rootring
rooted in blogs, linked in a ringBinary Star Games
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On the ring since 2026-03-20
Latest activity 5w ago
30 posts
Earlier
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The Binary Star Promise is that I will get a great idea for a prototype, start something, and put it on the backburner for a bit if it’s something I don’t owe people and would...
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What is the intended vibe of NULL_SPACE? “Cyberpunk-esque” # Shannon at The Novel Gamemaster described NULL_SPACE on bluesky as having “a low-powered mothership feel but...Linked by the ring
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Hi there! It’s once again that time of the year. Every year I take stock of what I accomplished, go through my numbers, chart what I did and how well it did, and try to draw...
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Or: Everyone always says what combat is doing, but nobody ever asks how combat is doing. The TTRPG community (well, the blogging part of it) sure does love to define combat as...
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Content warning: This is a game about a plague. There’s basically no way I can’t talk about the current, ongoing one. Every year I try to do a little something indulgent for...
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Created as part of Prismatic Wasteland’s Appendicitis Blog Bandwagon. Influence is a very hard thing for me to specifically quantify a lot of the time. I don’t usually think of...
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Created as part of Prismatic Wasteland’s Holes Blog Bandwagon, in which we all write about holes. Some holes are more literal than others, I suppose. And maybe one of these...
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NULL_SPACE # Liminal Void is has been consigned to the void. Well, the name has, anyway. Going forward, it will be called NULL_SPACE! When I spoke about it last, I said both of...Linked by the ring
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Created as part of Prismatic Wasteland’s Blogclave 2025, in which we all write about clerics during the papal conclave. I don’t love almost any of the “core four” D&D classes -...
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Liminal Void received another update, somehow, bringing it to its 4th distinct iteration (not counting sub-iterations and tiny fixes). It’s a neat little subset of a game about...
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In Valiant Horizon, crystals and the magic from them are a big part. Drilling further into that, though, magic itself is further expressed through the 4 -Magus classes. Each of...
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This also went out on my newsletter, by the way! Sign up if you want periodic digests of posts, updates, musings, and so on. Hi there! It’s once again that time of the year....
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So one thing where I feel like I don’t have like…authority in but at the very least have thought about is the concept of performance loss (and specifically avoiding it through...
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I’ve been meaning to try to post more on my blog/site following the death of Cohost, which made it very easy for me to toss design thoughts out. Writing into VScode and pushing...
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Last time I did a brainstorm session like this was for Persona: 1, 2, 3. This one's way shorter though. The idea is to flesh out some kind of specific JRPG-inspired campaign...
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Last time I made a post about mechanics I talked about the Grid. Now I’m…still talking about The Grid, kind of! But it’s a different one this time. Home-ship construction is...
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Hi there! v1.1 of Valiant Horizon is out! This includes: Tweaked Create an Opening downward because it was Too Good By Far. Clarification of interaction of inverse with...
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Stamina is a resource I bolted onto both the RUNE engine and the NULL/CIPHER healthless idea for Valiant Horizon Tactics. It’s a very major change to how a RUNE-like does...
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Hi there! First off, a little update to this quickstart. A few big changes: Gaining your Background doesn’t give you a smattering of Attributes anymore. Instead, you get to...
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Hi there! I added a commentary edition of the game. This is exactly the same as v1.2 except I added 2” of margins on either side and added a bunch of red-text notes,...
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(This is a companion piece to Gila RPGs/Spencer Campbell’s recent stream about healthless TTRPGs, which is well worth your time if you have an hour to spend and goes into VH...
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Hi there! I made a big update to how Liminal Void works! You can see some previews of what I did in my newsletter post here. The big changes are: Static Assets from...
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Hi there! v1.1 is here! It brings a few major changes: Formatting Increased page size slightly. Various typo-fixes. Tightening up of layout. Combat Rules Missiles. Deploy now...
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Liminal Void quickstart coverLiminal Void's quickstart has been around a little more than a year now. It's the first Total//Effect thing I put out and it's...fine. It's fine....
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*Before I release the extra edition that tacks on like 2 more posts. In Part 1 we established what kind of game we're using. In Part 2 we tied together Valiant Horizon's class...
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So we started poking at turning Valiant Horizon into Persona in Part 1 by establishing initial premises of what even this kind of game is like. It's got a lot of the DNA of...
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I'm thinking about Persona* a lot lately, partially because P3 Reload is out and I kind of want to play it but also it's $70 so fuck that shit. But partially it's because I...
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Machinations of Amirus A Machination of Court and Frame Binary Star Games*Does it really count as "mortem" if only like 1/3 of the game is out? I don't know but I'm sure going...
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Valiant Horizon v1.0 is finally out! Some big changes: 12 incredible illustrations by Charlotte Laskowski! Editing and revision by Marx Shepherd! And some smaller ones: Swarm...
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Hi there! Last class overview devlog, because after these two we’re out of core classes! Introducing the final two, Tactician and Windmagus. Just in time for the full release...