Incomplete Games

I. Dear Reader

So last week, I talked about the quest for complete games and mentioned that one of the reasons they’re so rare is because some people like them that way.

The other reason is that they’re really hard to do.

Complete games often feel like the realm of professional businesses (and of course, they often fail to reach the bar too) because of how much work is involved. When an individual creator makes a game, they have no idea if it’ll do well – they probably have no idea if anyone will even give it a second glance. In these situations, it’s absurd to do all that “extra” work to make complete games.

There are very few instances of designers releasing games and instantly receiving overwhelming positive feedback to continue. I can think of maybe a handful of people, like Kevin Crawford, who put out their first game and were told, “do more”. But almost no one can or does release something with the polish of Ironsworn or Lancer as a free PDF. In fact, the opposite is true, for a lot of landmark games, they needed to get a second edition before they became the polished gem that people cherish. Monsterhearts, for example. Maybe even Apocalypse World.

What happens if they never get that second edition?

This is worth saying because for indie design to flourish, we need a culture where people play incomplete games. Because often, that’s the best way to encourage and support their improvement. This isn’t a “responsibility” that falls on anyone in particular. But a culture that embraces the messiness of play is the one most likely to incubate great games.

To get complete games, we need to play the incomplete ones.

Yours incompletely, again,

Thomas

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II. Media of the Week

• For fans of spooky games or dungeon games where darkness plays a big role, there’s lots of poetry from Jacob Geller’s new video, Fear of Dark.

• On Yes Indie’d, I speak to the highly influential Meguey Baker about children’s books and what we can learn from them.

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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

Rascal

• Chase Carter writes about the charming, Electrum Archive: Its rugged world is host to at least three ancient civilizations, each living in the carcass of its predecessor and wearing their bones as crowns.”
• Also, for Rascal, Marsh Ana writes about Hasbro’s murky history with Irish workhouses called the Magdalene Laundries.

Articles

• The Planets and Monsters blog has an interesting post applying anarchist Murray Bookchin‘s essays on ecology to TTRPG design: “The line between the biological and non-biological components of play is not clear… The line where game texts end and where players’ creations begin is not clear cut. They are all part of the ecosystem of play. Not System Matters, but Ecosystem Matters.”
• tumblr user s-che writes about feminist horror game, Bluebeard’s Bride: “The point of the game was to hurt each other and to feel, and it was a better game for keeping that in mind. It was an actual horror game, and not just a game with horror aesthetics.”
• On the Dice Pool blog, Ronan McNamee writes about Disco Elysium inspired game, After the Mind, the World Again: “It worked surprisingly well, even though I’m not sure that’s how it’s supposed to work at all.”
• NYT has an obituary for Karen Wynn Fonstad, a fantasy cartographer who worked on Tolkien’s maps as well as D&D.
• The Alexandrian has a three part series (so far) reviewing short adventures for Mothership.
• Aaron Marks reviews Triangle Agency, highlighting among other things how interesting that you don’t know what’s going to happen as you “level up”.

Misc

• Sean McCoy has good advice for writing dungeons: make rooms in pairs.
• Mint of There’s A TTRPG For That has a bunch of excellent collections on itch.io categorized by system, genre and more.

From the archive:

• Alex Roberts (For the Queen) talks about her “sandwich theory of design” in a really fun and insightful talk for designers. (Issue 80, Feb 2022)

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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.

• Grimwild is a FREE game of cinematic fantasy adventure, taking the thematic tropes of D&D and mixing it with the gameplay of games like Blades in the Dark, Fate, and Burning Wheel.
• City Craft – A complete sourcebook for Dungeons & Dragons 5e — includes city encounters, NPCs, magic items, subclasses, adventures, and more! Sign Up to be notified for the Kickstarter launch.
• Want a game where every dice roll contributes to character growth? Check out the Kickstarter for Crucible of Aether, a skills-based TTRPG set in the mystic-industrial Empire of Odayos!
• The Wild Frontier of Venture – Lassos & Six Shooters on a weird, rugged world. In Venture, you can’t run from your problems – but they can’t run from you, either.

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

• Flabbergasted, Wodehouse-inspired game of 1920s misadventures.
• Collection of non-fiction books about D&D including Shannon Applecline’s Designers & Dragons series.
• Parts Per Million who makes solo supplements for non-solo games.

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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!