2025 is very nearly done! For me, it was a very solid year. I had a successful first year in a new career with my day job, continued my immigration journey mostly according to plan, and got to do a lot of new and wonderful things - but I’m not one to rest on my laurels, especially when it comes to creating TTRPG things. I want 2026 to be a return to form, for both MCGW in general but also for the Missives.
My day job is also writing and editing, and this year, I had to learn how to best achieve work-life balance when both work and life have a lot of creative thinking and writing involved! In the last few months, I think I’ve finally cracked it, and I’m excited to be back on a more consistent (if overall less prolific than two years or so ago) trajectory with my games work here.
When it comes to the Missive, that means a return to MONTHLY newsletters (with freebies) with more varied articles coming in 2026. One day I’ll figure out how to write a piece that all the newsletter/blog folks put in their roundups…
Anyways, here’s what 2025 looked like for the Missives!
6 Missives (so much for monthly…)
5 Freebies (still a lot of bang for your non-existent buck though!)
That Strange Old Island - Newfoundland-inspired Microsetting
Second Self™ - The Severance Chip for Mothership
The Star Fallen - Science-Fantasy Cairn 2e Background
Pawns of the Mind Masters - Cairn 2e Adventure
Transmissions from the Datacache - Intel Ops for Mothership
196 new subscribers (a 9.5% increase!)
2,403 total subscribers (let’s hit 2.5k soon - and 3k by 2027!)
Most Read Missive (2,866 views): MOTHERSHIP FREEBIE: Second Self™
Most Discussed: What Do You Create When Everything Wants You to Stop?
Recently, I started doing some more impromptu blogs over at my site. I never want to spam everyone’s inbox with Missives (though I do plan on getting them back to being actually monthly in 2026), and this lets me write more while making sure Missives stay juicy. Here’s what you can find over there so far:
Stranger Stars - Putting Canon Back into the Anti-Canon: The first in a series of posts discussing my primary backburner project at the moment: a Mothership total conversion mod (a la something like Cloud Empress). Unlike standard Mothership, this game is built around a specific setting (and even a specific time within that setting). I discuss about how I’m looking to do that when Mothership very much does the opposite.
Stranger Stars - Classes, Trauma Responses, and Abilities: I’m expanding Stranger Stars to include 6 classes and am looking to standardize trauma responses, add new abilities, and more. I talk through my plans (and tease some more setting details) here.
Table Talk - Mothership’s Panic Table: I review, entry by entry, the standard Mothership Panic table to see what I like, what I don’t, and what plan to change (and how) in my own projects in the future.
Expect more from me over on the blog side of things. I find it really rewarding to chat with people as I’m working in this way, and it helps me work through my design thoughts and goals. Another Stranger Stars post (and more) is coming soon!
MeatCastle Annual #3 is a 24-page, full-color A5 zine collecting the third year of TTRPG supplements originally released in Missives from the MeatCastle, the monthly MeatCastle GameWare newsletter.
This year’s collection features 6 different pieces including a North Atlantic microsetting, two Mothership 1e supplements, a Cairn 2e adventure and science fantasy background, and a one-page Honey Heist hack about leftovers in the fridge.
Pre-orders for physical copies will be running for the next two weeks over at my webstore. Grab a copy while you can as this is likely to be a very limited print run (100 copies or less, probably)!
!!! PRINT COPIES are available for PRE-ORDER at the MCGW store !!!
MeatCastle GameWare Annual #3 includes:
MICROSETTING
The Strange Old Island: A lost North Atlantic island
CAIRN 2E
Pawns of the Mind Masters: World-ending illusion adventure
Star Fallen: Science fantasy background
MOTHERSHIP 1E
Second Self: Severance-inspired cyberware
Transmissions from the Datacache: Intel op hacking
ONE PAGE TTRPG
The Light in the Fridge: a tiny game of leftover adventures
The Itch Winter Sale is here which means my digital releases are 25% off from now until January 5th! Plus, you can get everything (13 titles, including Tacticians of Ahm) for $50 total (that’s 35% off the regular prices). Get cool stuff! Support me! Win win!
