Every AI output is a hallucination.
10.03.2026 18:11
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Every AI output is a hallucination.
I'll count it if you will.
It was a miniseries, so I'm cheating a bit. The Lost Room ran in 2006 and had a relatively stacked cast including a young Elle Fanning. It had the sort of dirtbag occult energy of a Tim Powers novel (or an Unknown Armies game for the enlightened among us).
Who will give the acceptance speech when Racter wins next year's Nobel for Literature?
An image of text from a New York Times article detailing allegations of abuse against the famous chef of Noma. A highlighted passage reads, "Restaurant kitchens have long been punishing workplaces, as reflected in popular entertainment like “The Bear” and “The Menu,” and many chefs have admitted to bullying workers."
"Corporate offices have long been punishing workplaces, as reflected in popular entertainment like 'Office Space' or 'The Cabin In The Woods,' and many managers have admitted to bullying workers."
THREAD: I got laid off from NYMag/Vulture after 14 years. The family lost 75% of income + medical. Now mzs.press bookstore, once a side project. is do-or-die for Judith & I. I feel weird telling you this because others are doing much worse. But if you could like or share this, we'd be so grateful!
It's often in my ears on the train when I've got a book. If you'll deign to listen to a video game soundtrack, try Blue Prince's for reading. Another favorite that's more sparse without going full Eno.
I deeply sympathize with Matt's assessment of the state of RPG scenario design. But I strongly disagree with his company's idea of improving the form by using video game design principles to reshape RPG scenarios. MCDM's scenarios make the same formal mistakes as scenarios from fifty years ago.
Circling all the way back to declare:
Tired: Taser Chess
Wired: Domination
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeiG...
Every RPG scenario and every RPG scenario says they want to minimize prep. Some scenarios pride themselves on being "no prep," an impoverished goal. But they all keep presenting information using the same fifty-year-old form that *creates* the need for prep. Change the form and you change the prep.
A truly innovative RPG scenario would look more like a board game manual than the traditional form. “Bad prep” is the unfortunate byproduct of only being able to use words to convey your scenario design. That's a limitation folks had in 1981, but we're living in the 21st century.
We've been publishing RPG scenarios for 50 years and yet the endless refrain against "bad prep" rolls on. Bad prep is a function of the form, not the content. But everyone - MCDM included - is still presenting RPG scenarios in essentially the same way!
If GMs understand why you designed something the way you did, they can help fill in any gaps that appear during execution.
6. Always include the "why" behind most parts of your design. Why are there giant spiders in this room? Why are there only five magic items in this dungeon? Why did you design this NPC to have these traits?
5. Repeat information in different places as much as you can. It reinforces information in the GM's mind and it cuts down on having to keep track of where exactly a single piece of information is found.
You are not an author; you are a cookbook writer. Write plainly as though you're giving instructions. Imagine what you would say if you were sitting behind the GM while they were playing and they turned to ask you a question. Write that way.
4. Write as though you're talking to a fellow GM after you've run the scenario, i.e. write as though you're talking to people on the Internet who're asking questions about how to run your adventure.
(This one is where every RPG scenario designer falls down. Except one...)
3. Do not hoard playtest feedback. Write about spots where players sometimes missed clues or made unconventional choices.
2. Use Revelation Lists and make them one of the first things a GM reads. thealexandrian.net/wordpress/40...
1. Present information in the order that will help GMs understand the scenario rather than the order in which it will be encountered in play. The GM is not your *audience*, they are your collaborator and facilitator.
For RPG scenario designers keen to actually improve the form of RPG scenario design (not game design!), I have a few tips:
There's no curiosity about the *form* of RPG scenarios, the source of all much-maligned prep. MCDM thinks they've made headway on the problem, but their current scenario output shows no progress of any kind. You can't improve RPG scenario design unless new forms are discovered.
In their recent crowdfunder, MCDM talks forever about how video game design is going to create better RPG scenario design. But there's no specific detail about any of it. There isn't even an argument for why video game design ideas *can* successfully improve RPG scenarios.
When I talk about the "formal", I mean the form itself. MCDM scenarios share the same presentation as modules from the '80's: two columns of text broken up with text headers, spot illustrations, maps, text boxes, bulleted lists, and thousands of words obscuring the hundreds of words needed for play.
I deeply sympathize with Matt's assessment of the state of RPG scenario design. But I strongly disagree with his company's idea of improving the form by using video game design principles to reshape RPG scenarios. MCDM's scenarios make the same formal mistakes as scenarios from fifty years ago.
Today is the paperback release of THE STAIRCASE IN THE WOODS, woo hoo! Tell your friends, family, and foes about it. And also I offer some thoughts on the book and its time out in the wild so far at Ye Olde Bloggery Hut:
I do understand that my takes in this area are pretty spicy. 😉
We're a bit far afield, though, from the original context. A rule requiring all PC backgrounds to be randomized is the sort of discrete mechanism that a designer should be able to defend unequivocally. The stakes and impact are small enough.
If there are enough cracks in the design that it requires immediate mending after publication, then you arguably published it too soon. No designer should release a game whose imperfections and quirks can't be lived with. That's not fair to the people who paid you for your game.
No bad faith detected here.
Designers should definitely tell folks not to change any rules if asked. They shouldn't be agnostic about house rules either, again, if asked. Saying folks shouldn't play a game if houseruled is too strong. They might say that's not playing the game right, though. 😉