Rand Brittain
LightNews LightNews
randbrittain.bsky.social
Rand Brittain
@randbrittain.bsky.social
49 followers 130 following 360 posts
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Rand Brittain
lymerpg.bsky.social
Nic has always been incredibly helpful when I'm working with IPR. He's a pillar of RPG publishing.
lonelamplighter.bsky.social Sylvan Lawrence Is Carfunding @lonelamplighter.bsky.social · 19h
Not sure who here heard already, but Nic from IPR was in a really bad car crash two weeks ago, and his car is completely totaled.

Anything you can give would be immensely appreciated, and even if you can't, please please please spread the word on this!

www.gofundme.com/f/support-ni...
September 16, 2026 at 3:32 AM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
prokopetz.bsky.social
I think a big shortcoming of a lot of fantasy tabletop RPG worldbuilding is the tendency to want to enshrine The Adventurer as occupying an eternal status quo even if the rest of the world is allowed to change. (1/3)
September 15, 2026 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
hypercubexl.bsky.social
GDT's reddit AMA spitting fire

www.reddit.com/r/movies/com...
reddit comment: Hello! Did you intend the ending of Pan’s labyrinth to be real or in Ofelia’s mind? Guillermo Del Toro's reply: My interpretation, and it's exclusively mine, is that it's real. Because there's two things. One is what people call “The Shining Question.” The Shining Question is, Who opens the door for Jack to get out of the fridge? And Ofelia is in an attic with a guard outside her door, and she draws the door with the magic chalk, and she shows up in the labyrinth. So, the only way she could have gone into the labyrinth is the magic chalk. And the flower is real at the end. The flower that blooms in the dead tree. And the reason I think it’s real is because—and this is why I'm in favor of the human factor in art—I think that art does transform the world. You know? Think about it for a second. One of the goals, with all this movement, is to make you believe that art is vulgar. That art is nothing special, and anybody can do art. That is like me telling you that I'm faster at running than Usain Bolt but I “run” in my motorcycle. Well, that's not the same. That’s not the same at all. Art is important, and they want you to believe it isn't. It's part of the idea of control. The goal is not to have artificial intelligence. The goal is to foster natural stupidity. The goal is to foster you not looking for answers, and to trust yourself entirely to an engine. Look at the way we are dipping our toes into these things. We are starting to ask the machine, Is this true? For now, there's a correlation between reality and what the answers of the machine are. For now. But soon, we won't even investigate further. We will be told it's true. And if the machine is in the hands of somebody who should not be trusted, then your reality has been completely and utterly fucked. Because your intelligence ends at the question. You don't seek the answer. It's given to you. Q: You recently mentioned that AI creates 'semi-compelling screensavers' and that you'd 'rather die' than use it. As a filmmaker who relies heavily on practical effects and creature design, what do you think is the biggest thing lost when a computer generates an image instead of a human hand? GDT: The three quarters of the process that gave you the chance to think of the idea that people don't think about without that process. Meaning, AI can get you to the middle really fast, but there's a dialectic with the process that gets you to that top 10%. I'll give you an example with the Pale Man. We sculpted it as an old man, with a face. And then I said, Let's take out the face. This happened because I saw a photo of a manta ray and the poster for Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm. That combination, which happened at two different times during a week or a month, are not permutations that are chemically part of an equation. They are alchemy. And then I said, Take out the face, and then I said, Let's put the eyes on the hands. This triangulation happens because I spent a month or two months living with the idea of this creature. And it's not linear. AI is like a super-fast engine that makes semi-sentient permutations of things that are already done. Creation is things that have never been done. Coming to exist. And the second thing is the loss of the apprenticeship that one has as an artist. You're never a master; you're always an apprentice. This is a kinship I have with, for example, Chris Nolan. When he showed me The Odyssey, there’s a scene when Matt Damon is floating in the stormy ocean and I asked him—because we were talking about practical effects, and how great it is and that we both always use a maquette or a model—and I asked him, How did you do it? He said, “We put him in a storm in the ocean.” And you're gonna find that 30% of a great image occurs accidentally. You know, either a drop of water hits the lens, or the camera shakes. I remember when in 1993, '94, Jim…
September 9, 2026 at 10:32 PM
randbrittain.bsky.social
So it's established that a dracula is a guy who meets all the *social* criteria of Count Dracula without necessarily being a vampire, right? Logically, the mystery equivalent of that would be a poirot.
September 8, 2026 at 2:51 AM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
jrho.bsky.social
The most absolutely massive flex from the state fair exhibit. This quilt is made of 40 years of prize ribbons from various categories at the New Mexico State Fair won by Carol St. Clair Johnson. She also won a prize for this quilt.
Massive quilt made of prize ribbons in blue, red, yellow, and white Center square of quilt made of yellow and red ribbons and yellow rosettes Block of quilt made of blue, yellow, red, and white ribbons. Ribbons state the year. Some have the prize winning object written on in marker Carol St. Clair Johnson born 1954; resides Albuquerque, NM O Fair New Mexico-41 Fair Years 2023 satin ribbons After unexpectedly winning her first blue ribbon for a sewn cape in 1981, Carol St. Clair Johnson developed an enduring love for the New Mexico State Fair. The quilt Fair New Mexico-41 Fair Years incorporates more than six hundred of the ribbons she won at the fair every subsequent year except 2020 (when the fair was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic). Johnson earned ribbons for needlework, knitting, crochet, pies, cookies, cakes, canning, jewelry, flowers, vegetables, and potted plants. The title of the quilt is a reference to the state song, and the design places the state's Zia sun symbol at the center. The quilt earned Johnson yet another ribbon: Best in Category (miscellaneous quilt) at the 2023 New Mexico State Fair. Courtesy of Carol St. Clair Johnson
September 6, 2026 at 6:58 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
helenareal.northsky.social
I've said it before & I'll repeat it: Nobilis is my fav #rpg ever made. Its author, Jenna Moran, has a Patreon and she's previewed 200 pages of the game's upcoming new edition. Go ahead and support one of the genius of our hobby! (and get a great game in return) 😁 patreon.com/JennaMoran #dnd #ttrpg
Get more from Jenna Moran on Patreon
Get more from Jenna Moran on Patreon. I'd like to share bonus and draft content for my RPGs! Maybe you'd like that too?
patreon.com
September 2, 2026 at 3:56 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
jackbern.bsky.social
THE GREAT BRITISH SEWING BEE: oh my this is fun, oh what larks

