#our haunt | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

temporalhiccup · 1 year

Text

As creators, we cannot help but plant the seeds of our inner truth, even if we're unable to see it in the moment.

I say this because, many times, I wrote about being trans masc before I realized that's who I was.

I think the clearest example of this is The Doll, one of the characters you can play in Our Haunt. I wrote the first version of the game in 2019.

Our Haunt is a creepy-cozy game of a found family of ghosts, and the haunted rooms they have claimed for themselves. You decide if you want to attempt to reconnect to the painful memories of when you were alive, or create new ones with your new family.

Here's the description of The Doll playbook:

The Doll

You wake up feeling constricted, suffocated. The world around you is suddenly so large, wide, overwhelming. But your body is not your own, and your small voice is strange and terrifying. You’ve woken up in the body of a doll, and don’t remember how you got here.

Did you come into this body willingly? Or did someone force you into this strange vessel? Your best chance at leaving this prison is by working with the other ghosts of your Haunt.

I wrote the doll to be any kind of haunted toy really, not necessarily a femme doll. But looking at some of the character creation options, it's crystal clear to me in hindsight. The Doll speaks to my experiences as being conditioned by society to perform femme. I was assigned female at birth, and so female I must perform by exacting standards, and fail miserably all my life.

I add additional themes, narrative and emotional layers to explore, for each playbook. For The Doll, I didn't question at the time why I thought lies, infantilization, and bodily transformation were the right themes to go with. I mostly write from a place of intuition, that looks like stream of consciousness writing to the casual observer.

There are many telling things: such as a look option of porcelain falling from my face, a memory of a mirror showing a dark reflection behind me, the yearning to make my body more pleasing to me.

Of course, as the Doll, you have access to moves like tell a lie someone else wants to believe and change your body in a spooky manner. There's a lot more in the playbook, oh boy.

In one of those "Rae should have realized something was going on" moments, a similar incident would occur almost every time I playtested Our Haunt with folks. Different folks! Different groups! And almost every single time, a trans person would pick up the Doll and say, "It's amazing how well you captured the trans experience in this playbook."

And I, utterly clueless, would respond along the lines of, "Wow, that's so strange, I'm not trans!"

One time I said that, and the discord call got very quiet. There were a few seconds of an incredibly distinctive pause. At the time, I wondered if I had said something offensive, by misspeaking in a trans space (hah!). But now I realize that at least one person (if not all of them) were thinking, "Ah, an egg. Well, who are we to crack it before it's ready?"

The thing is, I played the Doll a lot. I even remember thinking, "It's funny how this is the easiest playbook for me to play, I'm not drawn to this archetype at all" (HAH!!)

The Doll is just one example of my heart and soul finding its way to express itself before I could stumble unto the truth. I think it's one of the many amazing gifts that art, and the act of its creation, can give us:

The gift of the truth, even before we're ready for it. A moment in the past, surrounded by layers of clarity, waiting to be unearthed by our future selves.

I'm very proud of Our Haunt, and it's the first of my games to actually get published and printed! It came out earlier this year, and is one of the brightest lights in what has been a dark time. I can't believe you can find my game alongside other wonderful titles by Possum Creek Games!

If you do pick it up, I give you full permission to flip through The Doll and have a little chuckle, at my expense. I promise I'm a very good sport at being such a tough egg to crack.

P.S. The Doll, and all the art of Our Haunt, was created by Habil Firdaus.

#sword queen games #design breakdown #ttrpg design #our haunt #indie ttrpg #transgender

315 notes · View notes

cjlinton · 9 months

Note

🌺 and 📖 for the hype ask!

🌺 A game with stunning layout or visual design.

CBR+PNK by Emanoel Melo is stunning. The original digital layout was already amazing, and I backed the Kickstarter for the augmented edition—it was actually the first time I ever shelled out for a physical edition of a RPG during crowdfunding.

