James Pianka • EM|NCD
@jamespianka.bsky.social
Systems, narrative, and content designer for games (TMNT: Splintered Fate, State of Decay 2, MtG). Publishing TTRPGs as Empty Mountain (Nothing Can Die). Opinions my own. He/him.
SHRINES v1.0.0 (digital): https://emptymountain-ncd.itch.io/shrines
SHRINES v1.0.0 (digital): https://emptymountain-ncd.itch.io/shrines
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
'you can't just not play any game that uses AI in any way at all'
Fuckin' watch me, bitch
Fuckin' watch me, bitch
December 22, 2025 at 12:00 PM
'you can't just not play any game that uses AI in any way at all'
Fuckin' watch me, bitch
Fuckin' watch me, bitch
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
The person charged with enforcing the laws is an open lawbreaker, assisted by a team of open lawbreakers, backed by a Congressional majority indifferent to lawbreaking, supported by a Supreme Court that privileges them to break the law.
It has no legitimacy whatsoever.
It has no legitimacy whatsoever.
The person charged with enforcing the laws is himself a law breaker. In such a state, do laws even have any legitimacy?
December 21, 2025 at 12:46 AM
The person charged with enforcing the laws is an open lawbreaker, assisted by a team of open lawbreakers, backed by a Congressional majority indifferent to lawbreaking, supported by a Supreme Court that privileges them to break the law.
It has no legitimacy whatsoever.
It has no legitimacy whatsoever.
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
Got kicked out of the liberry again cuz a couple people complained about my therapy goose Insane Willie.
October 22, 2023 at 2:13 PM
Got kicked out of the liberry again cuz a couple people complained about my therapy goose Insane Willie.
On the one hand, I know how paralytic and reclusive mental health crises can be. On the other, it fucking hurts when a friend ghosts you.
December 19, 2025 at 4:41 PM
On the one hand, I know how paralytic and reclusive mental health crises can be. On the other, it fucking hurts when a friend ghosts you.
Curse the Steam Winter Sale. Curse it to heck in these meager times.
December 19, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Curse the Steam Winter Sale. Curse it to heck in these meager times.
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
I think the “good times make weak men” thing is not entirely wrong, they’ve just time-shifted it one cycle too far. These are the good times; they are the weak men
It sucks to admit but the “weak men make hard times” guys had a point. Americans just want to roll over most times.
December 19, 2025 at 2:26 PM
I think the “good times make weak men” thing is not entirely wrong, they’ve just time-shifted it one cycle too far. These are the good times; they are the weak men
As a digital professional, I would abandon computers entirely before abdicating virtue or meaning to the AI data-bilge or allowing those who do to commandeer my life.
December 18, 2025 at 4:53 PM
As a digital professional, I would abandon computers entirely before abdicating virtue or meaning to the AI data-bilge or allowing those who do to commandeer my life.
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
One thing I think is interesting about the people saying ‘generative AI is here to stay’ is that they are kinda ignoring that the current version of it is relatively cheap (or free) for the end user purely because the companies behind it a burning cash to make it so.
December 18, 2025 at 1:07 PM
One thing I think is interesting about the people saying ‘generative AI is here to stay’ is that they are kinda ignoring that the current version of it is relatively cheap (or free) for the end user purely because the companies behind it a burning cash to make it so.
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
I hate that every week there's something stupid like an Everyone Has To Drink Pee Now Bill and the alert sounds to CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES THIS IS NOT A DRILL and you really wish you could just trust them to not go for the pee drinking bill
December 15, 2025 at 9:23 PM
I hate that every week there's something stupid like an Everyone Has To Drink Pee Now Bill and the alert sounds to CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES THIS IS NOT A DRILL and you really wish you could just trust them to not go for the pee drinking bill
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
It is very plain who views creativity as a process of discovery and who views creativity as a checkbox to be endured en route to a product.
December 15, 2025 at 8:58 PM
It is very plain who views creativity as a process of discovery and who views creativity as a checkbox to be endured en route to a product.
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
The goal of organizing is not to convince your opponent. The goal of organizing is to defeat your opponent.
IMO it's hard to combat the dangerousness of the right by participating in a platform where they aren't present.
I think the best way to explain the X vs Bluesky preference is whether a person thinks the left is more annoying than the right is dangerous.
The reason so many Noah Smiths end up on the X side of that equation is that while the left annoys them personally, the right mostly endangers other people.
The reason so many Noah Smiths end up on the X side of that equation is that while the left annoys them personally, the right mostly endangers other people.
December 15, 2025 at 5:09 PM
The goal of organizing is not to convince your opponent. The goal of organizing is to defeat your opponent.
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
trapping the phantom and neutering him before releasing him back into the opera
March 26, 2024 at 1:43 AM
trapping the phantom and neutering him before releasing him back into the opera
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
An elaborate hand with long, bendy fingers marking parts of the manuscript that were thought to be of importance or interest - 14th century, Bancroft Library, BANC MS UCB 085
November 30, 2025 at 5:42 AM
An elaborate hand with long, bendy fingers marking parts of the manuscript that were thought to be of importance or interest - 14th century, Bancroft Library, BANC MS UCB 085
There's a little box in my house that contains all that's left of our dog, who brightened our lives with an impossible love, and seeing it makes me furious. How dare death come for her. How dare it not defer with awe.
