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Sales
The DriveThruRPG Christmas in July sale is still going for a few more days, with thousands of OSR books up to 25% off. Check out my top picks here.
Exalted Funeral has a 20%-40% off storewide sale for the next few days.
Hack and Slash publishing has hugely discounted the hardcover and softcover editions of On Downtime and Demesnes and Artifices, Deceptions, & Dilemmas.
The fascimile edition of Classic Traveller is currently free.
Reviews
Luke Gearing reviews the classic Traveller adventure Prison Planet.
Grognardia reviews the Elric-esque system The Black Sword Hack.
Dreams in the Lich House reviews LotFP’s funhouse adventure Just a Stupid Dungeon.
Dododecahedron reviews the highlights of a recent game jam for Cairn.
The Alexandrian reviews Ken Hite’s Vampire Conspiracy game Night’s Black Agents.
Kelsey from the Arcane Library reviews some indie games, including The Dark of Hot Springs Island, A Folklore Bestiary, Runehammer’s Sci-Punk Anthology, and JP Coovert's Flik Silverpen Guides.
JP Coovert looks at a bundle of games as well, including Orc Borg, Back Again from the Broken Land, and The Secret of Black Crag.
Dungeoncraft reviews Cursed Scroll, Delver, and Knock! magazine.
At Questing Beast I review the Ennie-nominated adventure The Barkeep on the Borderlands.
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News
The nominations for the Ennie Awards have been released, and voting has concluded. The winners will be announced at Gen Con.
Pariahs of Vaarn, a bestiary zine for Vaults of Vaarn (a sci-fi RPG based on Knave), is now available.
Mazirian’s Garden is launching a podcast that I’m very excited about, in which he interviews DMs who have run extended megadungeon campaigns about their experience and techniques. Interviewees will include James Maliszewski (Dwimmermount), Gus L. (HMS Apollyon), Josh McCrowell (His Majesty the Worm) and Luke Gearing (Gradient Descent)
Coins and Scrolls new bestiary The Monster Overhaul is now available.
The Thousand Thousand Islands project has been cancelled due to disagreements between its creators. Here is Zedeck Siew’s account and Mun Kao’s account. According to Mun Kao, Sean McCoy (of Mothership) has offered to mediate to help resolve the dispute.
The second edition of Cairn is in open playtesting. Here is the first update.
The One-Page RPG Jam has begun!
Dolmenwood is finally coming to Kickstarter on August 9th!
History
Rogue Miniatures examines the history of GW’s squat (space dwarves) line of minis.
Extra Credits surveys the whole history of D&D’s mismanagement.
In 1991, FASA made an adorably amateur promotional video for Shadowrun.
Grognardia looks at the way that the first Monster Manual portrays PCs as victims of the monsters, rather than as heroes.
Benign Brown Beast pointed me towards a massive PDF featuring “A timeline linking over 1000 tabletop role-playing games with over 800 game design innovations from 1974 to 2020.”
I’ve recently discovered the Jordan Sorcery channel, which is packed with excellent long form videos breaking down the history of different tabletop games. Check out this one on Fighting Fantasy.
Midwinter Minis demonstrates how to play Space Hulk, my favorite board game of all time.
Rules, Advice, and Theory
False Machine: 21 Questions for Empty Corridors
I Cast Light: JAQUAYSING THE LOOP: All that is Jaquaysed is looped, but not all loops are Jaquaysed
Mindstorm: Ransacking the Room
Inspect: the characters are careful, meticulous, and make sure nothing is out of place at the end of their search. This takes time and skill, though skill can be substituted for more time if necessary.
Search: the characters look through a location. Anyone intimately familiar with the location will recognize that things have been moved and someone has been here. This takes time.
Ransack: the characters rifle through things. They leave the area in shambles. This draws attention.
Prismatic Wasteland: Humpty Dumpty Should Die: Fixing Falling Damage
Knight at the Opera: How I Run the Table
Splitting the party can make the game more fun. It makes each group more vulnerable, which helps to emphasize the threat of the monsters and force the players to flee or think cleverly. It gives you a chance to see more of the scenario in action, since a split party covers more ground. Nobody likes seeing their prep go to waste. And it gives players more time to brainstorm their ideas and plans without halting the action. When one group needs a moment to think, just switch to the other group in the meantime. Nudge them to be productive even when they’re not “on screen” so that they have something good prepared for you when it’s their turn again.
Dieku Games: Seth Skorkowsky Talks RPG Philosophy
JDCSpot Run: Old RPG Gamers and The Streaming Youth
I began to run games in spaces where I would come across people who got into the hobby through streaming primarily. Here is what I discovered about them and their approaches.
Sire Poley: On the Four Table Legs of Traveller
Traveller, I’ve learned, is a table held up by four legs: Finances, Character Creation, Patrons, and Random Encounters. If you remove any of these legs, the rest of the game stops working. Following them, as described, gives you a rip-roaring swashbuckling adventure of fighting pirates, escaping bounty hunters, smuggling, jailbreaks, and all that good stuff you want in a campaign—but it happens spontaneously.
Trilemma Adventures: Avoiding Inapt Discussion in RPGs
MCDM: Tactical Heroic Cinematic Fantasy | Designing The Game
Worldbuilding
Eighth Eye: What happened to the dungeon?
Apotheosis of the Invisible City: Medieval Demographics Done RIGHT (Part 1) (Part 2)
Yunacel: A heraldic map of Europe
WIZARDS: The body dies, the head lives! The head pops off and floats around. Now can cast one spell known in life out of each eye. May grow more eyes & cast more spells- behold.
CLERICS: Faith inverted! The corpse rises, talks backward, and is now an anti-cleric; will lair in the nearest grave, crypt, mausoleum ect. and raise the dead from anything the PC recently killed.
Whose Measure God Could Not Take: Thief Hirelings
Bulker- pickpocket's accomplice who pushes someone against walls
File- pickpocket who works with a thug and someone who runs off with the goods
Fire Prigger- thief who loots burning buildings under the pretense of saving the goods
Jacob Geller examines games don’t fake their environments.
That’s it for this month, see you in the next one! This newsletter makes use of affiliate links, which help support Questing Beast at no cost to you.