CHAINMAIL: 05.19.2024

cjsomedays -
Chainmail is a weekly newsletter dedicated to sharing the abundance of excellent content available in the TTRPG space. You'll find YouTube videos, blog posts, quotes from books, and many other forms of media related to improving your skills as game masters and world builders. Enjoy!

A Way of Free Kriegsspiel Revolution - Dreaming Dragonslayer

I know, I know. We already have enough jargon complicating discourse in the TTRPG space. Story games vs Trad. Neo-trad vs OSR. The article mentioned here introduces another one, the Free Kriegsspiel Revolution (FKR). It's a style of play that emphasizes playing worlds over playing systems. I really love that approach to GMing and designing games and this article is quite poetic in describing what the FKR is all about. Even though we like to fiddle about with rules and homebrew and all that, at the end of the day, we're just playing make believe with our friends.

What Makes a Good RPG Town? - Design Doc

This video is aimed at video game RPGs, but I think a lot of the points are applicable to TTRPGs too. There are some interesting ideas that I don't think have really been explored that much in TTRPGs that could be cool.

Diegetic Character Options - Necropraxis

Not too long ago I posted about the 5E hack. It's a ruleset based off 5th edition, but with the goal to simplify and focus on diegetic advancement/gameplay. I've been working hard in the background on getting that system into a place where it can be officially published and that work has gotten me looking into all of the material already available online about diegetic progression in TTRPGs. I think this post by Necropraxis is a great introduction to these ideas, really highlighting what is possible when you focus on these in-world mechanics. I can't wait for the 5e hack to become a real thing. The first game that will be using it has been incredibly inspiring for me. It's being playtested weekly right now. Super excited.

I hope these resources inspire you! If you haven't already, the best way to stay up to date with everything hothead-related is to join the discord. See you next week!