THE GREAT BRITISH REAPING BEE: well this is a spot of bother and make no mistake, what on earth
March 20, 2026 at 12:32 PM
randbrittain.bsky.social
I've been asked to repost my guide to making EPUB versions of RPGs from the bad place, so here it is:
August 26, 2026 at 6:43 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
dieworkwear.bsky.social
I enjoyed this.

ordinaryabundance.com
Ordinary Abundance
A walk through a modern apartment, through the eyes of the people for whom everything in it was new.
ordinaryabundance.com
August 13, 2026 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
42paintbrushes.bsky.social
Cursed phone doodle #deltarune
July 8, 2025 at 9:38 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
fade.bsky.social
I am reading _The Night-Bird's Feather_, and it is genuinely one of the strangest* books I have ever encountered. It slips through the logic of fairytales and discards it like an old snakeskin: too small, too dry, to keep living in, but suitable for leaving in one's wake.

(* complimentary)
August 9, 2026 at 3:59 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
stevekenson.com
Publishers, if you work with Lightning Source or are distributed through Ingram, take note that Ingram is offering an opt-out if you don't want your books sold to AI companies buying them to scan for AI training. ⬇️
AI Opt Out
www.ingramcontent.com
July 26, 2026 at 12:33 AM
randbrittain.bsky.social
I think the most surprising thing about giving up Coke Zero and all its siblings is that cutting out caffeine entirely doesn't seem to have affected me at all. I was thinking I would have to learn to like coffee or something.
July 25, 2026 at 6:44 AM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
understatesmen.bsky.social
I'm terrible at marketing my own books but it's posting here or dancing on tiktok and I can't dance to save myself
understatesmen.bsky.social Sascha Stronach🏳️‍⚧️, The Sunforge out now @understatesmen.bsky.social · May 11
yo you should read my books, if The Locked Tomb is a goth girl they're her punk friend who reeks of tobacco

