Game mechanics as demands, refusals, requests, encouragements, discouragements and allowances
My brother texted me, and said: ‘Is it common in rpg discussions to look at rules as affordances?’ That might sound odd or surprising to you—or just plain...
A stage instead of a cage—The Last Caravan has a friction problem
‘What does this game offer me,’ asks Jay Dragon, ‘that I couldn’t achieve by playing make-believe with my friends?’ This is from her great blogpost about...
The best playtests probably aren't run by the designer of the game
News out of the dark! I don’t dare to check when I last send out a newsletter, but it’s been a while. What happened? Well, most importantly I started...
High number too good! Investigating horror in Cthulhu Dark
Back to thinking about dice, again. Specifically, the meaning we attach to certain results. In a previous newsletter—one of my first, actually—I was...
In Austin Walker's Realis, the GM needs to come prepared
I’m not averse to prep, I like to have some nicely ordered notes when I facilitate a game. The mystery sheets that Brindlewood Bay uses—usually two or three...
Mammon in the Executive Suite, or: meaningful suboptimal play
Together with “Play to Lose”, “Play to Win” has seen an interesting uptick in the last couple of years. I first encountered the phrases in Jesse Ross’...
What's so funny about flipping a coin? Comedy in Going for Broke
When I read Avery Alder’s new game, I was reminded of a blog by Sam Dunnewold from a couple of years ago. You see, Alder designed a comedy game called Going...
Failing when it matters—some innovations in cinematic action games
I, myself, hardly failed: my piece on Tim Hutchings' Thousand Year Old Campfire got second prize in the review category of the Bloggies. I'm happy to get...
How do you relate to your character during role-play?
An idea I keep coming back to, is the experience of a dual consciousness during role-play. I came upon the concept last year, when I was hitting the rpg...
In 2024 I played twenty-one role-playing games
Stealing an idea from Kurt Riefling, the Golden Cobra-winning designer of A Crown of Dandelions, I wrote up a tiny review of each of the games I played in...
Permission to be tough on your players: in praise of bite
Not to get into social media too much, but tumblr might still be my number one place for thoughts on role-playing. While preparing this newsletter, I was...
Using dominoes to tell the stories of thousands
Tried something new recently? Weekly, crowdfunding projects offer us new games to get into. They all choose their way to stand out. Some offer riffs on...
Love Letters add some extra umpf to the start of your session
The chapter is called 'Advanced Fuckery'. It's in Vincent and Meguey Baker's Apocalypse World, a game that likes to play with tone. No surprise, then, that...
The role-playing conversation according to Archipelago
Not every conversation is the same, that's what makes comparing role-playing games to one so effective. The flow, the tone, the subject matter of a...
How Under Hollow Hills emphasizes player choice
Dice aren't an integral part of role-playing, but they do turn up a lot. I love a good dice roll. Or, to be a little more precise, I love that moment when...
How to create dramatic triangles, and why
This week's newsletter might be a little short, because me and my partner are moving house soon. It's a new place in the city we already live in,1 and we've...
The loss we gain from a Thousand Year Old Campfire
It was in there with the other zines, this mud brown booklet. Old Morris Cave: A Continuous Use Campsite in Mammoth Cave National Park, it said in a tidy...
Escape from Dino Island's metatriggers make sure you get in trouble
I’m taking notes on a new game, it’s a relationship drama set during a natural disaster.1. To see how it’s done, I reread Sam Tung and Sam Robert’s great,...
How high is your bleed threshold? And what are you bleeding anyway?
You know that clip of Brennan Lee Mulligan, the one where he’s talking about his character Evan Kelmp? Wait, I’ll just link to it. It’s a clip from an...
Interesting experiences of player agency in non-canonical mysteries
“It feels like we’re just framing someone.” I've come across this sentiment several times while reading about the mystery system in games like Brindlewood...
Is every mechanic a prompt? A slightly reductive thought experiment
Roleplaying games are a conversation. Well, at least, a lot of them are. The Bakers were careful to limit the definition to their game Apocalypse World. But,...
Called it! This dice roll is not just about chance
FIST1 is a great roleplaying game. For one, it allowed me to print all of their 216 character traits, hand out the pages with scissors and a glue stick, and...
This is ASKED QUESTIONS: a newsletter with thoughts about roleplaying mechanics
Hi, I’m Hendrik ten Napel, I have designed some roleplaying games and written some modules1, and I’ve read a whole lot more. Especially indie ones. This...