Who Was The Guy Who Said Every Indie Game Is Named Either "empoisoned" Or "swumbles Big Jumble" . I Swear

The Un-tensity Scale: A comprehensive list of all Magic Un-cards grouped by levels of mechanical silliness

Introduction: why did I write this list?

I love un-cards, also known as “acorn cards” or “silver-bordered cards”.

Un-sets have some of the most fun card designs of all of Magic: the Gathering, and generate an experience which is impossible to replicate with normal, black-bordered Magic. They are experimental, creative and extremely funny.

Lately, with the introduction of sets like Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths, Modern Horizons and Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, Magic received very weird mechanics, such as Mutate, Venture into the Dungeon and d20 rolls, and singular cards that push some boundaries, like Urza’s Saga and Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar. This, along with Spice8rack’s video about silver bordered cards, made me think that many un-cards could be used in normal, casual matches of Magic without much problems. Host/Augment and Contraptions are just as weird as Mutate and Venture, and single designs like Sword of Dungeons & Dragons recently became much closer to black border.

Un-cards are fun, and are made to be played with. More people should play them, but I also think that those people have a right to play a normal match of Magic without having to dance the hokey-pokey, if they want to. What if there was a resource you can check to see the level of mechanical weirdness of the un-cards you want to try out? Maybe they’re all designs that nowadays would be acceptable within the realms of black border, so why shouldn’t you be able to play them? Most un-cards go through the same design and development cycle black-bordered cards do. They are balanced.

So, this list was born. It has several uses:

It tries to legitimize at least some un-cards in the eyes of the community, showing how those cards can help enhance, and not warp, black-border games;

It can be, as already discussed, a resource to help facilitate rule 0 conversations (or any pre-game discussions) involving un-cards, stating explicitly what kind of gameplay the chosen cards help promote;

It can be used as a tool for custom card designers to help them guide their thinking when designing un-cards (“do I want to make an experimental design which wants to be used alongside black-bordered cards, or do I want to make a silly card for fun and extravagant acorn matches?”).

With all of this in mind, let’s get to the Un-tensity Scale!

What is the Un-tensity Scale?

The Un-tensity Scale is a list of every un-card, categorized in five different levels which I dubbed “un-tensity” levels. Un-cards vary in mechanical silliness, going from cards that follow the rules of black-bordered Magic to cards that require you to imitate a chicken in order to activate them. So, this list places them in levels of how silly and rules-breaking they are. Here’s the five levels:

Un-tensity Level 1 — Basically Black Border: Should they put a black border on these, they’d work perfectly within the rules. You can play these and be sure that nothing weirder than black border happens in your games (most dice-rolling cards, for example). Host creatures from the Host/Augment mechanic are here too, because by themselves, they are simple creatures with enters-the-battlefield effects.

Un-tensity Level 2 — Almost There: To accomodate for these cards, either the Magic rules or the cards’ rules text would need some slight adjustments (Water Gun Balloon Game, Sword of Dungeons & Dragons), but other than that, they work just like normal black-border cards. This level of un-tensity includes Contraptions and Augment too; this is because both mechanics follow cleanly defined rules, designed and developed just like any other black-border mechanic. This is the level I suggest anyone, even the players who don’t like the sillyness of un-cards, to try. Level 3, 4 and 5 can be rule-breaking or straight-up super silly, but levels 1 and 2 will still feel like regular Magic, and you might have fun playing with them and even against them!

Un-tensity Level 3 — Experimental: These are not black border because of rules issues of varying levels (Infinity Elemental, fractions, Just Desserts, Extremely Slow Zombie), and make use of experimental mechanics that haven’t found a way through black border yet (Split Screen, Clocknapper, Giant Fan), but will mostly be fine gameplay-wise when played. These will spice up your games with out-there but fun mechanics, with the slight chance things will get wonky, rule-wise.

Un-tensity Level 4 — Printed-card-specific: These cards care about qualities black border can’t, such as art and watermarks; so, you’ll have to refer to the specific printing of the card you’re using, and not to the general card the rules use (for example, Commander 2018 Putrefy doesn’t have a watermark, but Dragon’s Maze Putrefy does; this is not relevant in black-border Magic, but it can be on this level of un-tensity.) These make the game much more quirky and less “serious”, gameplay-wise, because you’ll care about hats on creatures (Goblin Haberdasher), squirrels in arts (Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher), and length of text (Alexander Clamilton), but playing on this level of un-tensity will ensure that you won’t have to deal with stuff “outside” the cardboard, such as physical and vocal components.

