#108: TV Fantasy Makes Me Want To Play RPGs

spoiler-free thoughts about why RPG settings are awesome

I. Dear Reader,

There’s a lot of negative chatter about the new Rings of Power show and I really don’t want to add my own voice to that but there is one small thing I want to point out. No spoilers, don’t worry.

Rings of Power and the Wheel of Time show were the last two “epic fantasy” shows that I’ve seen. Both have been basically fine in my opinion! But here’s the thing that jumps out at me (see image below):

Can you tell which screenshot is from which show? I promise it’s equally divided between the two. And also, I’m pretty sure one of these is supposed to be in a non-European geography as per source material. But again, I’m not trying to criticize the shows!

What I’m here to say is that one of the great things about RPGs is, unlike million dollar corporate shows, is that we can be as weird as we like. We can have villages that don’t have dirt farmers under oak trees looking at their cows. We can be gonzo and we can be surreal and we can be playful and idiosyncratic.

And it’s not just possible, it’s what TTRPGs are particularly good at. Whether you’re reading a big book with a fun setting locked and loaded, or making one up on the spot at the table, or flipping through a small adventure with quirky ideas you’d never have thought of, the appeal of interesting new worlds is something that is almost universal to the hobby. It’s definitely part of why I play. And I just wanted to celebrate that.

Yours from an unsettling setting,

Thomas

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II. Media of the Week

• AA Voigt looks at Anamnesis, the Ennie-nominated solo journaling game about rediscovering who you after an amnesiac incident. He compares it to Kingdom Hearts and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in a nice bit of Jacob Geller-esque critique.

• Dave Thaumavore reviews Wise Women, a PbtA game about witches looking after an Eastern European community while keeping their identity a secret.

• Youtube channel Mel Li takes a long look at dark Victorian solo RPG, Fallen, and it’s supplement Hillgraab.

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III. Links of the Week

News

• DriveThru RPG announces that any product that uses AI Art should be tagged as such or risk delisting. They also seem to be using the same tag for products that use software like Inkarnate and Dungeondraft which seems confusing.

• Kickstarter has a new Director of Games, Jon Ritter-Roderick, but the article doesn’t mention crypto.

• From Dicebreaker, Cortex has indefinitely paused development of He-Man RPG after Fandom completed their sale to Dire Wolf Digital. Though Tales of Xadia and Cortex still have to be bright futures ahead of them.

Articles

• Githyanki Diaspora has a worksheet if you like making your Trophy Gold incursions by hand.

• Lowell Francis writes about hacking Obligations out of The Veil becomes it doesn’t get used at his table and how he replaces it with Bonds, Strings and Debts.

• Not strictly RPG-related but Makapatag, designer of Karanduun and Gubat Banwa, had his serialized web novel Princess Murders The Hero reviewed in Strange Horizons and I just think that’s cool. Also, the reviewer Kyle Tam is also a designer!

Events

• The Golden Cobra larp-writing challenge is back.

• There’s a new Gauntlet Community Open Gaming, basically an online mini-con, happening this month and sign-ups open on the 6th.

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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.

• Nothing this week!

This newsletter is currently sponsored by the Bundle of Holding.

• Two bundles full of the zany Dungeon Crawl Classics: One is the essentials and the other is the all-new, DCC Chaos Rising bundle, has recent modules and
  sourcebooks.

• There’s also a bundle from Green Ronin of their game True20 which is a simplified version of the old d20 OGL.

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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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