• Love Letters

    I. Spotlight On Rascal, Khee Hoon writes about the first Jubenshacon organized in London. On a similar note, there’s a really cool piece here about how a jubensha-like scripted romance roleplaying game (?) has become popular among women in China. II. Media of the Week The penultimate subject of the first season of the Rascal…

    Thomas Manuel
  • A row of colorful masks

    Masks & Fear

    I. Spotlight The blog mynerdyhobby has a great post about the value of a worldbuilding rule like “everyone wears a mask“. Not only does it lead to a more evocative world but it could also make NPCs easier to remember. It’s written as an idea for Mythic Bastionland but works for any game where you…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Awards, Satisficing, Prep

    I. Spotlight The Awards 2026 is open for submissions. Read the instructions and please submit your game. The shortlist for Canada Roles, a new RPG awards, is out and if you’re in Canada, you can vote on it. II. Media of the Week Nothing this week! You too can support the newsletter on patreon! If…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Difficulty and Challenge

    I. Spotlight A Knight at the Opera writes about how to talk about difficulty in RPGs. This is a great topic and Dwiz has a neat binary of challenging decisions versus challenging actions. “Chess is a game that only ever features decision-challenges. There is never a risk that you fail to execute a move you’ve…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Awards & Philosophy

    I. Spotlight The Awards 2026 is looking for judges. If you’re ready to read a bunch of games, regardless of your previous experience level, you should consider applying. It’s a hell of a way to be exposed to the weird and experimental side of the hobby. It’s a lot of reading but if you’ve got…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Answering & Not Answering

    I. Spotlight Apologies for spotlighting myself but: over at Rascal News, I’ve launched a new podcast called the Rascal Reading Club. It’s a book club podcast in two parts. The first section is where I read a book (the first episode about the Wardens’ Operations Manual for Mothership) and the second part is where I…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Cold Starts & Campaigns

    I. Spotlight A couple of links that are interesting to put next to each other: While most sandbox theory comes from the OSR or older trad design, it’s nice to see someone approach from the position of “how to do this while making everything up one the spot more or less”. The answer is oracles…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Recaps & Refreshes

    I. Spotlight It’s a new year and so welcome to the new format for the newsletter! Like I said in my previous post, I’m taking the pressure of having a whole post every week ready to go and focusing on curation. The main change is this new section at the top, which I’m calling the…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Goodbye 2025!

    I. Dear Reader, We skipped last week (unplanned) and we’re going to skip next week (planned) so this is officially the last newsletter for 2025 and since it’s the end of the year, let’s talk about my plans for 2026. While I’ve been a journalist off and on since 2015, I’ve never actually done it…

    Thomas Manuel

  • 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 On…

    Thomas Manuel