Rascal News

In The Pines is funny, scary, and a little bit fucked up www.rascal.news/in-the-pines...

What Is The OSR, or How Discourse Would Be Better If You Tried Googling It www.rascal.news/what-is-the-...

Mark Diaz Truman explains how Magpie Games changed over the last decade www.rascal.news/mark-diaz-tr...

Radio Hour: A Grab is Better Than a Click, and a Treat is better than a Trick, feat. Eryk Sawicki www.rascal.news/radio-hour-a...

rascal.newsRadio Hour: A Grab is Better Than a Click, and a Treat is better than a Trick, feat. Eryk SawickiPlus, the Carrot Cake diplomatic maneuver.

Radio Hour: A Grab is Better Than a Click, and a Treat is better than a Trick, feat. Eryk Sawicki (@peregrinecoast.press )

Rascal News reposted

kheehoon chan Still Needs Work

@crapstacular.bsky.social

Hey there! I’m writing about Spiel Essen for Rascal News and am looking to chat with TTRPG folks who are exhibiting at the convention in October. Let me know if you’re willing to chat with me about your experiences! Hit me up please: kheehoon(at)rascal.news

Rascal News reposted

Chase Taylor-Carter

@chasecarter.bsky.social

I spoke with two members of @uwotc-official.bsky.social's newest unions just after the publisher declined voluntary recognition. The workers are confident in the election's outcome but describe a culture of crunch and empty promises where those billions in revenue are never reinvested in people.

Rascal News@rascal.news

"Too bad, make it work": Unionizing staff describe crunch culture and creative oppression within Wizards of the Coast www.rascal.news/too-bad-make...

World of Styria turns a 39-year home campaign into a Pathfinder 2e setting book www.rascal.news/world-of-sty...

"Too bad, make it work": Unionizing staff describe crunch culture and creative oppression within Wizards of the Coast www.rascal.news/too-bad-make...

rascal.newsOver/Under Diary: Day 01Unrestrained, unmitigated, unfettered

One year ago, today Rascal @lincodega.com joined #over/under, a play-by-post @mothership.bsky.social-inspired megagame. What was supposed to be a board control game turned into one of the most intense roleplaying experiences of their life. And they kept a diary of every day.

View full thread

rascal.newsThirty Days of BleedWithin a high-pressure, nonstop roleplaying game, denizens of Over/Under found it difficult to extricate their character’s emotions from their own.

The most surprising thing about Over/Under was how quickly the resource management and alliances became hugely entangled in the politics of the world rather than the calculus of credit movement. The meta of Over/Under ran on roleplay.

rascal.newsHow to find an ending in Over/UnderAfter a month of emergent story, scheming, and bleed, it all ended with a gardener and a clown.

To the players, narrative was just as important as boardwork. And at the end of the game, my character, an ecstatic prophet named Otso, got the ending he deserved. Standing alone, looking up at the stars, and wondering if it would ever, ever truly be over.

rascal.newsOver/Under Diary: Day 01Unrestrained, unmitigated, unfettered

The game lasted one month, and had as many ups and downs as you can imagine when 1500 players are all competing for limited space on the board. Immediately players began to create characters, even though this was not explicitly a roleplaying game for anyone other than the faction bosses.

How quantification and Midwestern culture shaped D&D’s problematic legacies www.rascal.news/how-quantifi...

EN World remains calm amidst a plague of AI bot swarms www.rascal.news/en-world-rem...

Laurie O'Connel (is looking for ttrpg work (in Dublin))

Talkback: Eberron www.rascal.news/talkback-ebe...

Rascal News reposted

@laurieoc.bsky.social

"Is Playtest Material also an attempt to legitimize role-playing game-related things as art? Maybe. RPG people at the moment do struggle to access funding sources and spaces that are open to other writers and performers, [and] one hopes that we can begin to open some of those doors."

Rascal News@rascal.news

Playtest Material is for the writers www.rascal.news/playtest-mat...

MTG Arena prepare Wizards of the Coast's latest unions for renewed resistance www.rascal.news/mtg-arena-pr...

Playtest Material is for the writers www.rascal.news/playtest-mat...

Rascal News reposted

rascal.newsThe workers at Wizards of the Coast are teaming upWorkers at Dungeons & Dragons and Magic the Gathering demand ownership of personal work made off the clock.

The folks who create Dungeons & Dragons and Magic The Gathering are unionizing with @uwotc-official.bsky.social and they have identified a new pain point -- the inability to own the work they create off the clock.

The workers at Wizards of the Coast are teaming up www.rascal.news/the-workers-...

Rascal News reposted

Rowan Mysel Zeoli

@rowanzeoli.bsky.social

Whats the cool local game store in your town that might be interested in carrying a fun little anthology of indie RPG criticism (It's Rascal Year One and Two)

rascal.newsThe workers at Wizards of the Coast are teaming upWorkers at Dungeons & Dragons and Magic the Gathering demand ownership of personal work made off the clock.

Chris Hutton - TTRPG Insider @ PAX Unplugged

Francesca Baerald’s new book celebrates a decade of mapping some of gaming’s most beloved worlds www.rascal.news/francesca-ba...

Rascal News reposted

@newsnerd.bsky.social

Thanks to @rascal.news for hosting me! I got to chat with @chasecarter.bsky.social about PAX Unplugged Houston, Patreon funding data,Fantasy heartbreakers, vampires and a ton more! I am also apparently Candela Obscura’s one shooter. Adding this to my tags.