I will unhesitatingly say that CBR+PNK's design runs circles around the Cyberpunk 2077 video game, Cyberpunk: RED, and pretty much every other piece of cyberpunk media design I've seen, from color choice and font choice to product packaging.

I also think segmenting the information into several different pamphlets was brilliant: it means no individual component is trying to do too much, so each can be customized in a way that elevates the whole game.

Clayton Notestine did a great Twitter thread on the original edition that is more articulate and specific than I can ever hope to be and I agree with his review.

📖 My favorite class or playbook from a game.

Going with Our Haunt by @temporalhiccup! My favorite Our Haunt playbook is The Betrayed: it's so sharp and tragic. The lure is one of the highlights for me:

I love that the or of the lure gives the other players these two bifurcated options to set The Betrayed either a) lean into their more violent impulses (either by hurting someone or responding badly to another's shared emotion) or b) have a growth moment where they act as a foil to another's anger by levying a different emotion. It's a whole lot of depth for one sentence.

ask game to hype other people's ttrpgs »

#cbr+pnk #our haunt #indie ttrpg #asks games

38 notes · View notes

this-curiouscat · 9 months

Note

💡and/or✨for the ttrpg hype ask game?

💡 A game that inspired my own design or creative practice.

I'll go at this a little sideways and say that I keep being inspired by Our Haunt by Rae Nedjadi (a game about a found family of ghosts who live together in a house and need to figure out whether to recover their memories or make new ones instead).

Because that is one extremely well-explained game and I keep coming back to it to figure out just HOW Rae has made it so accessible, so inviting, and in such a gentle tone at that. Without ever feeling patronizing, the game reassures you that you'll be okay however you play (while still providing tips for getting the most out of it), gives you examples (the ongoing example of play is one of the best I've EVER read), suggests social scripts and wordings for those of us who find them helpful, and basically teaches you how to be a good player in a GM-less game (not just this one). It's endlessly encouraging and friendly, and it never veers into the kind of poisonous sweetness that makes me recoil elsewhere. It constantly lets you know that is has thought of your needs, your need for a break, for someone else's ideas, for space to imagine, for permission to interrupt others with enthusiasm without taking their words away from them.

It's always poetic and clear, and it makes you feel safe and brave at the same time (because you need safety to grow bravery - and you can use bravery to create safety). And it still never lets you forget that there's always sadness woven through our joy and always joy to find glimmering within our sadness.

You read Rae's explanations and not only do you understand the facts about his game, you also FEEL things as a person who might play it, you know?

I'm referencing Out Haunt directly as an influence in my German-only-so-far second edition of Fräulein Bernburgs Pensionat für junge Damen (Miss Bernburg's Finishing School for Young Ladies). I couldn't have written the examples in my chapter on setting up the game, nor my own example of play, nor the troubleshooting chapter the way I did without reading Our Haunt before.

I'm not sure if I'll ever manage to be that gentle and patient, but I'll keep trying. And I don't just mean in my game writing. Because really, all of this is never just about games. It's always also about us, the people who may play them with each other and the care we all deserve. And that is what I want to help create, not just with my games: Spaces where people care for each other. Spaces where people feel safe to ask questions, to express needs, and to wade a little deeper into creative vulnerability. 💖

✨ A game I wish more people were talking about.

One of this year's role-playing highlights was Midnight at the Oasis by Catherine Ramen (you can get it in Codex: Glamour on DriveThru).

It's a story game about a bar for crossdressing men in New York in the 1990s. On just 8 pages you get a fantastic, tightly-designed game in two acts and an epilogue. It comes with a handful of pre-made characters (which you'll flesh out with further details), all of whom are crossdressers with various backgrounds and from various age groups. The one exception is an "admirer" called Grant who can also be played (he's a sympathetic character at heart, but the other characters are still free to dislike him). The character questions during set-up are excellent and bring wonderful complications to the identities and relationships of these characters.

