The Answer Is Always Both

I. Dear Reader

Thanks to everyone who replied after last week’s post! I received lots of positive feedback on both ideas, which is easily the best outcome I could’ve asked for. Lots of people were thinking about how much work it would be and that was also really kind. I really appreciate that.

The end result is that I’ll be doing a little bit of both. Over the course of the year, I’m going to be refreshing some of my older articles and discussing how I’ve improved them.

Also, I’ll be (slowly) working toward the larger history project. And the first step of that is thinking about the shape or structure of the whole thing. It’s a fun step because thinking is often more fun than actually working (which is why bosses hardly ever let you do it).

There are some things that are going to be obviously true about it because of who I am. For example, it’s going to be a journalistic work, rather than an academic one.

There are some things that I know I definitely don’t want to do. For example, I don’t want this project to be organized around games. It won’t be an essay about Bunnies & Burrows and then one about Champions. Partially, because this is how its always done. I’d like to move beyond that. I’m interested in patterns.

But there’s lots that I haven’t figured out. I was thinking about what kind of framework I’ll use. And then I realized that I’ve been puzzling over “what do we talk about when we talk about RPGs” for literally the last five years. I have multiple starting points. My post about the Axes of Game Design is already a kind of aesthetic framework for talking about games. Levi Kornelsen’s Praxic Compendium is a way of thinking about the elements of a game’s design. Johnstone Metzger’s Types of GM Materials is another way of thinking about the formal elements of a game from the point of view of play (rather than design).

Regardless of what kind of organizing principle I take, the challenge is really answering the question of “why”. What social, historical, cultural factors led to shaping the forms of games in this way? That’s the juice: talking to people smarter than me and figuring it out.

Gratefully,

Thomas

---

II. Media of the Week

• Nothing this week!

---

• 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.

---

III. Links of the Week

Articles

• On the Indie Game Reading Club, Paul Beakley has a great post about the pros and cons of games that are designed around pacing the fiction in an abstract way. I think of pacing as one of the hardest skills for GMs so I’m very partial to games that factor this into their design (so few do it well).
• I enjoyed this post about a list of the “top 50 RPGs of all time” that was published in 1996 in Arcane, a British magazine.
• On the Bastionland blog, a nice post about some lessons to take from the classic, Paranoia.

News, Others

• Wizards of the Coast shutter their Sigil VTT almost as soon as it launches. Apparently, they were surprised they didn’t immediately make a billion dollars.
• The nominees for the 2024 IGDN Groundbreakers are out and I’m happy to see Last Train to Bremen, Triangle Agency, Letters to Sandra and O Captain (which I contributed to) are all up for awards.

From the archive:

• Aaron Marks’ review of Robin Law’s under-discussed game, Hillfolk: “Hillfolk was supposed to be the first game using the ruleset Laws called ‘DramaSystem’, which provided mechanics to resolve dramatic conflicts between characters and favored such scenes over external challenges like what you would find in a dungeon or when facing a dragon.” (Issue 90, May 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.

• Song of the Scryptwyrm: A Librarian’s Apprentice Mystery is a solo game for fans of infinite libraries, fairy tales, oracle decks, and secret messages. Join the story on BackerKit now!
• Magonomia, the TTRPG of Renaissance Wizardry. Everyone plays a wizard wielding magic based on historical European grimoires and folklore. Buy on DriveThruRPG.com.
• Sin Eater is a solo journaling game loosely based on the historical practice of sin-eating. Do you eat to absolve or condemn? Published by Hunters Entertainment, follow the Kickstarter here.
• Desert is a free 58-page roleplaying game and toolkit for GMless campaigns in the near future. Create cities, run factions and navigate a point-based security economy.

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

• Grab the verdant fantasy RPG, Wildsea, including all the sourcebooks.
• Also, Shield Maidens, technofantasy Viking action from Mongoose 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!