Un-tensity Level 5 — Physical/Outside-the-game Requirements: In this level, anything goes. These are the cards that require physical or vocal elements (Knight of the Hokey Pokey, Magic Word), make use of outside assistance (Flavor Judge) or interact with other people (Gimme Five). These might warp the game completely, making it unpredictable, but possibly a ton of fun too!

Some thoughts!

Now, I will talk about some personal thoughts about some of the cards in it. I really like un-cards and this is a spectacular opportunity to talk about them! If you wish, you can skip this section, going directly to the actual list by clicking here.

Un-tensity Level 1: Basically Black Border

One of the greatest gifts Adventures in the Forgotten Realms gave to us is making dice rolling a black border mechanic. This means that many cards from Unglued and Unstable now work within the rules! I suggest you mix them with DnD dice rolling cards. Steel Squirrel, for example, might be very interesting in an environment with d20 rolls…

As for single cards:

Chicken à la King is probably one of the best Bird lords out there (Chickens have been errataed to be Birds), and doesn’t really need a big dice-rolling support in a tribal deck, so I suggest to try this out. It’s one of the many un-cards that might be worth it to test in a full black-border environment.

Incoming! works within the rules, but can be dangerous, because it’s game-ending in basically any deck running Impact Tremors and Purphoros, God of the Forge (and many other cards that I probably missed), so it might get real old real quick.

Still have no idea how Old Fogey works, hope you can figure it out.

Gleemax is another card that’s probably never gonna be played fairly (Kaboom!), but it technically works within the rules, so it’s included here.

Some cards like Jackknight reference mechanics from other levels of un-tensity, like Contraptions and Augment. They’re still eligible to become black border without rules text changes because of the precedent Steamflogger Boss set. Thank you Steamflogger Boss! I find it funny that, by themselves, most of these cards are even more playable than the Boss. 

Crow Storm is one of the very few un-cards that are silver-bordered because of power level issues. These issues however are specifically directed at tournament Magic, so I’m sure you can use this one in casual Constructed, such as Commander or Oathbreaker (or in Cube!)

As Luck Would Have It is an amazing alternate-wincon card that works within black-border rules; one of my favorite cards from this list!

Buzzing Whack-a-Doodle is another personal favorite, it’s really fun and I suggest to try it out! Secret choices have been black border for a while now (Menacing Ogre), so this card wouldn’t need any rules text change to become black border.

Krark’s Other Thumb is another amazing card for dice-rolling decks! It is a die-roll version of the black bordered Krark’s Thumb. It works within the rules and has been designed, developed and balanced like any other black border card, so feel free to play it, and to play against it! Cards from this level of un-tensity will not cause rules issues. A part of the community really wants to have a black border version of this card, and with this list, I hope I can convince people that they should be able to play the acorn version. It exists, and it’s been made to be played! 

Surgeon General Commander perfectly works within the rules, and it’s currently the only five-color commander that supports the Mutate mechanic (and the Host/Augment mechanic). It’s an amazing build-around commander that I suggest to try out!

Un-tensity Level 2: Almost There

This level of un-tensity has some of the coolest un-cards in the game. Seriously, give this level a try. Level 3 has some really rule-breaking cards, and 4 and 5 contain the cards that people commonly think of when thinking of un-cards (silly stuff like artist matters cards and having to wear glasses). Levels 1 and 2 however have amazing cards for black border matches. If you generally don’t like the kind of gameplay un-cards create, I think you’ll still like the gameplay of levels 1 and 2, and that you’ll have a lot of fun facing them too! Contraptions and Host/Augment follow precise rulings that you can look up and reference; and things like Do-It-Yourself Seraph combos sound very spicy. 

Jalum Grifter is one of the cards I’m not really sure I placed correctly in the list. I’m almost certain the rules text can’t be black border as-is, but the effect can easily be black border I think; we’ve seen a similar ability in Jeskai Infiltrator, where you have to shuffle a small amount of cards to make your opponent guess which one is which. So, I’ve put Jalum in level 2, even though it basically makes you play a minigame (which isn’t totally stranger to black border — Goblin Game is legal, after all).

Togglodyte is just a card with two states, “ON” and “OFF”. Some cards already have more than one possible state, like Class cards (Bard Class), which notably don’t make use of counters. While I don’t think Togglodyte’s text is technically black border, the rules will handle it with no problems.

