Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 22h

Haunted is entering its last week of crowdfunding. It's admittedly struggling a bit. www.kickstarter.com/projects/jbu...

Haunted

A Game About Murder And What Comes After

www.kickstarter.com

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 1d

Sorcerer. Followed closely by Story Engine and My Life w/ Master.

Thought Punks 🎲 TTRPGs + Punk 👩‍🎤 @thoughtpunks.com · 1d

For tons of folks, there was that -one- game that blew the doors open and showed what #TTRPGs could be. The one that started the #IndieGame rabbit hole.

What was YOUR "gateway" indie #TTRPG? The first one that made you realize a whole other world was out there?

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 1d

I have really strong feelings about all this. I feel like it's worth writing about too. It's very interconnected with a lot of my feelings about "the industry" and "the hobby" as a whole (which have never been positive). Maybe I'll tackle it after I close out the Haunted Kickstarter.

Indie Game Reading Club @indiegamereadingclub.com · 2d

Hello friends. Needed to get some ideas down and break this quarter-long dry spell at the Club.

Empty whining? A manifesto? Maybe both.

The New Novelty

Hello readers. It’s been a while. You may have noticed I haven’t put anything up for a few months. Things are good here, no worries. No medical emergencies, no family or work drama. My kid’s school…

www.indiegamereadingclub.com

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

Indie Game Reading Club @indiegamereadingclub.com · 2d

Hello friends. Needed to get some ideas down and break this quarter-long dry spell at the Club.

Empty whining? A manifesto? Maybe both.

The New Novelty

Hello readers. It’s been a while. You may have noticed I haven’t put anything up for a few months. Things are good here, no worries. No medical emergencies, no family or work drama. My kid’s school…

www.indiegamereadingclub.com

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 4d

The "news" is where the money is flowing.

The Agency of Narrative Intrigue and Mystery (A.N.I.M.) @anim-ttrpgs.bsky.social · 4d

it's always like

>TTRPG creators complain that TTRPG journalists don't cover small games

>TTRPG journalists say their job is to report the news not be advertisers

>”the news” is always at least two headlines for every D&D book or whatever movie-budget D&D actual play podcast is coming out next

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

The Agency of Narrative Intrigue and Mystery (A.N.I.M.) @anim-ttrpgs.bsky.social · 4d

it's always like

>TTRPG creators complain that TTRPG journalists don't cover small games

>TTRPG journalists say their job is to report the news not be advertisers

>”the news” is always at least two headlines for every D&D book or whatever movie-budget D&D actual play podcast is coming out next

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 4d

I have literally never heard of nor ever experienced this kind of game. I remember once learning about Mao, as like, an abstract thought experiment. I wonder what it says about me that I have never seen this "in the wild" so to speak.

lumpley @lumpley.bsky.social · 5d

Hey, there's this genre of games that should have a name but I don't know what to call it. Do you have a name for it?

They're casual social/party games. You can play them easily in a dorm room or on a train.

At the start, one or two people know the trick. The object is to figure it out —

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

JC (they/them) @sentienthominid.bsky.social · 5d

Random:

One of my biggest bugbears in ttrpgs is action ordering.

So many interesting ways, yet so few are used (and often the most tedious win out).

Pure "fiat/fiction first" *yawn*.

Ordered turns where each unit does all their actions in a go? *double yawn*

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 7d

Week 3 and 35% of the way there. At this pace it's going to be tight but not out of the question. www.kickstarter.com/projects/jbu...

Haunted

A Game About Murder And What Comes After

www.kickstarter.com

2 1

Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 7d

The utter lack of critical judgment in a lot of “studies“ drives me batty. “Here are the mechanisms by which this thing has achieved critical cultural share. Fascinating.” Okay but those mechanisms are bad right? You can see that that’s bad right? Right?!

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 8d

Functionality requires a subscription.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 10d

Don’t know if you have any on hand but I used to give my cats regular tuna fish if I accidentally ran out of cat food.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

Paul Czege @paulczege.bsky.social · 10d

We really need more gamer perzines. Zine about your life experiences as a gamer, as a gamemaster, as a player.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 11d

I’ve talking up my own Kickstarter for months but I think ambitious little indie projects like this are important. www.kickstarter.com/projects/lud...

Monsterhearts: Welcome to Drowned Lake

A Card-Based RPG About the Messy Lives of Teenage Monsters

www.kickstarter.com

Reposted by Jesse Burneko

Paul Czege @paulczege.bsky.social · 11d

Maybe I'm not a game designer. Maybe I'm a games *practitioner*.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 12d

Looks like they're closing their Forums as well.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

Kodi Gonzaga is so very eepy @jaztice.bsky.social · 13d

hey. it's finally spoopy season. you know what else it is?

the first day of my game jam on itch for anyone who wants to use the Misfits & Mayhem SRD to make a tabletop game!!! it runs for three whole months! check it out below!

itch.io/jam/meet-som...

#ttrpg #ttrpgcommunity #indiettrpg @itch.io

A meme picture of King Theoden of Rohan, a middle aged man in medieval armor, from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers movie, at the beginning of the battle of Helms Deep. There is text at the bottom that says "SO IT BEGINS" and it's raining heavily.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

Paul Czege @paulczege.bsky.social · 14d

You should read a small, self-published game today, and I'll tell you why.

There's two kinds of creators. There's ones whose poems, games, novels, comics, artwork recapitulate the same narratives of mass media films and publishing and billionaire-owned news outlets, because the...

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 14d

One week down and about 25% there. If you know anyone who likes horror RPGs for Halloween, please share this with them: www.kickstarter.com/projects/jbu...

Haunted

A Game About Murder And What Comes After

www.kickstarter.com

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

Shaun Hayworth @schayworth.bsky.social · 15d

Every time someone complains about Mörk Borg’s art and layout just being about vibes and random experimentation, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. That shit is the setting. The art and layout informs you on how to present different aspects of the game.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 17d

I love the 3e Ravenloft books because they do the best job of treating Ravenloft as real place people actually live and not just a b-movie set your Forgotten Realms character occasionally wander through.

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Reposted by Jesse Burneko

Paul Czege @paulczege.bsky.social · 18d

The best games understand and use so much intrinsic human motivation in their designs. The rest use some combination of extrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation the designers misbelieve is intrinsic motivation, abuse, and style.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 19d

I want to say Cold City and maybe Hot War used it as well.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 19d

I really like it. It's probably my favorite basic die mechanic. It's very smooth and easy to read what's going on.

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Jesse Burneko @jburneko.itch.io · 19d

I combined Sorcerer's mechanic with The Pool. :) I wrote about it here: meanwhileinravenloft.wordpress.com/2025/08/11/h...

Haunted: Controversial Math

In my last post, I mentioned how in the game where I finally played the murderer myself, I felt that the dice weren’t behaving as expected. You see, mechanically, the murderer is as at an ext…

meanwhileinravenloft.wordpress.com