Twelve Pins Press Newsletter No.5
Flash sale and things to watch in ttrpgs. Plus a few clips from the design dungeon.
Hi everyone!
I need a better name for this newsletter. Does anyone have a better name? Please comment.
As usual, you haven’t heard from me for a while. I’m busy in the day job, and I’ve actually slowed down my writing output over the last few months to focus on a bit of commissioned work and, more importantly, life. I promise there are some good things on the cooker, but how long they’ll take to crisp up, I don’t know.
In big RPG news: I HAVE A GAME JAM ON. The Strange Worldscapes Jam is there for taking your favourite bits of art and turning them into dungeoncrawls, hexcrawls, adventures, settings, or; whatever you want really!. Just take some art and make a world out of it; if you make it a hack or supplement for Hieronymus, you get bonus points :p
I can’t wait to see what you all make.
Newsletter contents:
Hieronymus: a big and final update and lovely press coverage
Flash sale on all physical game texts
What to watch in RPGs: Terminal and Border Riding
Clips from the cutting room floor
Hieronymus
So, in my last newsletter I announced that print copies of Hieronymus were arriving and I was fulfilling the kickstarter. Well, that's all come true now.
The beautiful layout by Chris Bissette looks good in PDF but its the print copies that I’m most proud of. Everything about them is absoluetly gorg. We have a few hardbacks that are only available at cons, but softcovers are now available on twelvepinspress.com.
I’d really like to share some lovely reviews and coverage we got. I’ve also got some amazing in-person feedback at UKGE and beyond! (And to the guy who who complained that the page count was too low - I bite my thumb at you, but also, we didn’t pick up any ENNIE noms, so maybe we should have written some unnecessary rules in at the back to make it look more like a DnD book.)
The Weekly Scroll did a lovely review on Youtube here, and I feel like they really got to the heart of the game!
And a nice but very brief review here.
If anyone else is reviewing or playing though Hieronymus, I want to hear about it! Please email me, tweet me, or @ me on threads @laurie.oconnel!
Because I have nowhere else to put it, someone posted a great playthrough of To Honour and Obey, my solo tarot RPG. here it is!
Flash sale on all physical games texts
Hey all, so remember in my last update when I said this:
Well, I'm moving. Just across London, but I'll be between places for a bit which means I need to get rid of a lot of my physical books. So I'm doing a sale on Twelve Pins Press for the next few weeks; everything is 33% off.
This is probably the cheapest they're ever going to be, so if you've been covering a physical copy of any of my games, getting them now is a favour to you and a favour to me. Thank you!
What to Watch in RPGs: Terminal and Border Ridings
I have for you one RPG kickstarter that is about to end and one that is just beginning. I'm excited about both, I think they're very unique takes on RPGs.
There is always amazing stuff coming out at the moment and I don’t have the time and mental space to feature everything I like. So I can only pick out a couple of kickstarters every newsletter. But, in case people are looking for recommendations for things to play that have already come out, I’ve been really digging MIRU at the moment. I picked up a physical copy at UK Games Expo and have been playing it in my spare time.
Stout Stoat’s new game Border Ridings is in its last 20 hours as I write this. It’s a group map drawing game, printed like a regular map, where you make a community and watch it grow over generations. You only have a few hours to investigate this beauty for yourself and see if it floats your boat. I talked myself into backing it as I was writing this up.
Meanwhile, my friend Kayla over at the Rat Wave Game House has just launched her first kickstarter: Terminal. It’s a ‘Digital pirate action’ RPG. I’ve heard her talk about it over the last month and it has everything. Hackers, dystopias, utopias, lesbians, standoffs and shootouts. Don’t be fooled by the fact its her first KS. Kayla is a pro.
The world as you know it, early 21st century Earth, is nothing but a lie. In truth, it is a simulation called the Terminal, a lie to keep humanity under the control of the Robot Authority. In the Wake, the real world, pirates trawl the seas and plug back into the simulation. Inside they battle the system's agents and try and free other restless sleepers.
The players act as members of a daring pirate crew. They will walk the path of Omen, the latest in a cycle of reincarnation, someone with extraordinary power and a sign that this iteration of the Terminal is close to collapse. Total system crash is coming.
The crash could spell disaster and death for pirates, or an opportunity to claw back their autonomy. Shatter the nightmare, take back your life, crash the world.
Clips from the cutting room floor
Since I don’t have any new releases to announce, I wanted to share some clips from projects I’m working on, both those on the back burner, and those I’m actively working on. I’lll put little snippets in the screenshots, and more in the alt-text for anyone intersted.
Escape from Belt City (A Pick-up-n and play storygame with a rotating GM and big dreams)
Into the Curio (A setting and space-crawl for Lancer)
Death Game (aka: capitalism is killing us, and this is a grotesque metaphor)
Do any of these interest you all more than others? If nothing else I hope it’s an interesting look at my process.
I had a few other things to say but I think I’ll leave it there for the next few months, unless I end up with something big to announce.
I’ll be at Norwich Games Con and Dragonmeet, so hopefully see some of you there!
Signing off :)
Laurie