Water Gun Balloon Game is another card that makes use of states (the pop! counters aren’t proper counters in the Magic sense of the word), so the only thing about this card that doesn’t really work in the rules is the color of the Giant Teddy Bear token, pink. I have a couple of suggestions for this. You can either use pink (and gold; Sword of Dungeons & Dragons) as though it was an “official” color, so, for example, Manalith and Bloom Tender can create pink mana, and Convergence cards can be scaled up with pink mana, or you can house rule the token to be colorless, which is probably the fairest approach that makes the card work within the rules. Either way, the rules issues of this card are easily solved, and in return you get a fun card that encourages everyone to cast spells!

Do-It-Yourself Seraph is not on level 1 out of a technicality, because “has the text box” is not black border templating. In black border games, the angel just takes the abilities of the exiled artifacts. It’s not relevant whatsoever that it gains all watermarks, flavor texts and reminder texts because those are not relevant to black border games. If you, however, play the Seraph on higher levels of un-tensity, it becomes synergistic with cards that care about those elements. Seraph is an excellent design that adapts to the environment it gets played into, and it’s one of my personal favorites among all un-cards. This one is an excellent build around that would be super fun to play in black border magic. Try it out!

Socketed Sprocketer is totally fair game when it comes to dice rolling in black bordered. It’s not in level 1 of un-tensity because “installing” is not black border wording. In black border it would probably need to use phrasings such as “roll a six-sided die, then note the result”. Wording worries aside, the card is fine to be played in black border games.

Super Duper Death Ray is a funnier version of Flame Spill from Ikoria. Wording is not black border legal, but since Flame Spill exists, Super Duper Death Ray is fair game!

Earl of Squirrel is silver border literally just because the squirrellink ability is not spelled out and it’s, well, keyworded as “squirrellink”. This card is an amazing lord for Squirrels and tokens and I strongly suggest you to play it!

Sword of Dungeons & Dragons is another one of my favorite un-cards, and one that’s also interesting because of how much it became close to black border in recent years. The card references an IP that’s outside of Magic, and until Adventures in the Forgotten Realms, that was not really a black border thing. It uses the d20, that again, a couple of years later became black border. The only thing that holds this back from being level 1 is the fact that the token is gold, which is the same situation of Water Gun Balloon Game’s pink Giant Teddy Bear, so I suggest the same solution: you either accept gold as an additional color, or you make the token colorless. However, thanks to the dnd sets, we now have official colors for gold dragons: Adult Gold Dragon is red/white, so the token could be red/white, and Ancient Gold Dragon is white, so the token could be white (“Ancient Gold Dragon” is also the statblock in the background of the token art). I’d personally go with red/white, because it keeps the token “gold”, which feels more in line with the spirit of the card.

Snow Mercy is here just because the activation cost is funny and probably not something you’d see on a black border card, but it works perfectly fine!

Un-tensity Level 3: Experimental

This is where things start to get weird, and a bit less rules-adjacent. I still think some are worth it to play in mostly black-border realms, even though sometimes you’ll have to deal with some rules issues. Honestly, some of these designs are safer than Panglacial Wurm, so I don’t think you’ll have much to worry about. But on with some card-specific thoughts!

Cards that reroll dice (Clam-I-Am, Goblin Bookie, Wall of Fortune) have yet to appear in black border, and they have some rules issues with timing (Goblin Bookie would need to be activated during ability resolutions for example, which is a thing black border Magic really doesn’t like), so they appear in this list. However, they are exceptionally intuitive, so you’ll rarely encounter problems by allowing them in your games.

Giant Fan and By Gnome Means don’t really work within the rules because both reference printed text, by they are intuitive enough that they shouldn’t create rules issues. Both are really fun counters-matter cards!

Fraction cards (Fraction Jackson, Sauté) are the first bunch of un-cards that I will recommend against. They mostly create logistical issues because they force players to track fractional numbers, and they aren’t that much fun to experiment with either. The only one fraction card that I run in my Cube is Just Desserts, because it has an home-run flavor and because functionally, most of the time, it’s just a spell that deals 3 damage to a creature. You won’t have to track fractions for the rest of the game, a problem that most of the other fraction cards have. So, yeah, I suggest caution with these ones.

