#163: Transparency

I. Dear Reader,

This week got away from me for a number of reasons so enjoy the links and I’ll catch you with more stuff next week. Take care!

Cheers,

Thomas

II. Media of the Week

• Dice Exploder features Jason Morningstar talking about a very abstract (but cool!) feature of RPGs: transparency and secrets. This really speaks to me because I’m a big fan of total transparency, which doesn’t mean that surprises don’t happen. It’s that they happen spontaneously – as choices made in the moment, rather than planned before hand. And they happen to everyone at the same time, more or less!

• Please consider joining 50+ other patrons and support the newsletter on patreon to help keep me going.

• 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.

III. Links of the Week

Articles

• A nice post on trying to roleplay technical or “hard scifi”.

• A nice interview with solo RPG designer and reviewer, Philippa Mort.

• A very zany but rocksolid post about why “depiglio is the perfect blueprint npc”

• Another post in the great RPG mechanics series. This one is getting a bit abstract with mechanics like Long Term Consequences, Slices, Lifepaths, Flashbacks and more.

Reviews

• On It Came From The Bookshelf, a great review wrestling with the big ideas in Eclipse Phase’s Transhuman supplement.

• Quick reviews of Beyond the Mountains of Madness (a Call of Cthulhu campaign), Cults of Glorantha, and Winds of Magic for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

• On The Rathole, a review of Pirate Borg from Free League.

Misc

• Editors are great! Here’s a nice page from tennpenjenn with a breakdown of all the different kind of editing that a RPG could benefit from.

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.

• The Ascended Court is a six session Monster of the Week campaign where hunters can make deals with demons, attend a Spiritualist ball, collect fun treasure, and uncover a conspiracy.

• HellWatch 5e: Infernal Oath is coming to Kickstarter this October. A brand new campaign and setting with a 320+ page hardcover book, hero and monster miniatures, striking battlemaps, and more! Sign up for the launch on the following link.

• Step into a bizarre, post-apocalyptic America and explore four regional settings inspired by American Gothic fiction and with contributions from local artists and authors. Follow the prelaunch page for Backwards: Regional American Gothic Horror on Kickstarter!

• Don’t Play This Game, a solo RPG of handcrafted horror. Inspired by found footage films and cursed messages. Sign up and try to survive the demo here.

This newsletter is currently sponsored by the Bundle of Holding.

• The Yellow King, a GUMSHOE game from Robin Laws, collected with a bunch of extra goodies, including the original story annotated by Kenneth Hite.

• A bundle of the Mistborn adventure game based on the Brandon Sanderson novels

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!