It’s the first Idle Digest for 2025! I wish you all a delightful, game-filled new year!
First up, plugging things for February:
I’m going to be Kickstarting a new module for Zinequest, Sharky for two weeks on February 1st! It features art by the inestimable Jay White, and subtly expands the world I’ve written about previously in the Curse of Mizzling Grove. Click here for the kickstarter pre-launch page! I’d really appreciate your support!
Also, you still have time to join in on Prismatic Wasteland’s Blog Bandwagon on February 7th 2025 (National Periodic Table of the Elements Day) with the theme of Elements! If the idea of writing unique and interesting takes on the elements tickles your fancy, write something down about it and share on February 7th!
Lonely Play
In January, on Playful Void, I wrote about:
In the Ugg-tecture of Language, how you can make language in elfgames a little siller.
In The Zungeon Manifesto, I attempted to demystify writing dungeons and issued a challenge to release more modules in the form of local craft rather than polished book. A bunch of zungeons based on this post have already been published, find some of them here! And I’m reviewing zungeons in a new series here.
In The Idle Cartulary Awards for Excellence in Elfgames (the Novies!) I listed my favourites of 2024, the runners up, and did a retrospective for myself for the year.
I wrote five Bathtub Reviews:
The Village of Hommlet for AD&D 1st Edition, Gygax’ first starter dungeon, at once remarkable for its’ impeccable small-town vibes and broken due to its’ incompleteness and lack of hooks.
The Sunless Citadel for D&D 3rd Edition is apparently a classic, with an amazing premise, that feels like a true transition between 2nd Edition and what came later.
The Lost Mine of Phandelver for 5th edition is the module so far that best tutorialises both players and referees into the game; in addition, the design of the adventuring locations themselves as an absolute pile of potential, albeit a little squandered. I think anyone planning on looking at starter dungeons, owes this clever piece of design a look.
The Iron Coral for Into the Odd is a fascinating example of a module that exemplifies the goals of a game, but isn’t suited to onboarding either player or referee.
Blancmange and Thistle for Troika! is a short, explosive, weird module, that reflects the bizarro-tourism themes of Troika! but doesn’t do a great job of supporting either the referee’s capacity to improvise or the players agency. I also take a moment to consider the purpose and intent of starter modules, throughout the history of TTRPGs, and my beliefs as to what constitutes a good one.
In February, look forward to reviews of Owe My Soul to the Company Store, Titans of the Verdant Maw, Curious Creeps in Crimson Creek, and the Stragglers!
Pickpocketing
In other news, December was a huge month for things that got me all excited:
“Everything You Know Is a Lie” reimagines Mork Borg lore as incoherent ramblings reflecting a very different world.
The Fields We Know looked at game balance and what it might mean in the context of elfgames.
Stop Hiding Your Apes talks about making sure your strongest ideas are in the foreground of your games. It was inspired in part by this video, if you’d like to read a longer form version, less directly related to TTRPGs.
Jim and Marsh of Teeth write “Every place tells three stories”, which is a neat way to think about location-based storytelling.
Joseph R Lewis (who I’ve reviewed a number of times) released a series of short videos on how he writes adventure modules.
Dougal talks in detail about how he applied Yochai’s advice on how to run Play By Post with a game of Mothership, which sounds like a bunch of fun!
Croaker writes “How to design an RPG with free Art”
Sofhino posted a dreamlands depth-crawl, but more importantly has started to develop a Complete Pariah Sandbox after the model of Wolves Upon the Coast Grand Campaign, which you can get in early for only a few dollars. If you’re at all interested in proto-neolithic play, Pariah as a complete project has a hell of a lot of interesting and thoughtful innovation.
Gamespotting
It’s Zinequest, but let’s start up with a few things that aren’t zines:
First up, spurred by such movements as The Year of the Beta and The 1e Manifesto, I decided to release my game Guilders for my now traditional January game release. I’ve been using Guilders for playtesting of my modules for some time. It’s an open-world, scenario-based, rooted-in-Trophy game.
If you’re a fan of Swords & Sorcery, White Box: Cyclopaedia packages absolutely every element of it, into one pretty gorgeous looking book featuring art by my good friend Hodag!
Zedeck Siew is kickstarting a print edition of bloggie-nominated A Perfect Wife to raise funds for an art show featuring TTRPG creators! It will feature art by Scrap Princess and Amanda Lee Franck!
And coming up soon is the Blades of Gixa, what looks like the most beautiful thing to come out of Sean McCoy’s Dungeon23 movement and meme a few years ago.
Here are a few zines funding as part of Zinequest I think look cool, ignoring of course my own fantastic module Sharky!
Isle of the Ancients is a DCC/Shadowdark module that seems inspired by Isle of Dread with some beautifully janky Fiend Folio like art.
A Land Once Magic is a card-based, fantasy worldbuilding game, by Viditya Voleti!
Thieves of the Tome is a game for people with a large library, which uses them as the primary engine for the game, and the art looks absolutely gonzo in the best possible way.
Strange Tales of the Painted Wastelands is for those of you who loved the Painted Wastelands.
Mission Impawsible is a boxed set that feels inspired by the kids property the Bad Guys. Lots of fun, very tacticle, gorgeous art.
Solo Borg is a set of rules for playing Mörk Borg solo, filled with all the generators and oracles you need.
Fear of a Daily Planet is a Mothership adventure where you explore the remains of an apocalypse where the only survivors were — stay with me for a moment —journalists? This is a concept wild enough that I have to know.
The Chateau Amongst the Stars is a Shadowdark module with a very different aesthetic to most.
Cryo-Siq is a mothership murder mystery one-shot.
Beside the Lesser Road Travelled attempts to make campsites compelling.
The Rook and the Crook is a non-euclidean, system agnostic dungeon.
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Idle Cartulary
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