• October Roundup

    I. Dear Reader, It’s a day late and just the links this week because I had another extremely busy weekend. On top of everything else, I’m househunting and that has ended up being more physically and emotionally taxing than I thought. I’ll catch you next week! Yours housingly, Thomas II. Media of the Week III.…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Almost About Challenge

    I. Dear Reader One of the big things I’ve been meaning to talk about for a very long time is seemingly large divide between people who want their games to be about overcoming challenge and people who don’t. This is tricky to talk about because it’s a conversation about, among other things, language and psychology.…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Expressionist Play

    I. Dear Reader, This week, there was a lot of buzz in indie RPG circles around jay dragon’s Expressionist Games Manifesto. You can see this as the culmination of jay dragon’s interest in RPG theory and experimental game design into this exploration about a specific type of game or approach to roleplay that she wants…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Why talking about RPGs can suck

    I. Dear Reader, Over on Bluesky, there was some conversation about one of the long-running cyclical conversation that happens in RPG spaces. This time, it was about the category of statement that goes something like “I hacked D&D to run Cyberpunk 2077, just as god intended” to quote the original poster. To put it another…

    Thomas Manuel