I. Spotlight
A Knight at the Opera writes about how to talk about difficulty in RPGs. This is a great topic and Dwiz has a neat binary of challenging decisions versus challenging actions. “Chess is a game that only ever features decision-challenges. There is never a risk that you fail to execute a move you’ve decided on… By contrast, the sport of High Jump is pretty much only concerned with execution. Ever since the introduction of the Fosbury Flop, there aren’t really any decisions you have to make when playing the game.”
I think there’s a lot more to say here but I like where this post is at. People talk about tactical games having challenge and something like Archipelago (which doesn’t even have dice) having none. But when we say something like “improvising is hard”, we are talking about challenge. What is easier? Grid-based combat or coming up with an interesting character on the spot? Learning rules or making a fun story? Very quickly, we run out of useful things to say about that comparison. They’re different things. People tend to have their preference for which one counts as fun and which one doesn’t.
II. Media of the Week
- Adrian Hon, game designer and writer, gave a talk about his thoughts on “player agency”, and why that’s a misleading word. He argues that sovereignty is maybe a more accurate way of describing what people are actually talking about.
- Emily Friedman and Kieron Gillen talk about studying DIE in a classroom and the resulting discussion with students.
- Heart of the Deernicorn talk to Aaron Lim about his two latest games, What Should We Have Tomorrow and Ithaca in the Cards. And Aaron is as interesting and eloquent as ever on the subject of food, games, and more.
- 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
Essays
- The BBC writes about UK Games Expo: “The story of how an event, celebrating Britain’s thriving tabletop gaming community, went from hosting 900 people to expecting 50,000, involves two unlikely figures – a minister and a GP.”
- It Came From The Bookshelf reviews The 1000 Hells, a Kindred of the East sourcebook from White Wolf: “This book has a subsetting that I think could legitimately be spun-off from Asia of Darkness the same way Asia of Darkness should have been spun-off from the WoD. It’s called “The Wicked City” and it’s the best kind of Mad-libs-style rpg gibberish. Here’s the pitch:Cyberpunk. Demon. Ninja. Afterlife. They should have sent a fucking poet. Chief among the torments of hell is economic precarity. Literally.”
Research Papers
- The International Journal of Roleplaying published a new volume that has some interesting papers.
- Adrian Hermann writes about 19th century Filipino literature and how the themes and agendas seem to continue in recent RPGs from the Philippines.
- There’s papers about the origins of the word ‘roleplaying’ outside of games and the history of metaplots.
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.
- Epic adventures, uncharted planets, and whole heap of adventure 🚀 The smash hit ION Heart returns with a full blown multiplayer TTRPG ⏰ Last chance to grab yours here on Backerkit.
This newsletter is sponsored by the wonderful Bundle of Holding. Check out the latest bundles below:
- Get a bundle of Cairn-based games: Runecairn, We Deal In Lead, and supplements from By Odin’s Beard.
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.
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