• A row of colorful masks

    Masks & Fear

    I. Spotlight The blog mynerdyhobby has a great post about the value of a worldbuilding rule like “everyone wears a mask“. Not only does it lead to a more evocative world but it could also make NPCs easier to remember. It’s written as an idea for Mythic Bastionland but works for any game where you…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Fiction-first, NPC-first

    I. Spotlight Wil of Aggregate Cognizance writes an analysis of Blades in the Dark that both criticizes misreadings of the game as well as the game itself (but his criticisms are better). In the article, there’s an explanation of “fiction first” that like all attempts to explain the concept doesn’t seem satisfying. Wil argues that…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Awards, Satisficing, Prep

    I. Spotlight II. Media of the Week III. Links of the Week Articles News IV. What am I playing? We only did Band of Blades last week — the other games feel through. One of the big parts of the fun of the game is the “microstories” that come out of the smaller characters in…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Groundbreakers, Knutepunkt, Daggerheart

    I. Spotlight The IGDN announced their list of nominees for the Groundbreakers, their awards. It’s a very cool list with lots of nominations going to The Time We Have, a two-player game of brothers losing each other during the zombie apocalypse. It picked up 5 nominations and if you want to learn more, I spoke…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Deep Thoughts

    I. Spotlight Lots of good stuff this week and I can’t pick so just check it all out and pick your own. As always, have a good week, folks. Hope it’s a good one. II. Media of the Week III. Links of the Week IV. What am I playing? Things are bad everywhere but I…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Difficulty and Challenge

    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…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Awards & Philosophy

    I. Spotlight The Awards 2026 is looking for judges. If you’re ready to read a bunch of games, regardless of your previous experience level, you should consider applying. It’s a hell of a way to be exposed to the weird and experimental side of the hobby. It’s a lot of reading but if you’ve got…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Breathlessness and Incoherence

    I. Spotlight This isn’t about RPGs but there’s been interesting conversations happening across the videogame sphere around Pokopia, the new Pokemon game. Grayson Morley talks about the tone of breathlessness that so often suffuses the reviews of games: “I’m sorry, but Pokopia isn’t a meditation on a post-human world and the ravages of climate change.…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Gears

    I. Spotlight WS Healed, co-designer of Most Trusted Advisors, writes a long essay about games and interpretation that takes a very academic route but still ends somewhere extremely practical: “Don’t try to make your text a meddling busybody in the process of the game’s negotiation, whether to micromanage or to roll over and show its…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Apocalypse Power

    I. Spotlight On Notes From The Labyrinth, a delightful review of the erotic and violent work in progress PbtA game Praise the Hawkmoth King: “Praise the Hawkmoth King is fun, it’s just also a warning about how easy it is to become complicit. How easy it is, once you’ve been given modicum of power, to…

    Thomas Manuel