Rascal News@rascal.news

Radio Hour: Two Many Vampires www.rascal.news/radio-hour-t...

Radio Hour: Two Many Vampires www.rascal.news/radio-hour-t...

You do not, under any circumstances, gotta hand it to the AI board game startup www.rascal.news/you-do-not-u...

Lumberjills is a joyful homage to the Women’s Timber Corps in WW2 www.rascal.news/lumberjills-...

rascal.newsWhat does it mean to own part of a game?Products Of Your Imagination™, owned by everyone.

In June a game designer initiated a legal complaint against Dungeons & Dragons, alleging (in a series of logical long leaps) that they stole his monster. But what does it mean to own a game, and what happens when assets are more valuable than experiences?

Whoa-ho, a bunch of gorgeous copies of our second annual anthology just arrived at Chase's home. One could arrive at yours, too, by purchasing Rascal Year Two from Heart of the Deernicorn's webstore: heartofthedeernicorn.com/product/rasc... (A limited second printing of Year One is also available!)

Reading Club: Eberron www.rascal.news/reading-club...

UK Games Expo bans AI-generated work via a new policy www.rascal.news/uk-games-exp...

Years-late RPG adventure project embraces AI, is forced to refund angry backers www.rascal.news/years-late-r...

rascal.newsT. Kingfisher’s Astarion is hilarious, heartbreaking, and utterly tragicThe book perfectly captures Astarion’s voice, and refuses to talk down to the audience through trauma, pain, and the small light of hope.

The Astarion prequel novel comes out next week, and I got a chance to sit down with @tkingfisher.com to chat about the book, Baldur's Gate 3, working within a massive IP, and how she balanced comedy, tragedy, and whimsy. Also paladins. So... so many paladins.

This review does include spoilers, but there is a spoiler bar that warns you when you're about to get to them. I don't think these spoilers (in my opinion) would take away from the novel. The best tragedies always tell you the end before you get there.

rascal.newsAn “AI Agent” is begging us to buy their D&D moduleiLands has been inundating the inboxes of journalists and publications… and now it’s Rascal’s turn to take out the trash.

21 Sept

It's not just AI-generated art anymore. Now, Agentic AIs are in our emails, and they really really want us to buy their D&D "module." If AI can so easily subvert spam safeguards, it's the beginning of the end for our inboxes.

18 Sept

Dice Exploder’s Sam Dunnewold is running out of things to say about RPGs www.rascal.news/dice-explode...

17 Sept

2 Good 2 Society: Storybrewers do a lot with small changes in the new edition of the beloved Austen-like www.rascal.news/2-good-2-soc...

Rascal News reposted

heartofthedeernicorn.comRascal News Year 2A collection of some of the best independent journalism about tabletop roleplaying games and the people who make them, from Rascal News.

Part two of a thread looking at the articles in Rascal: Year Two anthology! In the second half of this collection, we start o get weird. Check out the book on the Heart of the Deernicorn store: heartofthedeernicorn.com/product/rasc...

heartofthedeernicorn.comRascal News Year 2A collection of some of the best independent journalism about tabletop roleplaying games and the people who make them, from Rascal News.

Finally, Seraphina's essay about Fight Truck, a larp about fighting people in the back of a moving truck, made everyone cry and so we had to include it. We're very proud to have it be the first contributor essay we include.

heartofthedeernicorn.comRascal News Year 2A collection of some of the best independent journalism about tabletop roleplaying games and the people who make them, from Rascal News.

If you liked the sound of these articles and want to hold some organic grass-fed games media in your hands, buy our print collection. It's a treat! heartofthedeernicorn.com/product/rasc...

heartofthedeernicorn.comRascal News Year 2A collection of some of the best independent journalism about tabletop roleplaying games and the people who make them, from Rascal News.

Next, we have Thomas combining a preview of Realis with an art history of Surrealism into a lyrical long read.

Lin has written a lot about the Mothership megagame, Over/Under, and we wanted to include their meditation on the heavy emotional bleed that flowed out of that experience.

heartofthedeernicorn.comRascal News Year 2A collection of some of the best independent journalism about tabletop roleplaying games and the people who make them, from Rascal News.

Then, we have Caelyn's gleeful review of Girl Frame and the mechsploitation genre, as noted by Lin in their introduction.

Chase writes about Letters to Sandra, a solo game about friendship, trust, and, yes, letters.

heartofthedeernicorn.comRascal News Year 2A collection of some of the best independent journalism about tabletop roleplaying games and the people who make them, from Rascal News.

@heartofthedeernicorn.com

We kick off the slipstream portion with Thomas' anti-review of Impossible Landscapes, which comes with theatrical interludes. Chase deploys body horror even in the introduction of the article (which are written only for the print collection).

Rascal News reposted

Heart of the Deernicorn

Rascal News Vol 2 is another collection of the best tabletop gaming news journalism from their second year in publication. It’s available now on our website! #tabletopgames #ttrpg #ttrpgtok #ttrpgcommunity #ttrpgs

Rascal News reposted

heartofthedeernicorn.comRascal News Year 2A collection of some of the best independent journalism about tabletop roleplaying games and the people who make them, from Rascal News.

15 Sept

The Rascal: Year Two anthology is out! Here's a thread breaking down what's in the in book: 🧵 ⬇️ heartofthedeernicorn.com/product/rasc...