Dozens and Dragons

slop is like a haunted house

also: “a walk in the woods” game

2026-09-11

CONTENTS

  1. PART I.
  2. PART II.
  3. SLOP IS LIKE A HAUNTED HOUSE
  4. WHY YOU GOTTA EVEN DO A THING
  5. ANYWAY HERE’S A GAME: A WALK IN THE WOODS

PART I.

A substack blog I was excited about.

It had good looking article titles, and is about a specific sub-interest of mine in the tabletop space. (solo journaling.)

I went so far as to go ahead and add it to my feed reader and download the articles, and started to browse the most interesting titles.

Turns out, it was all slop! So disappointing! I didn’t notice until I had read 1.5 articles. But then a certain turn of phrase caught my eye and it was like a record scratch. I went back and re-read the bits I had just read, and the stink of slop was suddenly so apparent I don’t know how I didn’t notice it earlier.

The author is clearly informed on this topic. And they have thoughts enough, and enough domain knowledge, to at the very least feed interesting prompts to the machine. But they lacked the time / confidence / whatever to actually develop those thoughts on their own.

Now I’ll hedge, and allow for some caveats. Maybe they are using genAI as assistive technology to overcome a disability of some sort. I’m sympathetic to that.

But in return I hope I have your, and the author’s, sympathies, too, if I still don’t want to read it.

PART II.

A smol “2d6 + Stat vs Target Number” game on itch that, on its own, is not particularly interesting, but which has a whole heck of a lot of very neat looking setting books, a la GURPS. (Similarly, GURPS is not very interesting to me, but its setting books are famously robust and comprehensive. And they are interesting to me.)

Turns out, these books were awful. Pure slop. Unedited. No attempt was made to proofread them at all. Pity, because one of them was a heckin cute looking sort of My Neighbor Totoro / X-Files mixture urban fantasy setting that really captured my fancy. And it had some nice enough looking tables to boot. I don’t even really want to read it though, both because it is slop, and also because I’m enamoured enough with the base idea that I just might steal it and make my own game with it. And I want to be able to do so without pre-polluting my brain with this prior …. art? Prior slop.

SLOP IS LIKE A HAUNTED HOUSE

“Haunted house” is one of my favorite story types. The premise of a haunted house story is one of being made to feel unwelcome in your own home, being made to feel like you are trespassing in what was once a safe space. Being alienated by what was once familiar. When the domesticated “inside” becomes the savage “outside.”

Tabletop games are a home and a safe space for me. Playing them, reading them, thinking about them, writing about them, making them. All the things. And more so than any other field or area, the encroachment of ai slop in this area is deeply irritating to me. It feels like an invasion. Like an encroachment upon my creative outlet. This house is now haunted.

WHY YOU GOTTA EVEN DO A THING

Games don’t have to be coherent or playable for me to enjoy them. A lot of games I love are utterly unhinged, or incoherent, or were obviously made not to be played, or are a commentary about something else, or otherwise prioritize self-expression over “playability.” There’s a whole genre of “lyric” games that are sometimes more of a sort of poem than a proper game. And that’s great!

And to the same degree that these unhinged games are weird, niche, and “unplayable,” they are also abundantly, ecstatically, unapologetically human. They exist because a human had a zany idea, or had a strange experience, or thought of something that made them laugh, and they decided to share it with others. They are deeply self-expressive.

I simply don’t get it. What does a person have to gain from churning out slop on itch and substack? Followers? Dollars? The possible tangible rewards from either is palty. You famously can’t make money from tabletop games. The most successful ttrpg in the world, nobody has known how best to monetize it since its creation; consequently it has traded hands over the years from TSR to Wizards to Hasbro. I mean, yeah, they’ve had a tv show and a movie, and they have brand tie-ins and stuff. So okay, maybe that one game is profitable. But you ain’t that game.

It’s like using AI to write a journal entry for you in your personal diary. Or using AI to write a poem, or to admire nature for you.

ANYWAY HERE’S A GAME: A WALK IN THE WOODS

SETUP

Pretend you’re going on a short hike.

Get your best / luckiest d4. If you don’t have a d4, grab a deck of cards: clubs = 1, diamonds = 2, hearts = 3, spades = 4. (Don’t memorize that; it’s alphabetical order.)

Maybe a pencil and paper if you want to jot down some thoughts and musings.

GOALS

Choose a goal. You can apply its effect permanently to one “signature” action of your choosing. e.g. you can decide that Get a move on is always forceful.

GEAR

Choose 1 gear

ACTIONS

When doing an action roll 1d4, and chose a number of options equal to the result. e.g. roll a 3 = choose 3 options; roll a 1 = choose 1 option.

HOW TO PLAY

  1. Chose a goal and a gear
  2. How about this as an itinerary? (Or make your own.)
    1. Get a move on
    2. Get a move on
    3. Stop and admire
    4. Get a move on
    5. Get a move on
    6. Arrive at your destination
    7. Get a move on
    8. Stop and admire
    9. Get a move on
    10. Time to head home

CREDITS

If you liked this, you’ll love oddfolk: https://maxwellander.itch.io/oddfolk (because it is totally ripped off oddfolk)