I. Dear Reader
I just finished the City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky recently and it’s really good. This is the first book by Tchaikovsky that I’ve read and I’m just going to assume that it’s his best one because otherwise what the hell have I been doing till now? Totally recommended if you like fantasy novels.
I want to talk about how cool the setting is but before that a brief aside: I’m just a little guy just asking questions but are fantasy novels actually just better setting books than a lot of setting books? The default way of writing settings for RPGs remains big chunks of text in a kind of encyclopaedia or almanac style. A fantasy novel is often a vessel for the same information… except, you know, much more fun to read. , I mean, Spire is probably the best written setting book in that style that I know but a Spire novel? I’d eat that up.
Yes, yes, you can’t reference a fantasy novel in the middle of a game but you can’t really reference most setting books either. The major exception to this is, of course, the OSR stuff which are often laser-focused on at-the-table utility. But lots of games still do the big chunks of text! Am I suggesting that they should instead do novels and a 2-page reference guide? Well, I’m not not-saying that.
Anyway, the cool ideas in City of Last Chances:
(There are no plot spoilers below but there are setting spoilers?)
- The book is set in a city called Ilmar which is referred to, among other names, as the City of Last Chances. The main reason for this is that in the middle of the city is a small wood which, on certain nights, becomes a portal to some other place. Nobody knows much about the other place except that if you can get there, it’s definitely better than here.
- I like this because, first, all the great cities in recent history have been destinations for those desperate to seek a better life. But this city, this city is for those who are the most desperate.
- Also, Ilmar feels ever so close to Lankhmar, hmm. Hmm. HMMMM.
- There’s a district in the city called the Reproach which has been ringed with magical wards because everyone inside is forever dancing, possessed by cursed music. This district contains the former palace of the family that ruled the city. People delve into the district, braving the cursed music, so they can steal stuff from the mansions in there.
- First of all, cool dungeon, dude.
- Secondly, this is part of a recurring theme in the book that the past doesn’t die. The old aristocracy live on in this cursed unlife, haunting the city in their endless merriment. Stuff like this makes the past of the city relevant to the stories set today, rather than static lore for nerds (lovingly).
- The city is currently occupied or colonized by an empire called the Palleseen. There is an active resistance that have all taken birds as a symbol. There are the noble families who wear the Raven, the crime syndicates who wear the Vulture, the murderous lunatics who wear the Shrike, the smugglers who wear the Heron, and so on.
- Symbols are just good. They boil down culture into a neat shorthand that does wonders for storytelling. Everyone should use more symbols.
- Also uneasy alliances, riven with class interests? Also very good.
- Lastly, there is the classic ‘industrial district’ where all the factories are. These factories use human labour but the machines are powered by trapped demons. That isn’t the cool part. The cool part (and by cool, I mean horrible) is that the demons are ‘bought’ from the demon kings, who are essentially kidnapping dissidents and other inconvenient citizens and selling them into slavery to the human nobles.
- There is a kind of mirroring here where the demon world becomes a real place with its own (tragically familiar) politics. And the fact that the human labourers don’t actively extend any solidarity to their inhuman colleagues trapped in servitude also has a direct parallel in our own historical labour movements, where there is almost always an excluded class.
There’s more cool stuff in this book and while I obviously love talking about fantasy cities, I really want to keep these posts short. Thanks to one of my readers, Dan, for recommending this to me first. If anybody else has a recommendation for a city from some SFF book, please let me know!
Stealing these ideas for my games,
Thomas
PS. For those following along from last week, I figured out how to rejig the math in Dallas to be simpler. I also figured out how to reskin the setting to be even more petty and more unhinged. Anyway, my hack is called Olympus.
II. Media of the Week
- On RTFM, Max is convinced that Monsterhearts 2 is a great game with some help form jay dragon and aaron king. It’s always good to be reminded how important this game is to a lot of queer folks. On that note, see this related blog post.
- On the Yes Indie’d Podcast, I sit down with Sidney Icarus for some hardcore RPG theory. After talking in the abstract for a bit, we analyse one of Sidney’s games using their theory and learn some cool stuff about how to think about game design. I’m very proud of this episode because we found a way to make it grounded and useful. If the idea of rpg theory doesn’t immediately make you gag (and fair enough!), you might enjoy it!
- As always, you can support the newsletter on patreon! If 30 more people join, we get Fantasy Cities Volume 2.
- 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. The next round-up will be delayed till the first week of June because of some travel plans.
III. Links of the Week
Game Design
- On his blog, Johnstone Metzger tries to categorize games based on the tools they give the person running the game ( i.e. a map, a setting, a linear plot, etc.) and it’s a really interesting thought process.
- On the Possum Creek Games blog, jay dragon talks about why games being cages are actually a good thing.
- Vincent Baker breaks down task resolution versus conflict resolution: “Think of a task in your life. In my life, I’m thinking of getting the trash out to the curb on a Sunday night. Think of a conflict in your life. I’m thinking of, I don’t want to get the trash out, I want my kids to do it. Conflict is, they don’t want to do it either.”
Articles
- Cannibal Halfling talks about how fanmade game After the Bomb remains the better option than the official Fallout RPG.
- Storybrewers has an interview with designer Melia Carraway, designer of coming-of-age Gilded Age game, Castles in the Air.
- Indie Game Reading Club talks about God’s Gonna Cut You Down, a solo game about “the inevitability of misery in the old west” that uses biblical passages as a part of gameplay.
News/Misc
- The game workers part of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) voted unanimously to allow tabletop and board game workers to join the union.
- One More Multiverse, the pixel art VTT, is shutting down.
- Rascal News reports on how flooding has been catastrophic for Brazil’s largest RPG publisher.
From the archive:
- Jason Morningstar writes about his process of throwing together little one shot games for his home group (and how you can do it too). (Issue 31, March 2021)
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.
- Pathwarden is a hack of Pathfinder 2e: made simpler and streamlined, and adding a dash of OSR mentality.
This newsletter is currently sponsored by the Bundle of Holding.
- Through the Breach, a weird west steampunk TTRPG based on the miniatures game, Malifaux.
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!
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