THE FOURTH ANNUAL SALTY AWARDS

 Planet's on fire again, it's time for the Salties

You

know

the

drill

Jesus Christ it's the fourth one of these.

THE SALTIES

The selection process is simple. I choose things and my choices are correct.

 

 

HOW ABOUT DOING YOUR FUCKING JOB

The United States Food and Drug Administration

 

This handy-handy prescription granting me the ability to legally purchase and consume small doses of amphetamine salts for the purposes of making my brain work good doesn't do shit if there's no supply, which there isn't, because these jackanapes won't increase production to meet demand.

I CAN'T FUCKING BELIEVE THAT BREAK! IS COMING OUT

Break! (Naldo Drinian & Grey Wizard)

 

What will I use for my jokes now? Monster Overhaul and Hull Breach are nearly delivered physically as well so they're also out of repeated gag territory. 

 

BEST GAME

No Award

Nothing's caught my attention in a special positive way in the previous year, not enough to claim this spot. There are good games coming out, but none that fit this slot.

 

BEST ADVENTURE

No Award

As in the previous category, there are definitely good adventures that have come out in the last year, or that i found in the last year. I have not stumbled across one that makes me go "oh yeah, this is special."

 

BEST OSR-ADJACENT MEDIA

Fear and Hunger (Happy Paintings)

I haven't played this. I don't know if I'll ever play it this because this is the sort of game where the content warning comes with its own zip code on top of being extremely difficult. But Super Eyepatch Wolf certainly knows how to sell it and I definitely recommend listening to him about it, and also Worm Girl's story analysis.

Anyway, this game sounds like a horror story about a video game: a great and terrible mystery, the gnawing unknown of something there, lurking past the boundary of the known in that special way that interactive media is capable of achieving. Even now, in the era of (terrible and ad-ridden) fan wikis, secrets remain.

Second place goes to Roadwarden, which is very good but not rabbit-hole good. I can give it an unreserved recommendation though.

 

PRISTINE VIBES

Electrum Archive (Emiel Boven)

Mechanically, EA is nice and slick but the part that really sets it apart is the art. It's raw Caves of Qud meets Morrowind vibes, and that alone is worth the slot. Also Emiel regularly releases CC art and that is always, always good.

 

BEST WORST BOOK

Beasts of Flesh and Steel (Bruce Cordell and Sean Reynolds)

This is a conversion of Numenera into 5e so I knew entirely what I was getting into, and honestly I'm not going to complain. It might be terribly written, generally useless, and symptomatic of a great many deleterious trends in RPGs, but the art is better than it was in normal Numenera and there is at least an attempt to do something novel. I can be very forgiving with that.

 

HOPE AGAINST HOPE, ONLY TO SEE IT DASHED

60 Years in Space (Andrew Doull)

There is a space game out there that does or can do what 60 Years tried to do. It is likely not written yet. Damn my scattershot ADHD brain, I don't think I could make it even with meds. But hope springs eternal.

 

IF YOU NEED AN EMERGENCY BLUNT-FORCE WEAPON

Haunted West (Chris Spivey)

I can't say a thing for the contents of the book (the alternate history elements seemed really cool and interesting, from what I saw on twitter), but I can say that the copies I saw in the store looked like they had eaten several other books and were threatening to eat even more. 

 

THEY WEREN'T EVEN TRYING

Avatar Legends

Setting new standards for phoning it in, Avatar Legends rises above the other churn-and-burn IP cash-grabs just by the sheer scope of the missed opportunity. The PBTA mechanics are utilized in such a barebones manner that you'd be better off just having a single Move and calling it a day. Most of the art is just stills from the show and all the contents are stuck doing circles in its shadow, terrified to do something new.

The one thing it has going for it is not featuring a bending move, electing instead to have players just describe how they use bending to do something - that feels like something of a necessity to avoid getting choked on crunch. But when you remove the mechanics of the central feature of the show, you gotta do something to justify your own existence. This game does not do that.

 

BEST PODCAST THAT HASN'T ALREADY WON THIS AWARD

The Redacted Reports

I am forever a sucker for good Delta Green material and this AP pays off in spades. The players really work well together, it's got great production values, the Handler has a great grip on how to run the game over a long period of time. Some good scares, some good jokes, and overall well worth the time if you're an AP person. I binged over 100 episodes of this in a few months, that should tell you all you need.

BEST RESOURCE

The Classic Explorer Template (Clayton Notestine)

It speaks for itself: a creative-commons template for both versions of Affinity plus indesign, filled with tips and commentary and guides on how to use it. That is above and beyond the call of duty and I can see a whole lot of people getting a whole lot of use out of it: just playing around with it myself has unstuck a couple potential project ideas. Blank pages are intimidating, and this is a great way to conquer them.

 

A NICE, PLEASANT EXPERIENCE

Atlas of the Latter Earth (Kevin Crawford)

 

We do not, as a community or hobby, deserve Kevin's work. The man has gotten this down to a science, so that even this sizable setting gazetteer is an engaging read. Everything, even in the depths of the setting fluff, is oriented around points of interaction. Wars in the distant past shape the current factional conflicts, long-dead civlizations are framed in how you interact with their ruins, and so on. It is a great model to work from, just as Crawford's other games have been.

 

MOST INEXPLICABLE APPEARANCE OF FANTASY IMPERIAL CHINA

Atlas of the Latter Earth (Kevin Crawford)

 

The Fifth Dynastu is just China. Not even weird posthistorical dying earth China, it's just fantasy imperial China. Sticks out like a sore thumb, and that's beyond the handful of other regions that are pretty plain and obvious / have familiar real-world names (hi, Atlantis)

STILL KICKING IMMENSE AMOUNTS OF ASS

The entire Mothership community

Sean McCoy knows what' s up: if you want a game to succeed, encourage people to make stuff for it. The sheer amount of MoSh material out there is testament to the power of its user-friendly third-party license and its creative community. Light a lighthouse in a storm, it is a beacon of hope to the troubled.

 

BEST CAT

Bubs (RIP)

 

 

I miss him :C