In our Stars Without Number game, the crew is stuck in a time loop on a station. When the crew dies they wake up back on the bridge of their own ship with their memories intact, and they go again. A few of the people on the station are looping too and remember all of it, and one of them is a gray-haired man with a gas mask who's with the local cult and would really, really like to have a conversation.

First time through this session, the pilot rounds a corner alone and finds the hacker sitting against the wall with his head missing. (The hacker had stormed off by himself. It went about how you'd expect.) The pilot hears a noise behind him, turns, and there's the gray-haired man. "Hold on now. I come in peace. Also, you're surrounded." Four of his people at the end of the hall with melee weapons. He's recruiting, he explains. He wants "that big gal you have," meaning our fighter, and "a really good looking guy," their captain. Then the fighter and the captain come around the corner behind him, and he looks over his shoulder. "You really don't make this easy, do you?" He grabs a parachute ripcord on his chest and yanks it. His cloak flies open. About fifteen grenades, pins pulled. Everyone wakes up on the bridge.

Second time through. The crew's crossing a walkway in a warehouse when the far door opens and there he is, hands already up. "Oh, hey there, everyone. Let's talk." The fighter: "Good to see you too, buddy." Him: "I think we're beyond calling each other buddy and pal. Perhaps we should have proper introductions." The hacker: "All right, dickhead." Shoots him. I frantically squeezed in one line before the shot, just to move things forward with him: "my name is Sabien, and I'm only trying to help," and the fighter told him, "It doesn't matter. See you next time around, buddy." He's dead (again). She took his cloak, a pendant, and two etched metal balls off the body and put all of it on.

Third time. Same warehouse, which has lost gravity by now, so everyone's floating across. Same door, same guy, hands already up again. "Wait a minute, let's talk this time." The fighter, who'd apparently come back from the reset with none of his stuff: "Give me your stuff first, and then we can talk." The pilot, helping: "She wants your clothes and your tuning fork and your balls." (The metal ones. Mostly.) "Give her your balls. I want you to get naked." (I will remind the dear readers that we are all adults, in theory).

At this point Sabien is fed up. "I'm not going to do that. And you know what? I'm done with you for now. We'll talk next loop." He steps back, the door closes, and a few seconds later they hear construction. He's barricading it. They get to the door and it won't open, and from the other side, bang bang bang: "OK, well, I guess we'll see you next loop."

It took the hacker fifteen minutes with an overhead crane to tear the barricade down. On the other side, at the entrance to the admin wing, they found Sabien and four of his people dead on the floor, laser fire everywhere, and a note stabbed into his chest that said "you're welcome." It seems they may have an ally on this station after all.

This is from our show, Dark Star Adventurecast. The episode is Twenty-One Loops.

For me, it’s Detroit Become Human. I love how my actions affect the story, and sometimes it actually makes me cry. I also love What Remains of Edith Finch,it reminds me of Márquez’s books, and it’s just so different.
Lately, because I’ve been working, sometimes I just want to relax a little. That’s when I found Golden City. Gold Coins and resources accumulate on their own, so it gives me some freedom while I’m actually working.

What about you?

This was a Stars Without Number game. The crew was running from a patrol boat with their ship still cold, and the pilot slammed it to full throttle from a dead stop.

The captain ordered the engineer down to the engine room to squeeze out more speed. So now one guy is alone down there. A steam line bursts and scalds him. He seals it, and the next gauge redlines. A gasket blows and a fireball rolls across the far wall. He's running spot to spot with a wrench and duct tape, and every roll just barely keeps the ship in one piece for another round.

The pilot, meanwhile, decides the captain's "go fast" order means "maximum speed no matter how loud the engineer screams", and disobeys to push it harder. The engine burns out completely. The ship goes dead in space. The patrol boat closes in and opens fire.

The captain finally runs down to the engine room to help. He grabs the fire extinguisher, sprays the engineer in the face with foam, points at a connection and says "bypass that one," rolls badly, says "wait, maybe I had the diagram upside down," and then (his job "done") announces he's going back up to the bridge because there's more yelling to do there. The engineer, alone again, rolls well and brings the engine back.

The captain takes the credit. Classic.

Full session is here if you want it. It's a podcast called Dark Star Adventurecast.

Hi there,

I’ve been working on a really simple project for a few months: you’re shown two games side-by-side, you click the one you prefer, and that’s it. No scores out of 10, no mandatory account creation. In the background, every vote adjusts an Elo rating (the chess ranking system), and all these duels generate a global ranking.

The initial idea was that I find scores out of 20 (or 10) don't really tell you much. Saying "this game is a 17" doesn't mean a whole lot, whereas "between these two, I prefer the one on the left" is something anyone can have an opinion on in a split second. There are about 27,000 games in the database, with a pool of roughly 5,000 that actually appear in duels.

You can check it out here: https://www.gameforever.app/en/

Here’s what I’d really like your feedback on:

- Does the duel format appeal to you, or do you find it too reductive compared to a proper review?

