I. Dear Reader,
I think of the old-school fantasy gaming scene or OSR as a mostly conservative design space – I don’t mean that politically, it’s as diverse as any scene as far as I can tell. I mean that design-wise, they often frame the past as a land of promise. Or at least, they did.
For a long time, there’s been an avant-garde side of the OSR. While some others pushed for professionalism and pragmatism, they pushed for just doing the weirdest thing possible. Often, the work that comes out of this side of the scene feels unusable. Honestly, usability feels irrelevant. But amidst all that dense lyrical prose, full of imagery and dripping with surrealism, there will still be the familiar awkward conventions – hit dice, character class, 1d4 damage. In Monsters &, Luke Gearing would write this savage couplet about atrocity and then the same page would say “armor as plate” or whatever and the whiplash felt absurd and amusing.
I was thinking about this because of a post about the Was It Likely? blog. Consider this trio of posts – gods of a stolen world, characters for a stolen world, some people in a stolen world by Was it Likely’s author, the bad doctor aka Ms Screwhead.
In gods, she writes:
ANGBORA
The Starving Emperor is associated with servants, oranges and starving children. the fruits and beasts of the world were placed there for his Hungry Majesty so that his servants can bring them to the palanquin where his frail body rests. All acts of farming and foraging are therefore sacred theft. it’s really hard to eat food without Angbora cursing you with Ash-Tongue and it’s really hard to stay alive once you’re cursed.
In characters, she writes about a class:
TRADER TWINS
To buy goods stolen from Angbora is to inherit the Ash-Tongued curse; all foods stolen from his Starving Majesty turn to ash in your mouth. Twins, however, as one being with two bodies, can safely conduct trade: one Twin (the Curse-twin) buys the goods, inheriting the curse, then sells the goods to their sibling (the Grace-twin), who can buy them from their other self without fear, breaking the chain of the curse and allowing the goods to be sold safely to the masses. The Grace-twin eats the food they buy from the Curse-twin; the Curse-twin sucks blood though the skin of the Grace-twin to sustain themselves.
Some time ago, in an interview, Ava Islam, designer of Errant, talked about “blowing up D&D from the inside”. I don’t know if this is that or even if that is a goal worth pursuing but regardless, I like it.
What is it?
Yours avant-gardeningly,
Thomas
The Rascal pledge drive is ongoing! Thanks to everyone who signed up from last week’s email.
- We’re doing a reddit AMA all-day on the 19th if you want to come over and ask us a question.
- We announced a 50% discount code for folks from the global south (like me) who can’t afford American rates.
- And, of course, we’re still taking pre-orders for this awesome zine of our best writing.
II. Media of the Week
- Rowan Rook & Decard published a nice discussion between Grant Howitt and designer, Mina McJanda about the new edition of Voidheart Symphony. The conversation explores, among other things, designing games around themes of rebellion and transformation.
- Over on Yes Indie’d, I speak to Levi Kornelsen, an RPG veteran from the days of the very first online game spaces. We discuss Praxic Compendium, a really astute breakdown of the components of games. Levi designed it as a toolbox to make games – you pick components and combine them to make something new. I really like it as a tool to understand the various parts of games.
- 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
Zine Month Roundups
Lots of crowdfunding campaigns for zine-sized games. The Rascal articles are free to access.
- On Rascal, I showcased some games from creators of colour.
- Rowan did the same for some projects by trans creators.
- Cozy Cauldron has a post about some cool games that caught their eye.
Articles
- Cannibal Halfling has a nice take on Grimwild as the indie alternative to D&D: “I think that’s why Grimwild is going to succeed; it’s not the next Dungeon World. It’s not an indie version of D&D, it’s a version of D&D that’s delivering on the playstyle and the tropes of D&D in a distilled and easy to grasp package. The really indie stuff in Grimwild, like player-facing dungeon design, is probably going to turn some people off.”
- The RPG Gazette has a good essay on the rules-lite 24xx games and embracing their playstyle: “My biggest takeaway from the experience of engaging with 2400 and its multitudinous hacks and sub-games is this: the more you simplify the ruleset, the clearer your – hmm, let’s call it GM gut, if you will – guides you to what you want to do.”
- Not RPGs but this post about the videogame, Metaphor ReFantazio, hits the nail on the head regarding fantasy racism: it’s a metaphor that messes up your story as much as it contributes.
- Jared Rascher takes a look at the mechanical design of Sword Opera, a new swashbuckling and romantic RPG. Rascher also announced sadly that he’s stopping reviewing games because of, generally, everything.
- Chris Longhurst wrote a short post about three periods of PbtA design in 2023 and it remains a good primer.
News
- Possum Creek Games have been sold to Steve Jackson Games. The PCG team are now full-time employees of the latter and PCG will act as an imprint. Here’s an interview with Jay Dragon and Meredith Placko, CEO of Steve Jackson Games, on Rascal (paywalled) but here’s a free article about it. One of the cool parts of this is that the very ambitious Seven Part Pact will be able to be realized as an RPG with major baordgame elements.
From the archive:
- If you buy a lot of big bundles on itch, your friend is Random Bundle Game, which is a site that lets you filter and search across the bundles. It has about 15 bundles indexed right now. (Issue 83, March 2022)
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.
- Explore an intimate relationship between two rivals on opposite sides of a multiversal time war. Against Time and Death, on Kickstarter Feb 11th to 25th.
- Homeward is a story-rich solo survival sim zine. Explore a mysterious post-apocalyptic world, craft tools for survival and meet curious allies. Launching on KS Feb 1st.
- Enter the cozy-steampunk world of McChanicle Corners. Play an animal, vegetable, or clockwork robot in this Heist zine where one player steals the right to narrate the ending.
- Fluff n’ Fury – A cyberpunk future where everyone lives forever…as a robot teddie bear. Plan heists, prison breaks, or just go and punch a billionaire. Kickstarting Feb 1-28!
This newsletter is sponsored by the the wonderful Bundle of Holding. There are two bundles on the site right now:
- Fantasy encounters for city and dungeon exploration games from Philip Reed.
- Steampunk RPG, Leagues of Adventure, from Triple Ace Games.
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!
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