Christian Hendriks
@cerhendriks.bsky.social
Work & volunteering: arts admin, grant writing, museum collections.
Education: MLIS, English lit MA.
General: Ontarian, Anglican, autistic, leftist, TTRPG hobbyist, he/him/his.
Opinions are never wholly one's own, but I'm responsible for mine.
Education: MLIS, English lit MA.
General: Ontarian, Anglican, autistic, leftist, TTRPG hobbyist, he/him/his.
Opinions are never wholly one's own, but I'm responsible for mine.
Pinned
I have not often been asked what I meant by the things I've written, but you can quote me if you like: I meant all the metaphors I intended and several of the ones I didn't.
My go-to joke here is that, with each sequel, the phrase "God's Not Dead" sounds more and more like an update on a terminal patient. The word "yet" lingers.
I get how franchises work, but if they want to keep doing this, they should go the KNIVES OUT route, with each film getting its own title.
I get how franchises work, but if they want to keep doing this, they should go the KNIVES OUT route, with each film getting its own title.
November 17, 2025 at 7:37 PM
My go-to joke here is that, with each sequel, the phrase "God's Not Dead" sounds more and more like an update on a terminal patient. The word "yet" lingers.
I get how franchises work, but if they want to keep doing this, they should go the KNIVES OUT route, with each film getting its own title.
I get how franchises work, but if they want to keep doing this, they should go the KNIVES OUT route, with each film getting its own title.
Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy
November 16, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Your last saved meme is your moral philosophy
But does it make you weigh more than the weight of the tunic?
The beholder was carrying a hide tunic that used to belong to a ghoul. When you wear it you weigh more.
November 16, 2025 at 7:04 PM
But does it make you weigh more than the weight of the tunic?
Being in a Discord with a bunch of youths makes it clear how hard it can be to communicate with the ways the political landscape has been different post-2016 without also losing sight of the ways politics post-2016 has been continuous with politics pre-2016.
November 12, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Being in a Discord with a bunch of youths makes it clear how hard it can be to communicate with the ways the political landscape has been different post-2016 without also losing sight of the ways politics post-2016 has been continuous with politics pre-2016.
Reposted by Christian Hendriks
Brother Gregor never spoke and often spooked the neophytes with his appearance, but he was a gentle soul and a phenomenal cook and knew more ways to prepare a fish than the abbot knew hymns
November 11, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Brother Gregor never spoke and often spooked the neophytes with his appearance, but he was a gentle soul and a phenomenal cook and knew more ways to prepare a fish than the abbot knew hymns
Reposted by Christian Hendriks
Saw a post on Reddit about how a magical girl OSR game could work. I'm not the person to write it but I do like the idea of a game where you play unprepared high school kids becoming emotional wrecks fighting monsters every week as they wrestle with their destinies, with a roll-under system.
November 12, 2025 at 3:37 AM
Saw a post on Reddit about how a magical girl OSR game could work. I'm not the person to write it but I do like the idea of a game where you play unprepared high school kids becoming emotional wrecks fighting monsters every week as they wrestle with their destinies, with a roll-under system.
Reposted by Christian Hendriks
On my #ttrpg blog this week I talk about my post-apocalyptic / weird fiction setting as a Fate Core game and the changes I'm making so that it works, including adjusting the skill list and adding psychological traits.
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/the-lakeland...
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/the-lakeland...
The Lakelands As A Fate Core Setting
When I first started working on the Lakelands, I planned to make my own system for it, until I eventually realized how much time that would take and how litt...
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev
November 10, 2025 at 5:16 AM
On my #ttrpg blog this week I talk about my post-apocalyptic / weird fiction setting as a Fate Core game and the changes I'm making so that it works, including adjusting the skill list and adding psychological traits.
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/the-lakeland...
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/the-lakeland...
On my #ttrpg blog this week I talk about my post-apocalyptic / weird fiction setting as a Fate Core game and the changes I'm making so that it works, including adjusting the skill list and adding psychological traits.
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/the-lakeland...
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/the-lakeland...
The Lakelands As A Fate Core Setting
When I first started working on the Lakelands, I planned to make my own system for it, until I eventually realized how much time that would take and how litt...
