• How Rules & Settings Drive Play Differently

    I. Dear Reader, Games have engines. Like a car, something creates the kinetic energy that keeps the game moving. The GM switches on the car and then steers it, but ideally they aren’t just powering the whole thing, legs secretly pumping under the car, Flintstones-style.  Sometimes the engine is the rules. Sometimes it’s the setting.…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Just the links

    I. Dear Reader, Just the links this week! Yours quickly, Thomas II. Media of the Week III. Links of the Week From the archive: 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…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Teaching Games

    I. Dear Reader I’ve done two episodes in my teaching games series – Apocalypse Keys and Girl by Moonlight. Even as the audio quality isn’t where I want it to be (had to essentially replace my computer to solve that), I think they’re pretty good resources. And I’m still working towards getting them on Youtube…

    Thomas Manuel

  • So You Want To Be a Game Master

    I. Dear Reader, I was reading Justin Alexander’s book So You Want To Be a Game Master this week and something very obvious sneaked up on me. When someone says a book is for “new GMs”, they’re going to have to imagine some kind of person when they say that. When you say “new GMs”,…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Jarring Combat

    I. Dear Reader, The recent Quinns Quest reminded me of one of my least favourite traits of modern RPGs. It’s there in lots of games. It’s when a game which is predominantly very narrative, very loose suddenly tries to become more granular and tactical in combat. There’s nothing wrong with granular, tactical combat. It’s just…

    Thomas Manuel

  • New Itch Games from Feb and March 2024

    I. Dear Reader It’s been a pretty great month for new games. All of these games came from people letting me know through this form. Yours curatorially, Thomas II. Media of the Week III. Links of the Week Articles, Reviews News Misc From the archive: IV. Small Ads All links in the newsletter are completely…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Analyzing Data From Tumblr

    I. Dear Reader Another little tidbit for you via the good people at Have You Played This, a tumblr blog which runs polls where people can vote on whether they have played or read or at least heard of various tabletop RPGs. They publish their data publicly in a nice convenient google sheet so I…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Last Ditch Consequences

    I. Dear Reader, Feeling ill so this newsletter is coming out a little late – but I wanted to highlight a key piece of “GM-friendly design”. I call it “last ditch consequences” which isn’t super clear but is easier to say than “the consequence that the GM can always dish out, even when it’s late…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Playing with Politics

    I. Dear Reader, Mostly when someone talks about “politics in games”, they’re about to say the worst thing you’ve ever heard in your life. But it’s good to be reminded that there can also be posts on that subject that are only mildly annoying. This is one of them. Why do people put politics in…

    Thomas Manuel

  • GM Advice: Theatricality versus Transparency

    I. Dear Reader I find that broadly there are at least two kinds of GM advice – and they have a very different philosophy underpinning them. The first kind of advice aims at all costs to maintain verisimilitude. It’s a solution that you can implement without breaking the players’ immersion in their characters. This can…

    Thomas Manuel