Almost About Challenge

I. Dear Reader

One of the big things I’ve been meaning to talk about for a very long time is seemingly large divide between people who want their games to be about overcoming challenge and people who don’t. This is tricky to talk about because it’s a conversation about, among other things, language and psychology.

I wrote an entire post about it and then deleted the whole thing because it just didn’t do what I wanted it to do. This happens occasionally. There’s a lot of stuff about the idea of challenge: why some RPGs are considered challenging and others are not, generally how we think of difficulty, how some games want the feeling of challenge without the threat of losing, etc.

I’ll try again later with a whole different approach. But for now, this section stands as evidence of a failed attempt at grasping meaning. We’ll have to try again next week.

Yours challenged,

Thomas

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II. Media of the Week

• Nothing this week.

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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

• I really loved this critical post by Ben Robbins (Microscope) about a pattern of conversation that emerges from RPGs that he calls a “star pattern”: “When I say ‘star-pattern’, I mean when the players all talk to the GM but don’t talk to each other. Picture the table, and draw lines showing interactions: all the lines go from the GM, the center, out to the different players, like a starburst. There are few or no lines from player to player.”
• Shannon Applecline is releasing a new set of history books, Designers & Dragons: Origins. It’s a product history so it’s looking at every published title by TSR in sequence and putting them in context.
• Aaron Marks does a fun thing and “reviews” his 20-year gaming group.
• I really enjoyed (even as I disagreed in many points) with this post that breaks down how different RPGs handle queerness. It looks at three games: Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Dungeon Bitches, and Girl by Moonlight, which is a really interesting trifecta to lock your sights on.
• Wobbupalooza is a treasure trove of insight into the pre-D&D history of “storygames”. The latest page on the site is a history of Charades.
• This is a nice blog post on Sultan’s Musings about running Shadowdark for 2 players using the Willow setting.
  • If you’re into Shadowdark, 2d6stingbats is a blog that’s reviewing different adventures designed for the system.
• The new version of Monte Cook’s Cypher system hit the big one million dollar mark on Backerkit. I wouldn’t have seen that coming!

From the archive:

• Chris Bissette breaks down the numbers behind one project, a Mork Borg adventure called The Vermillion Throne. These kinds of posts are always useful so sharing them here again. (Issue 113. October 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.

• Absurdia is funding now on Backerkit! Subvert normalcy, embrace chaos, and get weird in this TTRPG inspired by Welcome to Night Vale, Alice in Wonderland, and Gravity Falls.

This newsletter is sponsored by the wonderful Bundle of Holding. Check out the latest bundles below:

• Grab Shadow of the Weird Wizard, Rob Schwalb’s dark fantasy game, bundled with multiple adventures and supplements.

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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. If you’d like to know more about my work, check out the coolest RPG website in the world Rascal News or listen to me talking to other people on the Yes Indie’d Podcast.