Dreaming about next year

I. Dear Reader,

I’ve been thinking about next year – like many people, I’m just waiting for the pages of the calendar to turn, even though there’s no reason to assume that would help with anything.

As far as games are concerned, I have three ideas I would like to try. All of them with a contradictory, confounding impulse.

Blind date, one shot, variety hour: The idea is to have a weekly or fortnightly slot where I’ll run a game online – some game, any game – and whoever signs up gets to play. The idea is that you don’t know exactly what game it’s going to be and I can decide at the last minute, based on how I feel. The idea is many-fold: play with more people (yes!), play weirder games (yes! yes!), solve scheduling by creating this regular cadence (yes! yes! yes!), and so on. The contradiction is that I’m hoping this will be easier to do than whatever I’m doing now and it could actually end up being harder.

Run a big, pre-written campaign: I haven’t run a campaign module since I ran and enjoyed Red Hand of Doom back in 2018/19. I want to try that again but ideally something that has a good reputation but isn’t fantasy so I’m currently leaning towards Impossible Landscapes, a Delta Green campaign that has a very surreal and weird storyline about Lovecraftian staple, Yellow King and Carcosa. This campaign has won awards and received lots of praise – some people have called it the best campaign they ever played! The contradiction here is that when the adventure inevitably requires me to railroad people, I will abandon it and go back to making up my own stuff.

Play an epistolary game: There are two very fun games by Emily Jankowski called A Response to the Esteemed Dr Crackpot and My Thanks to the Esteemed Monster, Dracula which are basically excuses to write very sarcastic, passive aggressive letters and I love the idea. It’ll be great fun. The contradiction is that I already write so much – that I might end up being too tired to do anymore.

Yours dreamingly,

Thomas

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II. Media of the Week

• AA Voigt looks at Hadestown, the musical, and compares it to games about characters defying their narratives. And somehow we get there through the concept of the railroad.

• Lowell Francis, designer of Hearts of Wulin and Age of Ravens blog, has a nice seminar on being a good game master, aimed at folks who are starting out.
• Rascal News have started a fortnightly podcast discussing the fortnight-that-was – the news we covered and what we didn’t. On this one, we talk about the World of Game Design investigation, my piece on the Dark Eye, and some Magic the Gathering drama that I didn’t fully understand.

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• 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

Articles

• I really loved this fantastic essay on Rock Paper Shotgun on the fascism of Warhammer: “…a gradual mainstreaming that has transformed the Space Marine in particular from a crazed and distorted thug into a stoical, comradely and devout ‘necessary evil’ pitched against a galaxy of apocalyptic terrors.”
• Ben Robbins on why you should design the game you want to play: “Is game design hard? That depends. Is understanding other people and seeing the world through their eyes hard? Because that’s game design.”
• Ian Yusem goes into extreme detail on some specific travails and challenges of being a solo publisher dealing with the logistics of selling games.
• Mongoose have released their annual report card (early!) and it’s interesting to see them continue to move towards being worker-owned.
• On the Indie Game Reading Club, Paul Beakley takes a look at FiveEvil, a ground-up redesign of 5e for horror from Handiwork Games.

Interviews

• On the TEETH newsletter, an interview with Paul Canavan about his upcoming game of witches battling a vampiric church, With Pale Tides.
• Dave Thaumavore interviews Claudio Pustorino on his new coming-of-age dark fantasy game, Vileborn.
• This is a very thorough interview with Rob Heinsoo about 13th Age 2nd Edition.
• On Rascal, I interview designer and academic Malcolm Craig about his research into Gamma World, Twilight 2000 and other games that were influenced by the Cold War and nuclear anxiety.

From the archive:

• Ben Robbins (again) gives one quick tip for writing better gods: “Instead of saying they’re god of one thing, list at least three different things. And don’t just pick three related concepts. Spread out and pick things that seem like an odd mix: Fire, Swords, and Matrimony. The Sea, Cities, and Dreams. Theft, Pottery, and Roads.” (Issue 67, Nov 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.

• It’s the last week to back Downcrawl 2E, a new edition of the TTRPG toolkit for exploring a weird, wondrous underworld built live at your table. Includes new rules for Solo play!
• Fear & Loathing is a solo journaling game that immerses you in a distorted reality, exploring hidden fears and inner demons during eight hallucinatory days fueled by drugs and alcohol.
• Drintera is a fresh fantasy TTRPG world inspired by heroic mythology and world cultures. Follow our Kickstarter to support the freelance team and help us launch strong!
• Uncover the secrets of the Peloponnesos in The Isle of Pelops, the third supplement for the AEGEAN roleplaying game! This new book will provide setting guides for the prominent cities along with new options for GM and PC alike.

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

• A bundle of the Ragnarok-themed Vikingverse games from Schwalb Entertainment
• Also, a new bundle for the satirical spaghetti fantasy setting Brancalonia

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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!