I. Dear Reader, Over the last two weeks or so, I have been enjoying some of my favourite art of 2021 – the anime series, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. In 2020, I found most of my favourite art in books (How To Lose the Time War and A Stranger in Olondria, for example) so this…

I. Dear Reader, This week, I’m excited about worldbuilding games that result in artifacts that you can use in other RPGs. This is something that a lot of people associate with Microscope. It’s famous for being a game that you can use to build a world that you want to use for a longer-term or…

I. Dear Reader This week, I’m excited about the indie games bundle for Palestinian aid. It’s got a 1000+ games (about 300 ttrpgs) and they have already raised $150k of their $500k target. The bundle is a huge community effort with the co-operation of itch.io – like the bundle for Racial Justice last year. Please…

I. Dear Reader, So this week, I used the X Card for the first time. It wasn’t a bad moment so I’m mostly happy that it happened. Let me explain: We were playing For the Queen and one of the players, who was playing a cook, described how the Queen didn’t have a mouth and…

I. Dear Reader, This week I’m excited about figuring out something I specifically enjoy about games. I’m a big fan of the Manyfold Glossary – I think it was one of the first things I gushed about on this newsletter – but I’m not sure if this *specific* feeling is there. It’s the moment when…

I. Dear Reader, One of my favourite tidbits of RPG history is that Arneson or somebody else felt that DMs should sit behind a black curtain so when they spoke to their players, they seemed like an objective narrator. The high theatre of it is hilarious to me – the hope that pulling some Wizard…

I. Dear Reader, Last week was the first time in this newsletter’s lifetime that I missed sending out an issue. I was terribly sick and I’ll spare everyone the details but if you can afford to, consider donating to the COVID crisis going on in India right now. I’m recovering well now so we’ll be…

I. Dear Reader, This newsletter is absolutely packed with links to a whole bunch of amazing things so I’m going to skimp on the opening note here – on the excuse that you’ve got enough to entertain you below. I’ve had a bunch of nice conversations about last week’s edition. Really validates my feeling that…

I. Dear Reader, This week, I’ve been thinking a lot of rulebooks and the fact that they are, you know, books. I know a few people who really enjoy reading RPG books – but I’m not one of them. Especially if they’re 100s of pages long. I find that I can only really read them…

I. Dear Reader This week, I’m excited about understanding the ttrpg hobby better. One big part of this is the Retired Adventurer having a new article on the Six Cultures of Play. These are basically: Classic, Trad, LARP, Storygame, OSR, Neo-Trad. This is an article that I read two or three times even though it…