You Are a Psychic Has-Been
GREETINGS, ADVENTURER!
Today’s Quest: Tap into the spirit realm and use the mystic arts to get your dang life together. We’ll attempt to predict the future in Table Talk, and then, if you so dare, go behind the Adventure Snack curtain. Tally ho!
First time here? Adventure Snack is a game series I email to subscribers. Play quests for free, twice a month, and turn your inbox into an adventure!
TODAY’S QUEST:
You’re a washed-up psychic with nothing to lose.
Well, except the last chance you’ll ever have for redemption, which just so happens to be the man sitting across from you here in the dingy back room of the Chili’s Bar & Grill outside Reno: Ronald Paddle, the very same critic who ruined your career 10 years ago.
You take a deep breath and think about what you have to do. Nail this cold reading of your old critic and your career is saved. Fail, and spend the rest of your mediocre days in a life of mediocrity, shuffling ledgers at your father’s accounting firm.
The future is fickle, the past is prologue, but right now? Here, in the dingy back room of the - CRAP. Well you better hurry up: Chili’s Bar & Grill outside Reno closes in 15 minutes.
👏 Today’s quest was created by , the hilarious comedian, actor, and writer of the newsletter . Both Are True is a series of vulnerable humor essays about marriage, career, and fatherhood. It's one of the top humor newsletters on Substack. I'm a subscriber and regular commenter, and I recommend you subscribe, too!
LET’S CHAT!
When your quest is complete, it’s time to debrief. Join your fellow adventurers at the virtual D&D table we call the comments section. And coming soon to theaters, Table Talk: Honor Among Commenters.
Discuss one (or all) of today’s topics in the comments:
🔮 Do you believe people can possess psychic abilities?
❤️🩹 Have you ever bounced back from a bad situation?
🏰 When you close your eyes, what does your “mind palace” look like?
🐗 Did you play last week’s Your Post-Apocalyptic To-Do List closed beta and had thoughts? You can still fill out the survey or leave a comment. Thank you to everyone who filled out the survey! Your notes were eye-opening and have helped me improve the game by leaps and bounds. (And fix the major bugs y’all found!)
✍️ Bonus Challenge (+50 Points): Use your psychic powers to predict something that will happen in the near future. For example, I predict John Grisham’s next novel will cause controversy when a Twitter thread proves it was written by ChatGPT.
🌟 Challenge Winners: Last month, adventurers
, , , , , , and Kate all earned +50 points for articulating their personal brands. There were so many good ones, but this was my personal favorite..."Trin appears to be an endlessly patient technology trainer through copious use of the mute button, and has perfected the art of looking engaged in virtual meetings while actually browsing board gaming forums."
Congratulations, Trin! You earned an additional +100 points and the Adventure Snack Thought Leader achievement!
WANT TO JOIN THE STORYTELLING TEAM?
One of the most interesting comments I received in this year’s player survey was an adventurer asking to be part of our “Storytelling Team.” Well, uh, there isn’t an Adventure Snack Storytelling Team. Not at the moment, at least. It’s just me, Geoffrey G., your friendly neighborhood gamemaster, and the occasional guest game like today’s. So now I’m curious…
Are YOU a writer, game designer, or creative goofball? Would YOU be interested in designing Adventure Snack games for over 1700 adventurers and counting? Let’s talk. Reply to this email with a link to a short writing sample or portfolio. I’m thinking of putting together a Council of Storywizards and perhaps YOU have the magic inside of… YOUUUUUU!
This was fun! And really cool to see Alex create some interactive fiction!
Do I believe people can possess psychic abilities? Yeah, I think so, but I'm also skeptical. My wife is a big fan of tarot, which is very different from a psychic reading. I was skeptical of tarot, but then she had a reading for her and a few friends for her birthday one year. I was impressed that the tarot reader seemed to be picking up on a lot of stuff about our friends. Then it was my turn and I tried to throw the reader off, but she saw right through that and right into some of the stuff that was really on my mind. Another time, we were at a hotel in Palm Springs and there was a tarot card reading class, so I learned a little about how tarot works, and I gotta say it's really interesting, but also it's a system for reading people that isn't all that different from a system that a detective or a reporter might use. Is it perfect? Nope. But it is a methodology, and like any methodology, those who practice it can become rather skilled with the toolset.
Have I ever bounced back from a bad situation? Hell yes! Story of my life. Actually, I think that's the story of most people's lives. If you're still kicking, you're probably more resilient than you think.
When you close your eyes, what does your “mind palace” look like? It's a lot of open space, there are a lot of snacks, and questions fly at me from all directions. There's also a bidet, for some reason.
I'm a die hard skeptic, who doesn't even remotely believe in psychic abilities. Age (and marriage to a believer...) has taught me to be more accepting when people do believe, but I only contain my skeptical face for those I love.
Bad situations and I are BFFs. I had this problem for a good 10 years where if I got too happy, I immediately needed to find a way to burn my whole life to the ground. Found a good therapist, fixed it, and now I spend all that anxiety on planning ahead for bad situations so I'm rarely in them.
I'm really jealous of people who have a "mind palace." I discovered recently that when people talk about picturing something in their head, they can actually SEE the picture with their mind's eye, not just know they're thinking about it. Looked it into it, and it's called aphantasia when you don't have a mental picture. I'm always curious about it, so if anyone reads this far: if you do artsy things, do you have a mental picture? I haven't met an artist yet with aphantasia, so I'm super curious to know how many of them there are in the world, and how it works for them.
Bonus challenge: My psychic abilities tell me that I will be unable to come up with a single witty answer for this question, until I wake up at 2am, with an absolutely genius answer, which will be forgotten by the time I get out of bed, and the loss of that answer will bug me for days.