Mark Della-Croce, Lore Link Product Lead, here. April will be an exciting month for Lore Link, let me tell you!
Our Twitch Channel has been on a roll of different hosts, different topics, and fun games. We’ve had Twenty host a playthrough of Slay the Spire, the fantasy deckbuilding computer game that I can personally attest can get quickly addictive. To continue the fantasy / Arthurian theme of the month of March, I introduced the Lore Link team to two of Capcom’s classic side scrollers: Knights of the Round and King of the Dragons. Then I got to take a break from running TTRPGs and actually play one in Mike’s “The Sword Campaign” for Pendragon 6th Edition. I spent most of the session either falling off a sequence of different horses or spreading conspiracy theories about “that Merlin fellow”. He was clearly up to something with that whole sword-in-the-stone nonsense if you ask me! Sadly, a good chunk of our audio from the first half of that actual play session was lost, but if you want to watch the second half of the session, it (as well as the other previously mentioned videos) is available on our YouTube channel.
April has us focusing more on less mainline approaches to gaming, starting with me taking our April Fools stream as a chance to review that time a fast-food joint decided to make a TTRPG. It ended up being surprisingly thoroughly thought-out, though it clearly shows signs of a Marketing Department enforcing (bad) decisions: I’m fairly certain a TTRPG that penalizes your in-game character if you eat snacks IRL is not a good idea. It did, however, give me a chance to talk about what role silly or off-the-wall TTRPGs can have at your gaming table. After that, I took some time to talk about how to introduce the next generation of gamers to TTRPGs. Seeing kids discover the joy and excitement of creative storytelling is always rewarding. And most recently, Mike rejoined us to talk about what he learned from using Lore Link to run that above-mentioned Pendragon Campaign in preparation for him running the game at Who’s Yer Con.
What’s Who’s Yer Con, you ask? Well, as you read this newsletter, it is likely where the Lore Link Indianapolis crew is spending the weekend! Who’s Yer Con is a non-profit gaming convention on the east side of Indianapolis. Lore Link will be there with a booth showing all the latest features of Lore Link (more on that in a bit) as well as running a game and teaching seminars about getting started in GMing and picking out a game system for your next game. It’ll be a great time and we’re looking forward to it. As always, if you know of a gaming convention you think Lore Link would be a good fit for, drop us a note and let us know! We love getting out and supporting conventions with panels and introducing people to Lore Link!
After the convention, Mike will continue his series on the Frozen Flame campaign, the Lore Link crew will take a moment to debrief on Who’s Yer Con over the sound of simulated power washing, and then finally, I’ll end the month on a relaxing note talking about the recent trend for chill / natural fantasy TTRPGs like Rytuutama, Fabula Ultima Natural Fantasy Atlas, and Kobold Press’ RiverBank. If any of those sound interesting, check out our Twitch channel. Drop us a follow there so you’ll know when we go live!
Lastly, on the development side, I mentioned that our Lore Conversion process was entering testing. While we are still working on polishing up those features, I do have a sneak peek of a different highly requested feature…Dark Mode! Check it out: you no longer need sunglasses to use Lore Link in a dark room!
Well, the me that is writing this needs to get back to polishing feature development, while the me in the future who exists at the moment you’re reading it needs to get back to the booth… I should probably go before I have an existential crisis. ‘Til next time, may your time travel plots avoid paradoxing themselves out of existence.
