Aaron Hammonds
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aaroninwords.fpe.social
Aaron Hammonds
@aaroninwords.fpe.social
1K followers 270 following 580 posts
He/Him. Writer. Veteran. Burrito enthusiast.
Co-Founder and Multi-Award-Winning #ForeverGM.
Executive Director @tabletopartsfund.org.

Designing "These Things We Keep."
A game of memory, meaning, and the quiet violence of choice.
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aaroninwords.fpe.social
Bloodlines 2 was never going to live up to expectations, but I'd be more willing to forgive its shortcomings if it felt like the developers had any kind of respect or affection for the source material.

Vampire: The Masquerade
(Masquerade Optional)
A video game objective prompt from Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines 2 with a diamond-shaped icon on the left. The text reads: “Track down and deal with Jonathan. (Optional) Don’t break the Masquerade.” The background is dark with a faint purple gradient.
October 24, 2025 at 4:05 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
A Tumblr post by user kirbykonka reads: “I thought Old Man Yaoi was like a specific person or entity. Like you walk down to the river, there’s Old Man Consequences, you walk down to the oak tree there’s Old Man Sensibility, and then you walk into the gay club and you’ll never guess who it is.”
August 9, 2025 at 3:08 AM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
Related joke.
A Tumblr post by user "canmom" lists media file formats in a joke format: MP1: audio codec and container format MP2: audio codec and container format MP3: audio codec and container format MP4: video codec and container format MP5: actually, this one's a gun.
August 3, 2025 at 2:06 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
When you graduate from Critias' academy but there's more Camarilla stuff to learn.
Roadside directional sign with three lines of text, each followed by a right-pointing arrow. The sign reads: "Donaldson → Marian University's → Ancilla College →" The sign is posted beside a road bordered by dense green foliage.
August 1, 2025 at 8:48 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
Alt-text: A Tumblr post by user "lovergf" reads: "haha nooooo don’t recreate puritanism under the guise of progressivism because you don’t have critical thinking skills like for reallll stopppp haha". The post has 21,390 notes.
July 24, 2025 at 2:45 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
You're listening to The All Night Society, an actual play podcast brought to you by Queen's Court Games.
A social media post by user "johnnycrass" dated November 6, 2024, reads: "cant believe im a real person what the hell. the good lord will just make anybody." The background is dark, and the user's profile picture shows a person with light hair and bangs.
July 11, 2025 at 5:53 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
A two-panel cartoon illustrates a commentary on public support for journalism. In the first panel, a speaker at a podium asks, "Who wants high quality independent journalism?" and the entire crowd enthusiastically raises their hands. In the second panel, the speaker asks, "Who wants to pay for high quality independent journalism?" and nearly all hands go down, with only one person barely raising theirs and many looking away or uninterested. The cartoon highlights the gap between valuing journalism and being willing to financially support it.
July 11, 2025 at 12:12 AM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
You're listening to The All Night Society, an actual play podcast brought to you by Queen's Court Games.
A Tumblr post by user "glass--beach" dated January 10th reads: "the point of art is not to be great but to make it transparently obvious that there is something wrong with you."
July 7, 2025 at 7:06 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
Wanted to cast a self-deprecating joke; it is also an AoE spell.

All creatives, save vs. impostor syndrome (DC 17). On failure, become incapacitated by the creeping suspicion you don't actually know what you're doing.

Effect lasts 1d4 business days, or until positive feedback is received.
A four-panel yellow comic with simple line art characters. Panel 1: A character says, "I'm a game designer." Panel 2: A second character asks, "Are you good enough to call yourself that?" Panel 3: The first character replies, "It's not about being good." Panel 4: The first character continues, "It's about being too dumb to stop." Text at the top reads, "This is about me so it's OK I hope." The comic is signed "BUTTPOEMS" in the bottom right corner.
June 30, 2025 at 3:27 AM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
Everyone in Chicago and Los Angeles right now.
A man in a suit with blond hair sits with his eyes closed and a pained or prayerful expression, as if in deep concentration or emotion. The subtitles on the screen read, "JESUS, I SEE WHAT YOU'VE DONE FOR OTHER PEOPLE, AND I WANT THAT FOR ME."
June 25, 2025 at 7:47 AM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
Finally got around to actually reading the "AI Makes You Stupid" study and *yikes* do we need to have a talk about methodology. Not an AI stan, but there are some real big claims being made on the back of some real bad science.

Experiment design nerd yapping continues below.

⬇️(1/6)
A composite image showing the results of an EEG alpha band analysis using the dynamic Direct Transfer Function (dDTF) across three groups: LLM (Large Language Model), Search Engine, and Brain-only. The brain maps illustrate neural connectivity patterns, with connections color-coded from blue (lower dDTF) to red (higher dDTF). Each group is labeled with arrows: red for "LLM", green for "Search", and blue for "Brain". Significant connections are marked by colored lines, and the scale on the right indicates p-values ranging from less significant (blue) to highly significant (yellow/orange/red) with asterisks denoting statistical significance (* to ***). A faint sketch of a participant wearing an EEG headset and using a laptop appears in the background. The title reads: “Your Brain on ChatGPT.”
June 23, 2025 at 12:23 AM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
The archive is finite. Its shelves have limits.