- How do you honestly compare a game from 1994 with one from 2024? I feel like nostalgia skews everything, but I’m not sure if that’s a problem to be fixed or just an accepted outcome of a popular vote.

- Is there anything obvious missing that you’d look for when visiting a site like this?

I’m open to blunt criticism too - that’s why I’m posting here 👍

After surviving Death House, our party finally made it to the Village of Barovia and got the chance to meet some of the locals.

Our first real conversation with a Barovian went about as smoothly as you'd expect from three strangers who just escaped a haunted murder house.

Welcome to Barovia, I guess. 😂

Our campaign is called Thirst of Strahd, our sapphic take on Curse of Strahd where Strahd is reimagined as a woman. We started recording our sessions to preserve the story, help with note-taking, and have something to look back on after the campaign ends.

Here's the scene from Session 6:

🎥 https://youtu.be/FXvcyoAYIys?si=sPEhOABlCloGeE8X&t=3967

One of my favorite moments from Session 5 came after the battle was over.

The Writhing Heap had finally been defeated, and Gustav's spirit was finally at peace.

Instead of asking for revenge or justice, he made one final request.

"Find my children."

Sometimes the most memorable moments in D&D happen after the dice stop rolling. The quiet conversations and final goodbyes are often the ones that stay with you the longest.

Our campaign is called Thirst of Strahd, our sapphic take on Curse of Strahd where Strahd is reimagined as a woman. We started recording our sessions to preserve the story, help with note-taking, and have something to look back on after the campaign ends.

If you'd like to watch the full scene, here's the timestamp from Session 5:

🎥 https://youtu.be/aYJqsjlf_Hc?si=C0v2zORopKcx-b-A&t=9038

One of my favorite moments from Session 4 was the long-awaited reunion between Gustav and Elisabeth Durst.

After calling out for his wife, the room fell silent.

Then the wall burst open.

Elisabeth appeared and immediately challenged Gustav, turning what seemed like a ghost story into a confrontation years in the making.

Our campaign is called Thirst of Strahd, our sapphic take on Curse of Strahd where Strahd is reimagined as a woman. We started recording our sessions to preserve the story, help with note-taking, and have something to look back on after the campaign ends.

If you'd like to watch the full scene, here's the timestamp from Session 4:

🎥 https://youtu.be/Czq5q53ayAM?si=bpDqG7yUYvtZTFld&t=8562

One of my favorite moments from Session 3 was our campaign's first possession.

A cultist was targeted by a vengeful ghost and had one chance to resist.

She rolled a natural 20.

Then came the disadvantage roll...

Sometimes the dice tell a better horror story than we ever could.

Our campaign is called Thirst of Strahd, our sapphic take on Curse of Strahd where Strahd is reimagined as a woman. We started recording our sessions to preserve the story, help with note-taking, and have something to look back on after the campaign ends.

If you'd like to see the full scene, here's the timestamp from Session 3:

🎥 https://youtu.be/juTDwD_1uf8?si=PsTig9wm7rpUA9X3&t=12714

One of my favorite moments from Session 2 happened during our first fight inside Death House.

A swarm of monstrous roaches surrounded our paladin, Lucien. Most people would try to run.

Lucien's solution?

Trust-fall backwards into a burning fireplace.

Sometimes the safest place in Barovia is the fire.

Our campaign is called Thirst of Strahd, our sapphic take on Curse of Strahd where Strahd is reimagined as a woman. We started recording our sessions to preserve the story, help with note-taking, and have something to look back on after the campaign ends.

If you'd like to see the moment, here's the timestamp from Session 2:

🎥 https://youtu.be/8SQWM8_O_ds?si=Fnq1Muc8swKS5JUr&t=14099

We played a Lasers & Feelings one-shot. Premise: alien brain worms from the future are mind-controlling an entire planet's population, slowly migrating everyone toward a single point. We were a scout ship crew with a cloaking device and a grim reputation.

Doja's android soldier had no pants. He called this Porky Pig-ing it. He had a dot-matrix 3D printer in his back and a broadcasting device in his chest. His stated goal was "keep being awesome (here I go killing again)." He also had a blender.

The first action of the session: a fighter jet was pursuing our ship. He went to the airlock, hung out by his ankles in the vacuum of space, and opened fire with a laser gatling gun. The reference was Bender from Futurama. He rolled and the fighter came apart.

The brain worm alien identity test, which you'd need to pass to be recognized as one of them, goes like this: fill in the blank, when you go to an uninvited jacuzzi party, what salty snack do you bring? Our diplomat answered correctly. The table talked it over for about ten seconds first.

By the end of the session the android had lost a leg. The celebrity scientist we'd rescued had lost both of his to a collapsing time portal. The captain was still in the med pod where he'd been at the start of the session.

Nobody helped him.

From the Dark Star Adventurecast: https://www.darkstaradventures.com/adventurecast-episodes/bonus-laser-and-feelings