classic, but I'm just as likely to associate Mr. Busiek with Brent Anderson and George Perez.

I'm tired of interacting with people who have turned themselves into mouthpieces for AI slop.

Not AI advocates.

People who are just literally copy-pasting from an LLM in chats, e-mails, etc.

You think you're talking to a person, but have instead been unwittingly signed up for a babble session.

Every so often, CTRL-F in Acrobat will open up a different Search bar that doesn't work.

I've been unable to find any explanation for this.

Hearing about this a bit late, but this is a really cool idea for a stream.

Heard an interview today where a guy said (and I'm paraphrasing) "LLMs have had years to train on every aspect of chess, read every book and article about it, review every match, but when they play, they STILL makes illegal moves. That tells you everything."

And.

Yup.