Systems and Content: A Dead Horse
[1d4] Reasons to join an adventuring party: 1. Loneliness 2. Mimicry 3. Hide your lust for blood 4. You don't want to, but don't get a say
This newsletter is hopefully going to be making more frequent appearances in your inbox, and with that, I’ve decided on a few things I want to do with it.
The Dead Horse:
The Newsletter will be called The Dead Horse. A tongue in cheek rip at myself for constantly railing on topiccs for far too long. In that spirit of jest, and being true to myself, I plant to include brief blog posts, or think pieces, or just random ideas in blog segment of the letter. It’s a way for me to hash things out, and for you to see my thought process. If you don’t care for the topic, or care to hear me ramble, you can always skip to the next segment—usually that will be continued updates on our releases, followed by support for some other rad people who you should be following around.
Newsletter Toys:
Every newsletter from here on out will contain various fun tables or bonus content to add to your tables. A lot of it will likely be written out in GUILD format if it’s fantasy, but that means nothing to all ya’ll geniuses! You can easily convert that
Discount Codes:
Every newsletter from here on out will also contain a SECRET hidden code, with which you can use for a 50% discount on our web-store for one purchase! But you gotta find it, and it’s gotta be right. And I’ll never give anyone the answers.
So Let’s Get To It:
I had some thoughts on Systems and Content. I posted a bit on Twitter about it, but wanted to get some concise, and clarified thoughts in here.
Something we know is happening, has been happening, and will continue to happen likely with more fervor, is the release of Systems.
This isn’t a System Matters discussion, so shut your mouth, and take your grimy little cheeto grabbers off the keyboard.
I guess in some way it is pretty tightly related to that discourse, but I’m not one for discourse. I just tend to fall into it constantly.
Lots of systems are gonna be coming out soon, and most of the big naame publishers are already announcing their reactions to the new OGL news, and the newest news, etc. That’s fine.
Systems are fine. Systems are okay to write. System crafting can be extremely fun. Like a puzzle, or a giant knot. You’re stuck with a problem you need to find a fix for, so you want to fix it. It’s natural to want to do so.
But what are systems without their content—they’re heartless machines, with only a single purpose, and once finished they’re often left to rust.
A system represents the gears, and cogs of a game designerTM’s mind. But what the author might expect to be the result of their work, is often not the case. A system evolves as it’s played.
But a system isn’t going to be played if it’s not supported. The most common way of support is writing supplemental material ie., adventures, weapons/magic books, treasure tables, hexcrawl rules, etc.
But support for a system can come in a variety of ways. And to clarify—this is about SystemsTM, not Honey Heist, or your two-paragraph Lyric Game. SystemsTM NEED support or they will die—it happens all the time.
But a SystemTM that has support will thrive. And not just because the author is writing regular content, but because that support stands out, to me at least, as passion.
Passion, I think is was the real support behind a system is. And I think passion also makes content better. Not just because there’s alot of it, but because the readers, and players can feel it.
When a game designerTM expends inordinate amounts of time on a system, and then posts it itch.io, never to be seen again—how does one expect the system to be? I would see a “last updated 4y ago” with no comments—and just assume it’s not once caught on, and no one cared about it.
But when a game designerTM expends inordinate amounts of time on a system, and then publishes it, lush with content off the gate—folllowed by plans to support that system for the foreseeable future, it gives their audience something to look for. It gets people excited for what’s NEXT with the system they bought.
But my game is only one page, and has like no rules, I can’t make adventures for it you asshole.
Yeah I said not Honey Heist or your lyric game.
BUT—
You can support games llike those in other ways right? Host a game jam—or jams! Make the core rules of your lyric game a generic set of procedures, and have people hack the system you made.
Support the game by playing it with people.
Support that game by writing additional rules for it, or example scenarios for the story game you wrote.
Support that game by writing game fiction.
Support that game by promoting it more than once a year on Twitter?
There are so many ways to do it, and I believe you can, if you just spent some time thinking of how.
There may be a system for every idea—but what if we instead said for every system, an idea.
