The Glatisant: Issue #73
The Tabletop Gaming newsletter from Questing Beast
Sales
DriveThruRPG has 25% off on all classic Ravenloft modules.
Troika! is 72% off.
The Old-School Essentials core books are 25% off.
Hubris: A World of Visceral Adventure is 50% off.
Many of Free League’s physical books are 20% off, like Dragonbane, Cy_Borg, and Tales from the Loop.
This Month at Questing Beast
At Questing Beast, I made a video walking through my experience running Matt Colville’s tactical RPG, Draw Steel.
I also made reviews of Pirate Borg (my favorite Pirate RPG), Settlers of a Dead God (a weird, body horror setting for OSE) and Dark Age: Feudal Lords (the most beautiful card game ever made).
And Now a Word From Our Sponsors…
At Mythic Roll: The Return, you’ll rediscover our iconic, support-free 3D printable dice towers. Built to make the table fall silent before every roll, these towers are already backed by hundreds of tabletop gamers. With just 3 days left, this is the final chance to back.
A lethal, player-facing system where the GM never rolls. Mythic Battles RPG thrusts you into the mythological grimdark of a Greek post-apocalypse and the Norse Fimbulwinter. Manage your vital resources to survive. The books are 100% finished and ready to print! Back the campaign before it closes!
Have an upcoming Kickstarter or an RPG project you want to promote? Advertise in The Glatisant (24k subscribers) using this form or on the Questing Beast channel (120k subscribers) using this one. If you want to send me books for review consideration on Questing Beast, mail them to Ben Milton, 6446 E Central Ave #127, Wichita, KS, USA 67206.
Reviews
Four new RPG adventures received “The Best” on Ten Foot Pole: Against the Horselord, Eldritch Borderlands, Into the Many-Towered Twilight, and Orestruck. From the review for Into the Many-Towered Twilight:
I’m a big fan of this. It’s relatively rare to see something with both this breadth and depth to it. You can come back to places for more. The factions add even more. There are shades of here of classic adventures, and the exploration element is front and center while still containing those moments of terror from the monsters … and people . . . Thisis 100% going in to my Dungeonland game tomorrow.
Prismatic Wasteland: Rating Every Room in White Plume Mountain
Save Vs. Total Party Kill reviews His Majesty the Worm.
Playful Void reviews my mansion crawl adventure The Waking of Willowby Hall.
. . . it is a hell of a lot of fun, and easy as pie to run, even if it doesn’t nail every inch of its landing. I’d definitely recommend it as a one shot, even if it’s hard to recommend as a campaign drop-in unless your campaign has a very, very specific flavour.
Sam Sorensen has a very in-depth review of Crooked Moon, the most successful third-party 5e campaign of all time.
Now that I’ve finished it, though, I sort of can’t stop thinking about it. It is creatively aspirational, shockingly derivative, frequently gorgeous, horrifically disorganized, thoroughly bland, frequently tedious, highly polished, deeply inconsistent, typically painful, unintentionally hilarious, and—above all else—utterly gargantuan.
False Machine reviews the classic RPG Tunnels & Trolls. Particularly good timing now that the new edition is kickstarting.
News and Gaming Culture
James Introcaso at MCDM is working on an OSR game called Crows, partially inspired by my game Knave 2e, especially the classless “you are your equipment” aspect. It also integrates usage dice, town building, and Shadowdark’s real-world timer in an interesting way.
Luke Stratton of Pirate Borg hosts a panel of OSR creators at PAGE: Kelsey Dionne (Shadowdark), Tiger Wizard (Exalted Funeral), Levi Combs (Planet X Games), and Robert Conley (Bat in the Attic Games).
CARpg TCG: How Kickstarter’s most funded TCG died | Altered TCG
Among Cats and Books: Rootring is live!
Daniel Sell: Join the New Old Gaming Blogring
Widdershins Wanderings: Teaching Cairn to Kids
Eldritch Fields: Twenty-one eldritch dungeons...
Pointless Monument: 60 systems and 600 sessions. 3 years in the life of a TTRPG meetup.
Theory and Advice
Traverse Fantasy: Stationery & Maps
I Cast Light: DECLARE ACTIONS: Communicating The Stakes For Interesting Combat Choices
Goblin Punch: Divine Patronage: A Separate System for Party Advancement
3x5 Arcana: Dungeons are People
Daniel Sell: Henchmen are Tools
The Old Dog Blog: Gears of System, Gears of Lore
Nate Whittington: Tyranny of the Form
Sam Sorensen: Apologia for Plain Paragraphs
Monsters and Manuals: The Holy Grail of Dungeon Representation
BAATAG: Elements of a Key 3: Actual Keys
Worldbuilding
Puzzle Dungeon: 20 level-less spells
Pillar of Worms: Philosophical Metals
I Cast Light: RATLINGS NOT HALFLINGS: Or Why Beast Folk Are Better Than Demihumans
Kill It With Fire: Side effects of having spells in your noggin
This newsletter uses affiliate links, which help support Questing Beast at no cost to you.