Jan Mini-Letter

I. Dear Reader,

No post this week but please enjoy the links!

As always,

Thomas

II. Media of the Week

Design Doc has a nice episode about what makes a good playtest where Hannah and Evan talk about some playtests they’ve had in the past and what separated the fun and the not-so-fun.

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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.

III. Links of the Week

Rascal News

(It’s been a great week on the site so apologies for sharing so many links!)

Chase Carter spoke to Austin Walker (Friends at the Table) about his new game, Realis in a two part interview. The first was all about the game’s inspirations and the second breaks down the game’s design.
The Rascal team played a cheeky game of Last Train to Bremen and shared their experiences in a roundtable format.
Lin Codega who lives in LA talks about the task of choosing what games they would take if they had to flee the fires.
Justin Joyce writes about an amazing 600+ session open-table Masks: A New Generation game called Young Heroes of Halcyon. Really lovely story.
I wrote a long piece about Lee Gold and Alarums & Excursions, one of the most influential RPG periodicals in history. It’s still going strong after 50 years! There’s a fun story of Gygax calling her up and saying, “You’re a woman!” in shock, along with a lot of other great details.
Another company that started the same year was Chaosium. So I got in touch with one of their current owners and talked about the company’s past and future.

Articles

In a great essay on his blog, Wesley Osam applies the concept of worldbuilding to a non-sff novel: “The Mezzanine is suffused with joy. Baker approaches milk packaging and escalators and shoelaces with—heck, I’ll just say it—a sense of wonder“.
Mad Jay Zero’s latest newsletter has a nice write-up about Paul Czege’s The Clay That Woke: “You’re always walking the line between control, society, and instinct. It’s alien, strange, and unforgettable.”
Lots of chatter on Bluesky about the Ennies decision to allow submissions that use GenAI. Even as the judges seem to be suggesting they wouldn’t allow them to be shortlisted.
Yochai Gal writes about bringing back forums as he revitalizes the RPG Cauldron.

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.

A colony for printing employee handbooks went dark 1,000 years ago, but the presses never stopped… Fear of a Daily Planet, a lost colony crawl for Mothership, crowdfunds Feb. 4th.
Sword Opera is like if William Shakespeare wrote the Godfather/Princess Bride mashup of his dreams, or if Pride & Prejudice were produced by the Shaw Brothers. Kickstarting January 22-February 12!
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.
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.

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

The latest bundle is Faster Than Light: Nomad, a science fiction tabletop RPG from Stellagama Publishing.

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!