Every record demands preservation—but These Things We Keep demands sacrifice. Scarcity forces your values to the surface. Not everything can be saved.

When the shelves are full, the archive will remember what you chose to leave behind.
WHEN WE FACE THE SHELF When all the records have been revealed, you must choose which to keep. Each round, you will roll a die. The size is determined by the number of players. The result tells you how many records must be left behind. The rest may be added to the archive. You may always keep at least one. You may never keep them all. How you choose is up to you. You are the archivists. This is your burden. There is no fixed procedure. Only the limits of the shelf, and the values you bring to the world. Will you strive for fairness? Influence? Strategy? Sentiment? If you are unsure of how to proceed, consider one of the following rituals. Silent Consensus Read each of the records aloud. Sit with them. Let each player choose one they cannot bear to lose. If the group must discard more than the unclaimed records, let the conversation begin there. The Curator’s Burden Select one player to decide which records are kept. Others may plead their case, but the decision rests with the Curator alone. Select a new Curator each round. You may also choose no method at all. You may argue, weep, compromise, fall silent. But you must choose. The records will not choose themselves.
June 22, 2025 at 8:57 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
You're listening to The All Night Society. An actual play podcast brought to you by Queen's Court Games.
Alt text: A Tumblr post by user "nondelphic" dated May 22 reads: "people say 'write what you know' and then get surprised when i hand them 47 pages of unprocessed emotional trauma disguised as . . . " The remaining text has been erased, and replaced with "a vampire podcast." Below the post are hashtags such as #writing, #writer problems, #writing humor, and others. The post has 5,380 notes and shows typical Tumblr interaction icons for sharing and liking.
June 20, 2025 at 7:35 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
The archive does not describe. It insists.

In These Things We Keep, every record is marked with an Adjective, a Verb, and a Noun. You roll a die for each.

We don't merely ask what a record says. We ask what it does to those who touch it.

Once a record has voice, it is harder to silence.
ADJECTIVES What quality does this record carry? 1. Sacred - This record is revered. It holds spiritual or moral weight. Who sanctified this knowledge? What happens if we desecrate it? 2. Dangerous - This record could cause harm—physical, social, or ideological. Who might be hurt by this knowledge? Why did someone create it anyway? 3. Personal - This record is deeply tied to an individual’s story or experience. Whose voice speaks through this? Why did they make it? 4. Subversive - This record undermines authority, structure, or power. What system does it oppose? Who benefits if it spreads? 5. Beautiful - This record moves the soul. What emotions does it evoke? Can beauty be dangerous, or deceptive? 6. Corrupting - This record changes those who read it—and not for the better. What does it erode: morals, memories, identity? Why can’t we look away? 7. Intimate - This record exposes something private, raw, or vulnerable. Why does this feel like trespassing? What part of you responds to it? 8. Heretical - This record challenges sacred truths or doctrines. What belief does it defy? Is it blasphemy or revelation? 9. Esoteric - This record is obscure, coded, or difficult to understand. Who was it made for? What knowledge lies just beyond your reach? 10. Dogmatic - This record is rigid in its claims. It leaves no room for doubt. What truth does it demand? What happens if you resist its certainty?
June 20, 2025 at 2:41 AM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
Walked into the living room. Found the cat testing dazzle camouflage.
A black and white long-haired cat lounges on a checkered black-and-white blanket, gazing directly at the camera with wide, curious yellow eyes. The cat’s fur closely mirrors the blanket’s bold checkerboard pattern, creating a subtle camouflage effect that makes its form blend into the background at a glance.
June 19, 2025 at 6:58 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
The archive is not a sanctuary. It is a battleground.

These Things We Keep is about the politics of preservation. It's not about saving books -- it's about the violence of deciding which books deserve to be saved.

It asks what you'll fight to remember, and what you're willing to let go.
WHY WE CHOOSE Curation is never neutral. Every act of preservation is an act of omission. What we call “wisdom” reflects who we are willing to listen to. What we call “history” reflects who we are willing to forget. The libraries we’ve inherited—those we build—bear the fingerprints of empire, exclusion, and silence. Some stories were lost. Others were stolen. Many were never written down to begin with. The archive is not a sanctuary. It is a battleground. The conflict in this game is not mechanical. It is social. It is ethical. It emerges in the pauses, the pleading, and in the strain of disagreement. You will not resolve it with tokens or initiative rolls. You will resolve it—if at all—by listening, by arguing, by deciding what you cannot bear to forget. You will begin with noble intentions. You will try to be fair. But there are always too many books. And not enough shelf. This game invites you to reflect—not only on what knowledge is worth keeping, but on why. What makes something sacred? Who decides what is dangerous? Who benefits from forgetting? What does it cost to remember?
June 18, 2025 at 9:43 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
I've been quietly working on something. A tabletop game about memory, meaning, and the quiet violence of choice.

