Benjamin Rosenbaum
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benjaminrosenbaum.com
Benjamin Rosenbaum
@benjaminrosenbaum.com
560 followers 210 following 120 posts
A plausible-fabulist of some meager renown, in a mere handful of universes.

latest: https://www.choiceofgames.com/ghost-and-the-golem/

Podcast: https://speculativeliterature.org/mrah/

He/him
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benjaminrosenbaum.com
From @vajra.me via
@amalelmohtar.com's latest newsletter, this link

www.gofundme.com/f/Hot-meals-...

from this excerpt

from this essay
amalelmohtar.com/r/928d43e7?m...

about refusing the bad bargains of demons
I strongly recommend you donate today to Hani Almadhoun’s Gaza Soup Kitchen or any of the fundraisers run by the Sameer Project, if you’re not comfortable donating to individual fundraisers. If you are, you can look at Molly Shah’s timeline on Bluesky or this spreadsheet by the Butterfly Effect project for a list of verified individual campaigns. If you can’t afford to donate, you can choose fundraisers to boost, and do it at every opportunity. There is such a thing as the least you can do, and too many people do not bother to find out what that is, much less exceed it.
September 6, 2025 at 10:41 AM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
@maryannemohanraj.bsky.social and I just finished teaching our (by which I mean, @speclit.bsky.social's) week-long Chicago intermediate SF/F workshop with a bunch of terrific students. We miss 'em already.
Ben and Mary Anne sitting on the front steps of Mary Anne's house surrounded by writing students, alongside a banner for the Speculative Literature Foundation
August 9, 2025 at 4:13 AM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
On Tuesday, at the protest in front of the State Department to free Mohsen Mahdawi. It worked, he got out the next day!
me at the protest with a sign that reads "I'M the antisemite? OK Nazis. #CeasefireNow" me at the protest with a sign that reads "A republic, if you can keep it," while my sister is holding a sign that says "Anti-war ≠ Anti-semitism"
May 4, 2025 at 2:20 AM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
So this happened.

(it's 40% off this week at www.choiceofgames.com/ghost-and-th... to celebrate.)

(Congrats also to @isabel.kim, @jdragsky.bsky.social, @nassos.bsky.social, @jennreese.bsky.social & whoever else is on here!)
A slide from the Nebula Finalists Announcement showing that "The Ghost and the Golem" has been nominated for the Best Game Writing award
March 13, 2025 at 11:18 PM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
OMG! I am a writing exercise in @nalohop.bsky.social 's class! I want to see what they wrote...

(This blessing, right?)
January 12, 2025 at 1:15 PM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
CW was my origin story. They are champions of story, community, bravely facing the future, learning & growing.
For this year's crowdfund, they asked me to donate a perk and I said "put me down for a consultation" -- so you can book me if you want!
Screenshot of the crowdfunding perk where you can have a 30 minute zoom consult with me if you want ("Consultation Consultationw/Ber w/ Ben Rosenbaum 3 €71 EUR $75 USD Benjamin Rosenbaum (CW '01)has taught for the Six-Week Workshopis and is the author of The Unraveling and the Ennie-nominated Jewish historical fantasy tabletop roleplaying game Dream Apart. His newest interactive novel is The Ghost and the Golem. Join Ben for a 30 minute video consultation in Zoom. Must be scheduled before December 2025. Included Items Consultation w/Ben Rosenbaum')
November 13, 2024 at 1:57 PM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
In an interactive tale, some characterization only shows up across playthroughs.

Here the joke is that if, instead, the peasants attack you, Gittel will loudly declare that she never trusted them.

It's like: how well do you really know someone, if you've only seen them in the one timeline?
"Didn't I say so?" Gittel says. "Those foreigners are gone, and our peasants took our side, for the most part, may they be blessed and protected! I always said this wasn't like other places, where the goyim are real monsters..."
September 25, 2024 at 11:40 AM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
As of today, Steam players have gotten every single achievement in my Jewish historical fantasy game "The Ghost and the Golem"... even ones like "Four Weddings and No Funeral" and "Dynamic Duo," which I wasn't sure anyone would ever manage!

Whee!
A screenshot of aggregate Steam achievements for the game, showing the ones only 0.3% of players have gotten: "Four Weddings and No Funeral," "Battlefield Medic," "A Khasene In Shtetl," "So Fascinating!", "Whisperer, Begone," "Shira Insists", "Dynamic Duo", "Heavenly Extraction", "Fell Off Roof. Again.", and "Champion Napper"
August 29, 2024 at 10:02 AM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
or, I mean...
results of a search for "the ghost and the golem" on the fanfic site AO3, sadly yielding no results
August 29, 2024 at 9:34 AM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
I hope y'all are arguing with Mamma in chapter 4 of "The Ghost and the Golem," because she has plenty to say.

www.choiceofgames.com/ghost-and-th...
ChoiceScript code for arguing with Mamma, including you telling her "Marriage is a form of slavery!" and her responding "What meshugas is this? Marriage? Slavery? Next you'll tell me milk is a form of coal and clouds are made of raspberries. Where are you getting this drivel?"
August 23, 2024 at 12:13 PM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
Two days left for the introductory sale of The Ghost and the Golem, my 480,000-word Jewish historical fantasy game!

www.choiceofgames.com/ghost-and-th...