Speaking of fractions, City of Ass was maybe balanced when mana burn was a thing, but now it’s kinda broken, especially when you have two on the battlefield. It’s overpowered and not really interesting, so I strongly recommend against this one. A bit of a half-assed design if you ask me, but maybe that was the point?

Richard Garfield, PhD is another card that I love, but can slow down games a little if you have to think about all the cards you can use (remember, you can use only cards legal in the format you’re playing while using Richard — no Ancestral Recalls in Commander!). It’s also one of the most powerful un-cards out there for how much versatile it can be, so, again, caution, but it might be worth it to play, because the stories this card is able to create are unmatched. Think about it!

Mox Lotus is another card that’s really, really dangerous to play, and is one of the few cards that to me feel more like jokes rather than actual cards designed to be played with.

Rules Lawyer is a fun way to mess with your Magic Judge friends, and most of the time will just keep you and your other creatures alive!

Animate Library will play fine most of the time, by being a really, really big creature. It can be an extremely funny alternate way to win in a Battle of Wits deck!

Clocknapper is another card that’s really cool and that will mostly work fine, and it might be the one closest to level 2 among the cards in this level.

More or Less messes with numbers and number words the same way Trait Doctoring messes with basic land and color words, and has lots of combo potential, especially if you get to replace a 1 with a 0…

Masterful Ninja is amazing and finding it in the art is super rewarding, trust me ;)

Infinity Elemental is generally easily playable, and very exciting! Giving it lifelink gets you infinite life, which stays infinite even if you’re dealt infinite damage! Converting the power of Infinity Elemental into other resources might get a little messy though: if you make Infinity Elemental fight your Broodhatch Nantuko, you will get infinite Insect tokens, which is amazing, except if you have Soul Warden, which will create infinite triggers which, if not responded to, will end the game in a draw. However, if you have Impact Tremors, those triggers will probably end the game in your favor!

The Grand Calcutron is one of those cards that will probably get a couple of groans around the table, since it forces to reveal and order all players’ hands, but it can also be a grouphug piece since it allows everyone to draw. It can be your Commander, so building around it may be a fun challenge! 

Mary O’Kill is one of my favorite designs, I love the Killbots and love the concept of “switching” creatures; Changelings count as Killbots, so there’s surely something to explore there. Universal Automaton is a perfect one-drop Killbot! It’s even an artifact creature!

Split Screen is great. The flavor matches the mechanics extremely well, and it’s great fun! I suggest you to play this, but with one tiny caveat: combo’ing with it and Thassa’s Oracle (or similar cards) gets old pretty fast. The combo consists in simply playing Split Screen and making one of the four “decks” a 0-cards pile, which then you can use to win the game with Thassa’s Oracle (source). Split the Screens responsibly!

Un-tensity Level 4: Printed-card specific

While un-themes like artist matters and watermark matters, which define level 4, are not my personal cup of tea, here are some of my favorite cards from this level:

Squirrel Farm is a really fun minigame card, that makes use of the ability of un-cards to care about art in a very interesting (and simple) way. The art is also very funny. Good stuff!

Duh and Old Guard are the two cards that care about reminder text and both are incredible pieces of comedy. The reminder text that explains what reminder text is is hilarious, Duh’s art is really funny (the creature is getting crushed by parenthesis) and Old Guard’s flavor text is amazing. I use both in my Cube and both are fantastic!

Alexander Clamilton is a very funny “wordiness-matters” card, considering it’s pretty wordy! I think it’s my favorite Unsanctioned legend, and a blast to build around in Commander!

Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher is really cool, letting you use all your favorite Squirrel-themed cards like Squirrel-Powered Scheme to build around it. 

Abstract Iguanart is probably my favorite artist-matters card, as it’s decently powerful, and a nice build-around that rewards you for running a lot of different artists. I love its flavor text too!

Underdome was created to make Unsanctioned decks work right out of the box, but it’s also an excellent fixing land for acorn cubes. 

Un-tensity Level 5: Physical or Outside-the-game Requirements

And here we are, on the silliest of levels. I recommend people to at least try sometimes to play with the full range of silliness the silver border provides. It’s a lot of fun, and makes for a different experience while still feeling like Magic. Some thoughts on single cards:

Some cards that require vocal components can function without it, like the Infernal Spawn of Evil line and Carnivorous Death-Parrot. However, I find them funnier when playing them as intended. If you still prefer black border Magic, I think no one will have a problem with facing an Infernal Spawn of Evil deck that doesn’t require you to say “It’s coming!”