Content—>Systems is the Rule of Cool for DTRPGS
Look at these cool things:
[1d6] Intergalactic Anomaliies
1. Meteorite Haboob 2. Gravity Tectonics 3. Fabric Rupture
4. Orbital Shockwave 5. Class A Solar Hurricane 6. Ion-flare
The Landlord’s Special [Cumbersome, Special]
This massive two handed blade requires extreme strength to carry, but packs with it a retributive punch. Harvested from a ne’er used guillotine, and modified to hold with two small hand grips—this blade while easy to dodge, does not hold back on its hurt. Special: If The Landlord’s Special damage results in the death of a target who is known to exploit their subordinates, retrieve [1d6] goold from the target's pockets or rucksack after the encounter ends. Perhaps a just repayment for exploitation.
Updates for Us and Other People’s Shit:
GUILD is coming to fulfillment soon!
Keep yourself alert for updates through here, and Twitter, Discord wherever you follow. If you hadn’t backed on Kickstarter, Late Pledges for GUILD are still open!
Lots of other cool things are happening too
I detailed in our last newsletter so be sure to double check on that—but mainly our full edition of Adrift will be entering editing in February, and out for publication soon after! Stay pplugged in for more details!
Red Solstice is out in print!
This dope bi-annual magazine published by Stella Condrey, is chock full of awesome entries by a lot of great games people. Click the Art above to check it out!
Issue #2 Features the work of Cam Silva, Christian Kessler, Ciara McOmber, Fred Dinsmore, Jarrett Crader, Kirby, Nico Santagoy, Seth Ian, Spooky Rusty, Stella Condrey, Thrift O’Mancer and cover art by reinapepiada.
Churn, Stroke, Burn from Sean Richer
"There exists a prophecy of unknown origin that they will fight to the death against the onslaught of piracy to protect the town, dying and ultimately summoning an army of servitors to exact their dying wishes. But that’s silly."
Three adventures all in a row. A town on the verge of collapse, a point crawl through (and under) the uneasy ocean, a depthcrawl directly into the eye of a hurricane. Includes monsters, treasures, a new class, an occupations table, and honestly lots more. There's just a lot of stuff in here.
Compatible with Dungeon Crawl Classics, and similar fantasy role-playing games. By Sean Richer, with art and cartography by Scrap Princess, Jonathan LaMantia, BachelorSoft, Amanda Lee Franck, Wind Lothamer, Glynn Seal, and Lone Archivist, and graphic design by J.Kap.
This book looks fucking SICK, don’t fucking miss out.
MeatCastle GOATWare
Christian Sorrell from MeatCastle GameWare just consistently puts out amazing stuff. I’ll hire them any day of the week for me, and you should too. But check out some his latest stuff!
Old money siphoning new money from every corner of your city. An aging mansion, quiet and worn. An old corporation shifting its gaze from development to development, always hungry, always growing.
A warehouse bearing the name Singleton Solutions, small and unassuming in one of a hundred industrial parks like any other, takes in truckload after truckload but never sends anything out. It’s the same for the people. Sometimes, they arrive in towncars, other times in shuttle vans. None come out. Ever.
What you know is something strange is going on inside that warehouse and you are determined to discover what it is. What you cannot know is where and how far the mystery may take you.
I’m playing Liminal Horror right now, and I know this is gonna absolutely fuck when it hits the table.
The World’s Most Recommended Blog
Rusty is a GOAT of blogs, and reads so many texts it’s almost unimaginable. So why wouldn’t you be subscribed to his blog?
Rusty is dope, and I like his words.
Here is One
Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read this.
If you found the seecret code—be sure you enter it in checkout when you buy anything on our web-store — http://disastertourism.games
A couple of thoughts. First, I like this way of thinking re: systems and content. Even with certain games where the entirety is self-contained (i.e. something like Vaarn with player-facing rules and GM-facing generators for making entire campaigns), there is nothing to be *lost* from additional content. At the very least, supporting systems with content is a net benefit. I'm not much interested in designing games so I'm content coming up with content (lol) for these cool systems coming out, and having the author support that is a huge boon. Second, putting game content into blog posts or newsletter is good and I highly recommend it, so I like what you've done here (especially the Landlord's Special).