I recently got some really nice feedback on someone’s playthrough of There is a Goblin on the Loose in Icarus Station. In the indie TTRPG scene, hearing “I’ve dropped my 4 year DnD campaign to focus fully on” the game I made the adventure for is pretty much the best thing I can ever expect to hear!
Chaoclypse is back making videos! This one is another wonderfully simple and smart way to easily and accessibly create killer grid-n-minis combat at any table.
![screenshot of a blogpost that reads:
"Ten More Tangible Tips for Editing Your RPG Manuscript
"1. Remove instances of here from location descriptions—it’s obvious you’re describing the location already. Instead of 'A hobgoblin hammers iron here,' write 'A hobgoblin hammers iron on an anvil.'
"2. For the same reason, remove instances of this in description entries. If you must reference the entry’s subject, use 'the.' Instead of 'Smoke fills this room,' write 'Smoke fills the room,' or better yet 'Smoke fills the air.'
"3. When writing entries for monsters, magic items, and so on, skip repeating the name of the subject with [X] is or [X] are in the first sentence. Instead of 'VODYANOY: Vodyanoy are froggy, pot-bellied water spirits,' write 'VODYANOY: Froggy, pot-bellied water spirits.'"](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!bn6E!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F81fc48d7-eac0-4823-a846-849ed769b348_1440x908.jpeg "screenshot of a blogpost that reads:
"Ten More Tangible Tips for Editing Your RPG Manuscript
"1. Remove instances of here from location descriptions—it’s obvious you’re describing the location already. Instead of 'A hobgoblin hammers iron here,' write 'A hobgoblin hammers iron on an anvil.'
"2. For the same reason, remove instances of this in description entries. If you must reference the entry’s subject, use 'the.' Instead of 'Smoke fills this room,' write 'Smoke fills the room,' or better yet 'Smoke fills the air.'
"3. When writing entries for monsters, magic items, and so on, skip repeating the name of the subject with [X] is or [X] are in the first sentence. Instead of 'VODYANOY: Vodyanoy are froggy, pot-bellied water spirits,' write 'VODYANOY: Froggy, pot-bellied water spirits.'"")
Sam Sorenson put out more tangible tips for editing RPG manuscripts. For anyone looking to write almost anything for RPGs, these are great tips to keep in mind as you write and to self-edit after writing, even if you are working with an experienced editor. From a nitty-gritty writing standpoint, this post has the juice.
Chris Bissette is back with another advent calendar. This year, it is a dark n’ grimy dungeoncrawl novella. I’m toying with getting more into fiction next year so this is a great way for me to see how someone else in my corner of the game world is doing it. It’s well worth the price of admission!
Diogo Nogueira (of Primal Quest and Kosmosaurs fame) recently became Lead Game Designer at White Wolf (of Vampire and World of Darkness fame). I just think that’s neat! It’s cool to see someone from my corner of the indie space make the jump into the shadowy halls of more traditional TTRPGs. I’m definitely keeping an eye on White Wolf’s work much more in the future than I was before!
Aaron King partnered with Plus One Exp to release a free zine exploring Powered by the Apocalypse moves. I always make a point to read Aaron’s writing, and he’s an especially accomplished creator in the PbtA space. Plus, there’s also an ongoing game jam inviting you to create moves of your own, for your real life, as a standalone exercise, or as part of a larger game.
Thursday Garreau recently reviewed Across the Web, an older Mothership supplement that I’d never heard of but she loves. I came away from the review really smitten by a lot of its cool ideas on smaller, calmer slice of life moments set between the game’s usual alien horrors. You can pay-what-you-want for Across the Web over on Itch.
All of the other OVER/UNDER Canyonheavy Collective bosses got to hang out at Dragonmeet in London recently. I wasn’t there, but that didn’t stop us from putting my into the picture anyone (I’m the slightly too big guy with the way too long arm on the right side). Really sad I missed getting to spend time in meatspace with this crew!
Thanks for reading! See you in 2026 - a year I’m hoping to make bigger and better than 2025 in every way! - Christian
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