The game also gives you a bar map where every space comes with two options for a theme (such as "share a joy" and "confront a fear" for the dance floor) and some come with limitations what you can say there (you can only have a monologue in the bathroom). You can only interact with the characters sharing the same space in the bar (you can invite them to join you and they can either accept or refuse), and you're meant to explore the themes connected to the respective space. Like at an actual bar, you may miss a conversation at the bar while you're busy on the dance floor or vice versa, so no one can participate in everything, you always need to make choices, and you'll always miss out on other experiences.

The glossary on the last page of the game works almost like an oral history of terms and queer history (yes, I'm placing crossdressers, including heterosexual-identified ones, under the queer umbrella here on purpose - and in accordance with the game's author).

The heart of the game is the inevitable topic of transition that is brought into this bar on this particular night through the return of Dallas, a person who left the city a year ago to transition and is now back presenting male. The game clearly states that this detransition is temporary, and leaves it to the player of Dallas to define why it happened (which can remain secret) and the story of how it will be resolved is not part of the game.

It's a game about closets as safe spaces and safe spaces as closets, about choices, gender, desire (potentially), community, and how other people's identity impacts our own identity.

You don't need to be queer, trans, and/or a crossdresser to be able to play this game, but you need to be willing to play a crossdressing male character or someone who is attracted to such crossdressers.

I still haven't quite managed to put into words WHY this game is so great, but I highly recommend it and would love to see more people talk about it!

#ask me stuff #ttrpg #our haunt #rae nedjadi #midnight at the oasis #catherine ramen #games and the rest of life #queer stuff

6 notes · View notes

merelymatt · 1 year

Text

Where to find me at Dragonmeet 2022

(Sat 3 Dec, Novotel Hammersmith, London)

10am, Beaujolais, Mezzanine:

Jason Statham's Big Vacation

(Live play organised by The D20 Future Show, as part of the Podcast Zone. I'll be playing one of Jason Statham's entourage, trying to make sure he has a nice holiday and protecting him from the Wesley Sniper. Game designed by Grant Howitt)

4pm, second floor:

Indie Games on the Hour

(No need to book, just turn up a bit before 4 and I'll pitch some games for you to pick from. Likely some combination of galactic 2e by riley rethal, Mission: Accomplished! by Jeff Stormer, Our Haunt by Rae Nedjadi, or Lichcraft by Laurie O'Connell)

For the rest of the day I'll be pootling about, checking in with people I know, going tk seminars, and buying things I don't need in the trade hall...

#dragonmeet #dragonmeet 2022 #ttrpg convention #jason statham's big vacation #grant howitt #the d20 future show #actual play #live show #iGOTH #galactic 2e #ttrpg #riley rethal #mission: accomplished!#jeff stormer #our haunt #rae nedjadi #lichcraft #laurie o'connell

2 notes · View notes

septemberkisses · 4 months

Text

the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.

121K notes · View notes

liveandbreathemusicals · 6 months

Text

Gay people will be like “this is my comfort show!” And then show you the most emotionally devastating, stress-inducing, tragic piece of media you have ever witnessed

18K notes · View notes

one-time-i-dreamt · 3 months

Text

Ao3 had an annual fundraiser that was just a giant maze. This year’s was an endless haunted house designed to trap you forever that you entered through a ballpit. Admission was five dollars.

#dream #text #ao3 #archive of our own #maze #haunted house #queueueueueueueueueueueueueue

2K notes · View notes

mymultifandomhell · 7 months

Text

ok but it seems like pretty much the entire time ed wasn't wearing stede's cravat

but he put it back on before he planned on offing himself...

#what you have to understand is that this cravat haunts me #ofmd 2 #ofmd spoilers #ofmd #our flag means death #blackbeard #taika waititi #myofmdcontent #content #me.#spoilers

6K notes · View notes

cursed-coat-of-homosexuality · 8 months

Text

Okay so uhhh... visions came upon me and this was the result lol

Based on this absolute atrocity (affectionate... kind of)

[ID: A fourteen panel comic done in grayscale based on a Twitter thread from David Jenkins.

