Welcome, favoured adventure-folk, to the TEETH newsletter! This is a (mostly) weekly transmission about our explorations in the very secret land of Tabletop Roleplaying-Games. 

What appears within this letter is written and compiled by veteran game critic and designer, Jim Rossignol, and former Mojang alumni and famed illustrator, Marsh Davies. Why not come and join us over on the TEETH Discord! Free tooth emojis for everyone!

1. Hello, you

2. Links!

3. One Shots, as recommended by our Discordifolk

Hello, you.

What have I (Jim) been doing this week? Well, I have been reading the latest version of GOLD TEETH that my comrade in high seas Marsh Davies has sent me. Here's an action-shot of me reading it.

As you can see I am experiencing numerous superlatives, as well as fear, delight, and a special secret emotion that we can't discuss here. YOU can experience those too, quite soon, if you back GOLD TEETH, because that PDF is ALMOST ready to send OUT. 

No printing or fulfilment schedule as yet, but that too will soon be a thing that we are working on. It is a beautiful time to be alive.

Have a wonderful week, 

-Jim (pictured) & Marsh (not pictured)

LINKS!

• What if we just made RPGs about Saints? Guthlac of Crowland is cool, but Pega is even cooler. “When Guthlac realised that his end was near in 714, he summoned Pega, who travelled by boat to her brother's oratory to bury him. One year later, she presided over the translation of his remains into a new sepulchre, when his body was found to be incorrupt. At this time, Pega also used a piece of glutinous salt, which had been previously consecrated by Guthlac, to cure the eyesight of a blind man who had travelled to Crowland from Wisbech.” That is, we can now confirm, the most Dark Ages thing that has ever happened.

• Your regular reminder that Wyrd Science is super great, and Issue 8 has TWO (count ‘em!) articles from Jim. One about DOOMSONG and one about BLADES IN THE DARK. Hot topics, indeed.

• Did we mention this man’s name? It’s a keeper.

• This subterranean headline on the BBC is Story Of The Week. “In 2024, a Facebook discussion in Bloxham about a long-mythologised set of hidden tunnels running underneath the north Oxfordshire village saw locals compare their subterranean tales. Following that exchange of stories, Dave Green - along with a group of fellow villagers - decided to set up the Bloxham Underground Tunnel Society to see if there was any truth to the legend. In the two years since it was first formed, the society has now investigated and uncovered an ever expanding network underneath the quaint village on the edge of the Cotswolds.” The mysterious happenings haven’t started yet, but that is surely just a few weeks away.

One Shots, as recommended by the TEETH Discordpersons

Now that I talk about TTRPGs with people from all across games (my background being more in digital games) I often find people shrugging with resignation and saying "I don't have time." And sometimes they mean time for prep, and sometimes they mean any time at all, but usually they mean: playing a TTRPG is a regular commitment, something that I only had time for in my idle youth. But it doesn't have to be a regular commitment, even though that might end up being easier to schedule. And if it is, it doesn't have to be cancelled if Steve doesn't turn up again. There are plenty of games which make themselves possible in a single session.

Yes, you can learn and play a tabletop role-playing game in a single evening. With a couple of hours of reading and preparation beforehand that can even be something quite ambitious.

The list here I have put together specifically so that I can send it to an acquaintance for whom the idea of the TTRPG one-shot was completely new, but at the same time I am aware that something we have learned when talking about TTRPGs is how often we must return to things we've said before, or restate points we've made previously, and generally reiterate. Annoying for the regular readers, perhaps (sorry) but even there I feel like habit pulls a veil over truths, and sometimes we are best reminded of the possibilities.

The list ahead has a few favourites, things we have talked about before, but it also puts together a list of suggestions made by contributors to the TEETH Discord. We're a quiet little corner, but there's some pleasant chat to be had, if you'd like to join us, and plenty of folks had something to contribute to this newsletter.

Life (in a way which involves ants for some reason) has meant that this week's regular game slots have not been available. Comrade Gillen ran his murderous Tomb Bombadil Trophy Dark setting, which will be in the Ruin anthology, with some Open Hearthers, while on Monday night our sometime-GM Alex Wiltshire ran an adventure from the Sarah Cole adventure collection, Darkened Hill & Dale, using a ruleset called Occultation. This free hack of Cthulhu Dark and 2400 was highlighted for us recently by Indie RPG hero Thomas Manuel, and is particularly appropriate to horror scenarios. Creating the character takes a couple of minutes, and it's almost entirely suited to a game played in a single evening (although Manuel used it to play the rather more ambitious campaign-length Impossible Landscapes.)

