#100: A Century!
I. Dear Reader
Big round number! It’s officially issue #100 of the newsletter and it’s a big milestone. This newsletter has been really fun to do and we’re inching towards it’s 2 year anniversary. Looking back I’ve managed to write a lot - even if it’s all little bits and pieces.
In terms of RPG design, I like my posts about movement in videogames being talking in TTRPGs (issue #92), about how we bump into some rules and stumble when some rules aren’t there (issue #86), about genre emulation (issue #59), about group size and how it affects the conversation (issue #28).
I did a survey of all the Forged in the Dark games (because a lot of them are in-development and hard to find.) You can find Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four here.
I did a series with some advice on how to setup satisfying alternate political structures into your games - mixed results I think but something I can go and back and fix up into a nicer version 2.0.
I did a series of guest posts about games from around the world - Finland, Australia, Italy, France, and Aotearoa /New Zealand.
And one I really like but is a bit silly: analysing Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood as if it was an actual RPG campaign.
I also wanted to just thank everyone who has ever shared the newsletter, everyone who’s recommended it on their own newsletters, everyone who has linked me to things that they think I’ll be interested in, everyone who has taken out ads and paid for the upkeep of the newsletter, and especially everyone who read it every week. This newsletter went from zero subscribers to around 1700 right now because of people supporting it publicly so thank you all very much, you rock!
I’m just excited to do more and see where the newsletter takes me.
Yours gratefully,
Thomas
II. Media of the Week
If you ever wanted a one hour long documentary about Mafia and Werewolf, here you go! Fun facts include that the inventor of Mafia is a single identifiable person and that the conversion to Werewolf can also be attributed to one person. Also for roleplaying nerds, it's interesting to note how Blood on the Clocktower (the game that is ostensibly being reviewed) basically creates a game master role for both added drama as well as safety. If you've played a social deduction game, you probably know how awful they can be and why thinking about safety might be necessary.
Plus 1 Forward has launched a new summer mini-series. While usually a show about PbtA games, they’ve done series on Belonging outside Belonging and Forged in the Dark games as well. This time, they’re looking at Firebrands games. If you’ve never played a Firebrands-style game, it’s a unique and interesting way of structuring play that like Belonging outside Belonging is something that might or might work for you. The first episode of this mini-series with Vincent and Meguey Baker about the game that started it all, Mobile Frame Zero: Firebrands, is probably a good place to start. And the second episode about Takuma Okada’s Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern can give you a sense of how the system can change.
III. Links of the Week
The Indie Bundle for Abortion Funds is another response by tabletop RPG designers to raise money for a cause on itch. Games include Apocalypse World 2e and the Burned Over hackbook, Wanderhome, i’m sorry did you say street magic, Escape From Dino Island, Neon Black, Cobwebs and more.
The Ennie Awards published their list of nominees. Anamnesis by Sam Leigh for which I did the layout was nominated for Best Electronic Book and I got a mention as co-author on SIN for Best Supplement.
Exalted Funeral are running their first convention and I believe they’re going with Gather as a platform, inspired undoubtedly by the success of Session Zero Con.
I haven’t had time to get into these games yet but WobbuPalooza has created this cool post on historical parlour games based around fantasy and imagination.
The hexculture blog has an interesting way of building lore into the stuff your players interact with (so you’re not just doing exposition) using the principles of a book called Situational Narrative Design by Brian Upton.
In the LA Review of Books, an essay about games and how they’re everywhere and why we play them: “There will never be agreement on how best to live life; life, as Nguyen tells us, is too complicated for that. “In a game, for once in my life, I know exactly what it is that I’m supposed to be doing,” he says. I feel this. There is never any shame in finding one’s purpose.”
If you’ve ever wanted to know how many copies B/X D&D sold in 1983, you
might like this. (The answer is more than 600,000 copies by the way)
The Deeper In The Game blog submits 5 games that they would use to teach game design and why. Great read! If other people have made lists like this, please send them my way.
A video about the math behind rolling two (and then more) dice and taking the highest.
Oldie but goldie: Vincent Baker talking about how he runs Apocalypse World in a con slot. It’s a real trick to run a game that shines over 10 sessions effectively in one.
This also pairs well with Stras Acimovic’s advice on showing off Blades in the Dark in just one session.
Luka Rejec of Ultraviolet Grasslands has another layout template for designers who use Affinity Publisher to just download and use. Even if you don’t use it, it’s useful to see how a real pro works.
IV. Small Ads
All links in the newsletter are completely based on my own interest. But to help support my work, this section contains sponsored links and advertisements. If you’d like your products to appear here, read the submission form.
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Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. I’m half-man, half-beast, half-journalist, half-game designer.
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Congratulations on hitting the big 💯!
Relatively new reader here - I love the range of topics you discuss!