• 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

  • Games of the Year 2024

    I. Dear Reader Today, I join the proud tradition of making up award categories as an excuse to talk about games (shoutout to the Ramanan Sivaranjan Awards for Excellence in Gaming). I don’t have a cool name for the awards yet but here they are anyway: Game That Made My Brain Ask “What The Hell…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Best of the Newsletter 2024

    I. Dear Reader, Here’s ten of my favourite bits of writing from the newsletter this year. Thanks as well for reading and coming along with me for a whole year of posts. If you’ve got 5 minutes, I would greatly appreciate you filling out the annual survey! Last year, it helped me understand who my…

    Thomas Manuel

  • RPG Reporting

    I. Dear Reader Over on Rascal, I wrote this big piece (around 3000 words) about the new wave of award-winning RPGs from Italy – games like Household, Fabula Ultima, and the Cowboy Bebop RPG. I pitched this article in my very first meeting on the 30th of September and have basically been reporting it since…

    Thomas Manuel

  • A Guy Made Of Bees

    I. Dear Reader, There’s a problem with my post from last week. And I think it has to do with the guy who has bees living inside of him from Heart. If you’re not aware of it already, let me quickly explain: Heart is a fantasy game where you crawl through a living dungeon and…

    Thomas Manuel

  • City of Last Chances

    I. Dear Reader I just finished the City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky recently and it’s really good. This is the first book by Tchaikovsky that I’ve read and I’m just going to assume that it’s his best one because otherwise what the hell have I been doing till now? Totally recommended if you…

    Thomas Manuel

  • How Rules & Settings Drive Play Differently

    I. Dear Reader, Games have engines. Like a car, something creates the kinetic energy that keeps the game moving. The GM switches on the car and then steers it, but ideally they aren’t just powering the whole thing, legs secretly pumping under the car, Flintstones-style.  Sometimes the engine is the rules. Sometimes it’s the setting.…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Teaching Games

    I. Dear Reader I’ve done two episodes in my teaching games series – Apocalypse Keys and Girl by Moonlight. Even as the audio quality isn’t where I want it to be (had to essentially replace my computer to solve that), I think they’re pretty good resources. And I’m still working towards getting them on Youtube…

    Thomas Manuel

  • So You Want To Be a Game Master

    I. Dear Reader, I was reading Justin Alexander’s book So You Want To Be a Game Master this week and something very obvious sneaked up on me. When someone says a book is for “new GMs”, they’re going to have to imagine some kind of person when they say that. When you say “new GMs”,…

    Thomas Manuel

  • Jarring Combat

    I. Dear Reader, The recent Quinns Quest reminded me of one of my least favourite traits of modern RPGs. It’s there in lots of games. It’s when a game which is predominantly very narrative, very loose suddenly tries to become more granular and tactical in combat. There’s nothing wrong with granular, tactical combat. It’s just…

    Thomas Manuel