Gotcha is a terrible mechanic. It makes the game super un-interactive (pun, obviously, un-intended), in the sense that people will be afraid to speak or move. And that doesn’t really sound like a good time. Gotcha is especially bad in volume, where there are multiple floating around the table, limiting your actions, and are especially especially bad when they are removal (Number Crunch, Touch and Go), which might snowball very very fast. The only Gotcha card I like is Laughing Hyena. Its flavor text makes me laugh more than I want to admit, and having the opponent try not to laugh is, if my Youtube recommendeds taught me anything, really funny. However, if your opponent laughs, all that will happen is you regrowing a bear, which is not game-breaking. Being a creature means that the gimmick won’t play out for the rest of the match (like with instants and sorceries with gotcha), because the Hyena will spend some time in hand and on the battlefield. As the only Gotcha card in my Cube, I used it with some degree of success, even though I still had to remove it for something better (let’s be real, Jade Avenger is funnier than any Gotcha card on the planet).

Miss Demeanor and Chivalrous Chevalier are cards I like because they present opportunities to compliment my friends, and I never miss such opportunities!

Cheatyface and Entirely Normal Armchair are amazing and super fun to play. Seeing your opponents grow more and more paranoid for the chair is especially hilarious. These cards really embody just how fun un-cards can be!

I wasn’t sure I liked Enter the Dungeon, but it took me to play it just once to become a fan. Playing under the table is the perfect way to convey entering a dungeon. I love it.

Gimme Five is an amazing card that is sure to make people laugh a lot. It doesn’t really work on Spelltable and similar environments, but otherwise, running around collecting high fives is a very fun experience. Especially in Cube, I recommend this one. Bonus points if the cube has life gain synergies!

Outside-assistance cards (Subcontract, Kindslaver, Flavor Judge, …) are really fun, and really good at involving every player (or person in general) in the fun! These are really good designs that, once again, embody really well what it means to play silver-bordered Magic.

Side Quest is so much fun, if a little on the weak side. In cube it’s a blast, because you’re more likely to see more other games. The mechanics match the flavor in a way that black-bordered Magic can’t do!

Slaying Mantis is probably the best “throw this card to get an effect” card in the whole game (in my opinion, even more than actual Chaos Orb), and while it’s hilariously difficult to use, it’s just a super fun card.

Handy Dandy Clone Machine is another card with a simple, great concept that results in a good time for everyone. There’s nothing like getting an army of friends to represent your army of hands!

Thank you very much for reading! I hope this list made you excited about trying un-cards, and that you’re looking forward Unfinity!

Enjoy, stay safe, and have a wonderful day! :D

LIST OF ALL UN-CARDS PLACED IN THE UN-TENSITY SCALE

Never posted anything worthwhile in Tumblr, but today is the day post this map of the SCP Multiverse I did a couple of months ago.

It burned me out pretty heavily, but it turned out as confusing as I expected.

awesome

I have come to the realization that I might be gay. A little bit. This is news and a struggle I have been working through since valentines day. It makes sense in the context of my struggles with relationships, but it also is another confusing thing in this transgender life. I can’t tell him how I feel. I don’t know who to tell this about that would understand. It is so freeing yet so complex at the same time.

Viktorija Amikiir (pre-campaign)

please know that i am **constantly** thinking about how Oko is trans coded and his actual for realsies backstory is that he sparked from the trauma of being forced into magical conversion therapy

Only the Beholder is a true pokémon; “Behold…behold!”

The Monster Manual exists in-universe as a handy PokeDex style device that updates itself with new information as you fight more monsters, including all sorts of fascinating (and possibly not true) trivia.

“Why are so many trans girls into werewolves and robots and slime and monsters?”

Because society views us as monsters. And when you’re viewed that way you have two options.

The first, you can break yourself. You can take a knife and carve off all the corners, take sandpaper and smooth all your rough edges, you can take everything remotely variant about you and you can try and obliterate it in order to make yourself acceptable to people who do not know you and never will.

The second option is that you can say “okay, if I’m a monster I’m going to enjoy being a monster. I’m going to take those rough edges and rough them up some more. I’m going to take all my sharp corners and make them knife edged. I’m going to embrace how weird and broken and fucked up I am and I’m going to make it a part of me. I’m going to love, fight, live, and die as a freak, but I’m going to do it on my terms and no one else’s”

I’m never going to be cis. I’m never going to be straight. In fact I’d rather die than be either of those. So I’m going to take what I am and make it my power instead of my shame.

