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Taskerland

@[email protected]

Friend and companion of night who rejoices in the baying of dogs and spilt blood. Wanders in the midst of shades among the tombs. Longs for blood and brings terror to mortals. #Gorgo #Mormo, #thousandfacedmoon.

UK-based writer, critic, and photographer. Primarily interested in #horror and rules-light #ttrpg

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@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

Another push to get people off is prompting IT professionals to write posts about how easy it is to set up your own site.

I beg you to stop. You are not helping. People are reading your posts and thinking 'that seems really complicated... I can' t do that'.

Every single post about self-hosting is literally that Simpsons gag about fixing the foundations to your own house "And if you don't have ceramic stuck-o-lath then aluminium stuck-o-lath will work just as well!"

Taskerland OP ,
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IT is a really interesting profession... No other profession seems to produce people who think that the highly-technical skills for which they are well paid are just common sense.

Even when Gordon Ramsay made TV shows yelling at rubbish cooks his standpoint was generally a) why didn't you learn this at catering college, b) why haven't your previous employers helped you to develop these skills, and c) why did you decide to open a restaurant despite having no training?

@Printdevil@dice.camp avatar Printdevil , to random

For the developing little village of Edwardiana here's two shops side by side, a butchers and a post-office/news/bookshop. I think the bookshop/butcher combo is quite CoC

"Volumes bound in skin might take some help from my neighbour sir"

Scale included for beardlords

Floorplans of two Edwardian Shops side by side
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Taskerland ,
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@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

Noticing an OSR personality accusing me of downplaying the innovations of the OSR and presenting many of the scene's innovations as my own.

That doesn't sound like me as I have never invented anything when it comes to RPG stuff.

In fact, I don't really value novelty in RPGs as I am aware that the hobby is trending away from my preferred style. If you look at my blog, most of the stuff I write about is older and when I do look at new stuff it is generally in terms of 'did this work for me?'

Taskerland OP ,
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I also acknowledge that there is innovation in the OSR, it's just that most of these innovations serve to make OSR games less attractive to me as a GM.

In fact, most modern OSR stuff is less useful, less interesting, and less evocative to me than OG D&D stuff from the 80s and I can only account for that difference in terms of innovations introduced by the OSR.

Taskerland OP ,
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@satsuma I think the OSR is a coalition TBH... it's partly grogs who just want to run keep using familiar rules with better art but then there are also people who want that type of game using slightly more modern mechanics. A lot of games walk a tightrope between the two.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

I think the penny has dropped about something.

One of my recurring whines is that ttrpg culture has zero institutional memory and that without institutional memory, shit gets forgotten remarkably quickly.

What I have realised is that each crash causes people to leave the hobby never to return and that is a loss of expertise, sensibility, and cultural memory.

So if I look at ttrpg bluesky or reddit, I am looking at people who are disconnected from history.

Taskerland OP ,
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One of the consequences of historical ignorance is a lack of awareness that things can be different because they have been different.

So I look at discourse shaped by a hobby that is predominantly gamist and narrativist and, as far as they are concerned, other styles of play do not exist and if they did, they were toxic or wrong-headed.

As someone who remembers what gaming was like a) pre-D20 and b) outside the Anglo-sphere, I feel like I am being constantly gaslit by the broader hobby.

Taskerland OP ,
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@Printdevil I think my cohort was singularly bad at storing our knowledge. First-generation gamers left behind fanzines, later bods had websites.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

I'm not sure how but I think ttrpg bluesky is now more aggravatingly smoothe-brained than r/rpg.

Every couple of days at the moment it's "this entirely normal way of playing RPGs is sick and wrong"

And you think Oh... It's just some idiot but no no... It is invariably someone incredibly well respected with 5-digit follower numbers.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

Speaking of Stross, one of my favourite SFF stories was when Games Workshop started the black library and they did a presentation for a load of established SFF authors which involved deeply nerdy men explaining to them how bad-ass all the proprietary beasties and characters were and how they were NOT allowed to mess with canon.

Taskerland OP ,
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I suspect this was after they got Ian Watson to write a space marine novel and he had them fucking and branding each other.

Taskerland OP ,
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Hang Star Trek and their academy-focused show, give me Space Marines Boot Camp with Ian Watson as a show-runner. It would be like Oz meets band of brothers...

"Brother! Doest though enjoy spooning?"

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

One of the things that is really interesting about the OSR is the way that they treated old D&D like it was a forgotten ruin despite the fact that they were looking at a style of play which was (in the early days) no more than maybe 15 years from being THE dominant play style across the entire hobby.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

In something of a lateral move, my gaming group got me Chaosium's The Age of Vikings for Christmas and it is surprisingly good... it has two quite interesting magic systems as well as magical critters but it is really intensely grounded Like a couple of clicks past Ars Magica. There are rules for expanding a dairy farm and producing skyr.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

We should be grateful to the scene for going masks-off with their talk about networking.

The shift from community to field is very special as it's the point where the haves ditch the moral pretense of horizontalism in favour of naturalising hierarchy.

They are making it clear that in ttrpg spaces there are a) the people who matter because they are visible to the powerful and b) the people who don't matter because their sole purpose is to pay the bills and absorb crowd-funding risk.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

One thing that amuses me is when people on reddit discuss Obsidian. There's always a hint of aggression and fervour to what they say.

I get that this is an engineering thing... people working on huge information systems need structures and, for work, there's Getting Things Done. Obsidian feels like GTD for D&D campaigns.

