Remember Books? They’re Back, in Blog Form
There has never been a better time to stock up on Knock, the favorite “magazine” (magazine being either a lie or mistranslation from the original français, as the issues of Knock are clearly books). Knock #5 is currently funding but not for much longer. By the time I post this, you have about a day so get moving if you want to catch the last train out of Fomoville). I have seen it expressed before that the Knock series are among those that one would save from their burning home or would bring with them to a deserted island, and to me those seem like only slight exaggerations. The experience of reading Knock, which truly lives up to its bric-a-brac credo with such a wide variety of gameable ideas jammed inside each volume, is unparalleled.
Now is the best time to stock up for two reasons: the first is that one of the pledge levels allows you to get all the past issues in a single fell swoop if you had missed out on previous campaigns, but the second is because if you say “no, but maybe next time,” then even if the same “catch-up” bundle is still being offered, you would have to back at the 6-book version instead of the 5-book version, which if my math is correct would be approximately one book more expensive. You will never find a more economical way to finish your Knock collection baring being so fortuitous to attend the estate sale of a fellow OSR aficionados just as they are being put in the ground (but not me, as I will be donating my body, and my vast collection of books, to science; by which I mean the immortal science insofar as my taxidermied corpse will lie behind a glass case inside Lenin's Mausoleum). If, like me, you got on the Knock train as soon as it left the station with issue #1, you are of course obligated to get the latest so as to not be without one of the numbered issues. This is a lifetime commitment, and I for one shan’t be shirking it.
There has never been a better time to be in Knock than now, by which I mean whenever you are reading it, even if it is months or years after its original posting. If you are a blogger, or even a wannabe blogger, you can submit your post to be in a forthcoming issue of Knock. I’ve submitted no shortage of posts over the years and even have gotten accepted a few times! (Including in this upcoming issue!) As Knock’s current editor-in-cheese advised, “rejecting isn't ‘We don't like this’ it's just ‘Need to make this puzzle piece fit’”. But also, there is truly no downside to rejection. And rejection is not permanent; I submitted one very old post on traps long ago, and after much silence, the Mushmen on high have deemed it worthy so it will be in the upcoming issue. At last, a puzzle with which my piece fit.
Rejection does not sting so bad, but acceptance sure is sweet. Is it commonly known that my first TTRPG publication credit is Knock #2? If it isn’t memorialized elsewhere, let it be known here. I still remember it fondly. It was the ides of April 2021. I had only started my blog a mere five months prior and was finally starting to get some readership, largely off the back of some well-timed and duly-appreciated retweets from my then- and now-TTRPG idol, Luka Rejec. It was a beautiful day, and I remembered I had just that week discovered the “Blogs on Tape” project (a new season is out now, by the way) so was listening to its backlog and sitting outdoors enjoying one of the few days of pleasant weather before it would become unpleasantly hot when I received an email. Actually, let me go look for it–hold on just a moment (although you can immediately read on, I hope that you will at least pause for one beat to signify yourself patiently waiting for me to locate an old email to show you).
“Sorry to have kept you waiting! I'm interested in your gear post - really liking. Would you be able to send me a odt, rtf, or docx file of it, with any changes you deem relevant?”
What news! I’ve hit the big time, baby! Time to quit my job, grow out my hair, move to Los Angeles and finally live the life of a bona fide RPG blogger! Or at least, that is how it felt. Blogging is mostly, in my view, an internal mission, a journal of ideas for yourself that you feel compelled to share with others. We bloggers tend not to be showered in external validation, except mostly by our fellow bloggers. But seeing your post in print alongside giants of (our corner of) the hobby like Arnold K. or Gus L. makes you go gee whiz, I did good huh. There is also financial remuneration, but it doesn’t redound to your benefit so much that you’ll be able to quit your job, unless your job is driving for Uber for one hour per year. That’s all sprinkles. The real reward is having that book on your own shelf.
