I. Dear Reader,
Just the links this weeks as I get this one out a little late (again).
Next week, it’ll be the 5th anniversary of the newsletter and that’s something, right? I’m thinking about how to mark the occasion here but in the analog world, I’ll be eating cheesecake.
Hope you’re having an okay week folks and if not, hope the next one is better!
Yours shortly,
Thomas
II. Media of the Week
- On Around the Hearth podcast, there was a nice conversation with Lowell Francis about wuxia melodrama game, Hearts of Wulin, and how it might change for a new edition.
- On the Game Design Deep Dive podcast, scholar Mary Flanagan discussed her book Playing Oppression, which is about the legacy of empire and colonialism in board games. The book is actually open access, so you can just get it for free here.
- 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
News, Misc
- The ENNIE awards announced their winners. Triangle Agency picked up 3, including for Best Writing and Best Game. Mythic Bastionland picked up a couple. The Shrike by Leo Hunt and The Dream Shrine by Brad Kerr got the gold in the adventure categories.
- You can now get the (only) four issues of Interactive Fantasy, a classic RPG magazine from the 90s, for free.
- Wargamer writes about the Japanese TTRPG Sword World (Sworld, among friends) getting an official English adaptation.
Articles
- After playing Mythic Bastionland last week, I commented to Judd that there’s basically one line in the book about what Seers do and how to run them, despite them looming large in the world. So he basically wrote up a nice picklist of ideas for GMs, styled like an Apocalypse World move.
- The Was it Likely blog has a post about “the city of ships”, which is a fabulously weird encounter, setting, minigame, thing. You meet a strange man and he makes you a city out of odds and ends.
- The Philippine Gamer starts a new readalong series for Free League’s scifi sequel, Coriolis: the Great Dark.
Reviews
- Writing for Tabletop Bookshelf, Sharang Biswas writes an interesting critique of the dark academia solo game, Tangled Blessings: “What should feel like a dense net of mysterious occurrences that hint at things to come or set up exciting conflicts instead becomes a series of isolated, disconnected events that, while providing a few avenues for character growth, do little to sustain any sort of plot.”
- Grognardia’s retrospective journey comes to Vampire the Masquerade: “Much like Dungeons & Dragons itself, Vampire was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment that was simultaneously bold, flawed, and genre-defining”.
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.
- Gates of Krystalia is a tabletop role-playing game blending anime magic with a strategic card-based system. The Kickstarter Late Pledge Store is now open.
- Augury: A Bird Tarot is a 78-card, full color illustrated tarot deck featuring all things birds! A perfect companion for any tarot-based tabletop game! Follow the Kickstarter page for updates.
- Dragon Reactor is a mythopoetic mech tragedy game about war and what it means to have the power to change the world. Doom waits on the horizon. Crowdfunding now!
This newsletter is sponsored by the wonderful Bundle of Holding. Check out the latest bundles below:
- Apocalisse and Inferno, two 5e compatible settings from Acheron Games, inspired by the Book of Revelation and the Divine Comedy.
- Also, you can grab 20 issues of Shrapnel, the Battletech Magazine.
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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