RRD NEWSLETTER JUNE?

Okay; it’s a week late. Don’t draw attention to it. We’re all ashamed and there’s no need - and no benefit! - to pointing fingers about “whose job” it is to “write” the “newsletter” “once a month.” Everything exists in a context. For example, in my case, that context is that I was busy and it was hot.

CHILDREN OF TIME KICKSTARTER

DING DING DING. Gosh, would you look at the Time? It’s Time for Children - and by Children I mean larger-than-normal spiders with a disposition to form human-like societies and pass information between generations via especially complex webs.

That’s right - the Children of Time Kickstarter is perilously close to happening. Our playtests are going brilliantly - we’d suspected that we were on to something good, but it seems like folks are having an even better time than we’d hoped imagining their own doomed, ramshackle spaceships or the birthing pangs of accelerated non-human cultures.

Also people seem to like the pangolins that we chose as our very own uplifted species, and who wouldn’t? Their tongues connect to their hip bones! Imagine that. Imagine kissing that. On your wedding day. Surrounded by friends and family. To have it reach forward with its little claws and pull up your veil and - gosh.

Anyway! Go here and click “follow” and then, in five days when it all goes live, click on thatnotification. Then pick the highest number you can see from the ones offered and give us that much money. It’s all very simple and we’re glad to have you on board as part of the team.

ENNIEONE FOR AWARDS?

We’ve been nominated for an ENnie this year - Minærva got picked for Best Layout in Voidheart Symphony, which makes sense - but, you know. It’s not awards and fancy receptions and firework displays and personalised goody bags and limousines and bespoke cocktails and the thick, luxurious tablecloths they use that do it for us, no: it’s your approval. Because your approval comes with money attached, and no award committee has ever given us a single red cent, and I can’t pay my mortgage in kudos can I.

You’re what matters - not the pyramids of champagne flutes, or the all-you-can-roll D20 fountains, or eating high-grade sushi off Matthew Mercer’s bare chest, or getting access to the special winners-only bathrooms in the Indiana Convention Centre where they smash the toilet to bits with a big hammer after you use it so you know it’s boxfresh porcelain every time. Not those. You. Your love, and the associated fifty quid, is worth all the hummingbird vol au vents in the midwest.

Also you can vote for as your Fan Favourite publisher. I don’t know what that does, and the form isn’t open for another four days - we’re already on the list so don’t put us on there twice - but I’m not against you clicking anything with our name on it you find on the internet. Hey: you see our name, you give it a click. That’s just good sense.

If you’ve missed out on Voidheart Symphony up until now, let this be the wakeup call that drags you into war against the Castle - you can download the Quickstart for ZERO POUNDS here. Or you can pay for it; whatever you like. I know which I’d prefer.

WE WENT TO PYRKON

Pyrkon remains Poland’s largest gathering of nonspecific dorks, and we’re proud to be specific dorks within the masses by representing RRD at their convention - AND, for the first time, at the inaugural DEEP (Design Experience Exchange Program) games conference. Chant - and a few others - wrote about it in detail, and you can read that right here.

I didn’t write much for it and instead made snide comments in italics throughout, so here’s my Pyrkon highlight reel:

• Ate superb Georgian food twice, they didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak Polish, lots of pointing and nodding
• Performed maverick ad-hoc games design in a room so hot and wet you could raise a fucking toucan in it
• Utterly failed to ride a tram for one stop and managed to get lost within three minutes of leaving the con hall
• Increased the number of foreign countries where friendly games designers give me free drugs by one (1) country
• Gifted a ceramic goose by RRD staff members
• Decided that the best group costume next year would either be Asterix et al OR several gender-bent Eat the Reich characters. OR we all dress up as Disco Elysium

DO YOU WANNA GM FOR US AT GENCON 2026?

No-one knows what GenCon stands for - personally I think it’s “Gygax’s Extra-Special Numbers Convention”, but they’re refusing to reveal their secrets - but, thankfully, that doesn’t mean you can’t attend. In fact, every attendee of GenCon since it first started in 1936 has had precisely zero idea what the name means, and they’ve all been able to lead full and nourishing weekends, so you shouldn’t let that stop you from popping in the car and scooting down to Indianapolis later this month.

And hey, while you’re there, do you want to run a game for us? We’ve had some dropouts from our GM group - probably messed up worrying about what GenCon stands for, you know how fragile kids are these days - and we could do with some fresh blood to replenish the stock. So if you’re au fait with Heart, Hollows or Orc Borg - or you reckon you could pretend to be au fait with them under scant observation - drop an email to admin@rrdgames.com with your details and we’ll have a chat.

Plus, we pay fifteen bucks an hour! Which is nice.

I WROTE ABOUT MULTI-TABLE GAMES

On the subject of GenCon, we’re running multi-table games there again this year after skipping 2025. I’ve spent the past - ooh, month? Two months? Four? Writing increasingly complex scenarios and taking far too long to make even simple decisions.

I’ve spearheaded the creation of three thirty-player games - one I wrote two years ago and polished up, one Chant did all the heavy lifting with regards to making it into an actual adventure, and one I got an overworked Texan woman to write fully half of - and, while I was supposed to be finishing them so the GMs could read them and prepare, I wrote a six thousand word blog post about the act of doing it.

Patrons and subscribers get it a week early here, and before anyone says that in this particular case a week early is actually a week late seeing as it’s June’s blog post, remember that I DID say it was hot and I WAS busy, so.

QUESTION: DO YOU HAVE QUESTIONS FOR US?

We’re recording a Hollows Directors’ Commentary podcast at present, and while Chris and I are perfectly capable of wittering engagingly about our work for hours at a time, we know - well, we hope - that our listeners, if they exist, would have particular avenues of inquiry down which they might like us to meander.

We’re two episodes in so far, and we’ve done “Why did this book take six years to make” and “What’s the deal with the Temple, and why do even the brief tenets of their faith seem contradictory” and “We’re sorry but we don’t know anything about real-world history please don’t ask us to even make sensible noises when you mention specific years in casual conversation,” so those are all covered, but if you’ve got any questions about our upcoming fin-de-siecle masochism simulator, send an email to admin@rrdgames.com and Jim’ll pass them on to us.

That’s it!

Stay beautiful,

- Grant “Happy Just To Be Nominated” Howitt

PS. There are 5 meccha chameleon guys hidden in this email.