Once you have been accepted, prepare to get fit. Not physically fit, of course. Lord knows I don’t qualify in that regard and frankly my sojourns to gaming conventions have given me the anecdata to back up that I’m not alone in that regard. No, I mean your post will need to fit within so many exquisitely laid out two page spreads of Knock. For some posts, shorter ones, like my post on gear that sneaked its way into Knock #2, little trimming is required. Mostly it’s just grammar correction, fixing my abundant smelling errors, and things of that nature. But in issue #5, the Mushmen set their sights on publishing my top post of all time (it isn’t close): the Hexcrawl Checklist. However, it is long. So long, in fact, that I have it on good authority that putting it in a similarly highly beautified, laid out book would bring the article to a whopping 18 pages. There is no way in the kingdom of heaven that the Mushmen would give me that kind of real estate in an issue of Knock. So I worked with the editor to narrow the scope and increase the focus. It is still frankly incredibly dense and detailed for a mere two page spread, and something that is perhaps more appropriate for a refresher when you have Knock #5 in your bag and are waiting for the game you are running to begin. No one has time for 18 pages of advice in such a situation. I am quite proud of my inclusion in the latest Knock (the modified post of hexcrawl advice is given a new title more befitting of its format: Sandbox Seasonings. I don’t recall if that was suggested by me or by Josh, such was the highly collaborative process whereby for a brief moment over google docs, our two souls became one). If every other contributor (50+ of us at least in the upcoming issue, but who is counting? Not me, clearly, I couldn’t even be arsed to count for the benefit of this parenthetical) is as happy with the final version of their contribution as I am with mine, it is set to be yet another stunning book in a series of stunners, and some of the best examples of the ethos of DIY elfgame production. I tip over an entire rack full of hats once again to all the Mushmen.
Okay, but if you, like me, prefer reading blogs on paper rather than on a screen or are otherwise interested in books like Knock, I am afraid you must keep your wallet open before Knock merely opened the door (heh) to this phenomenon. False Machine, an iconic blog if ever there were one, was first to the idea with Speak, False Machine, a 652-page hardcover collection of over ten years of regular postings. Even at that size, the pages are thinly sliced, giving the impression of one of those portable bibles. I backed it immediately and, when it landed at my door, read it cover to cover. Although I was familiar with the False Machine cannon, I was surprised at how much I hadn’t read. Even rereading old favorites on ink and paper was a delight. No marketing I could do for this book would be better than what Mr. Machine wrote himself: “This one is really for fans curious rich people and/or those who fear Robot Rule. If you have begun to understand that everything written online is written in water, and you want a solid memory that will last a little longer, and be a little more real, then this is for you.” Robot Rule dawns ever nearer, certainly closer today than it was when Pat Stu of False Machine launched this project back in 2022 (my how time flies).
The latest entrant into this genre is my own. Prismatic Wisdom just recently landed on my webstore and you can buy it right now! Assuming, that is, you aren’t reading this too far into the future, because this was a somewhat limited print run. It is 200 pages and less austere in presentation than Speak, False Machine, veering more into the essays-cum-artbook direction that Knock is at, although it is a bit less Mörk Borg in its layout and more Into the Odd Remastered, if you require a Free League frame of reference. Within the pages, you’ll find 35 of my best posts, nicely laid out and edited. And by edited, I mean more in line of fixing aforementioned grammar and smelling errors rather than any truncating. The few material changes are largely additive but not majorly so. These are no Star Wars special editions. The posts were already good, now they are just good in a different format: a book. It is, of course, beautiful, as it is from the same layout (Guilherme Gontijo) and publishing (Games Omnivorous) team behind such other incredibly aesthetic books such as the Haunted Almanac (which is maybe the closest comparison to Prismatic Wisdom) and the first collected edition of Vaults of Vaarn. It is also, I understand, the last book to be published by Games Omnivorous in a completely publishing capacity, so I feel very fortunate I got a chance to work with one of my favorite publishers of all time. One of my first posts, before I was even published in Knock, was extolling the virtues of their work! And now my writing gets to exist alongside those, and gets to hopefully sit on your bookshelf, next to your copies of Knock (issues #1 through #1,000) and Speak, False Machine. There has never been a better time to load up your escape pod from the cesspool that is the Internet and become a hermit with a collection of arcane tomes.