www.simonandschuster.com/series/The-E...
The cover of The Dawnhounds, showing a fungal city, and a ship sailing into the dawn mist. "Intensely humane and beautiful ... Stronach makes the impossible look easy ... I loved it" -- Tamsyn Muir The cover of The Sunforge, showing three figures in silhouette, standing on a hillside above a burning city. "A feverish cosmic knot ... absolutely compelling" -- Seth Dickinson
July 22, 2026 at 12:03 AM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
opinionhaver.bsky.social
Lotta problems with modern information environment boils down to ‘true without being meaningful’ being both a common state of affairs for phenomena and something that inherently requires some kind of gatekeeping or context setting, both things social media is horrible at.
July 17, 2026 at 12:18 AM
randbrittain.bsky.social
So far the most actionable feedback I've gotten on my setting bible is that being a livestreaming martial arts knight sounds like a lot more fun than being a priest of cultivator Catholicism, which, okay, fair.
June 19, 2026 at 8:27 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
elongreen.bsky.social
if you're wondering about the benefits of solar, my last electricity bill was $28.
cnn.com CNN @cnn.com · Jun 13
Electricity bills are expected to jump an average of 10.5%, to $792, nationwide for June through September, according to the latest National Energy Assistance Directors Association projection. https://cnn.it/4eiWjAG
June 13, 2026 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
denali.bsky.social
I really enjoy EB White's take on New York and New Yorkers.
An excerpt from EB White's Here is New York There are roughly three New Yorks there is first the New York of the man or woman who was born here who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence is natural and inevitable second there is the New York of the commuter the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night third there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last the city of final destination the city that is a goal it is this third city that accounts for New York's high-strung disposition it's poetical deportment it's a dedication to the arts and it's incomparable achievements commuters give the city its title restlessness natives give it solidity and continuity but the settlers give it passion and whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors or a boy arriving from the corn belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart it makes no difference each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love each absorbs New York with fresh eyes of an adventurer each generates heat and light to dwarf the consolidated Edison company
June 8, 2026 at 7:37 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
flyingtrilobite.com
A Naturalist’s Study of Magic Beans
2011, ArtRage digital painting

#GlendonMellowArt 🐡🎨🧪
Digital watercolour of a bean plant in a sketchy style. Faint rainbow above. A pollinator gnome with yellow pointy hat flies in. Diagrams of bean pods and golden beans, glitter xylem in cross section.
June 4, 2026 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
johnrogers.bsky.social
We should never have let fame become a middle-class job, or even middle-class job adjacent. It’s the toxic run-off of actual accomplishment, and instead we made it the top of the food pyramid.
May 24, 2026 at 2:59 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
cait.bsky.social
sorry to add to the discourse but I think the "everyone should have stayed on twitter" mindset is at least partially based on the misapprehension that 1) arguing on the internet is praxis and 2) leftists are obligated to spend their time doing this
May 13, 2026 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
meshedlight.bsky.social
Just landed on this essay by @understatesmen.bsky.social

ooooph, been very much feeling the nature of circling/inability to be direct recently

and

shit there's a lot in this (quite heavy) & its well worth reading if you haven't yet
April 27, 2026 at 12:09 AM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
rincewind.run
there are going to be people who say, take a wait and see approach to how the Court will treat the next Dem president

and those people are wrong, we know exactly how they will treat that person and it is the polar opposite of how they treat Trump

strike at them immediately, first order of business
billkristolbulwark.bsky.social Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · Apr 22
“Expanding the Supreme Court is no different that redistricting in California and Virginia. It is a proportionate response to Republican attempts to degrade liberal democracy and move America toward a post-liberal order.”

open.substack.com/pub/thebulwa...
It Is Time for Ruthless Aggression
The national battle over gerrymandering should be just the first step. Next up: expanding SCOTUS.
open.substack.com
April 23, 2026 at 2:14 AM
randbrittain.bsky.social
Isekai is fundamentally a form of wish-fulfillment media, and when isekai is bad it's almost always bad because it reveals the essential poverty of the creator's dreams.
April 15, 2026 at 3:27 AM
Reposted by Rand Brittain
whstancil.bsky.social
We have to stop pretending the problem is anything else. The problem is Trump. The solution is getting rid of Trump. We cannot effectively prosecute a war or achieve peace while Trump is in place, because he will abandon one in favor of the other every 12 hours in pursuit of narcissistic supply
April 8, 2026 at 6:51 PM