#91: NSR, Elusive Shift & More

I. Dear Reader,

I don’t know if you’ve heard the term NSR or New School Revolution. Layla (aka Pandatheist) revisited the term after blogging about it three years ago, laying out the tastes of designers and players who use the term. Yochai Gal who started the discord community followed up with a post about how a thriving community has developed under that banner.

As an offshoot of the OSR, the NSR ditches the nostalgic trappings and focuses on being weird and modern while sticking to that problem solving style that so many people like. All in all, good stuff! Especially because a lot of those claims of being old or original are on really shaky foundation.

If you want to know what I mean, check out the Game Studies Study Buddies podcast take a look at their first TTRPG text, The Elusive Shift by John Peterson. They do a excellent job bringing out how when D&D first came out in the 1970s, nobody knew how to play it. And from that confusion emerged abundance. Every little pocket of gamers played it differently. Some even turned it into “a roleplaying game”. Through the murky world of spicy fanzine debates, there’s an exciting story here that highlights how much of the story of “how D&D used to be played” isn’t what we think it is.

Revising the past,

Thomas

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II. Listen of the Week

(I did technically link to a podcast episode already above but I guess I could do more!)

• The Roll Play Grow podcast celebrated 50 episodes by spending episodes 49 and 50 talking about how to start your own TTRPG interview and discussion podcast.

• The Not D&D podcast is a new from the ENWorld/ENPublishing team that interviews folks working on indie games. The latest episode is about the new edition of Misspent Youth.

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III. Links of the Week

• Members of United Paizo Workers, the employee union at Paizo, met the US President at the White House alongside other union representatives from the gaming industry and beyond. By fighting for recognition from Paizo, UPW looks to have a positive knock-on effect across the industry and boost unionization efforts elsewhere.

• At Gizmodo, a round-up of 27 cool, new superhero RPGs. And from the same author, Linda H Codega, how small grants are driving diversity in the tabletop scene.

• If you’re a Traveller buff, I stumbled across this lovely series on Classic Traveller as well as this one about Mongoose’s version.

• If you liked Thousand Year Old Vampire, Tales of the Gods from a Mexico-based Axostories uses the same engine and offers a similarly (maybe more?) epic story.

• There’s something about Voidheart Symphony in the air. A new series of posts started on the Gauntlet blog and the Split/Party newsletter. For those who are hearing about the game for the first time, it’s a game from Mina McJanda, the brains behind Legacy 2e and other UFO Press games. It’s a game about psychic revolutionaries fighting oppression in the real world and the dream world.

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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.

• “Ma Nishtana: Why is this Night Different?” is a Passover storytelling game currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. Breathe new life into the Exodus story and join a collaborative ritual experience.

This newsletter is currently sponsored by the all-new, fan-supported Fate-SRD.com. Built to be fast, attractive, and accessible, check out the site for rules, downloads, actual plays, and community.

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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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