It's not finished. Right now, it's just a text file and some audacity. But it feels good enough to keep trying.

If it sounds like your kind of thing, I'd love to play it with you.
These Things We Keep is a game about memory, meaning, and the quiet violence of choice.  You are archivists in the twilight of the world—cultists of a crumbling order, devoted not to gods, but to knowledge. Across a ruined landscape, you gather what remains: fragments of wisdom, remnants of stories, stray sparks of insight left behind by a people who could not save themselves. Some texts are sacred. Some are dangerous. Most are incomplete. All are fading.  In each round of play, you will uncover the final traces of a forgotten past. You will give shape to lost books, whispered histories, broken manuals, and haunting testimonies. And then, together, you must decide which can be saved—and which will be allowed to vanish.  You will not have enough room. You will not all agree. You will choose, and you will live with the choosing.  This is not a game about fixing the world. It is a game about carrying forward what little you can.
June 17, 2025 at 12:17 AM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
I keep this handy for our casting channel.
A classical oil painting of a weary woman in a blue and red dress sitting against a stone wall, holding a letter in her hand. A young girl clings to her arm, looking up at her with concern. Scattered objects lie on the floor, and the mood is somber and resigned. Superimposed text reads: "Scheduling a TTRPG, oil on canvas," humorously comparing the difficulty of arranging tabletop roleplaying games with the emotional intensity of historical portraiture.
June 16, 2025 at 10:30 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
Anyone else, or just me?
A split-screen MSNBC news broadcast shows coverage of ongoing events. On the left, live footage from a protest in Los Angeles shows a crowd of demonstrators, many holding signs and wearing masks or bandanas. One protester waves a blue and white flag, and several signs criticize ICE raids. The lower-third headline reads: "BREAKING NEWS – L.A. RALLY FOLLOWS DAYS OF PROTESTS AGAINST ICE RAIDS." On the right side of the screen, footage of uniformed soldiers marching is labeled “ARMY 250TH PARADE.” Below that is a "TIPLINE INFORMATION" box with contact details and three images of the same person labeled “Vance Luther Boelter,” wanted for the assassination of two Democratic Minnesota legislators, shown in different photos including one wearing a cowboy hat. The MSNBC logo appears in the bottom right corner. A still image from the 1997 film Starship Troopers shows a character (played by Neil Patrick Harris) in a gray military-style uniform standing in front of a barred enclosure containing alien creature limbs. In the upper right corner is the logo for the fictional “Federal Network”—a stylized eagle over a globe. At the bottom of the screen, large text reads: “WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?” with the word “MORE” highlighted in blue. The image is a satirical take on militaristic propaganda broadcasts within the film’s fictional universe.
June 15, 2025 at 12:21 AM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
I wanted to see if I could still write a sonnet, so enjoy this POV of my awkward high school self -- terrified to love, but still ready to worship the girl from third period AP Lit wearing combat boots and too much eyeliner.

Enjoy my cringe and angst.
An image of a dark, floral background with ghostly butterflies and ornate textures. Centered text in a gothic white font reads a Shakespearean-style sonnet titled "Ode to the Girl in Armor (But Not Like, Literally)." She draws her sneer in midnight’s slickest hue, Each laugh a curse, each glance a clever blade. She spits out stars and swears they’re nothing new, Just fading light sewn into black brocade. She mocks the moon, yet wears its ghost for gloss, Steps on decorum like it’s sidewalk grime. Rules crack beneath her boots—and god, the cost Feels sacred when she breaks them every time. I write this now not hoping to impress, But praying just to keep the chaos near. If love’s a dare, I’ve failed the test—confess, But still I’d trade my calm to hold her sneer. She’ll call it cringe; she’ll claim it’s self-defense. But still—I’d read it twice to change her sense.
June 4, 2025 at 10:24 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
I'm partial to Skull Rodent, myself.
A screenshot of a Twitter post. It reads "what is your favorite Pokémon? Don't use their name. Mine is Kick Chicken."
April 11, 2025 at 2:04 AM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
Post you from a different era
Aaron is smiling, wearing wearing glasses, aviation headphones, and a microphone headset. He is dressed in a desert tan flight suit, inside an aircraft cockpit.
March 15, 2025 at 7:48 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
If I ever win the lottery I won't tell anyone but there will be signs.
A screenshot from the opening cutscene of Final Fantasy X-2. A golden robotic drummer with a whimsical appearance stands prominently in the center of a futuristic stadium, illuminated by neon-blue lights. Its arms are crossed, holding two glowing drumsticks, and it has a large decorative stage structure above its head, resembling a crown. Floating cymbals spiral around it.
March 15, 2025 at 5:40 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
I was having fun talking through a new idea when @clearlygolden.qcg.social hit me with a brutal double-read and I've never felt so exposed.
March 5, 2025 at 7:29 PM
aaroninwords.fpe.social
Okay but hear me out . . .
Not sorry, I'll hunt you like safari You're old news, I think I used to play you on Atari Spar me, shadow touch hits, feel the cold about. Dark so deep they'll need a future king to pull you out
February 9, 2025 at 8:36 PM