CHAINMAIL: 10.13.2023

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!

Pooling Your Information - The Angry GM

I always get a lot out of the Angry GM's blog posts. My only complaint is that they are SO LONG. This one is worth sifting through though. It explains a technique he uses to disperse information so that the players can feel like their in-game planning, research, and scouting endeavors are actually useful.

NarraScope 2020: Multiple Role-Playing Groups in a Shared Campaign World - Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation

I know this looks like a big scary boring academic presentation. Sam does a great job of keeping the points short and punchy and the stuff he's talking about is highly useful. If you've ever wanted to run a "west marches" or "open table" style game, then this video will be super helpful. Sam speaks from both a game design student background as well as somebody who has run these types of games. I'm interested in developing something like this for my livestreams so this was very informative for me.

New Simulationism - Sam Sorenson

This is a manifesto on a particular flavor of gaming culture, one that I personally align with greatly. If the articles I share and viewpoints I endorse through this newsletter resonate with you then I think you will find value in this perspective, as well.

P.S. Make sure to scroll to the bottom and check out the "Further reading" section. There are a couple of entries you will recognize from here, but plenty more new content to explore too.

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!