I. Dear Reader,
The recent Quinns Quest reminded me of one of my least favourite traits of modern RPGs. It’s there in lots of games. It’s when a game which is predominantly very narrative, very loose suddenly tries to become more granular and tactical in combat. There’s nothing wrong with granular, tactical combat. It’s just that the granularity doesn’t fit with the rest of the game and it doesn’t make combat any better.
In Heart, Quinns brings up the weapon tags. There’s nothing wrong with weapon tags. It’s just weird in a game where the characters’ special abilities are so sweeping and expansive to suddenly go: oh yes, this crossbow needs to reload.
In Wildsea, which I’m playing currently, there’s a whole section about damage types. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with damage types but Wildsea has no specific combat mechanics, it’s just like every other part of the game. Except suddenly you need to know if your weapon does serrated or hewing or keen. Yes, they’re all separate kinds.
I’m sure you have some examples of this.
Again, the problem isn’t combat. The problem isn’t tactics and strategy. I like all of these things. I also get that because of the roots of the hobby in D&D, there’s some kind of common wisdom that players want combat to be more game-y than the rest of the game. I don’t know if this is actually true or not. It’s just that tactics and strategy don’t need to be restricted to combat. All the fiddly boardgames I play have found ways of making everything from petting dogs to arranging flowers into some kind of high stakes puzzle. Basically, whatever your game is about can be made tactical if you’d like it to be!
Yours combatingly,
Thomas
II. Media of the Week
- This weekend was Big Bad Con Online. There were lots of panels including mine.
- I’m still checking out the others but this one about anti-colonial design had a nice point: Rae Nedjadi talks about how anti-colonial stories aren’t common. And any narrative outside our bank of common stories needs to offer scaffolding if it wants to support lots of different kinds of players.
- I enjoyed this video from the MCDM design team where they wanted to use 2d6 for their tactical fantasy game and ended up with something that looks like a lot like PbtA moves for how weapons and abilities should work.
- Please consider joining 100+ 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
- Chase Carter at Rascal News dives into hilariously vitriolic 1-star Amazon reviews of D&D, Pathfinder and more. Some people are very angry.
- Rascal News also did a Q&A with the three employee-owners about their hopes and plans for making a sustainable TTRPG journalism site.
- Liber Ludorum writes up their experience at Breakout Con ’24.
- Indie Game Reading Club has an excellent review of Cowboy Bebop RPG: “In Cowboy Bebop, though, the only thing that matters is running down the Objective clock. And the only way to do that is to make rolls.”
- It is also interesting to contrast it with the Cannibal Halfling review from last year. This review is based on reading rather than playing and calls out how because the rules feel so unique, it’s hard to talk about anything except potential.
- On Age of Ravens, Lowell Francis puts up a very thoughtful overhaul / rewrite of seminal cyberpunk rpg, The Veil.
- On Wargamer, a review of the nazi-punching weird fantasy game, Eat the Reich.
- Not RPGs but: I really liked this post about a weird game that looks like an old windows PC and gives you random tasks to do so you can satisfy some nostalgia for work. It feels like satire because so much of game do feel like they’re just busywork and also, so much of work is extremely unsatisfying and pointless. But the writer enjoys playing it and ruminates about work after AI.
From the archive:
- From Explorers Design, how to layout your RPG using the grid. (Issue 23, January 2021)
- The author Clayton Notestine now has a newsletter with more useful information including a glossary of layout terms.
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 Great Book of Random Tables: Science Fiction – 138 system-agnostic science fiction d100 random tables, plus a star system generator.
- No Map, No Plan is a GMless game of a thief (or thieves) completely winging a heist with zero preparation or foreknowledge, based on Cat McDonald’s Carta system!
- Travel to a spore-covered paradise & ashen wastelands destroyed by a falling city in the next expansion to Cloud Empress, the Nausicaa-inspired Mothership 1E science fantasy setting. Follow on Kickstarter today!
This newsletter is currently sponsored by the Bundle of Holding.
- Grab Chronicles of Darkness from Onyx Path and various historical settings for the game in the Dark Eras sourcebook.
- The comic Knights of the Dinner Table returns with an all-new bundle as well as the entire back catalogue.
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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