First panel: Neil Gaiman is surrounded by a crowd of fans, a bright spotlight is shining on top of him. One of the fans points a microphone in his direction and says "Mr. Gaiman! How would describe season two using only three words?"

Second panel: A close up shot of Neil, he smiles and says "Uhh... I'd say it's quiet, gentle, and romantic". "Romantic" is written in a flourished cursive font. There are little floating red hearts surrounding him.

Third panel: A shot of the crowd of fans saying "Awww" in unison, there are little hearts floating around. They find it adorable.

Fourth panel: A black screen titled "At David Jenkins' Twitter"

Fith panel: David Jenkins is sitting in table far away from the point of view, at the center of the image, a spotlight is shining on top of him. There is a crowd of fans forming a semi-circle around him, they are squished against one another, stoping at the little fence that is surrounding the table . A fan standing near the front says " I LOVE U... three words to describe season 2?"

Sixth panel: A close up shot of David Jenkins, he is sitting with both elbows proped up on the table, supporting his head with his hands. The harsh light is shining in on him, he looks serious and solemn. His head is tilted down but his eyes are looking directly at the camera, the whites of his eyes make a stark contrast against his shadowed figure. He says " Fucking sweet...".

Seventh panel: The shot is arranged in the same way as in fifth panel. David Jenkins is far away, sitting at his table , the fans are surrouding him in a semi-circle. The fan near the front replies "Give us one more word David"

Eight panel: A huge shock wave tilts the crowd back. All lights are out, except for the spotlight shining in on David Jenkins. David's arms are unnaturally elongated in a spider-like way, fiercely gripping the table with both hands.

Ninth panel: David lauches into the crowd. The point of view remains the same, but now his head is extremely close up the camera. He emphatically says "FUCKING"

Tenth panel: The scene is seen from the side, now we can see that David still remains sitting at his table, but his neck is extended in a long unnatural arch. He is directly looking at the fan from before, his head on top of them. The fan still has the microphone poiting in David's direction. A new spotlight is shining in on both of them. David says, "SWEET"

Eleventh panel: A close up shot of the crowd. The camera lies a little ways below David's head, only the bottom of it is visible. We see that the fan with the microphone is crouched and almost completely tilted back. The fan is looking directly at Jenkins. The crowd continues squished together, watching intently with shocked faces. David continues, saying "YOU"

Thirteenth panel: The shot is arranged in the same way as in the previous panel. David continues, saying "SLUTS". The letters are written in an emboldened font. The crowd is completely shocked, but also weirdly flattered, all of them are blushing.

Fourteenth panel: David Jenkins goes back to sitting at his table, in a movement similar to a metal spring coiling up again after being streched out. He is sitting far away from the camera, at the center of the image. The fans forming a semi-circle around him. They continue blushing, with some assorted murmurs of bafflement as in "oh my god", "dude what" and "why". /END ID]

#long neck david shall haunt me for eternity now #I don't regret creating him though #but he will also definetely appear in my nightmares #ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd s2 #our flag mean death s2 #david jenkins #ofmd meme #neil gaiman #good omens 2

3K notes · View notes

derangedrhythms · 11 months

Text

The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness.

Julia Armfield, from 'Our Wives Under the Sea'

#julia armfield #our wives under the sea #prose #hauntings #~

3K notes · View notes

temporalhiccup · 1 year

Text

Have you ever wanted to play as ghosts haunting an old mansion? Our Haunt is a creepy-cozy TTRPG about a found family of ghosts and the haunted home they make for themselves.

It's an easy game to play where your ghosts must be vulnerable to earn tokens, like when the Doll shares a secret that's not their to share or the Betrayed reaches out and hold another’s pain as their own.

With these earned tokens, players can spend them to have their characters perform strong moves. The Faceless can create a perfect mirror copy of themself while the Cat can find a secret passage and describe where it leads.

(Yes, you can play a Cat in this game! My greatest design achievement is when I see folks play the Cat and their natural cat behavior perfectly lines up with several of the playbook moves, hah!)

