#72: Goodbye, 2021!
I. Dear Reader,
This newsletter is a day late because I allowed myself the weekend off. It’s been a busy Christmas week - one of those “I’m going to need a vacation at the end of this vacation” times. But things are settling down now and I’m excited for January. I’ve got lots of plans which I’ll talk about some other time. This issue is a short one - some great links though, take a look!
But otherwise, I wish you all good health and a next year full of joy and play. See you next week!
On pause,
Thomas
II. Media of the Week
For Dragonmeet in the UK, the RPG Pipeline asked designers for trends in indie RPGs that excite them. The answers are great! (16 min video)
On the Roll Play Grow podcast, a really interesting interview with M Veselak, the designer of Wickedness, a three-player tarot-based game about witches.
III. Links of the Week
On Dicebreaker, how small press publishers are innovating and making the indie RPG space better
On the mindstorm blog, Ty Pitre has a great post about creating “anchors” for your worldbuilding during a session zero that become recurring motifs in your game. It’s a really neat idea because worldbuilding on the fly can be haard and calling back to themes and ideas is even harder!
Some really great advice and insight on political intrigue and faction building
GeekNative has published its annual best-selling lists based on data from DriveThru RPG. I’ll link to them all and call out some indie games that feature.
On the horror games list, it’s mostly Vampire the Masquerade and other World of Darkness supplements. The indie standout is The Between by Jason Cordova!
On the scifi list, Dune is the top-selling title but shout out to Hard Wired Island for showing up in the sea of licensed games.
On the fantasy list, apart from WOTC titles, Worlds Without Number by Kevin Crawford is number one.
On the family-friendly list, Wanderhome takes top spot with some other interesting games featuring as well.
And there’s more lists - modern RPGs, historical RPGs and a “miscellaneous” list.
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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