Jim’s note: An older, lesser version of this article originally appeared via the TEETH RPG Newsletter!
This week, for reasons unclear, we played Heroquest on Tabletop Simulator.
(more…)
Lost in the hills of Somerset, this Rossignol searches for meaning among the clattering of small plastic bones.
Jim’s note: a version of this article was originally published in the wonderful, the singular, and the dramatic TEETH RPG Newsletter! Subscribe for these reasons.
I had planned to write about setting-agnostic rule systems, system-agnostic settings, and the way in which we sometimes hack one game to work with another title’s adventures. I admit that some of the reason for this was that I really like saying the word agnostic. What a beaut! Agnostic. I relish it. This proposed essay, if I ever write it, and let’s assume that I already have, links to something about vibes in dice rolls in a later newsletter, building up a sort of coherent commentary on RPGs as sampled and adapted literature and the quilts of meaning that we build out of related cultural materials. {I am actually working on this, soon. – jim}
As you can see, great stuff is already happening in my imagined future.
But in the present something more important arrived from the past: I remembered a game of Feng Shui.
(more…)Lost in the hills of Somerset, this Rossignol searches for meaning among the clattering of small plastic bones.
Jim’s note: the New York Times last week ran an article on one of the very greatest contributors to TTRPG history, fantasy atlas-maker Karen Wynn Fonstad. You can take a look at it here. This kicked me in the mind with an overpowering Proustian rush and I returned to my copies of her atlases of Pern, Middle Earth, and the Forgotten Realms. Then I remembered I had already written about fantasy atlases on the TEETH RPG newsletter. And THEN I realised I could post it up here. And you can read that, below.
I own a surprising number of atlases. Some are straightforward atlases. You know the sort: large-format hardback books containing maps of the world. Others, like The Times Atlas Of World History, which I somehow own multiple editions of, are also grand acts of generalised erudition: formidable slabs of publishing achievement that have been iterated over decades of republishing to explain something with maps. In this case, the general history of the human race.
(more…)Lost in the hills of Somerset, this Rossignol searches for meaning among the clattering of small plastic bones.
Jim’s note: this interview is from the TEETH Newsletter back in 2023, but with TTRPG-adjacent Citizen Sleeper 2 imminent (yes! At the end of the month) so we thought it timely to repost here on Old Men.
Who is this person? Why, it’s Gareth Damian Martin, the writer, game designer and artist that some of you will doubtless recognise from Citizen Sleeper, a game that could hardly blend our interests any more concretely: inspired by the dice-pooling magic of Blades In The Dark’s role-playing systems and combining these sleights of dicery with the satisfying solo crunch of the digital game. Not played it yet? Then do so, right after, or perhaps even before, reading this. We talk to Gareth about the connection between tabletop RPGs and digital games and their – inevitable? – slide back towards an RPG of their own, Cycles Of The Eye.
(more…)Lost in the hills of Somerset, this Rossignol searches for meaning among the clattering of small plastic bones.
Jim’s note: a version of this article appeared on the TEETH RPG newsletter. As I see other games created with this system the more convinced I am of its genius. However, I am aware that has earned significantly less fanfare than Blades In The Dark, despite sort of being the game which really proves that the designer of both systems, John Harper, is a wizard. I can both understand this (the fantasy and reality of the game is somehow less commanding) but also find myself disappointed by it, because it’s a fantastic experience that I got a great deal out of. Creating a game that hacks this system is well up my list of things to do in TTRPGs.
So yes, rewind back to the summer of 2020, and The Catfail Club (our Tuesday night group formed in the shadow of Covid) are playing AGON, hosted by Failbetter’s Chris Gardiner.
AGON is a game of Greek myth and legend, but it is, more abstractly and, arguably more importantly, a co-operative game about Who Is Best.
(more…)Lost in the hills of Somerset, this Rossignol searches for meaning among the clattering of small plastic bones.
It’s been a Zone Of Alienation time of year as the computer game people enjoy their lovely STALKER 2. But what about those of us who prefer the soft friction of paper, the frisson of GMless role-playing and/or digitially simulated boardgame interfaces? Eh? What about us? Well,the answer came up over on the TEETH Discord. There is actually a Stalker RPG, which I own but have never played, but there’s also THE ZONE. And I have played that, and even wrote about it.
(more…)Lost in the hills of Somerset, this Rossignol searches for meaning among the clattering of small plastic bones.
A version of this essay was originally published in the TEETH RPG Newsletter.
A former girlfriend once asked me what I thought the most romantic thing was. Blindly missing the prompt to say something cute, I mused that the most romantic thing would be to die leaving a vast unpublished catalogue of complex and near-indecipherable work for your heirs to discover, so that you became both an enigma to those who knew you and an out-of-time legend whose eccentricities echoed down the ages, like Diderot. She looked at me in a way that suggested that she did not think this was the most romantic thing, which perhaps goes some small way to explaining how that whole situation did not persist. But the important thing is that while I am not casting myself as Diderot exactly, I am likely to leave behind a vast catalogue of near-indecipherable work if anyone remembers to look through the leftover chaos of folders, notebooks and documents once I croak my last.
(more…)Lost in the hills of Somerset, this Rossignol searches for meaning among the clattering of small plastic bones.
A version of this article was originally published on the TEETH RPG newsletter.
Trophy Gold, by Jesse Ross, is the game that I am most regularly recommending TTRPG people read and play. It’s not what I thought it would be, while also somehow being exactly what I wanted. A complicated feeling! But it scratches quite a profound itch.
In the space of the following sentences, I shall try to explain.
(more…)Lost in the hills of Somerset, this Rossignol searches for meaning among the clattering of small plastic bones.
A version of this interview originally appeared in the TEETH RPG newsletter.
In this article Jim talked to Jesse Ross, who was the creator of one of our favourite experiences in the past year, Trophy Gold. This is an excellent grimdark horror RPG which in turn is builds on Ross’ success with the horror one-shot machine of Trophy Dark. Go back and have a read if you want some context for what all the fuss is about. Or better still, play a few games of the Trophy games, we are fairly certain you won’t regret it.
Anyway, here’s a (very slightly edited) transcript of the correspondence between myself and Mr Ross. (And, fwiw, we’re now very excited about forthcoming The Piper’s Call…)
(more…)Lost in the hills of Somerset, this Rossignol searches for meaning among the clattering of small plastic bones.