(As a side note, I talked about The Doll playbook a little bit, as a transmasc designer.)

But another thing you can do with tokens is regain or create a memory. As ghosts you only have a few fragments of memories, that you describe when you make a character. At the end of each play session, the group can spend tokens towards their memories.

Regaining a memory unearths evocative and emotional moments before death, and the game offers you lyrical inspirations to build these. Some of my favorites are city lights through the rain, the crush of broken glass, “Were the stars always this beautiful?” and fingers tracing a tattoo, a sharp intake of breath, “You belong to me.”

Creating a memory instead describes a moment that happens in between play sessions, where your ghosts become more like family. While I wanted players to have a chance to dive into the angst and revelation from when they were alive, I also wanted to offer the joy and happiness that can come from building a new afterlife with a new family.

So creating a memory also comes with inspirations, but they're more grounded, more fun, and suggest a new childhood of innocence the ghosts share together. I drew inspiration from my own queer friendships, which can often feel like we're trying to create the childhood we never got to have as our real selves.

Some of my favorites are we met a shadow that had their own voice. They asked for a name as a gift. What name did we give them? and We threw rocks and trash at the neighbor’s house. How did the ghosts of that house get back at us? Why are we friends now?

I'm really proud of Our Haunt and the care and love that went into the game. Possum Creek Games published this last year and I've heard such wonderful sweet, sad, and creepy stories from players!

Our Haunt is currently on sale (for my Birthday Sale!), but you can also grab a physical copy of the game at Possum Creek Games!

#our haunt #sword queen games #indie ttrpgs #support indie ttrpgs #ttrpgs #i would rather be a queer ghost than someone who beats up people to get their stuff in dungeons #but aaaaaaanyway #that's part of the reason I make games right haha #also!! our haunt is on sale for a few more days

214 notes · View notes

bixels · 6 days

Text

The idea that uni protesters are "elitist ivy-league rich kids larping as revolutionaries" on Twitter and Reddit and even here is so fucking funny to me if you actually know anything about the student bodies at these unis. Take it from someone who's going to one of the biggest private unis in the US, 80% of the peers I know are either from the suburbs or an apartment somewhere in America, children of immigrants, or here on a student visa. I've heard about one-percenter students, but I've never met one in person. Like, don't get me wrong, the institution as a whole is still very privileged and white. I've talked with friends and classmates about feeling weird or dissonant being here and coming from such a different background. But in my art program, I see BIPOC, disabled, queer, lower-income students and faculty trying to deconstruct and tear that down and make space every day. So to take a cursory glance at a crowd of student protesters in coalitions that are led by BIPOC & 1st/2nd-gen immigrant students and HQ'd in ethnic housings and student organizations and say, "ah. children of the elite." Get real.

#also idk how to tell you this but even if it were true. wealthy children potentially sacrificing their educational careers to protest is #a good thing actually. idk how to tell you that caring about people from other nations is good #personal #“this war has nothing to do with most students cuz nobody's getting drafted” idk how to explain to you that we should be angry #that our tuitions of 10s of thousands of dollars that we pay every year for an education is being used to fund a genocidal campaign #also the implication that if you go to a uni institution you are automatically privileged by participation no matter your bg #i didn't /want/ to go to this school. i was supposed to go to a school with an art/animation program. but i realized my immigrant #parents have been working their whole lives to get me here. and turning the opportunity down would be a disservice to their sacrifice #this is getting into convos of “what 2nd gen kids owe their parents” which is different for everyone but. yeah #i just get pissed off at seeing people misrepresenting student bodies as “wealthy” and “privileged” and “elite” when it's such a blatant li #i remember a year ago a friend told me they can't fly home to hong kong for winter break because the plane tickets are too expensive #so they have to find temporary housing around the area #last quarter for a film doc class my film partner made a doc on a small group of marxist grad students from india discussing praxis #during a rally a few months ago in response to police presence the coalition invited palestinian students to speak about their experiences #and lead songs and read poems they wrote. these are STUDENTS. are they elitist too?#this is not to disregard my own personal privilege either.#this whole narrative's just to rationalize a lack of empathy to me. seeing a 19yo student get shot by a rubber bullet and your first #reaction is “HAW! HAW! bet richy rich didn't see THAT coming when she put on her terrorist hood!”#newsflash. these big uni campuses are HAUNTED by the violence of past protests and revolutions and police brutality. we know.#why do you think these coalitions have been making reinforced barricades at record speed

