Observations of the Fox

  https://200proof.games/manifesto/ This is gold.  I'm not just saying this because it echoes the kind of advice I've been saying for years, or the types if words I try to tell my students in design classes... well actually, that's certainly a part of it. However, there's more to it. This idea echoes back to the gaming ashcan releases in the early 2000s, the 'zine games that have been floating around for decades...and it goes directly against a lot of the gatekeeping I've been seeing in the hobby since I started writing and designing over 30 years ago. So much more I could possibly write here, but perfect is the enemy of good, so I'll just post what I've got now. I might revisit it later. 

Have I mentioned Mana Crusade?  I'm sure I did.  If not, it's getting a second playtest sequence next next. The whole game was developed by Erin Gumiho, a friend I was introduced to a few years ago, even though she had moved in a few of the same circles as me for years. I've bounced ideas back and forward with her, but Mana Crusade is her baby. A private Discord saw a few of the team from Beneath the Glass and Steel throw some support and input into the game.  The idea is that the core rules are on a tri-fold which also serves as the character sheet. The complete rules are no more than another tri-fold. I guess you'd basically describe it as a single character narrative war-game for several players to play concurrently. It draws a bit from the old Inquisitor game from the Warhammer 40k Universe, and maybe a bit from the old Braunstein games that started off the whole RPG hobby.  Everything else in the game is written on cards that get attached to the character sheet...

 We're reaching the home stretch for 2024, and it's actually been a decent run for the blog, after a few years of letting things slide.  Earlier this year, the blog had it's best month ever. There have been a couple of decent sequences of posts, including writing an RPG, some analysis of RPGs, and a serialized set of posts about how to run a game.  I've been able to share links from the blog on assorted social media. Especially when people have "come up with a new idea", and I've been able to point to a post from 10-15 years ago and say "hey, I was saying that same thing way back then...and people didn't listen to me then either." I'm getting a bit of a Cassandra-complex... but anyway... One of the things I've noticed (and one of the things pointed out by a new generation of readers), is that many of the old posts aren't archived well. So I might spent a bit of time sorting them and adding them to the "other tutorials" t...