Anyway! There are a couple of principles in here that I'd like to stress. One is that if you have a couple of lightweight systems in your repertoire then it's possible to quickly deploy one to run a game. You can have an adventure in your pocket, so to speak, if an evening comes available. True for a campaign pause as much as for a spare evening goofing off with pals. If you have some collections of small adventures, which we have an astonishing abundance of now, then it is easy - certainly compared to running a full blown campaign game - to match these together and have something ready to hand to deploy for a single evening's play.

Need a fantasy system? MÖRK BORG will handle most of them. You don't need to use the progression rules. And it's just a few pages.

Hell, you don't even need a GM. You can all share responsibility.

Over on the Discord Brummieliam talks about having a good time with the GMless game Dawn of the Orcs -- a game weird close to what we're playing on our The One Ring game, in that " You play as the magical technocrats who create the first Orcs as weapons of war, modify and improve them over time, and tell the story of how the Orcs become their own people. It plays in around 90-120 minutes; by the end, you will have created a unique Orc people, perhaps even one you feel like using in the setting of other roleplaying games." 

Or another suggestion was Dueling Fops of Vindamere, in which you play as "spoiled children of privilege with nothing better to do than pursue swordplay, flirt outrageously, and snack on delicious vol-au-vents. A single game session covers the social year from Ye Midwinter Balle through the prestigious Alle-Valley Fencinge Championeshippe. Your louche elite blade-swanks fall in love, brawl, sneer and engage in truly petty social rivalries." 

Then there's always Fiasco of course. This was so popular a few years ago that I ended up with three copies of it, gifted to me by various people. I have regifted these, and I assume the chain continues into infinity. The game itself now stands as a sort of milestone in design, which honestly feels a little creaky to my eyes, but is still worth a consideration.

But for many groups the GM will be the person who organises and helps get the game to the table. For the lightest touch possible there are many one-page RPGs. One page, one shot. That’s just mathematics.

Discord-friend Formlexx suggests Sexy Battle Wizards or Crash Pandas. Yes, Grant Howitt has been squeezing these single-page morsels out for centuries, and picking over them is a delight. That said, I can see that in situations where people are not all that familiar, practiced, or comfortable with RPGs, then both GMless and single-page stuff can represent quite a challenge.

For something more guided you can try Trophy Dark's horrible horror scenarios. These are interesting because for folks who have not committed to a particular narrative arc before, or are used to being the heroes, the "play to lose" approach is something that can dislodge prior assumptions about what an evening playing RPGs might entail. There are also some incredible incursions for it (as mentioned earlier in this article) so even if you've played before (and if you have you will know how well this works as a one shot game) there are plenty of options.

Another game we have got huge mileage out of over one or two evenings, and which takes a very different approach, is CBR+PNK, Melo's fantastically tight cyberpunk game (and hefty influence on TEETH itself). It's really good and the "Augmented" package comes with a fistful of zines which allow you to run scenarios really quickly and efficiently, learning the game as you go. Looking at this again I feel like I need to get it set up on Foundry, so that we can drop a game into our schedule the next time someone is unavailable.

A game that I haven't tried which has come up a few times on the Discord is FIST, the game of paranormal mercenaries. Redleader highlights X-M.A.S. which is a game of "Tactical Holiday Action" based on FIST system. Basically Santa gets shot down over Iceland, and you need to stage the rescue.

Then Matt "The Bad Spot" Risby interjected to point out that there are several Carved From Brindlewood games which understand the assignment (these require knowledge of the system, so if you have run/own Public Access or Brindlewood Bay you should be okay), including Beach Blank Body Bag, the 60s surf rock mystery game in which a group of teenagers attempt solve what's happening on an isolated island; polar exploration survival horror game By Endurance We Conquer; and the timely Dead Pilled, in which you play as right-wing influencers trapped by a storm in a Florida mansion. Horrifying, indeed.

Then there are single-evening zines with some meat on their bones, like our own Night Of The Hogmen, or Jon Harper's beloved Lady Blackbird. Both provide everything you need to get started immediately and have a single session of great entertainment.

Be careful though. As Discordian Screaming Meat points out, there's always the possibility that something might stick.

More soon!