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev
November 10, 2025 at 5:16 AM
On my #ttrpg blog this week I talk about my post-apocalyptic / weird fiction setting as a Fate Core game and the changes I'm making so that it works, including adjusting the skill list and adding psychological traits.
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/the-lakeland...
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/the-lakeland...
Reposted by Christian Hendriks
Did you ask for a bird fact? No, but you're getting one whether you like it or not. 🪶
November 7, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Did you ask for a bird fact? No, but you're getting one whether you like it or not. 🪶
I don't know that I consider "Rules that get out of the way" to be a red flag, but I do think good rules actually create player agency rather than inhibit it, and I wish this was more widely understood.
The rules should not get out of your way; the rules should help you make choices that matter.
The rules should not get out of your way; the rules should help you make choices that matter.
"Rules that get out of the way", for instance, is a bit of a red flag for me now when someone is advertising a game. I don't want rules that I can ignore, I want rules that I wouldn't *want* to ignore!
November 3, 2025 at 9:14 PM
I don't know that I consider "Rules that get out of the way" to be a red flag, but I do think good rules actually create player agency rather than inhibit it, and I wish this was more widely understood.
The rules should not get out of your way; the rules should help you make choices that matter.
The rules should not get out of your way; the rules should help you make choices that matter.
If I was GMing a different kind of D&D game, I'd be tempted to print off all of @dndencroad.bsky.social's posts and use them in order instead of rolling on random encounter tables (for road rather than wilderness travel).
November 3, 2025 at 1:05 AM
If I was GMing a different kind of D&D game, I'd be tempted to print off all of @dndencroad.bsky.social's posts and use them in order instead of rolling on random encounter tables (for road rather than wilderness travel).
Oh, *this* is a neat coincidence!
November 2, 2025 at 5:27 AM
Oh, *this* is a neat coincidence!
Reposted by Christian Hendriks
Bi-lingual Canadian Pro-Women's Ordination Universalist Calvinist be like,
"Yeah, I'm TULIP
Total Depravity of Man
Unconditional election
L'ordination des femmes
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the Saints"
"Yeah, I'm TULIP
Total Depravity of Man
Unconditional election
L'ordination des femmes
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the Saints"
October 28, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Bi-lingual Canadian Pro-Women's Ordination Universalist Calvinist be like,
"Yeah, I'm TULIP
Total Depravity of Man
Unconditional election
L'ordination des femmes
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the Saints"
"Yeah, I'm TULIP
Total Depravity of Man
Unconditional election
L'ordination des femmes
Irresistible grace
Perseverance of the Saints"
I have a second post up today on my #ttrpg blog, this one in response to this month's RPG Blog Carnival about other worlds; I talk about my attempts to make the Feywild, D&D's version of Fairyland, really feel like another, more magical world: advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/making-it-fe...
Making It Fey, Making It Wild
For better or worse, my main 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign tends to shy away from overly fantastic setting details. Of course it is kitchen-sink fantasy using staples from the franchise:
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev
October 27, 2025 at 11:37 PM
I have a second post up today on my #ttrpg blog, this one in response to this month's RPG Blog Carnival about other worlds; I talk about my attempts to make the Feywild, D&D's version of Fairyland, really feel like another, more magical world: advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/making-it-fe...
Reposted by Christian Hendriks
most of the last decade of my career was a frantic effort to warn as many people as possible about the dangers i saw coming in the near future
now that all the stuff i saw coming is here, i dunno what to do other than maybe start a Warhammer 40k podcast
now that all the stuff i saw coming is here, i dunno what to do other than maybe start a Warhammer 40k podcast
October 27, 2025 at 1:05 AM
most of the last decade of my career was a frantic effort to warn as many people as possible about the dangers i saw coming in the near future
now that all the stuff i saw coming is here, i dunno what to do other than maybe start a Warhammer 40k podcast
now that all the stuff i saw coming is here, i dunno what to do other than maybe start a Warhammer 40k podcast
I was delayed in getting it up, but here's my post about the new hominids, inhabitants of the weird fiction/post-apocalyptic Lakelands who resemble (but are not) archaic humans: advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/new-hominids. They have four distinct cultures: farmers, miners, herders, and fishers.
New Hominids
Somewhere in the Black Hills National Forest of former South Dakota, an Unbound named the Howling Rustic was dissatisfied with the human population of Earth. Perhaps...
