Silverarm RPG Newsletter #7:
Fresh Blog Post, Silverarm Store Grand Opening, New Mothership Module Incoming
Howdy,
Welcome back to Issue 7 of the Silverarm RPG Newsletter. Dang summer is hot, but have been happy to get to spend a lot of it with good friends, old and new. In this issue I’ve got a fresh blog on campaign ends, a new module in an upcoming megacorp focused anthology, and as always random high quality blog posts I’ve been reading.
Work continues on wrapping up The Shrike (the art is looking soo good) and looking to get print files wrapped by the end of the month. From there I’ve got plans for announcing my next large Mothership project and maybe possibly blogging more regularly. I’ll also planning on going to Gamehole Con in October and GaryCon in March so say hi if you’re out at either.
Fresh Blog: Put Your Campaign On a Deadline (It’ll Be Okay.)
Put Your RPG Campaign on a Deadline (It’ll Be Okay.)
Everything ends, but often we pretend it never will. Memento mori your RPG campaign and design with that inevitable end in mind instead of the unplanned fizzle due to life circumstances. I think the emergent properties of “forever” campaigns that go on for years are great and there’s so much stuff that form has to recommend it but that just hasn’t fit my lifestyle and I have no reason to think I’m going to get many longform games to the table that beats my average of ~13 session before I kick the bucket. So if this is the case, what does actively designing a more focused and less meandering game with a deadline look like? Check it out.
Silverarm Webstore Up! 20% Grand Opening Sale on PDFs
Check out the Silverarm Store here.
Hey, you like buying my stuff? Do it here, and I get to keep more of that sweet cheddar. I’m running a 20% sale on all Silverarm digital products to celebrate getting it up and running, you’ll see the discount when you add something to your cart for the next 7 days.
Currently the store is digital only but I’ll be selling physical copies of everything as soon as I get everything set up with my new fulfillment partner and plan on having everything item as constantly in stock as possible. If you’re ready now, physical copies of Tide World of Mani and Circle the flame are in stock at Tuesday Knight Games and I’ll be sending all my other physical product to restock there shortly as well.
Upcoming Module in The Hand that Feeds
I’ve been given some top billing on my module/megacorp contribution to a corpo focused Mothership anthology Spicy Tuna just announced they’re publishing-The Hand that Feeds. My section asks the question, like what if REI and Whole Foods made a megacorp co-op family space cult together? I’m sure everything would be 100% above board and fine. Really interested to see the final version of the collection once it’s published. “
Blogs I’m Reading Lately:
'Try to find the graves of our fathers, the only things for which we are prepared to fight' - Against The Wicked City
This short post gets into the joys of delving into “historically accurate” Central Asian tombs. There’s so many great RPG blogs out there but if you put a machete to my neck and made me choose the best one, for sheer volume of bangers I’d pick Against the Wicked City- his historically inspired fantasy setting posts sing and inspired a lot of my recent hype about the region, watch the blog for some upcoming posts about gaming in Khazaria or Bulghar.
In Praise of Legwork- Sam Sorenson
I’ve been thinking about this post a lot lately. Many of my regrets on past RPG projects emerged from a cutting down legwork (running into deadlines or trying to streamline required workload). I think a designers work is stronger when they put in more of the less sexy logistical work to help reduce the need for a GM using their thing to the same, to make better aids than a decent GM could improv without any module. A friend I shared this post with agreed but said they thought that it begged the second order question of what type of content legwork is actually worth doing. Knowing what type of content is valuable to a GM to spend extra effort and sweat writing in a module is less clear cut- but I think conceptual density of dope specific ideas, ease of reference, and bountiful interconnected elements are core elements of that type of content.
Anatomy of a Clue in an RPG Mystery- Play Material
I’ve slowly grown to dig Call of Cthulhu over the years but really agree with Jack that “most mystery modules are a nightmare to read.” I’ve seen a few but think there’s there’s space for heaps of new open ended investigative modules that use some of the improved information design that modern indie and OSR games have been blazing ahead on. This blog is focused on clues and breaking them down into their constituent parts and some of the different types that can be in an adventure. Since clues are the key nodes to moving down different paths in a point crawl diagram of a mystery, it’s worth doing a lot of legwork to make sure they’re helping drive investigation.
Dream Shrine by Brad Kerr, illustrations by Skullfungus
Not a blog but a one shot length adventure set in a pocket realm of dreams. I’m sure there are others out there- but this is the only truly fun dream adventure I’ve ever played. Weird and creative but not arbitrary and overly abstract- with an internal logic that makes exploration and interaction with the dream realm a hoot.
Poll: Average Campaign Length
I’m curious if my ~13 average is longer or shorter then others- let’s compare.