Today, we're launching a new podcast. The host, Thomas Manuel, talks about Warden's Operations Manual from Tuesday Knight Games, as a part of the Rascal Reading Club.

If you'd like to participate in the discussion, you can respond to Thomas via email [email protected] or on the official Rascal discord before Feb 3rd 2026. If you're a member of the Party Member tier, you can nominate a book to be next in this series, where we look at how books talk about GM advice.

Discussion Questions

1. Do you have thoughts about the Warden's Operations Manual? Do you have a favorite part that I didn't mention?
2. Do you think that the Mothership GM guide should have more advice about running pre-written adventures? If so, is there something you would cut from the existing manual to keep it to 60 pages?
3. Do you think there is a line where advice becomes so critical to the vision of play that it should be incorporated into the rules design at some point? What do you think about my statement that the core mechanic of the game is "underdesigned"?
4. Are there Mothership adventure that plays with horror that feels "real" but isn't economic horror? More gendered or racialized horror, maybe?
5. If the rules of Mothership point towards one question, is it "are you dead yet"?

Show Notes Alfred Valley's Mothership in One Rule

The OSR dreams of having it all, my article about OSR sandbox design

Chris McDowall's ICI Doctrine

A Pound of Flesh

The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman

The music used for this show is by Nihilore and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. The opening track is So Does Hope and the closing track is Something Beautiful Is Going To Happen.

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