#150: Gaming in 2023 (So Far)

I. Dear Reader,

It's Issue 150! The newsletter is almost three years old! Even a goal as humble as surviving for three years is only possible because of the support of dozens and dozens of people. I can't name you all but if the newsletter continues to exist, it's because of your help! Thank you!

So it's about halfway through the year and I wanted to talk about all the gaming I've done this year. I've learned a lot this year - about games, definitely, but mostly about how I like to play them. And the big learning for me is around prep. I don't particularly enjoy prepping for games as a GM. So I tried to run a bunch of different games this year without any prep and basically, these games were less fun than I hoped for. So basically I've realized I either do the prep... or I play games that are explicitly designed with support for no prep or low prep play. Right now, I'm leaning towards the latter.

Anyway, here's wonderwall:

Spire (7 sessions, player): This is a game about being a dark elf freedom fighter or terrorist, more or less That's a tough premise honestly. I think I wanted to play it straight - blood and tragedy. But it's probably best served with a huge dollop of irony or comedy. Like many, many people have said before, the setting is the star here and in future, I'd probably play it with something more forged in the dark. I converted the playbooks a long time ago but haven't done anything with them. I've scribbled some notes for the Great Spireblack Campaign but I haven't put anything concrete yet.

Swords of the Serpentine (3 sessions, GM): Conan the barbarian via GUMSHOE. It's sword and sorcery but you're investigating things as much as fighting or stealing. This is the first of the two games where I botched the ending because of a lack of prep. Bottomline, I think GUMSHOE is exactly the kind of system that doesn't work for me as a GM. It is built around the idea of a certain kind of prep (a breadcrumb trail of clues) and I don't think I enjoy leading players to a finale in that sense. In a one shot, I'm all for a tight breadcrumb trail but not really in a campaign. My primary enjoyment comes from players surprising me and I don't think this game is built for that. Loved the setting though! Eversink is a quirky, charming place.

Blades in the Dark (12 sessions, player): We played a crew of hawkers but we peddled highly illegal avant-garde dining experiences. It started out very light but we quickly became vengeful, violent freaks. Amazing, 10/10, no notes. It's crazy how cutthroat the hospitality industry can be! The system mastery of the table definitely helped but these sessions were a guaranteed good time.

The Veil (4 sessions, GM): A cyberpunk game with a focus on the em9tionx and internal lives of the characters. I really enjoyed emotions as stats. I loved asking my players how they felt every time they picked up the dice. But this was the second game where I botched the ending. Partially due to prep but partially due to misreading the text. I thought it was more like Apocalypse World where the players are often semi-antagonistic. But I think maybe it works best in a more standard "everyone is on the same side" kind of way. Would love for it to get a second edition with a better rulebook but will either way, probably return to it at some point.

DIE (5 sessions, GM): Goth jumanji. Slightly misleading but yeah, it's a game where you play people who get sucked into a game. I don't think I could make this game really work at my table. It relies on bleed to really shine (to some extent) and I'm not good at creating bleed. My table was also very culturally different. It would've been tough for anyone. Very jealous of those it worked for! If you haven't read the comic, you really should!

Bite Marks (6+ sessions, Player): A game of werewolves and pack dynamics. This is definitely in the vein of games where the players most complicated problems can be each other. Sure, there's a strange creature killing werewolves like us but thats an easy problem to solve. How am I going to keep this family together? How will I find someone to replace me as Alpha? Those are tough problems! I really enjoy that kind of play. I enjoy having the family as a character. I'm enjoying wrestling with being the leader of the pack, the Alpha. Ongoing.

World of Dungeons? (5+ sessions, GM/player): This is a bit of an odd game on this list. It's basically freeform pretending to be homebrew World of Dungeons. I take turns running it with a friend and it's the first RPG campaign for a couple of the players. When I run, I tend to run for 2 hours. It's dark fantasy, low stakes, and very satisfying. We're maybe one session away from the finale and I'm keen to find out if people want to play something else later.

Apocalypse World (3+ sessions, Player): The Blades in the Dark crew are now playing AW and it's similarly fun. Much more weird (fungal, jungle apocalypse) and PvP than Blades (characters has their own ulterior agenda, but players know everything though). I'm really enjoying it but still feel like it's just getting started. The engine hasn't kicked in yet and we have less system mastery than with Blades but I'm excited for when it kicks in.

This Ship Is No Mother (5 sessions, GM): So this is my own game of sci-fi horror that isn't out yet (except to patrons). I've run a couple oneshots and then a three session mini‐campaign. It's a game I love to run. Every playtest was a joy. I'm basically tweaking the text right now but it's basically ready for release. I'll talk about it more when it's out!

There were more one shots but this is long enough and I need to go to bed.

Yours playfully,

Thomas

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II. Media of the Week

• RPG Mainframe is a free-ranging podcast about RPGs and creativity from Hankerin Ferinale, the guy behind Index Card RPG and Runehammer Games. If you like his style of games, you might enjoy this. I just stumbled across it and am enjoying the episodes.

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• Get early access to my games like This Ship Is No Mother and support the newsletter at the same time!

• If you’ve released a new game on itch.io this month, let me know through this form so I can potentially include it in the end of the month round-up.

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III. Links of the Week

• On Dicebreaker, on why roleplaying is a great medium for playing and telling stories with romance.

• There’s a TTRPG for that blog comes up with some games that are like the Locked Tomb series.

• On Age of Ravens, a review of James D’Amato’s Ultimate RPG Guides.

• Becky Annison writes a design diary for Wreck this Deck, her solo game of summoning demons via cards.

• Goatsong’s series going into basic RPG mechanics continues with clocks.

• EnWorld is collecting rates for freelance artists and cartographers through an anonymous survey.

• Over on Gnomestew, all the various forms of the five room dungeon

• Exeunt Press has some D&D-esque ideas for boss fight mechanics.

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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.

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• Border Ridings is a collaborative history-building game, played by drawing evolving town maps on scraps of paper. Rules printed on a massive fold out map! Coming to Kickstarter July 1st through to July 21st.

This newsletter is currently sponsored by the Bundle of Holding.

• Megabundle of the classic fantasy game from Germany, Dark Eye.

• Get the first ten issues of the official Battletech magazine, Shrapnel

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Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. If you’d like to support this newsletter, share it with a friend or buy one of my games from my itch store. If you’d like to say something to me, you can reply to this email or click below!