Happy New Year y’all! Welcome to my quaint little newsletter! Look at it, lying around all young and cute before it has gained consciousness. Of course, when it does gain consciousness it will take up the sword and vow destroy us all, but that’s for future Maddie to deal with. Present Maddie has a January newsletter to write!

So, as those of you who keep up with niche TTRPG trends know, it’s award submission season. I thought it would be neat to throw Let Me Be Your Thrall’s and Please Let Me Go’s hats into the ring. So I have submitted to the Ennies and the Indie Groundbreaker Awards. Do I expect to win anything? Probably not. The Let Me Be Your [Blank] games aren’t anything super innovative and groundbreaking, though there may be an argument about them starting this boom of new duo games popping up (yes I am taking credit for that, and yes I am letting it get to my head).

Don’t be surprised, however, if you don’t see Let Me Be Your Thrall at the Ennies at all because: I submitted it as a physical product and they want me to ship 6 whole copies to 6 different locations. I can not afford the shipping there, even if I could afford the prints. I emailed the coordinator to see if I can change that to a PDF instead, but that would bar LMBYT from certain categories, which would suck, but whatever. It is what it is. I’m not salty about that at all.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the awards show with the “best production value” award (which should really be called the “most money” award) kind of favors the publishers with more money.

Speaking of Awards, I have my own awards now! Some of y’all may have seen my #TTRPGsWrapped post on my socials, there I included the “things I like” awards. it is a collection of things I like over the year. So if you want an award, make something I like by the end of the year. You can check that post out here.

Look. I know. I’ve talked about the Together TTRPG Jam in my last two newsletters as well. Just bear with me, please! Your life is at stake! If I don’t tell you about the TTTRPG Jam you’ll die a horribly gruesome death! You’ll be licked to death by 32 cats who are all named Horace! And they won’t even be cute cats, they’ll be your least favorite breed of cats! So please, just read about my game jam for your own sake, not mine!

The Together TTRPG Jam has officially begun! At the time of writing, there’s 9 months left! So there’s a good bit of time! I’m hoping to get more people active in the discord, because I feel things have stagnated a bit. So if you’re a social butterfly (or know one), you should join in. Even if you aren’t, you may meet a new friend, who knows.

Go make some cool stuff with another person! I demand it! And that’s big of me since I am not a very demanding person.

Okay, now that you’ve read all that, your life is saved. You’re welcome by the way.

Awe, you want to know about Little ol’ me? Well… If you insist!

I have recently became obsessed with Wicked. The musical, the movie, the books, all of it. It is the exact kind of whacky/whimsical low fantasy that makes no sense that I love, while the books are the exact kind of dark fantasy I love and they both mix the whacky and and dark in very good ways. Also, lesbians! I love Lesbians!

Over the holidays I forced myself to take a much needed break. That meant no writing, no fixing my messed up newsletter, no layout work, NOTHING. I had to sit in bed and play games, and sometimes play games at someone else’s house with other people. After last year, rushing to get LMBYT printed, Itch and payment processors messing with me, housing issues, my PC literally exploding (yes, literally), a new part-time job, and working on new games all through that… Yeah, I needed a bit of a break. The reset was good, but it also means my previous newsletter is still a bit relevant. I’m still looking for online sales platforms, and I’m still trying to get PLMG printed. I am also hitting a bit of a roadblock on You’re Not A Hero But Neither Are They. I’m not super satisfied with the last section, and I have a lot of art to make. Considering I am currently learning to draw, it might take a while! Don’t worry though, I will prevail! I have faith in myself! If anyone has advice for someone learning to draw as an adult, please let me know!

Thank you all for catching up with me! And I’m glad your life is saved because you read about the TTTRPG Jam… You did read that section right? Because if you skipped over it then the curse doesn’t break.

Madeline Maylon

Milkboy Games