If you don't block, you don't need to care! :D Make that math for your attackers!

Me, person who's been playing Magic for ten years, hearing about the new rule for attacking/blocking creatures: wait... you can block an attack with multiple creatures?????

Play Thirsty Sword Lesbians

So on bird app I talked about how many community copies of Thirsty Sword Lesbians there was and now 100s of people have claimed community copies of the game [Note Community Copies are free copies of PDFs which are on many itch.io TTRPGs and even community made TSL playbooks]. Since a ton more people now have access to my favorite game and one I've worked on for every edition so far as well as making a fan playbook, I wanted to talk about what is special about the system, what makes me love it so much, and why you might want to give it a try.

Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a simple game to understand but it refines even the most simple parts of it's design to make a better experience. In Thirsty Sword Lesbian's there is no failure or success. You roll d26 plus your modifier then you are either given a down beat, a mixed beat, or an upbeat. None of these mean you did what you intended. You can have a down beat where you knocked out the guard you had been trying to knock out but it turns out she was your girlfriends sister and without the context she just witnessed you assaulting her family. You may get an upbeat trying to do something and trip and fall and end up landing perfectly knocking away the sacred stone that the villain needs to turn the world into skeletons, with witnesses now thinking your amazing where in truth you have never quite been good at this.

Playbooks are designed with great intentionality to them each is designed with an emotional conflict at the heart. Where classes and playbooks can often be more like picking your powerset, in TSL your picking a struggle. It's not that other things might not be also bothering you but the conflict is something internally you are dealing with that's standing above the rest of the other conflicts you might have. This is an element that just feels very queer, we all have our problems, our traumas, and we work through them together. Each playbook also has a core mechanic that makes it stand out from the others, these have a narrative weight and a textual weight. These core mechanics typically take the form as some advantageous ability but are also deeply rooted in your conflict. They encourage you as a player to roleplay just by using the most basic aspect of your character.

I have to be real though, the thing that first made me fall head over heels with Thirsty Sword Lesbians was how funny and cool the adventures were. When I was reading the playtest version of the game, before I was brought on to write Yuisa Revolution and later The Matriarch, I was just playing a one shot and thought the name sounded fun. I read Best Day Of Their Life and just knew, this game was gonna be utterly my shit. At first I was just skimming like I do with most TTRPGs at first glance, but I read the first couple lines of the setting and I decided "fuck, I have to read all of this." I read the whole thing, made a character for my one shot and right after that session signed up to run multiple one shots of the game so others could get to play it because I loved it so much.

I don't normally like to play in premade settings but each of these are simple enough to really build on with enough going on that made it easier to run if you didn't want to get super creative and make a bunch of new shit. It really made me fall in love with setting writing in a way I just didn't before. I had gotten asked to work on Mutants and Master Minds before I TSL but I thought it was so boring working on the setting I quit and left money on the table. However, when April approached me to write a setting, I said yes, right away, no hesitation and now I work in TTRPG design. I had done TTRPG design work before but I wasn't locked in after quitting comics, it was how exciting the settings were that got me so inspired to create.

While many refer to Thirsty Sword Lesbians as a Powered By The Apocalypse game and by all means it is in a lot of senses, I think Powered By Lesbians is a very distinct flavor. It cuts out everything bad about PBTA and adds so much to the table. Chiefly among them is the smitten mechanic which is a mechanic I wish like every game had. It is one of the most clever pieces of game design ever convinced of. Being smitten has you do a moment of dramatic introspection, while I am one for more bright and cheery and less drama focused stuff, it's amazingly juicy hooks for a GM to get into. It not only allows you to put out your characters personal doubts about a potential relationship but it also says to the GM and everyone playing "I like this character, I want to see more of them, I want to explore where this goes." It's also in addition a way for players to tell each other "I want to be romantic with your character" and if they chose to get smitten back it's mechanically saying without even needing an out of game chat "Let's roleplay some romance."

Thirsty Sword Lesbians is really something special, I could gush on and on but already a lot given I worked on it and am currently working on it but I just wanted to talk about why the system is special to me. I hope I got you interested and I don't make any royalties on TSL sales [yet] so like I am not really biased here outside of the pages I worked on and that I made friends with a lot of folks who worked on it over my time working on it and after. Go clash swords and cross hearts.