Mackyuu

Mackyuu

@kmacku.bsky.social

He/Him. Former voice and stage actor. Contributing writer on The Between, Brindlewood Bay, Public Access, The Lands Remaining, Trophy (the Ruin compilation), and more. Trans rights are human rights.

165 followers118 following978 posts

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

God I hope some day some chud qrts a deep dive on a thing I posted years ago and the overwhelming response is "Yo Mack was spittin' fire, actually."

Ty Schalter@tyschalter.com

the washington free beacon is trying to october surprise abdul by revealing his comms chief used to post bangers

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

Bish, I watched Fantasia at like 4 or 5 years old. I watched the dinosaurs get wiped out as a formative memory. I was too scared to fight the final boss of Dragon Quest 1. Let the kids be afraid.

DiscussingFilm@discussingfilm.net

Travis Knight says that ‘WILDWOOD’ had to be PG-13 due to the tragic acts of violence seen in the film. “Modern cinema generally tends to talk down to young audiences. But young people experience loss. They know what it’s like to feel afraid.” (Source: www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/m...)

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

More and more, I am becoming cynical in the way that I don't know or care what a "storygame" ttrpg is. Especially if it's being used as a blanket defense for poor mechanics.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

"Well you're not supposed to make a big deal out of this mechanic, it's a storygame." Dawg we rake 5e through the coals for its book being 80% combat rules. If your book is 400 pages of weeds then says "don't get stuck in the weeds, this is a storygame", I get angy.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

I know this is probably more about the x Quest games (which I played a few of), but man, I still think about Dreamfall: the Longest Journey sometimes.

Satanic Panic | DNGN CLUB@dngnclub.itch.io

If you run TTRPGs but have never played any oldschool Point-n-Clicks, you are missing out.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

And yeah yeah people say the first game is better but Zoë Castillo going through 8 shades of melancholy and despair while on a missing person case only to get Narnia'd into a crossworld conspiracy was the kind of conflicted pining I need injected right into my veins.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

My first five ttrpgs, not counting ones that we played once to try and bounced off of... 1. DnD 3.5 2. Vampire: the Masquerade 3. Exalted (all variations, 1 and 2e) [Looooooong break] 4. DnD 5e 5. The Between

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

Sometimes I wonder if I've gone full Old Man Yelling At Cloud thinking video games were just more fun when I was younger, but two of the most recent Star Wars hits being clearly derived from two very fun 2000s games does kinda lend credence to that notion.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

Heck, he's got my vote. Let's burn forever.

Michael Van Vleet (he/him)@signalstation.bsky.social

Hi! I'm running for office in B̵e̸l̷o̷w̷ ̴t̷h̸e̸ ̶H̸i̷l̶l̵s̷. Do you have $5 you can spare? Do you have two potatoes you can leave in a little saucer with some blood? My opponent believes that t̴h̸e̷ ̵s̷t̶a̸r̶s̷ ̸a̸r̸e̶ ̸a̴s̶h̷e̸s̶ ̷a̷n̸d̵ ̶w̵e̶ ̸d̸w̴e̶l̸l̶ ̶i̶n̴ ̷m̴i̶d̵n̶i̸g̷h̷t̸ but with your help w̷e̶ ̸c̵a̴n̸ ̶b̷u̴r̸n̵ ̵f̷o̸r̵e̸v̸e̷r̶

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

Today is a very angry day. I generally post about a lot of angry things and there's probably some psychology to that (squeaky wheel gets the grease or whatever). I will try to post more things that make me happy. Just...probably not today. Today is a very angry day.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

I haven't been on the Final Fantasy train in a while, but there is something deeply magical about people sitting on fantasy war machines or warbeasts like they're lounging on a 1969 Corvette Stingray on a lazy summer afternoon. (See also: Terra draped across a Magitek Armor, from FFIV)

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

My first Gauntlet Writing Retreat was amazing. Just on the last leg of travel home now, but so much to think and reflect on. Oh, and I got some writing done too, so that's nice! But I also started three new WIPs. We'll see how many make it to completion.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

I jokingly remarked, "Wanna do horror? Take a thing, make it worse." But actually, yeah. Most of my first drafts into later edits involve my editor, feedback, or me myself going, "Neat. Now let's make it worse."

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

What the fuck happens when one of these things gets in an accident? This compressed air is used in rockets (and reportedly what caused a bunch of SpaceX rocket failures). Bombs. They made rolling bombs.

