Tuesday, March 24th

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Ham & Egg Publishing

Of A Harmonious Nature is coming to BackerKit!

Ahoy! It’s your ole buddy Hambone here! It is spring, so once again, a middle-aged man’s fancy turns to crowdfunding. 

I am stoked to announce that Of A Harmonious Nature, a folk-horror adventure designed for use with Shadowdark, is coming to BackerKit on April 21st. 

This is an adventure that Levi Combs and I had been working on a while back, and we are finally ready to unleash it on the world. Here is a teaser synopsis: 

The fog-shrouded mountain town of Skogstrand has been quietly beset by a terrible entity from beyond the veil. This creature, known in tales of old as Prastr-Vem, is a skulking, malicious thing that slithers its way into the hearts and minds of those around it, holding them in a grip of frenzied, ritualistic terror. It has set its sights on Skogstrand and its people, with no intention of releasing them until its foul will is made manifest.

As characters enter the town, they quickly realize that something unusual is afoot. Bizarre rituals and unsettling practices reign, as an annual festival known as Scythperchten looms in just a few days. 

Dare you discover what is behind the trouble in Skogstrand, or will you too fall prey to Prastr-Vem?

For me, using Shadowdark for this adventure was a no-brainer because I fell in love with the system the minute I cracked the cover. It is the perfect complement to the dark themes of this story. 

Of A Harmonious Nature was written to be the best parts of an A24 film, in the Hammer Horror style, with art by Sally Cantirino and a story by Sally, Levi, and me. 

Arcane Sword Press

Magazine Madness Continues – Ares Magazine by SPI

Ares magazine is a bit of an outlier with the other gaming magazines I’ve covered, because the gaming component is mostly secondary in the magazine. Now, i’m saying “in the magazine” because Ares was published with a boardgame in each issue! So the actual game is a tear-out from the magazine. This means the rest of the issue is essentially unrelated to the board game itself (for the most part). Which is fine! But the actual meat of the magazine isn’t gaming-focused, but gaming-adjacent. I’m talking about a focus on narrative short stories, science articles, and media reviews specifically. That’s the bulk of the magazine! The only usable gaming content is the pack-in game, and the rest of the issue is primarily inspirational content for hobbyists. While that may sound dull, I’m kinda here for it. Yes – there aren’t houserules for your favorite RPG in it, but there are articles on the practicality of rocket propulsion in interstellar travel! The short stories are also provided by notable authors for those into genre fiction of the era, including the occasional Appendix N author. Why is this magazine worth mentioning? Well, in the world of simulation games, SPI was the Pepsi to Avalon Hill’s Coca-cola. SPI produced some very notable games that I’d argue are far more visually compelling and interesting than vast swaths of Avalon Hills releases, but I also admit my own lack of experience with this era of simulation games. SPI also produced some well-regarded games from them period and even tried its hand with fantasy  and sci-fi, including Dragonquest- their answer to D&D, Universe – their answer to Traveller (which I may talk about in the future), the Lord of the Rings board game trilogy (Sauron, Gondor, and The War of the Ring), Dragonslayer – the Game, and some failed licensed tie-ins (Dallas the board game!) that may or may not have led to its financial woes.

So what happened? Ares was published bi-monthly for 11 issues starting in 1980 before SPI ran out of cash and was taken over by TSR, who then published issue 12 in 1982. Almost immediately, the magazine became an afterthought- moving to quarterly then becoming an article in Dragon magazine, until it evaporated entirely. Most of the SPI talent went to Avalon Hill as TSR was gutting the remains of SPI in 1983. 

