 | Top Secret® Tradecraft Manual coming soon! |
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|  | Black Friday means Top Secret is 40% off! |
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Solarian Games | Get Haunted Industries | Ham & Egg Publishing |
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Black Friday savings on Top Secret® |  | Black Friday is the day when we celebrate our consumerist culture by coming down off our collective tryptophan haze and going shopping for deals, Deals, DEALS! I mean, it’s the day when we think of others and start purchasing gifts for friends and family at reasonable prices.
Far be it from me to deny this great tradition, so in observation of this day of commerce, we have knocked 40% off the price of the Top Secret box set on Amazon dot com.
You can get the whole shebang for just $29.99, and that’s with free shipping if you’re an Amazon Prime member, and speedy delivery to make sure it’s there in plenty of time for Christmas. Or sooner – tear off that shrink wrap and start playing spies with your favorite gamers right now! | | | | |
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The Top Secret® Tradecraft Manual is on the way |  | Thousands of gamers worldwide have made Top Secret® a success since its newest edition, New World Order, was released in 2018. Players take on the role of secret agents in the modern world, deploying to locales around the globe on covert missions.
At the heart of Top Secret are the skills that characters use to complete their missions, known in the language of spies as tradecraft.
The core rulebook for Top Secret describes the various tradecraft, or “specialized skills,” that agents can learn, devoting a paragraph or so to each skill.
In the Tradecraft Manual, every skill has been expanded upon and enhanced with detailed descriptions, explanations of the mechanics and rolls required, new tables to help the GM determine difficulty levels, methods player characters might employ when using the skill, and narrative in-game examples of agents using the tradecraft while on a mission.
New tradecraft skills are introduced, including intelligence evaluation, psychological profiling, melee, thrown, and projectile weapons, a new kind of first aid for faster healing under the right conditions, skills in disarming weapons of mass destruction, and a “makeshift engineering” skill for those MacGyver moments in your game.
You also get new rules for Top Secret, such as faster and easier car chases, foot chases, perception checks, attacking from a moving vehicle, simplified hacking rules, and streamlined options for initiative and actions.
Scott Kongable, the author of the Tradecraft Manual, is the foremost GM for Top Secret®: New World Order, having run multiple campaigns bi-weekly for over six years. The updates to Top Secret in this book are the culmination of literally hundreds of sessions in both campaign play and convention play.
Everything in the Tradecraft Manual is compatible with the existing corpus of published rules and missions for Top Secret. We hope you’ll get many, many hours of fun as you and your players use this book to take your spy game to the next level! | | | | |
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 | I just flew in from PAX U and, boy, are my arms tired! I saw some awesome pals, learned some new things, and threw some dough around:
Liminal Horror: Liminal Grimoire
It’s official- I’m collecting anything Liminal Horror these days. It just speaks to me, man, ya dig? This 6 brochure collection gets us into the back rooms, a one hour photo hut, a meat elevator, and several other evocative death traps. M. Allen Hall is a masterful adventure wizard who fits a lot inside of these small brochures. I’ve recently been exploring the brochure branch of gaming supplements. The space allotment is an interesting design confine that allows room for judge and player agency. https://m-allen-hall.itch.io/liminal-grimoire
Press Play: Found Footage from World Champion Game Co.
This one is a d6 based game for 2 to 4 players where you explore the horrific truth behind found footage. Adam Vass is on my Mt. Rushmore of indie game designers. He is a prolific creator and it’s all-killer-no-filler. https://worldchampgameco.itch.io
Sickest Witch, Severed Games
Remember that Mt. Rushmore? Well, Justin Sirois is also up there, smiling, like the nicest guy in the world that he is. Justin pours his soul into his games. Sickest Witch does folk horror right and brings a new bad-ass witch vibe to the table. hack up some folks, harvest, their limbs, and gain power. Love it. https://www.severedbooks.com/?m=1
Stay Weird! -Joey Royale |
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 | A Little Help For A Friend | Ahoy!
Hambone here, no Ham & Egg fun to report this week, but I did want to mention a buddy who is having a rough go of it.
Rocky’s a good dude who has been dealt a bad hand. Cancer can kick rocks. Please give a little if you can; every little bit helps.
From Jen Glazar:
Help Support the Gardner Family in Rocky’s Fight Against Cancer
Hello friends, and thank you for taking a moment to read this.
Zach and I have had the pleasure of knowing Jayson “Rocky” Gardner for over a decade, and we are humbled to help bring his story forward as we ask for support on behalf of his family. We are starting this fundraiser for Rocky, his devoted wife Kendra, and their three beautiful children—not because he asked us to, but because he never would.
Rocky is a loving husband to an incredible woman who works full-time to support their young family, doing everything she can to keep things afloat. Four weeks ago, their world changed. After five years in remission, Rocky was diagnosed with stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma in his lung. The cancer has spread to his windpipe and abdominal wall and is now threatening his liver. Without treatment, doctors estimate only one year.
But if you know Rocky, you know he is a fighter. Treatment has already begun, and he is giving this battle everything he has.
As you can imagine, this journey has forced Kendra to miss significant time from work as she drives Rocky to and from appointments, procedures, and treatments. PTO only stretches so far, and while insurance helps with some medical bills, the financial strain of missed wages and mounting expenses is becoming overwhelming. Things many of us take for granted—gas, groceries, housing, utilities—have suddenly become sources of worry for their family.
Our hope is to raise funds to help the Gardners replace lost income and cover essential needs during this difficult time. Your contribution, no matter the size, will directly support their daily living expenses and provide stability while Rocky continues his fight.
If you are unable to give financially, please know there are other meaningful ways to help. A meal train is being organized, and prayers, positive thoughts, and shared good vibes are deeply appreciated. Even simply sharing this fundraiser can make a tremendous difference.
Thank you for your compassion, generosity, and for standing with this dear family as they face the unthinkable.
| | | | | Nominations are OPEN for the Golden Fezawards! |  | This is the 2nd year for the Golden Fez awards, our annual tabletop RPG awards honoring game designer James Carpio. Held in conjunction with TotalCon, the awards will be given out at the convention on Saturday, February 21st.
Submit your own game, or nominate someone else’s game that you love. Awards are open to any tabletop role-playing game published in 2025, from the largest publishers to the smallest indie press.
Last year, the Game of the Year award was won by Outgunned from Free League Publishing. Award categories include:
The Holy Hand Grenade Award- Given for best new game mechanic.
The Pick Up and Play Award- Honey, I Shrunk the Dice Award
- For micro-RPGs that will fit on one page or less.
The Velvet Smooth Award- For best design and production.
- The Everlasting Fun Factory Award
- This award is given to a game that was published prior to the current judging year. It is for the enduring classics as well as the hidden gems from the past.
The Hack the Planet Award- Presented to the most unexpected idea. Originality in any form, whether it’s rules, setting, design, or anything else.
The Bucket of Blood Award- The Golden Fez Game of the Year
- Game of the Year is given to the one game published this year that we feel best embodies all of the things about gaming that James loved.
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Your editor this week has been Jayson Elliot of Solarian Games Thanks as always for reading the Analog Union newsletter, and I hope you’re with someone you love this holiday season. And if you’re not with someone you love, I hope you love yourself. Do it. You’re worth it and you deserve it.
Keep on emailing us at hello@analogunion.com to let us know what you’d like to see more of, less of, or just ideas you’ve got. If you like the Analog Union newsletter, please tell your friends to sign up at AnalogUnion.com. See you next week! -Jayson |
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