The Case Against System

I. Dear Reader,

No long post this week as my writing brain is all worded out. But lots of good links, please enjoy and have a nice week.

Getting out of the way,

Thomas

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II. Media of the Week

• This week on Yes Indie’d, I had a really nice chat with Huffa, a game designer and art historian, about why playing without systems – and even a concrete setting – is fun. Huffa talks about her new game, Between the Skies, where the intent is to prompt players to creatively imagine new worlds and to make as much space for that creativity as possible. This is the kind of conversation I love having – insightful and funny, while being completely opposite to how I normally think about games.

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• Thank you to Mark, Jantaxe and Troilus! If you can afford it, consider supporting the newsletter on patreon for 2$ a month!
• 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.

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III. Links of the Week

• On his newsletter, Jack E writes about learning to play scene-based games like Follow: “…my players are creatively brilliant, but they don’t have the scene-writing experience or professional skills… to do things like feel out when a scene has run on too long, or act boldly to declare that lots of time has passed between their scene and the last.”
• On asked questions, Hendrik ten Napel writes movingly about Tim Hutching’s game about a cave: “You draw in pencil. You have to, because you’ll erase as much as you’ll draw. This, to me, is one of the most important aspects of Old Morris Cave. It is what makes the game more than a simulated excavation. An excavation can only find what hasn’t been lost to time; Old Morris Cave allows you to experience the loss.”
• In 2002, Greg Costikyan wrote an influential article titled “I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games“. One for the theory-heads.
• Kieron Gillen, the writer behind DIE, has a nice post about good principles for playing RPGs: “Make choices that support the table’s creative goals: If you’re playing a storygame, don’t treat it like a tactical wargame. If you’re playing a tactical wargame, don’t treat it like a storygame. If it’s bleak horror, don’t make jokes… It also varies from moment to moment – if someone’s scene is sincere, don’t undercut it.”
• It Came From the Bookshelf angrily (but a fun angry) reviews the Dragonlance setting for D&D 3.0: “The funny thing is that I was already done with vanilla fantasy by the time I bought this particular book. Even in 2003, I was buying the Dragonlance Campaign setting purely out of nostalgia.”

News

• Rascal News had a successful pledge drive and are hopefully closer to long-term sustainability. Among other things, they wrote about the return of Geek & Sundry to the world of actual play.
• Marc Miller, the creator of Traveller, has sold the legal ownership of the game to UK-based Mongoose Publishing who have been publishing Traveller stuff for a long time now. I’m not sure if Mongoose becoming a worker co-op (as was announced last year) influenced this but I’m glad to see that the game will live on after Miller with his blessing.
• The Cosmere RPG becomes the biggest game kickstarter of all time raising 14.5 million dollars.
• Dungeon World is getting a second edition, designed by Luke Crane of Burning Wheel. My understanding is that Sage LaTorra has sold his stake in the game and has no plans to be involved but it’s not really clear about Adam Koebel yet.

Others

• There is a bundle on DriveThru raising funds for Meguey Baker, co-creator of Apocalypse World, who is fighting against cancer. Support her and pick up games like Night Witches, Under Hollow Hills, Alice is Missing and Delta Green: A Night At the Opera.

From the archive:

• Around 3 years ago, I did a multi-part survey of Forged in the Dark games. This was a really fun exercise. It’s not representative anymore because three years have passed but they’re still good lists: cyberpunk, fantasy, sci-fi, horror and others. (Issues 47-50, July-August 2021).

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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.

• Nothing this week!

This newsletter is sponsored by the the wonderful Bundle of Holding.

• Historia Arcanum, a historical setting and campaign compatible with D&D 5e

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