#118: Sailing the Seas + Sandy Pug School
an interlude in our series
I. Dear Reader
I didn’t manage to finish Swords of the Serpentine yet so no WWTAWWTAC this week (sorry, I just love that acronym). But spoiler alert, I like the game! I have no real experience with Gumshoe as a system but I might actually run this game just because the setting seems fun.
Also, in personal news, I’m a stretch goal writer for O Captain, a solo game where you roll a lot of dice, arrange them into constellations, and then journal stories about being a sea captain seeing those constellations in that sky. It’s currently on Crowdfundr, a new Kickstarter-rival that seems to be actually accessible in countries like mine which is amazing to hear, yay! Check it out!
In objectively less personal news, it seems like twitter is in the middle of a spectacular tailspin. Everyone is talking and writing about it so I don’t know what else to add except to say that I’m more and more glad that I have this space to talk about games. My hope was that it would be a good source of indie RPG news for those who didn’t want to brave the tumultuous tides of twitter. And I think I’m as successful as a hobbyist can be at that. I wish I could talk about more games but my self-imposed limitation of “only games I’ve played” is the only thing that keeps this space personal.
Maybe this leads to new spaces for talking about games, maybe nothing changes, let’s see.
Have a good week!
Yours busily,
Thomas
II. Media of the Week
John Harper has a neat video where he discusses how the D&D rhythm of play (player does something, GM calls for a roll) needs to change for games like Blades in the Dark. It’s solid advice: instead of calling for the roll, describe the threat or danger posed.
dragonkid has a video on Nibiru, the high concept sci-fi game about recovering memories on a mysterious starship.
III. Links of the Week
Sandy Pug Games have launched a site to help making games easier. It’s called Sandy Pug School and it has articles on how to be a leader without being a boss and introduction to professional editing with a sample contract.
I’ve reached out to them and will be contributing some articles as well.
Noble Knight Games refuses to recognize its workers union, which means things might get ugly. If you’d like to support the workers, they have a way you can do that.
On reddit, I discovered that GM magazine in 1989 had a Discworld-focused issue. Just a neat part of gaming history for Pratchett fans.
Eero Tuovinen has released Muster, a free guide to playing D&D as a classical war game.
Hookseed Vol 1 is a album recorded by Will Hindmarch where each track is a NPC giving a quest for a fantasy adventure game. I don’t know if I’d use any of these but it’s a neat idea.
An interesting thought from the Fail Forward blog: “The Three Rules Rule: If there are more than 3 functionalities of the TTRPG that I want to change, I should seriously consider either playing a different TTRPG or just making something from scratch.” To be clear, this isn’t meant in a judgemental way, it’s just an interesting rule of thumb for folks who find themselves unsatisfied with a game and are struggling to diagnose why.
Monte Cook Games are hiring a Community and Marketing Manager.
The Affinity suite, especially Publisher, has become the go-to layout software in the indie RPG scene because of it’s one-time purchase (as opposed to Adobe’s subscription gouging). Well, Affinity launched it’s version 2 of the suite with a hefty 40% discount on launch.
Also, if you’re using version 1 and having problems with fonts, check this thread.
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.
ghostbox is itchfunding now! it's a solo epistolary/journalling game about watching an abandoned postbox disintegrate whilst writing the dead letters inside. join the jam and write your own prompts!
This newsletter is currently sponsored by the Bundle of Holding.
Four new bundles! For Traveller fans, you’ve got one with some Mongoose Traveller basics and one with the Great Rifts setting and Deepnight Revelation campaign.
Then, there’s a Mutants and Masterminds bundle. There’s one with the players handbook and one with the deluxe GM book.
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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Thanks for subscribing and take care out there!
Hi Thomas!
Marley from Inside The Table has talked about your newsletter and I am so excited to jump on!
Also if you want to talk more about Sword of the Serpentine from Pelegrine Press, feel free to hit me up! I got to play a character for it for a show and had a good time learning the system as a new player!
Cheers!
Kia Ora!
I love these newsletters, but I was a bit shocked to see a project by Will Hindmarch mentioned here...
Will has skipped out on 2 kickstarter projects and isn't exactly thought of kindly by the throngs he bilked.
Interestingly, even though he fails to ever allay any fears over on KS and has been silent on the 2014 project (yep, 8 years late), for some time, I see Hookseed has a contact button, so... might just go tap that and see if that goes anywhere.