Part-Time Rascal

I. Dear Reader,

This week, I officially joined the Rascal News team. I’ll be working with them part-time and writing about games for the site once a week or so. This newsletter has always been a personal space. It’s never been journalism (in the professional sense). At Rascal, I’ll be doing – well, I’m not sure yet – but it’ll look more like journalism. More reportage, more public interest topics, and … less typos?

Nothing really changes for the newsletter and the podcast. At least, for now. They keep running as they have been – I just have to find a way to balance everything. It’ll be fine.

I’m really excited to sink my teeth into journalism again. I haven’t really done it since 2020. It’s going to be fun. I’ll see you there.

Yours, biting ankles,

Thomas

PS. If you have ideas, tips, secrets, suggestions, questions, or air fryer recipes, reach out at thomas@rascal.news.

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II. Media of the Week

• Amabel Holland, a boardgame designer, has been making these long video essays about games and play and theory. This one, about why rules can be fun, goes to some interesting places including Campaign for North Africa and how it was never designed to be played.

• Emily Friedman teaches a course called Playing the 18th Century, where she puts TTRPGs and 18th century literature in dialogue with each other. You can follow along with the course with these youtube recaps and see how games like Bluebeard’s Bride fit in.

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• You too can support the newsletter on patreon!
• 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

• Emmy Allen writes about Violet Core, “a ttrpg about dykey mecha pilots in space”, which is designed by Sarah Carapace. The designers are friends and there’s a lot of joy and excitement in the post. Recommended!
• Levi Kornelsen writes about gatekeeping around roleplaying games: “ROLEPLAYING GAMES WERE CALLED THAT FOR A REASON, THOUGH! …And that reason was to make fun of the fucking nerds doing something that wasn’t wargaming, with their weird one-character games.”
• There’s a new glossy, D&D focused magazine out called Horizons.
• Over on Rascal, Rowan Zeoli writes eloquently about an actual play of fairy circus game, Under Hollow Hills as well as about what it means for giant Simon & Schuster to publish an RPG. (Paywalled)
• There’s A TTRPG For That draws up a list of recommended games that feature Bittersweet Futures.
• On Deeper in the Game, a short and simple guide to improvising NPCs in a game.

From the archive:

• Chris Bisette writes a moving essay about memory and playing Thousand Year Old Vampire: “My relationship with memory is a strange, intimate, frustrating one. One the one hand, my memory is excellent. On the other, it’s effectively non-functional.” (Issue 54, 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.

• Don’t miss out on a ticket to outer space 🚀 ION Heart is a lo-fi solo mech TTRPG where you’ll have stellar adventures with your giant mechanical companion 🪐 Late Pledge on Backerkit here.
• Time to strap on those tin foil hats 🕵️‍♂️ Create a secret agent and uncover the darkness in SHIVER Classified, a conspiracy TTRPG. Can you handle the truth? 🔎 Try the demo on Backerkit here.
• GOLD TEETH, a piratical instalment in the comedy-horror TEETH RPG series, is now live on Kickstarter!
• Confluence: The Living Archive is a genre-blending TTRPG of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror, built to tell collaborative character and place-driven stories. Launching on Backerkit, October 15!

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

• The latest Knights of the Dinner Table comics are bundled together as well as Hackmaster, the fantasy RPG that sprung from it.
• Slowquest, a set of light-hearted cartoony adventures for D&D 5e

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Hello, dear readers. This newsletter is written by me, Thomas Manuel. Here’s a link to my itch store. If you’d like to say something to me, you can reply to this email or click below!