Something I ask myself when I’m flipping through these issues is – what value does this magazine have for current hobbyists? Usually, the main appeal is the contemporary look into the hobby from the period, from terminology, to seeing trends as they form. Ares did surveys and would publish the results in each issue, sort of making a billboard top 100 but for games, which I think is cool (space game did something similar as well). But the dedication to constantly polling readers about their game rankings is interesting, Beyond ethnoecological interest – some magazines do provide something usable or insightful that still applies. I’d say almost every magazine offers this like adventures or some alternate rules. But what Ares brings is tangential inspiration from the science articles about astrophysics or the inspired short stories. Speaking of- some of the short stories are tied into the pack-in game. For example, issue 10 features a game based on The Stainless Steel Rat, a popular sci-fi rogue created by Harry Harrison who also has a short story in this issue. This issue may be my favorite of the initial 12 because it also features media reviews of Outland and Escape from New York (both reviews praised them, as they should). This issue also shows its attempt to be more like its peers by including a Dragonquest adventure included within it- using this as a resource to promote SPI’s own emerging RPG game. There are also expanded rules or updated rules for prior issue’s pack-in games. Sometimes these are rule corrections based on player feedback or reviews, showing a lack of playtesting which I would expect for someone trying to pump out and print games every two months outside of their typical simulation board game development. However, the frequency of this is troubling- indicating a lack of quality and then publishing a fix. It feels analogous to some current video game development trends (you can patch it out later, etc.) 

Did gamers want stuff like this in a gaming magazine? I genuinely don’t know

Two more things I would like to point out: First- the cover art is easily some of my favorite so far, and is honestly some of the stronger covers I’ve seen from the era. SPI has a unified design to all of their products around this time, so the fonts, layouts, and artwork all look good across the board, including the games from this period as well. You can tell they cared about what their products looked like. The second thing I would like to point out is in issue 1, there is a section called “A Galaxy of Games: Reviews of the Most Significant Science Fiction and Fantasy Games” where a team of writers attempt to review all notable games published by the “major” publishers (including SPI). So this functions as a short form collection of ranked reviews of a significant number of games available to purchase in 1980. But that’s not the notable part- What’s notable is that a good amount is done by David Ritchie and Eric Goldberg. The David Richie reviews are incredibly robotic and joyless, which is always funny seeing a rating of 8 out of 10 at the end of a review that seems like he was unimpressed with. Granted if i had to do most of the reviews for a single issue within a word count, i would also be joyless myself after a period. Another reviewer is Greg Costikyan, a celebrated game designer later into the 1980s so it’s cool to see his opinions on current games. 

So what are my thoughts on Ares magazine? It’s not very interesting especially since I’m reviewing these without the main selling point (the pack-in game), except for issue 10 due to their rarity to come across a complete game for cheap so I feel like I’m missing half of the magazine’s charm. The few reviews I found for the pack-in games often said some games weren’t fun. Uh-oh! If I received these bi-monthly in 1980 and 1981, I could see myself being very excited about it but after looking at other contemporary magazines, it’s not as impressive with a limited scope which only focused on tangential content. It feels like the pack-in game was the main selling point and the magazine was tacked on. Having said all of that, I’m glad I have a complete run of issues 1-12 for my library as a piece of history.

Next week – Adventurer: The Superior Fantasy & Science Fiction Game Magazine by Mersey Leisure Publishing

• Bryan

Stillfleet Studio

Worlds Beyond Number × Stillfleet

The flagship sci-fi TTRPG by our scrappy little indie game studio, Stillfleet, has been picked up by the actual-play legends over at Worlds Beyond Number. We could not be happier to see what folks who have mostly been showing off traditional d20 games do with the Grit System’s dice ranges and narrative powers.

Whether or not you usually listen to AP podcasts, if you like far-future political sci-fi, check out the new season of WBN, Solari! It’s a great introduction to the Grit System and Stillfleet (which we’re reworking right now for a 2.0). Content warning: sex, politics.

Horse Shark Games

Taking It to the Streets

Over the past few months I made two trips to the east coast visiting Boston & Eastern Massachusetts and New York City & Long Island. I attended cons and spoke to university students who are pursuing education in game design and speculative fiction. I have had the singular pleasure of meeting a bunch of new people.