(I've been saying 450,000 words, but I just went & recounted. It's now a full novella-length longer than the Lord of the Rings trilogy.)
Screenshot of the game, including text ("that good-for-nothing nudnik of a dairyman is riding away") and choices ("I snatch up a nearby apple and throw it at the back of his head," etc.)
August 14, 2024 at 12:48 PM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
I know this is a tiny bit spoilery, but I just love the part where the demon complains about how hard the anarchist klezmers are to mind control.

From "The Ghost and the Golem"
www.choiceofgames.com/ghost-and-th...
"Who says I'm leaving?" "You yearn to leave. You imagine yourself with Shira and Alkhonon, on the road, far from here, under the open sky, free and happy..." "And they'll take me?" The creature shrugs. "You'll have to ask them. Their thoughts are hard clearly, for they are tricksters themselves, and suspicious of our influence." "They believe in demons?" "Oh no. They are skeptics, moderns, and incorrigible realists. But they as skeptical of their own thoughts as of any pronouncements of church and state; they pounce upon our whispers and dissect them as vestiges false consciousness. They have little shame, which makes hard for us to hide them from themselves. And they are used to playing parts, and imagining themselves into characters." "I see." "Not only that, but we never know when they're kidding.'
August 12, 2024 at 12:14 PM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
& here are some more...!
More as-yet-unachieved achievements: Heavenly Extraction, Shira Insists (Convince the traveling musicians to take you along, despite a fizzled romance with Alkhonon), Oorah! (Witness a cavalry charge), One Shot (See a riot brought to a halt with a single well-placed bullet), Pelted With Potatoes, Nice Ride, Fell Off a Roof. Again., With An Outstretched Hand (Fight the antisemitic agitators with miraculous power), Nes Gadol Haya Po, Everybody Loves Counting, & Four Weddings and No Funeral
August 9, 2024 at 11:20 AM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
I just discovered that there's a Steam Community page where you can see what % of players have gotten what achievements, so I'm snooping on y'all's progress playing The Ghost and the Golem.

C'mon, somebody can get "Just Be Good To Me" and "The Consolations of Philosophy"! I believe in you!
A screencap of a partial list of Steam Achievements from The Ghost and the Golem, including some (Dang, Bro; Same Love; Broadway, Here I Come!; Shop Talk; Exit, Dragged By A Donkey) that a few players have achieved and others (Champion Napper; So Fascinating!; A Khasene In Shtetl; Just Be Good To Me; The Consolations of Philosophy) that no one has gotten yet.
August 9, 2024 at 11:12 AM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
The Ghost and the Golem (my 450,000-word Jewish historical fantasy interactive fiction game) launches tomorrow, and I am frenziedly testing & tweaking in the dilapidated "summer kitchen" of the French country house where the Swiss extended family has gathered...

(photo credit: Jonas Bieri)
Ben, looking giddy, underslept and slightly manic, in front of a makeshift computer-tower (laptop perched on cardboard boxes) in a white-plastered interior room with ancient cabinets and stored porch furniture. Plus breakfast.
August 7, 2024 at 10:19 AM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
The Ghost and the Golem (my 450,000-word Jewish historical fantasy game, coming soon from Choice of Games) lets you set Yiddish level, from "bring it on" to "please translate everything for me?"

These are all the translations for "oy" in "please translate" mode.
a radial graph of synoyms for "oy", including oops, what?, oh no, well, alas, those bastards, yikes, uh oh, whoa, sigh, argh, oh my, good grief, oh come on, oh dear, ugh, ack, uh, hmm, my goodness, oh boy, ah, oh, whew, huh, oh no, and oof.
July 30, 2024 at 6:23 PM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
Coming (reasonably) soon on the @mrahpodcast.bsky.social podcast; @maryannemohanraj.bsky.social and I talked with Sofia Samatar about the incandescent "The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain"!
cover art for Sofia Samatar's "The Practice, The Horizon, and the Chain," depicting an interlocking set of glowing blue rings in space Sofia Samatar punctuating a point with a raised-eyebrow smirk, Mary Anne Mohanraj grinning from ear to ear and Benjamin Rosenbaum laughing his ass off
June 28, 2024 at 12:58 PM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
This fascinating article on Israeli TTRPG theory
gnomestew.com/intro-to-isr...
...somehow hilariously feels SO culturally Israeli; maybe the relish for a world in which we are constantly in each other's faces & under each other's skin...

"That makes sense to you?"
text of the section of the article, in which the GM produces emotional effects through a kind of off-table showmanship: playing a scene with their back to the table while making coffee, asking questions in a doubtful tone...
September 17, 2023 at 2:32 PM
benjaminrosenbaum.com
From @akivahoffman@writing.exchange , this amazing (and 100% accurate) YA-style trope-o-graph of The Unraveling (http://the-unraveling.com) !
Cover image of "The Unraveling" surrounded by names of tropes: NEOPRONOUNS (& gender fuckery in general), revolutionary clowns, multi-bodied lives, social credit dystopia, extreme body modification, teen sexual awakening, lost family, who will think of the children??, hilarity ensues
July 26, 2023 at 10:50 PM