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s-che.bsky.social
che!
@s-che.bsky.social
510 followers 700 following 220 posts
bearded woman, grad student, game designer, mostly in that order.

pay my rent @ patreon.com/s_che
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s-che.bsky.social
this fishlike creature, featured on ben franklin’s coat of arms and the university of pennsylvania logo, is theoretically a dolphin.
a fishlike creature which does not look very much like a dolphin franklin’s arms, featuring aforementioned fishlike creature the upenn crest. once again: the creature is here. penn’s logo. sleek. minimalist. containing a fishlike creature.
November 13, 2025 at 8:18 PM
s-che.bsky.social
September 30, 2025 at 11:51 AM
s-che.bsky.social
hmm
archive of our own page showing a list of 3 results for fanfiction involving Émile Durkheim
September 30, 2025 at 3:08 AM
s-che.bsky.social
DEAD INTERNET THEORY is inspired by some of my favorite pieces of media/things i can't get out of my head. stuff like GAME CHANGER. THE REHEARSAL. HUNTER X HUNTER. and. i think that's basically it. yeah.
no other major media touchstones here.
September 27, 2025 at 12:46 AM
s-che.bsky.social
ashcan of DEAD INTERNET THEORY, my ttrpg about time travel and how online is a world-ending cognitohazard is now available anywhere you support my patreon.

www.patreon.com/posts/dead-i...
several clowns. four are green. four are pink. one is purple.
September 27, 2025 at 12:41 AM
s-che.bsky.social
not available anywhere yet (ashcan soon maybe?) but my next game is very much about making worse and worse games until we drown in them. sort of a maximally pessimistic version of what you're describing.
September 13, 2025 at 12:59 AM
s-che.bsky.social
starting a phd in three and a half weeks (aaaaaaaa) and i know no better way to celebrate than resurrecting the dream library book club.

come read/play/discuss REALIS with us.

discord.gg/hVC756XGSd
The Realis cover art, featuring moons and strange windows into other worlds, bug-eyes, castles, illuminated faces, skulls, mustachioed men, and the title of the game in capitals. "AN INTRODUCTION TO REALIS," a two-page spread from game.
August 3, 2025 at 10:57 PM
s-che.bsky.social
wrote about last week's Game Changer, games that have other games inside of them, and the joy of using machines to break things from the inside out.

also a tiny peek at DEAD INTERNET THEORY, the game i'm working on now.
Talking to a friend about this, I described the episode as Game Changer at its most “gamefull” — a term I mean pretty literally, as in “full of games.” Each of the smallest pieces of the episode (individual rules, prompts, etc.) can be looked at as a little game in its own right, held together by metagames: spinning the wheel, the scoreboard, and so on. The pleasure of playing — or observing — this kind of “game of games” could be called procedural, in that players and observers alike can take joy in the technical intersection of distinct routines, which crash together, swap inputs, and recontextualize each other. The simplicity of each individual game — “NO CURSING,” “WEARING A HUGE COWBOY HAT” — means you can hold any part of the thing easily in your head, but as the venn diagrams of games begin to overlap and the space not affected by one rule or another begins to shrink, it’s the iterative, recombinative process where the game really sings. If the game doesn’t already exist to your satisfaction, perform game design by: picking at least one end condition * the game will end when all players but one are dead * the game will end when a player scores exactly 21 * the game will end when the curtains draw * the game will end another way picking at least one platform * the game will be played via language, perhaps using email or another symbolic medium * the game will be played via the material world, perhaps using a rubber ball or another physical object * the game will be played via another game, perhaps using minecraft or dead internet theory * the game will be played somewhere else picking at least one rule * players always escalate * players never say the same thing twice * game actions are always replicated in the real world * another rule which will always affect they game Write down your game for posterity, and give it the trigger “When you decide to play ___.” Now play your game.
July 9, 2025 at 3:39 PM
s-che.bsky.social
she's so girlypop
saruman the white, lord of isengard, master of the council of the wise, surrounded by sparkling hearts and cartoon daisies. in something like 144p.
July 1, 2025 at 6:08 PM
s-che.bsky.social
game design
Text from a PBTA-style move: "When you draw fanart, make it sloppy. Wear your heart on your sleeve about it! Or be super cool and ironic. Either way -- send it to someone when you're done. Or -- better yet! Send it to them before you're done. Cash out on their approval before you've finished the thing, and then never finish it at all. Come up with a ship! I'm not writing bespoke guidelines for a fic. They're the same as art dw about it. If you send the art to your fellow players, it becomes a (1)..." shitty mspaint art. A figure with red hair, holding a sword and a severed hand talks to a figure with pink hair and a book. One of them may be saying "the weirdest part of this is theres no capitalism" but it's kind of hard to tell. In the background, a light green figure has collapsed on a green landscape. the caption reads: "i'm literally dying of cancer and yall arebeing gross teenagers!!" A hot air balloon against a red sunset -- the slow death of a star. Also drawn in mspaint. a cartoon of a kid blasting off into space edited so that they have the face of a mole. hot air balloons in the background. the text on their cellphone reads "parliamentary democracy is the way of the futuree"
May 2, 2025 at 10:31 PM
s-che.bsky.social
i did this to myself
the first page of an rpg. Under a section titled "Walkthrough" two narratorial voices each warn you not to trust the other. Under "0.1.1 INSTALL AND SETUP" a list of materials: the rulebook, playing cards, index cards, scissors, tape, paper clips, pens and markers Will [11:52 AM]: 8 toes tho
April 30, 2025 at 4:15 PM
s-che.bsky.social
this month we're continuing the pastoral party with @riseupcomus.bsky.social's osr game of hobbit nonsense UNDER HILL, BY WATER. already played one session and loved it.