First off I spent the 3rd week of February in Massachusetts where I was invited to speak to game design students at Fitchburg State University about RPGs and Netcrawl. I was given an hour and half slot and I knew that I wanted to end with an actual play. I had nothing else prepared before the trip and hastily planned a talk for about 30 minutes giving a brief history of RGPs and various core concepts. 

As talks go, it was fine; the payoff was asking if anyone wanted to play. The 20 or so students immediately started pushing the tables together. The president or the RPG Club pulled out multiple sets of dice for anyone without a set. It was magic! All eight pregens were grabbed and another 3-4 watched. I ran the scenario out of the back of Netcrawl RPG and it was a blast. Everyone was D&D 5e players, but as true students of game design they were all about trying something new. They asked about how it was paid for and we paused a few times to talk about specific mechanics.

Then I attended Total Con 40. I was able to meet some new people like Jeffrey Talanian, Erik Tenkar (Tenkar’s Tavern), and Ian McGarty (Silver Bulette) put names and faces together like meeting Wolf Manzella, Jayson Elliot (Solarian Games), Bryan Larkin (Arcane Sword Press) in person, and see good friends like Joey Royale and Tim Duchene.

My latest trip started with an appearance at SUNY Stony Brook where, just like Fitchburg State, I briefly outlined RPGs and then talked a little about Netcrawl. Again we ended the talk with a demo. In contrast to the players at Fitchburg State, almost everyone in attendance had never played a TTRPG and had never rolled RPG dice before. It only took a little bit of cajoling to get them to push the desks together and play, but they immediately took to it like fish in water.

I also briefly attended the Long Island Tabletop Gaming Expo in Garden City, NY. The convention is held inside the Cradle of Aviation Museum. Game tables were scattered throughout the aerospace exhibits which was amazing. I didn’t stay too long, but I did say “Hi.” to some people running DCC RPG at the convention and gave them all some swag.

The end of the trip was spent in Brooklyn and visiting Twenty Sided Store in the Williamsburg neighborhood (two metro stops or so from Manhattan). The proprietor, Lauren Bilanko, has a very nice FLGS with lots of OSR books, card game tables on the 1st floor, and a workshop/TTRPG tables in the basement. She is writing her own sci-fantasy setting and game system named Mystic Aether and does a ton of creative stuff. She and I did a workshop on adventure writing using the Sys Raid hexcrawl/pointcrawl adventure generator in Netcrawl:Arcologies. All the participants walked away with the bones of an adventure, which means I have something new to work on for the next few months!

These events have been very illuminating. We, inside our bubbles of the overall RPG gaming industry, sometimes fail to see the potential of going out into the streets to engage people that have never played. Instead we seem to focus more on people that already play games and TTRPGs. There is nothing like playing an RPG for the first time. My advice: get out there and find some new-to-the-hobby fans! Be their conduit to a new experience. Enjoy presenting your game to people who will always remember the time you introduced them to RPGs. Take your game to the streets!

ModCon 2026 Northampton, MA – May 30th

Game submissions are open now, and badges are on sale for the first-ever ModCon. 

It’s happening May 30th at the beautiful Smith College Conference Center in Northampton, MA. ModCon is a one-day convention dedicated to the modern-era genre of TTRPGs. 

That includes games like…321 RPG • Call of Cthulhu • World of Darkness • Cyberpunk • Shadowrun • Marvel Super Heroes

• Mutants & Masterminds • Delta Green • Savage Worlds • Burn 2d6 • Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland • WHPA and more!

It’s going to be a great day of gaming, dedicated to all kinds of settings in the 20th and 21st centuries, in worlds both like our own and very, very different. Sign up below, and we’ll see you there!

ArcaneCon Northampton, MA – October 16th & 17th

ArcaneCon is returning October 16th & 17th, 2026. Join us in a celebration of indie, old school, and old school-inspired RPGs, miniature games, board games, and more! ArcaneCon is Western Massachusetts’s premiere tabletop hobby convention! Game submissions will go live on March 1st! See more information at Tabletop Events.

Your editor this week has been James A. Pozenel, Jr. of 

Horse Shark Games

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Until Next Time!

– James