#83: TTRPGs for Ukraine
I. Dear Reader,
I know I talked about a bundle of games last week but close on the heels of that, another bundle was launched on itch.io - this time raising money for the conflict in Ukraine. This is more akin to the Bundle for Racial Equality in that it features lots of video games including Celeste, Baba Is You, and some gems from Kitfox games.
Luckily for us, RandomBundleGame has once again come to our rescue. It now features fully sorted, searchable lists for all four of the huuuge charitable bundles. You can just see the TTRPGs in the bundle for Ukraine with this filter. Someone has also put together a cool visualization of the overlap of games across the four bundles on the site.
Here are some idionsyncratic highlights as usual:
Reaching in the Dark is a slow, ethereal fantasy game about exporing a land and yourself. Revolution is by the same designer - Typhos Games - and is a tarot-based belonging outside belonging game set in the French revolution.
Acid Death Fantasy is a Troika! sourcebook (core rules also in the bundle) which has some truly stunning art and some fun tables to draw from.
Gift of the Sea is a lush adventure for Trophy - and it’s an award-winner technically as it was a runner up in the Trophy Dark incursion contest.
A Modern Prometheus is a 2-player duet game inspired by Frankenstein where one person plays the scientist and the other one is the creation. Who is the real monster, y’know?
Chinese Ghost Stories We Tell Ourselves is… well, a game about making up and surviving Chinese ghost stories.
Locus is another really interesting “personal horror” game - for games where the danger is real but it’s also deeply connected to the characters.
A trifecta of solo map-making / wordlbuilding games from Anna Blackwell - Umbra (sci-fi colony), Rise (an evil dungeon), Delve (dwarves mining too deep).
If you’re setting games underground, this Wayfarer’s Deck might be useful. It’s a set of cards with encounters and discoveries.
Orchidelirium is a game of orchid-hunting in the Victorian era.
Skrimish is a tactical war game that is explicitly “wallet friendly”.
the girlfriend of my girlfriend is my friend is a game about being trans and growing up with your friends - it was done is MS Paint and looks perfect.
There’s also a bunch of games by my friend Aaron Lim - Ithaca on the Cards and Far From Home. Ithaca on the Cards is a game inspired by the Odyssey but we told a story about Indonesian fishermen during WW2 with it once. Far From Home is a belonging outside belonging game about how colonialism can mess with your feeling of belonging to a place.
If you’ve not yet supported the bundle, you can take a look at it here!
2bundled4you,
Thomas
II. Listen of the Week
Another really lovely Party of One episode. In episode 319, Jeff Stormer and Cesar Capacle play I Guess This Is It, an intricate card-based storygame of two people saying goodbye. It’s very sentimental and beautiful.
III. Links of the Week
This is very cool news. Coyote & Crow, Wanderhome, Thirsty Sword Lesbians and Granma’s Hands are all RPGs nominated for a Nebula award for games writing. The Nebulas are one of the most presitigious SFF awards! Exciting stuff.
Granma’s Hands is a new game to me. It’s a kind of alternate take on the Golden Age of comics where there are a legion of Black superheros doing all the classic superhero stuff from that period - fighting Nazis and evil scientists - who were more or less written out of history.
Review of Swords of the Serpentine, a fantasy game based on the Gumshoe system.
Review of the Avatar Legends PDF that was recently made available to backers by Magpie Games
On the Githyanki Diaspora blog, a GM framework to help you with your session prep: Context, Cool Shit & Consequences.
I’m following along with a newsletter documenting the development of the Post-Human RPG which has an interesting diceless trait-based system that seems like good fun to play.
Monster Care Squad’s web version is freely accessible now - though this might be temporary.
IV. Small Ads
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The Exiles is an upcoming dark fantasy RPG. Join blight-touched outcasts as they crawl their way out of hell in this CRESCENT MOON ☾ pointcrawl expansion.
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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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