Monday Musings #114 🤬
Musings on subscriptions, pilots, and knight swagger.
Good Monday, Gamer!
“The role of the GM is to ask questions, not answer them.”
— Anton Chekhov, Bard.
What’s This All For?
I’ve been thinking a lot about what folks want from a newsletter. Over on my new (non-gaming) newsletter, SecretKC, it’s simple: solve a problem, help people find the coolest spots in town. But here, with Play Fearless, the “problem” looks different.
It’s not “where should I go this weekend?”—it’s more like:
What games are worth my time right now?
What mechanics actually sing at the table?
What do I prep, and how do I run it better?
Where’s the spark, and how do I keep chasing it?
That’s the work I want to do here. Share the games I’m playing, what’s clicking, what’s breaking, and maybe give you something new to try—or just the nudge to see your own table a little differently.
Landon Poburan recently wrote a sharp piece about what people actually want from newsletters, and it got me reflecting on how Play Fearless fits in. I don’t want this to just be a diary—I want it to be useful. So if there’s something you want from this space, hit reply and tell me.
Lifting Wild Talents (and a little Godlike)
I’m prepping Wild Talents to run a short series for a pilot Supers podcast. Might even fall back on Godlike first—nostalgia does that to you.
Fun fact: the very first TTRPG app I ever built was a dice roller for Godlike on the PalmPilot. Gave it to Dennis Detwiller, a Palm user at the time, and wound up with a signed copy of Godlike! That game’s always stuck with me. I love the way it handles “initiative”—players declare actions, allocate dice, then roll, and the dice themselves decide order and effect. I’m here for it.
What I don’t love? Rolling multiple pools of dice for NPCs. Back in the day, my second-ever “GM accessory” was printing out sheets of random d10 numbers and crossing them off as I went. I’ll likely tweak Mad-Dice to handle this job for me.
Still Flying Circus
We wrapped up our two-session rescue mission this weekend. The goal: extract four downed pilots. It was tense. It’s hard to down a plane in this game, and the mission showed it. My character Nat found and freed the captured pilots—though one didn’t make it, ganked on the run. Nat also stirred up plenty of sabotage and ground chaos along the way. The crew’s escape only happened thanks to Rainer’s sacrifice: ramming his plane into the monstrous Vampyre. Brutal, cinematic, and pure Flying Circus.
The Heroic Tales of the Horde Knight and the Vulture Knight.
We’ve started a new Mythic Bastionland trilogy sequel—this time as two young knights, the Horde Knight and the Vulture Knight, venturing into the realm we created and played in the previous ‘trilogy’. They slew an ogre (of course) and swaggered their way into recruiting three—maybe four—other knights to their circle…via knightly duel —easily won by the Horde Knight 🤣 🤥
The vibe is very “knightly swagger,” easy to lean into after our first three sessions together. Thomas and I bounce off each other effortlessly, and Judd takes it all in stride—sometimes humbling our knights just enough to keep things grounded.
I think Mythic Bastionland is the roguelike of TTRPGs. It’s quick to spin up a new character, keep your player knowledge, and jump right back into the cycle of myth, death, and legend. That’s not to say OSR games don’t do this too—but here, it really clicked for me.
We’re back, and I’m loving it. Check out Judd’s GM write-up here: Mythic Bastionland: Knights Errant
ICYMI
I’ve been yapping about EVE Online, and Adam posted a warning… for his future self. It may be too late for me.
Sarah Doom continues to deliver design goodness on Patreon.
This week’s Bundle of Holding: Tiny RPG bundle.
Curious about Open Hearth? Here’s the quick intro: What is Open Hearth?.
Thanks for reading, thanks for playing, and thanks for supporting the strange stuff.
I personally just subscribe to RPG newsletters by interesting people to see what they’re playing, thinking, working on, and talking about—but that’s just me skimming free content. I wanted to comment on THIS one to note that that’s a fascinating link about providing value via PAID subscriptions, though.
We’ve also seen some podcasts and newsletters offer a selective breakdown in what they monetize vs what they release free (e.g., free reviews vs paywalled bonus commentary on Between Two Cairns; free everything eventually vs paywalled early access for patrons for many creators’ Patreon offerings). I’m curious what your audience might identify as an ideal split, if you wanted to go that route.