785 notes · View notes

doctors-donna · 6 months

Text

My friend texted me this. It's decided Izzy in season 3 is going to be haunting stede and ed at the inn

#Izzy is going to be haunting ed and stede at the inn for funsies #Hes going to be vibin #ofmd #our flag means death #izzy hands #con o'neill #alex.txt #My friend made the gif and it cured me

2K notes · View notes

cemeterything · 8 months

Text

anyway. the haunted house is a kind of body, yes. but the body is also a kind of haunted house.

#🐉#gerard way voice baby youre a haunted house!#like seriously if you think about it. scars sickness trauma and all the individual ways our bodies grow to reflect the needs and behaviors #of us their inhabitants - for better and for worse maladaptive and congruous. all of these can be likened to a sort of haunting.

2K notes · View notes

filmtvcentral · 2 months

Photo

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE 1x06, “Two Storms”

#the haunting of hill house #thohhedit #thehauntingedit #tvedit #netflixedit #horroredit #flanaganhorror #thehauntingsource #usertj #userangelic #tuserheidi #userriel #userairi #ours #by kai

1K notes · View notes

marvelsmostwanted · 4 months

Text

This is sad but unfortunately I think this is just going to be the norm for the next few years as streaming services die a slow death.

HBO Max should in theory be able to make money from a show that was at one point the top new series in the US. At the time, David Jenkins said "This is what happens when a major media company invests in inclusive mainstream stories" (agree!) but unfortunately that major media company, like all streaming services, has a terrible business model that can't support that investment.

This is an interesting article about how streaming services are losing money and scrambling to make it back by trying to convince people to buy cheaper, ad-supported options or bundling with other streaming services. Unfortunately for them, I think that's like... all of the options? At some point they're just going to continue to lose money. Making shows is expensive and very few consumers are willing to pay more when they could just cancel and use a cheaper service (or, you know. 🏴‍☠️)

This is also a good article that was written after Shadow and Bone was cancelled by Netflix about whether it could be saved:

"The problem is that while saving shows used to be plausible, at times, the cost of Shadow and Bone combined with the fact that streaming services are really, really starting to cut back on spending means that this would be an extremely tough sell. WB Discovery’s Max is being lambasted for killing finished projects for tax breaks to chip into its massive debt. Disney Plus has done the same thing and has said they will cut back on things like expensive Marvel shows. Amazon Prime is mired in expensive creator deals going nowhere and throwing insane amounts of money at projects they are realizing are not panning out. Paramount Plus losing $500 million a year. NBC’s Peacock is losing $650 million a quarter."

TLDR; Streaming services have reached such a dire point financially that they have to cancel some of their most popular content (Marvel shows on Disney+???? These have seemingly been very successful; it's wild to read that they're "cutting back") in the desperate hope that a new season of something that's cheaper to make will get more attention.

What I gathered from these articles is that steaming services are dying a slow death and sadly, a lot of good shows are going to go with them.

#as a teacher i'm Very Familiar With Budget Cuts and listen #when they start doing stuff that doesn't even make logical sense you know it's bad #this is the point where they're pointing at chairs in the break room being like 'do we really need that'#streaming was a terrible business model in the first place #subscriber services are pyramid schemes no i will not elaborate #mine #our flag means death #ofmd #rip in peace #where else can i watch con o'neill tho #him saying 'ooh daddy' haunts my nightmares i want to watch all of his content

866 notes · View notes