• 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

  • Playing Metamorphosis Alpha (1976)

    I. Dear Reader This week, we officially kick off a year’s worth of intermittent posting about games from 1975 to 1985. We start off with Metamorphosis Alpha, a game by James Ward, published by TSR in 1976. The pitch of Metamorphosis Alpha is wild. You play people aboard a giant starship that on its journey…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Layering History like Elden Ring

    I. Dear Reader There’s a concept in fantasy worldbuilding called the ‘iceberg’. The idea is that the most skillful novels show you the tip of the iceberg and evoke the feeling of the rest. There probably isn’t a deep encyclopaedic history written down somewhere but through a skillful deployment of key details, you can create…

    Thomas Manuel

  • New Games From December 23 and January 24

    I. Dear Reader Another regularly scheduled roundup of games that have been released on itch.io that caught my eye over the last two months. Usual disclaimer that I haven’t really read or played these games; they just seem cool based on the pitch alone. Also, most of them now come to me by people using…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Narrative Combos!

    I. Dear Reader I’ve got a neat story and game mechanic for you. Everyone likes the idea of teamwork in games. It’s really satisfying to work together and pull off something cool. You know, “I line ’em up, you knock ’em down”. In sport or more tactical games, these often are explicit roles or moves…

    Thomas Manuel

  • #177: See ya, 2023!

    I. Dear Reader, Happy new year, folks! I hope 2024 treats you better than 2023. It’s end-of-the-year wrap-up time for everyone so that’s a recurring theme in this week’s links. Enjoy! Thanks for doing the survey and I will share one chart which was interesting which is that most of my readers are experienced players.…

    Thomas Manuel

  • #176: 2023 Retrospective

    I. Dear Reader Let’s take a look back at 2023! As far as my work goes: I sent out 51 newsletters, with 44 of them having some kind of original writing and 7 just being the links. This means I never missed a week! I also started the round-ups of new games on itch.io, which…

    Thomas Manuel

  • #175: Fantasy Cities Volume 1

    I. Dear Reader Around a year ago, I published a series looking at city settings from various fantasy games. I looked at 7 cities including Doskvol, Spire, Eversink, The City from a|state, Into the Cess and Citadel, Infinigrad, and Endon from Magical Industrial Revolution. I’ve now taken those 7 essays and expanded and improved them,…

    Thomas Manuel

  • #174: The Newsletter Needs You!

    I. Dear Reader Welcome to the 2023 newsletter pledge drive! I’m sad to announce that every year, I’m going to be annoying for exactly 4 (or maybe 5) weeks and explain to you why you should be actively supporting my work. The upside is that I will not be annoying for the rest of the…

    Thomas Manuel

  • #173: Itch Roundup for October and November

    I. Dear Reader, Another regularly scheduled roundup of games that have been released on itch.io that caught my eye over the last two months. Usual disclaimer that I haven’t really read or played these games; they just seem cool based on the pitch alone. Also, most of them now come to me by people using…

    Thomas Manuel