I. Dear Reader Sticking to our topic of teaching and learning games, I want to talk about Actual Plays. Like I said in issue 104, some Actual Plays do explicitly try to teach the game as they go. And I think they have a couple of main strengths. First, you’ve got a narrative running which…

I. Dear Reader, Hope you’re doing well! Before we get started, first, here are some follow-ups to last week’s post about teaching games: Dr Evan Torner talks about systemic reasons why GMs teaching games isn’t valued Deeper in the Game talks about some games that do a good job as teaching guides Takuma Okada talks…

I. Dear Reader, I think about how to teach games a lot. Not just because I’m always teaching every game I run. I’m also thinking about it as a philosophical and practical challenge to being in the game design / publishing business. Let me explain. Currently, the dominant idea in game design is that people…

the indie RPG newsletter wishes you a happy end of July! I. Dear Reader, A very long time ago (24 issues ago to be exact), I talked about my campaign of Legacy 2e: Life Among The Ruins and how it was a great game. But I also talked about how it was so big and…

I. Dear Reader, The IGDN has announced its nominees for the Indie Groundbreaker Awards. It’s a much more interesting and diverse list than the Ennies for me so I’ll repeat what I did last year. (The IGDN doesn’t have a hyperlinked list anywhere so this is like my service to the community. ) Here we…

I. Dear Reader, Just a quick update from me this week: I’ve been playtesting For The Other City, my hack of For The Queen that is about noir mysteries that stretch across two cities that are interdimensionally stacked on top of each other. Like For The Queen, you play the game by drawing cards and…

I. Dear Reader Big round number! It’s officially issue #100 of the newsletter and it’s a big milestone. This newsletter has been really fun to do and we’re inching towards it’s 2 year anniversary. Looking back I’ve managed to write a lot – even if it’s all little bits and pieces. In terms of RPG…

I. Dear Reader, I know some people get annoyed by the fact that a lot of RPG discussions are repititive but I don’t. This is for many reasons but let me just illustrate one of them today. So Jason Tocci, designer of 24xx and other games, has been posting previews of his new game, Alight,…

I. Dear Reader So let’s agree that there is this thing called “storygame play culture”. Oh, what is it? I’m not really sure. Retired Adventurer has a take on it but while it’s a very good essay, that section is not particularly useful. But I don’t really have a very good explanation either. So let…

I. Dear Reader, I had a playtest last week of a mystery game I’m working on and I came out of it… well, relieved. It’s a game based on For The Queen. Which, for those who missed me blabbing about it earlier, is a game entirely consisting of taking turns, drawing cards, and answering prompts…