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev
October 27, 2025 at 4:53 PM
I was delayed in getting it up, but here's my post about the new hominids, inhabitants of the weird fiction/post-apocalyptic Lakelands who resemble (but are not) archaic humans: advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/new-hominids. They have four distinct cultures: farmers, miners, herders, and fishers.
Reposted by Christian Hendriks
this year the local university's theatre department is staging Hamlet as a piece of interactive theatre, which they hope will appeal to dogs
October 24, 2025 at 5:05 PM
this year the local university's theatre department is staging Hamlet as a piece of interactive theatre, which they hope will appeal to dogs
I know I should not be bothered by the epidemic misuse of "liminal" but I really am.
Great post, great art but this proves a point I've been thinking about a lot: when people talk about liminal horror, they rarely actually mean liminal. It's just a word that overtook a formerly cool one, which was "uncanny"
Nothing fills me with a sense of dread quite like the work of artist Chris Van Allsburg. When I was very young, his illustrations terrified me just as much as the ones in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, but in a way I didn't even have words to describe yet. He was liminal before liminal was cool
October 25, 2025 at 5:17 AM
I know I should not be bothered by the epidemic misuse of "liminal" but I really am.
My favourite moment is when the NPC ally slides dramatically into cover, except he's on the wrong side of the pole and is totally exposed.
Oh my god some fucking tech dingdong posted this on Twitter with the caption "AI games are going to be amazing" totally seriously, you have to watch it. You have to. In full screen.
October 24, 2025 at 6:20 PM
My favourite moment is when the NPC ally slides dramatically into cover, except he's on the wrong side of the pole and is totally exposed.
Reposted by Christian Hendriks
I actually do think the question of what comes after persuasion is a difficult and crucial one. It’s something I had to grapple with as a feminist after the failure of Me Too. But that’s a much bigger question than the opinion column form—or the podcast form—really allows people to ask.
The Klein Coates discussion is very good and very revealing - pundit class is structurally dependent on the possibility of a reasonable politics of persuasion, otherwise what is the point of punditry? And Coates just rejects that.
September 28, 2025 at 5:06 PM
I actually do think the question of what comes after persuasion is a difficult and crucial one. It’s something I had to grapple with as a feminist after the failure of Me Too. But that’s a much bigger question than the opinion column form—or the podcast form—really allows people to ask.
Three posts from the last little while that get at something I've been thinking a lot about lately:
October 21, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Three posts from the last little while that get at something I've been thinking a lot about lately:
I failed to get a post out this week, so I'll just repost last week's, which I think has some interesting ideas that I didn't preview enough when I first posted it: I talk about tailoring horror for players who have different comfort levels with the genre, and exploring modern evils in horror games.
In the spirit of October, on my ttrpg blog I have a new post up about horror games and how I come up with ideas for them: advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev/how-i-plan-h...
How I Plan Horror Games
Horror games are not what I run most often, but from time to time I run games, or adaptations of setting lore. In fact, it's become a bit of an annual tra...
advantageonarcana.bearblog.dev
October 20, 2025 at 9:49 PM
I failed to get a post out this week, so I'll just repost last week's, which I think has some interesting ideas that I didn't preview enough when I first posted it: I talk about tailoring horror for players who have different comfort levels with the genre, and exploring modern evils in horror games.
Reposted by Christian Hendriks
I slightly modified my encounter tables for roads vs wilderness
https://nickdrawthing.bearblog.dev/encounter-tables-roads-camps-wilderness/
https://nickdrawthing.bearblog.dev/encounter-tables-roads-camps-wilderness/
Encounter Tables: Roads, Camps, and Wilderness | Nick Hendriks
I've been running this West Marches game for a while now. . One of the key elements of a game of this sort is a random encounter system. The one I'm us...
nickdrawthing.bearblog.dev
October 13, 2025 at 1:38 PM
I slightly modified my encounter tables for roads vs wilderness
https://nickdrawthing.bearblog.dev/encounter-tables-roads-camps-wilderness/
https://nickdrawthing.bearblog.dev/encounter-tables-roads-camps-wilderness/
Reposted by Christian Hendriks
Another couple tattoo designs for that silly outer space game on Discord.
October 17, 2025 at 3:00 AM
Another couple tattoo designs for that silly outer space game on Discord.