BBG Digest - January 15th, 2023
New Projects & Old Campaigns
Happy new year! I hope you’re entering 2023 rejuvenated and inspired.
There’s a lot going on, so let’s dive in!
New Project Announcement!
A few weeks ago, I announced a yet-to-be-named collaborative project with Max Alexander and Victor Winter.
Max is a writer. Victor is an artist. The two of them will exchange pieces back and forth, and after they’re done I’ll design a TTRPG based on their work!
This project was inspired by The Forethought Initiative, which is co-sponsored by Possible World Games and the Afterthought Committee. It’s a fantastic initiative that you should definitely check out!
The best part of this: Max & Victor are my very close friends. Their creative energy is hugely inspiring to me. I cannot wait to see what they come up with!
Anamnesis Jam
The Anamnesis Jam is going strong! The jam runs until the end of the month and already has 14 submissions, which is incredible.
A couple of these entries are by first-time designers, which fills my heart. I’ve seen other designers talk about their #AnamnesisJam games and I can’t wait to see what else is submitted. I’ll have a lot of games to play this February!
I’m also slowly picking away at my own entry for the jam. It’s far from finished, so I may end up submitting a preview rather than the completed game. I’m excited about the concept, though…hopefully I’ll have more info in the next update!
Editing, Editing, Editing
Wow, have I done a lot of editing work over the past couple of months!
In early November, I finished editing ghostbox by Marx Shepherd, an epistolary game about writing letters that will never reach their destination. This game is wonderfully heartfelt and thought-provoking - I had a great time working on it!
My other editing project was Skyrealms by Iko, which is still in progress. Skyrealms is both a setting for TTRPGs (complete with a bestiary) as well as a coloring book! Iko’s writing is creative and compelling, and I’m delighted to be part of the team.
Cloud Empress
Watt is getting ready to crowdfund Cloud Empress, a fantasy setting for Mothership that is heavily inspired by Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. I’m happy to say that they asked me to write a pamphlet adventure!
I won’t say much about my adventure before the Kickstarter launch, but know that I went down a rabbit hole of research. Cloud Empress launches on Kickstarter on Jan 17th, and you can sign up here to be notified when it’s live.
Non-Corpo TTRPGs
In response to the D&D OGL 1.1 fiasco, I wrote a Twitter thread of a bunch of games that aren’t owned by corporations. It has TTRPGs of all types, and most are by designers from marginalized groups. If you’re looking for more games to check out, give it a read!
Indie TTRPG Videos
Here are the notable videos I’ve made since the last newsletter update. All of these videos are on TikTok, but they’ll also eventually be uploaded to YouTube.
The Stygian Library by Emmy “Cavegirl” Allen - A dungeon crawl through an infinite, dangerous library.
Raccoon Sky Pirates by Chris Sellers - Play as raccoons piloting a ramshackle airship to steal trash from suburban houses.
World Ending Game by Everest Pipkin - A game designed for ending TTRPG campaigns. Much more on this below!
World Ending Game
Last week, my game group played World Ending Game to wrap up a 2-year campaign of Blades in the Dark. I cannot put into words how incredible this experience was.
World Ending Game by Everest Pipkin is a TTRPG designed to play as the final session of a campaign. It’s a collection of 20 minigames you can pick and choose from depending on what you and your characters need. Some of these minigames include Reverse Heist (put something back where it belongs), The Kiss (a conversation that ends in a kiss), and Anime Music Video (collaboratively create an AMV).
This was the most cathartic session of a TTRPG I’ve ever played. While we didn’t follow every rule in the book, World Ending Game gave us the perfect framework to find closure. We played for about 6 hours and I’m pretty sure I was crying half the time. I cannot recommend this game more highly.
I’ll skip the rest of my Playing/Watching/Listening section for this update, since it’s already getting quite long! Here’s one last piece to wrap-up…
Newsletter Ring
Iko recently started an initiative know as the Newsletter Ring, which is designed to create mutual support for TTRPG newsletter publishers. I think it’s a great idea, so for this update I’d like to recommend The Indie RPG Newsletter by Thomas Manuel.
The Indie RPG Newsletter is the very first TTRPG newsletter I subscribed to. Thomas not only provides his own musings about games and the industry, but also shares links to interesting articles, videos, and resources. I definitely suggest checking it out!
That’s all for now! Thank you, as always, for all of your support.
If my timeline goes as expected, I should have some exciting news in the next update…
~ Sam Leigh
great read, thanks for your excellent twitter thread on non-corpo rpg's
This is truly excellent, I'm excited to see what's next!