December 13, 2025 at 10:46 PM
There's a little box in my house that contains all that's left of our dog, who brightened our lives with an impossible love, and seeing it makes me furious. How dare death come for her. How dare it not defer with awe.
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
NEW BLOG POST!
This time I'm talking about systems-driven narrative design and how YOU can tell a story with your gameplay, whatever that gameplay happens to be. We start from Bananza and build into a systemic approach anyone can use.
www.nathansavant.com/post/systemi...
This time I'm talking about systems-driven narrative design and how YOU can tell a story with your gameplay, whatever that gameplay happens to be. We start from Bananza and build into a systemic approach anyone can use.
www.nathansavant.com/post/systemi...
Systemic Narrative: A How-To Guide
After my last blog post on Donkey Kong Bananza, I threatened to take what I’d learned and tell you how to do that for yourself. Well here I am, looming in the shadows with the knife of knowledge in my hand. Waiting just for you.Now you may look at this blog title and think to yourself “But Nathan, Bananza doesn’t really have a systems-driven narrative, why are you talking about that topic?!” and to you I would say “welcome to my unhinged corner of the internet, you must be new here!”. Donkey Kon
www.nathansavant.com
October 10, 2025 at 7:33 PM
NEW BLOG POST!
This time I'm talking about systems-driven narrative design and how YOU can tell a story with your gameplay, whatever that gameplay happens to be. We start from Bananza and build into a systemic approach anyone can use.
www.nathansavant.com/post/systemi...
This time I'm talking about systems-driven narrative design and how YOU can tell a story with your gameplay, whatever that gameplay happens to be. We start from Bananza and build into a systemic approach anyone can use.
www.nathansavant.com/post/systemi...
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
I made an even smaller version of SWORD, that you play after a session of reading a book (its a bookmark)!
DEFEAT EVIL & SAVE YOUR PAGE!
It's free, go check it out! dngnclub.itch.io/shortsword
DEFEAT EVIL & SAVE YOUR PAGE!
It's free, go check it out! dngnclub.itch.io/shortsword
December 13, 2025 at 5:14 PM
I made an even smaller version of SWORD, that you play after a session of reading a book (its a bookmark)!
DEFEAT EVIL & SAVE YOUR PAGE!
It's free, go check it out! dngnclub.itch.io/shortsword
DEFEAT EVIL & SAVE YOUR PAGE!
It's free, go check it out! dngnclub.itch.io/shortsword
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
We need more publicly owned 3rd places.
December 13, 2025 at 5:48 PM
We need more publicly owned 3rd places.
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
People really think it’s authoritarian to not be able to publish things like “global warming isn’t real” and “vaccines are bad”. Like somehow the right to ideologically manipulate the public into believing in non reality for financial benefit is some kind of intrinsic “good”
February 25, 2025 at 4:15 PM
People really think it’s authoritarian to not be able to publish things like “global warming isn’t real” and “vaccines are bad”. Like somehow the right to ideologically manipulate the public into believing in non reality for financial benefit is some kind of intrinsic “good”
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
I continue to have no sympathy left for whinging about how the public are rude about AI and feel threatened by it when the biggest players in the AI space have spent years very vocally and constantly *threatening the public*
December 9, 2025 at 11:59 PM
I continue to have no sympathy left for whinging about how the public are rude about AI and feel threatened by it when the biggest players in the AI space have spent years very vocally and constantly *threatening the public*
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
Trump isn’t some conservative superstar, he’s a barely literate mafioso who couldn’t pass a sixth-grade civics test whose entire administration has consisted of pardoning outright fraudsters, race war rhetoric, and looting the public and private sectors while naming stuff for himself.
December 8, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Trump isn’t some conservative superstar, he’s a barely literate mafioso who couldn’t pass a sixth-grade civics test whose entire administration has consisted of pardoning outright fraudsters, race war rhetoric, and looting the public and private sectors while naming stuff for himself.
I'm honored to have just accepted, in the great dearth of 2025, a Senior Narrative Designer role in video games.
December 1, 2025 at 8:28 PM
I'm honored to have just accepted, in the great dearth of 2025, a Senior Narrative Designer role in video games.
Somehow, in the great dearth of 2025, I just landed a narrative design role on a video game.
November 28, 2025 at 2:22 PM
Somehow, in the great dearth of 2025, I just landed a narrative design role on a video game.
Thereby of course becoming the best version of yourself
I think most artists hit a point where they’re like, well if I can’t be the best artist, I shall be the most ME artist.
November 25, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Thereby of course becoming the best version of yourself
Reposted by James Pianka • EM|NCD
The No Country for Old Men pic look like a hardcore band reunion where u gonna die in the pit on a Tuesday nite.
November 21, 2025 at 10:30 PM
The No Country for Old Men pic look like a hardcore band reunion where u gonna die in the pit on a Tuesday nite.