So Many Podcasts

I. Spotlight

Asa Donald is doing some interviews around theatre and RPGs and he asked some questions of some guy (me) and Emily Allen, designer of Gardens of Ynn and so on. I more or less refused to answer any questions but Emily’s really good at it. Here’s an excerpt from her:
- “I don’t want a system that ‘gets out of the way’ so you can ‘just concentrate on the RP’, the system is the roleplay, the two are inextricably linked. The fact that your PC is a fictional character can be a plot point in its own right! If you play it right (and if my design is any good), The Yellow Curtain is a game that’s about the act of playing pretend, so those themes are always going to come up. At which point, you might as well use the medium itself to poke at them.”

II. Media of the Week

Lots of podcasting by me over the last month. Yes Indie’d came out of hiatus with two episodes. One with Caleb Zane Huett about Triangle Agency and then a follow-up with Satah about The House Edge, which combines the world of Triangle Agency and the mechanics of FIST to make a time-loop campaign.
There’s also more Rascal Reading Club with a couple episodes about the first Eberron book which starts a long discussion in the talkback about traditional setting guides.
Dice Exploder’s latest season had a couple of great episodes and honestly could link to them all — traits from Pendragon and rights in Apocalypse World: Dark Ages.
ENWorld released a video about their trip to CERN.

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III. Links of the Week

Articles

Thursday Garreau writes a piece about the delightful expansion to Blades ’68, The Blue Files.
Some news from the development of Vampire: the Masquerade‘s 6th edition including a return to the GM rolling for NPCs, which is an interesting if predictable sign of what that game’s audience cares about.
James Kerr writes a difficult piece about grief and game-making: “It’s interesting to me how wonderfully selfish of a medium this is, at least in how I treat it—how non-commercial I have chosen to be, and how indulgent of subject matter, but—on the other extreme, equally true—I notice I’ve always made things that were for others. Every one of my games has been a letter to others who were never going to read it, anyway.”

Rascal

Cameron Kunzelman writes passionately about his visit to a small-ish convention called the Under the Dice and how it revitalized him.
Khee Hoon Chan wrote about how the Grimwild Community Edition was put together and distributed freely.
I spoke to Sarah Doom about her game In The Pines, really fun scarefest inspired by The Descent, and I also spoke to Mark Diaz Truman about how how and why Magpie has changed from his point of view.

Misc

The Bloggies for 2027 are open for submissions.
The Awards announced their list of 20 winners for best weirdest games of last year.
GeekNative talks to Siobhan Thompson of Dimension20 about a n improvised murder mystery show, Denouement, that’s touring the UK.
Promptuary is an anthology of games to be published by Carnegie Mellon University that is open to submissions.

IV. What am I playing?

I’ve had a very busy few week so apologies for disappearing. On the play front, I’m back to three games a week as the Band of Blades table have restarted with Stonetop. We’re still warming up but expectations are high after all the stuff that has been put on the table. The level of the detail in the setting (at least in the hand outs) feels perfectly tuned for us. Very excited to see how this plays out.

The minimalist Daggerheart game has hit the point of being such a long campaign that every action by these characters feels so meaningful and interesting. There’s a huge weight of history built by behind them that we can just goof off and it feels like important things have happened. We still hardly use any mechanics. One of the best campaigns I’ve ever run.

V. 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.

Honest Dice Kickstarter! Beautiful, limited edition, hand-poured dice 🔥 Engineered to increase fairness with mathematically balanced numbering. Tested w/15,000 rolls. Already made, US delivery in time for Christmas!
RUINOUS is a dark romance RPG for two, played by candlelight. Circle the flame, give in to temptation, and discover what waits when it goes out. Now live on Kickstarter.
No rules engine, so Virtual Battle Mat runs whatever you play: OSR, 5e, Mothership, your homebrew. Browser tabletop, voice and video built in, no player accounts. vbm.games

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

Lots of ongoing offers including sci-fi horror Death in Space, Year Zero-powered Tales of the Old West, and solo dungeoncrawler Ker Nethalas.
Also, an offer on Two Little Mice’s game of little people surviving big politics, Household. One bundle with all their older material and a new one with all their latest work.

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.