Yahoo Finance@yahoofinance.com

Tesla stock pops after unveiling Roadster with compressed air thrusters for limited flight

yhoo.itTesla stock pops after unveiling Roadster with compressed air thrusters for limited flightTesla finally unveiled the long-awaited Roadster on Thursday night.
Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

Pro-writing tip: If you still like the words you wrote after you see them in comic sans, keep them. That's probably good writing.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

Lordy I wish this app had a way to mark a post as "cheeky, sarcastic, or otherwise not meant to be taken seriously."

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

I read a platitude like "you don't need permission to exist" and like, my allergies sometimes make it seem like my body disagrees with that sentiment.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

I don't have much dog in this fight, but it feels a little weird to see people wave off criticisms of the Wuthering Heights adaptation (or rather, the liberties taken with it) and then lambast the Flanagan adaptation of...well, anything, but Carrie currently.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

For me the breakthrough was Robotech/Macross. When Roy died, it showed that no one has plot immunity (also RIP Ben) but also it was another step on Rick's journey. When Attack on Titan or Knights of Sidonia tried the same card, it was just shock and awe/misery porn. I feel like we see that a lot.

P H Lee 🪬@p-h-lee.bsky.social

she said "you can do anything in fiction as long as the situation afterwards is more interesting that the situation before." since then i have been keeping an eye on character death in fiction. many writers seem to think that character death "raises the stakes" but actually just makes things boring

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

The more I get into ttrpg design weeds, the more I appreciate many of its subtleties. As a reference text, a ttrpg book can often be as much about what isn't written (I recall seeing someone else make this same point a few days ago, I think?). It's also layout!

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

I'm by no means the first one to point out what % of DnD's rules are tied to combat, and what effect this has on how the game is played, including assumptions made by the GM. Dawg some of us lived through early White-Wolf days (why waste pages with an index so useless)?

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

Is it weird that I feel like 2000s media exposed (and was indeed successful due to) our tribalism? Like, take bad lady wizard books. The whole thing of feeling like "there's a place for you" (and everyone else is stinky). Game of Thrones "What House are you?" tacitly said "You belong".

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

Cast that light farther back and like, I don't remember A Wizard of Earthsea doing any sorta factional shenanigans. Lord of the Rings had cultural groups, but not in the way GoT Houses were.

Mackyuu reposted

Rise Up (From the Grave) Comus
@riseupcomus.bsky.social

Rereading old blog posts, and Grognardia reminded me of this essential truth: "don't design rules with bad players in mind. Any rule, no matter how well written, can and will be abused by players looking to find a way to take advantage of a situation."

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

"How did you get into ttrpgs" 60% "Star Wars is neat but I wanna explore the B-plot, the stuff outside the Skywalker story. I wanna tell stories about the Guys Who Made Stuff Happen". 40% I picked up a Battletech book at a garage sale because it read like an in-fiction technical manual; mechs neat

🍁 Levi Kornelsen@levikornelsen.bsky.social

"How did you get into ttrpgs" Satan, of course. It was the late 80s, after all.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

Call this my "design thesis" if you want, but I think there is a small subset of the storygamer crowd who feel like mechanics should be involved as little as possible, and should only exist so much as is needed to facilitate storytelling. I believe that some mechanics can be fun, actually.

View full thread
Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

Sometimes I read a minigame in a Firebrands-offshoot, or like, Fight With Spirit, and I go, "I don't care how we get there, I want to do this." Then you make the fiction work. That's kind of the beautiful part. Done well, it opens doors to fiction maybe you hadn't considered.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

Every now and then I think about how I watched an AP of The Between to support a friend on the show, had it on the second monitor while I played video games on main, and the first time they got to Theorize and I understood what was happening, I fully stopped and leaned in like I never have before.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

Call this my "design thesis" if you want, but I think there is a small subset of the storygamer crowd who feel like mechanics should be involved as little as possible, and should only exist so much as is needed to facilitate storytelling. I believe that some mechanics can be fun, actually.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

I want eyes to glitter when a player looks at the potential ramifications of a mechanic (move, skill, bespoke dice schema). I remember after playing Hearts of Wulin for a while, saying I wanna fight someone above my Scale because there's a whole training chunk of this game I haven't seen yet.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

That arguably goes against "fiction first", and why I grumble a bit at people who slavishly devote themselves to this ideal. Sometimes you see an option presented in a game and you go "Yes. I want that plz. How do we make it happen?"

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

I think one of my critical failures in running games is that, sure, I understand that not everything needs to be a roll. But, follow that maxim and at least my brain starts to go, "So where is the roll?" And I'll start to bend the fiction to move towards roll conditions.

Mackyuu
@kmacku.bsky.social

So rather than make mundane things into rolls (which I still do sometimes because this feels like A Place Dice Should Be Rolled), my more common error is to have a thousand bears come crashing through the door because just cooking a fancy meal isn't interesting. Doing it while attacked by bears is.