The fervour and aggression is fear that you'll take away or dismiss their second brains, leaving them squealing like Flash Gordon lads who have their goggles ripped off.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random
@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

Is Enid Blyton still a thing? When I was a kid it felt like Enid Blyton and Rupert the Bear were these things that adults kept trying to force me to care about despite them smelling of mothballs and wee.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

The Stag and the Hound: How Exmoor Became Sporting Country and Dartmoor Became Haunted https://tasker.land/2025/11/25/exmoor-dartmoor-sporting-haunted/

Taskerland OP ,
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Bit of a departure for me... trying my hand at some local history.

Taskerland OP ,
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@Printdevil That is lovely

Taskerland OP ,
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@Printdevil I drove through there not long ago in search of a ruined church

Taskerland OP ,
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@Printdevil Devon is really good at records. I got an Eamon Duffy book about the Reformation based on a village in Devon but I kept laughing at the melodramatic tone.

Taskerland OP ,
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@Printdevil Ah yes... The Dartington Experiment!

Taskerland OP ,
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@Printdevil I think Dartington Hall would make an interesting subject for an article. When Dennis Wheatley and Mi5 both rail against a place it has to be good.

Taskerland OP ,
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@Printdevil In fairness, I was wanting to write about cannibalism at Cheddar Gorge.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

Some thoughts on the place of criticism in the world of and why I have decided to stop reviewing other people's games.

https://tasker.land/2025/11/13/on-criticism-and-ttrpgs/

Taskerland OP ,
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@Printdevil It's interesting that, of the people who do review across more than one silo, a lot of them are board-gamers so they have a circle of friends who are happy to jump on some weird game and give it a try for a couple of sessions and then never return to it.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

There's a lad on Insta who travels around Tokyo having lunch at neighborhood restaurants and they all have no more than 5 tables, we're last done up in the 90s, are full of dusty crap, and run by a pensioner.

Can you imagine if the UK had that? Just someone's nan serving roasts out of a tiny dusty restaurant? You'd catch septicemia from the salt and pepper.

Taskerland OP ,
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@DarkestKale I often think that what makes Japan seem special to Westerners are the uncanny little differences. To whit a) tiny restaurants that can support themselves without upscaling because commercial rents are not insane, and b) elderly people with impeccable hygiene standards with regards to food.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

I hate the work of Robert MacFarlane.

I have tried multiple books and not got on with any of them. I think if you are going to write you need to give people something: A gnarled opinion, a moment of vulnerability. Something.

What MacFarlane delivers is erudition without analysis and affect without emotion. He writes and thinks like the enemy.

Taskerland OP ,
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@Printdevil I've got analysis dribbling out the back of me thank you very much.

Taskerland OP ,
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@Printdevil You're analytical. You're not just out here monologuing in Latin.

Taskerland OP ,
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@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

Insta adverts are getting a bit weird. Mind you... 15% off 🤔

Screen cap of an Instagram advert promising 15% "Transgender M2F Transition"
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@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

The thing that will ultimately see me move away from reviewing RPGs is the feeling that I am sadistically imposing my curiosity on my group.

Taskerland OP ,
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@raphaelkaitz It comes and goes, like all things 😊

Taskerland OP ,
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Taskerland OP ,
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@Printdevil I have an authoritative beard. What I lack is bleached hair that isn't fried. @raphaelkaitz

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

Speaking of elves, I occasionally have dealings with this minted lawyer who left his wife for a ballet dancer.

He's this chubby bald guy who wears Cuban heels and she's this 6 foot porcelain-skinned Russian who weighs as much as a laptop and moves through the world with a combination of inhuman grace and radiant aristocratic disgust.

When he introduced me to her my first thought was 'You left your wife to be with Elric?' but she is always my frame of reference for Elves.

@Taskerland@dice.camp avatar Taskerland , to random

Imagine if someone produced a fantasy heartbreaker and the response was just universal acknowledgement that they had finally and unambiguously fixed D&D.

Scenes of people weeping and hugging at Gencon "It turned out that what was actually missing was that you use a d8 for initiative and that elves should have +1 to wisdom and have big woolly fetlocks!"

Taskerland OP ,
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@malin They are comfortingly familiar and produce a great torrent of material for people to buy.

@Tim_Eagon@dice.camp avatar Tim_Eagon , to random

Official support for "starter pack" like functionality is coming in the future Mastodon 4.6 release:

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/10/our-ideas-about-packs/

Taskerland ,
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@zdl @Printdevil @Tim_Eagon In fairness, before quote-dunking was a thing you had dot-fucking where you could put a full stop before the @ so your followers could see you were arguing with someone and they could leap into the conversation.

Nature finds a way.

Taskerland ,
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@Printdevil Yeah but a lot of people value the size of their platform and don't want to leave a platform and gave to do it all over again. @zdl @Tim_Eagon

Taskerland ,
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@Printdevil I briefly worked an office job and there was a middle manager who was never going to get promoted so he would fetishise wierd status objects like having standing lamps in his office or a shelf full of neatly-filed documentation. Same principle.

Humans are weird things.

@zdl @Tim_Eagon

Taskerland ,
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@Printdevil We need a load of flowcharts describing the cognitive processes underlying the behaviour. Bunch of boxes with weird names inspired by 1970s computing. @zdl @Tim_Eagon

Taskerland ,
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@Printdevil Forever lodged in my spatio-semantic mnemomic array @zdl @Tim_Eagon