if you want to get in on that discussion or the next two weeks of one-shots, well, come on in.

discord.gg/hVC756XGSd
February 7, 2025 at 11:39 PM
s-che.bsky.social
last month my #ttrpg book club kicked off a springtime full of fairies by spending a month with @megueyb.bsky.social and @lumpley.bsky.social's UNDER HOLLOW HILLS. i wrote some thoughts about playing it and also why we play games at all.

www.patreon.com/posts/dream-...
A quote from the linked article: "Why bother, then? Why create something special and set aside--and necessarily limiting and restrictive--when those limits are only given substance by our abiding by them? Why create social structures? Why play games? Well, in the case of that last one: because they're fun. Because effective ritual is effective. It has an effect. In the case of a game, that effect is fun."
February 7, 2025 at 11:39 PM
s-che.bsky.social
go birds
"The 'harsh and uproarious welcome,' the Public Ledger noted. 'entirely demoralized those in charge of the show." For a Harper's Weekly reporter, the Philadelphians seemed "to be moved rather by the desire to celebrate than to celebrate any particular thing.'" Gary Nash, "First City: Philadelphia and the Forging of Historical Memory"
January 27, 2025 at 6:53 PM
s-che.bsky.social
love to queue something up & then forget to promote it

new article up now (last week). i talk about building and breaking, excitement and terror, and perform something they're calling "cheSMR"

This Game Has a Hole In It!

www.patreon.com/posts/this-g...
December 12, 2024 at 11:47 PM
s-che.bsky.social
don’t worry, it’s really not that complicated
December 6, 2024 at 3:33 PM
s-che.bsky.social
hey. i'm che. i'm a trans game designer & grad student in religious studies. i write rpgs about queerness, religion, and nostalgia & also academic papers about queerness, religion, and nostalgia. i also run a monthly virtual games book club out of a space called THE DREAM LIBRARY.
the thumbnail for QUEEN OF THE MOON. the background is dark blue. 2/3 of a yellow crescent moon with a face takes up most of the frame. thumbnail for THE BOOK OF 13 HOURS. the title (orange) is printed in all caps on a cream background. a purple hand holding playing cards — a spades flush — reaches up from the left border thumbnail for [ three dudes go bowling ]. three anthropomorphic bowling pins are superimposed on top of themselves in blue, pink, and black. one has a mustache, one has glasses, one is fat. thumbnail for SEX SIGILS. four columns of male/female (mars/venus) symbols pass behind a title card printed and come out as five columns of varied alchemical symbols. the reliquary station TRANS FUCKING JAM logo appears in the top-right corner.
November 22, 2024 at 10:06 PM
s-che.bsky.social
this month, the Dream Library's rpg book club is digging into Bluebeard's Bride as we continue our unit on intimacy & monstrosity in #ttrpgs. we're recruiting for our first play session tomorrow, come join!
discord.gg/hVC756XGSd
October 1, 2024 at 9:14 PM
s-che.bsky.social
gotta be real, this is a weird one!
patreon supporters at $3 or more get to play around with two prototypes of parasitic journaling games, A CALAMITOUS COINCIDENCE and THE ALCHEMIST. #ttrpgs www.patreon.com/posts/parasi...
August 22, 2024 at 2:32 PM
s-che.bsky.social
this game rules
August 17, 2024 at 5:24 AM
s-che.bsky.social
threat maps r good
July 26, 2024 at 6:51 PM
s-che.bsky.social
good morning folks. new article about how every game is a map-making game is up now for patreon backers. come cancel me for design takes i had in middle school.

www.patreon.com/posts/two-vi...
July 19, 2024 at 1:34 PM
s-che.bsky.social
over on tumblr i am talking about playing a one shot of APOCALYPSE WORLD, why you should not play a one shot of APOCALYPSE WORLD, and why APOCALYPSE WORLD is one of the greatest rpgs of all time

www.tumblr.com/che-bur-ashk...
July 15, 2024 at 7:51 PM
s-che.bsky.social
black friday sale is live on a bunch of my itch games! half off on Gun Cowboy, Beneath Pirate Flags, [three dudes go bowling] & more

itch.io/s/110269/che...
The cover of "BENEATH PIRATE FLAGS (intimacy, vulnerability, & liberation on sailing ships & wild seas / a game by che)" Behind black text on pink ribbons, the art is an all-pink woodcut of Anne Bonny firing a pistol as two ships meet on the water behind her. The character playbooks page from Beneath Pirate Flags, with short summaries of The Legend, The Officer, The Dandy, The Knife, The Hunk, and The Disguise. The first page of Gun Cowboy, "a solo journaling game about dead outlaws." Beside the initial pitch of the game, line art of a cowboy on horseback. The first page of [three dudes go bowling], three columns of text with the logo (three anthropomorphic bowling pins superimposed three times, like a 3D movie) in the top left corner.
November 24, 2023 at 3:04 PM
s-che.bsky.social
BENEATH PIRATE FLAGS, my long-ashcan'd ttrpg of intimacy, vulnerability, and liberation on the somewhere-sea, is out on itch for real.

sche.itch.io/beneath-pira...
October 26, 2023 at 1:19 PM