The history of tabletop games media is, on the whole, a fairly strange one. For much of that time the most celebrated titles that have existed, whether it’s White Dwarf, Dragon or Imagine, have all had a direct connection to tabletop game publishers. It’s fair to say that has probably had more than a little impact on both the history of games and the culture of the industry itself.

Even today, despite the fact that roleplaying games, board games and wargames are more popular than ever you’re infinitely more likely to walk into a newsagents and find magazines covering kite surfing, dog fashion or sandwiches (yes, that last one’s true and it’s actually really good) than you are the latest releases from someone like Paizo. 

At the same time the past few years have been an especially bruising time for online publications too. Ran, as they are on the whole, by faceless corporate ghouls, these sites are constantly being asset stripped, reduced to churnalism or simply shuttered when they get picked up as part of the next acquisition merry-go-round.

Thankfully, just as beautifully designed, smart, boutique magazines are making a comeback in print media, a new wave of websites are springing up. Often run by recently laid off writers themselves and directly funded by their readers, sites like Defector and Aftermath are free from corporate control and thriving because of it. The latest such title and the first to make a splash in the world of tabletop gaming this year is Rascal. We caught up with the founders to find out more.  

So, first up, can you tell us about yourselves and your background in games and journalism?

Chase Carter: My name is Chase Carter (he/him), and I’ve been a working journalist since 2012. My career has wended through local news, running communications for a popular alt-weekly in Dallas, freelancing for video games, and most recently spending most of the last four years covering tabletop.

Lin Codega: I’m Linda! I’ve been a journalist by trade for about five years, plus a few years as a freelancer, and I’ve circled writing positions for decades. I’ve been playing asynchronous text-based roleplaying games on forums since I was ten and got into the dice-and-mini variety about ten years ago. 

Rowan Zeoli: As of this writing, I am Rowan Zeoli. I’ve been a journalist for two years now, though I’ve worked in publishing and media for almost a decade at this point. I’ve been an actual play fan since the early days of Critical Role, and have been playing (mostly running) tabletop games since 2016, but I’ve been playing pretend since…I dunno, I was able to conceive of fiction probably.

Rascal launched following another round of layoffs in the gaming media, had you been mulling the idea over beforehand or was it a direct response to that?

Lin Codega: It was a direct response. I had always joked that the team at io9 should “pull a Defector” but when I was laid off it seemed obvious that there wasn’t going to be another job on the horizon anytime soon, or possibly ever. I began talking to a bunch of people, was able to rope Chase and Rowan in, and we decided that we just had to launch the ship as we were building it. It was never going to be perfect, but we could make it great in the meantime. 

Chase Carter: I was still at Dicebreaker (RIP) when Lin approached me, and I’d be lying if I said that the itch to write more than daily news hits wasn’t already eating at my feet. To be honest, we were just barely ahead of this devastating collapse of digital media. The first proverbial leaks had sprung, and it was more than enough to build our own little lifeboat. Timely, indeed.

Rowan Zeoli: I was working as a freelancer at a number of other publications when Lin asked me to join Rascal. I’ve never been anything other than a contract worker (save for my stint as a barista in high school) so the thought that I could own my work was extremely appealing to me. 

I have some experience in starting something from nothing, having been a co-founder of the literary non-profit and convention WriteHive, so getting to bring that experience into something that was important to me AND got me paid was a no brainer.

It hasn't been a good, well, millennium really for the media but the last couple of years have been particularly bad for the gaming press. Why do you think it's important for tabletop games for there to be media like Rascal?

Chase Carter: We can no longer trust corporate-owned media to preserve the version of journalism that existed in the post-blogosphere internet, if we ever could. I’m talking about a synthesis of responsible, hard-hitting reporting and voicey criticism that we need for art that’s also a commercial product. 

Rascal exists, in part, to prove that an alternative model is possible. And so far, there’s enough interested folks that we didn’t collapse right off the starting line. 

Lin Codega: The tabletop industry is experiencing huge growth. It’s a disservice to both creators and consumers to have so little press available to cover it. Rascal is important because having insider views on the industry is necessary for accurate, critical, and knowledgeable coverage. 

We’re basically beat reporters, and there are only a handful of folks out there who have the means to do what we do. I believe that there is an audience for niche journalism, and if our feedback surveys are anything to go by, a lot of our readership believes that as well.

Rowan Zeoli: I think having an outlet like Rascal also helps to bring some discoverability to an industry that is dominated by a few big names. There are thousands of people creating in this space across the globe, many doing so for little to no payment, and providing a resource like our public announcements section allows for a place for that work (games and actual play alike) to get in front of eyes that may never have been fed it by the algorithm. 

A lot of online game journalism has been forced into churning out reworked press releases to quickly generate ad revenue. What kinds of stories are you most excited to work on now you're out of that structure?

Chase Carter: Oh, so much. Nothing but green pastures beyond the fenced in and tightly managed garden of press releases! One of the best things about cultivating an audience that monetarily supports you is allowing yourself time on deeply reported stories. Or whacking out a silly blog in an afternoon. They genuinely love both.

Lin Codega: I’ve really enjoyed writing soft news—opinions, thoughts, analysis, and cultural commentary. I’m thrilled that we can still find those reported stories and have the talent and time to be able to deliver those, but critique as an art form is something I want to see more of in this industry, and I hope Rascal will be able to open its CMS to other critics soon.

Rowan Zeoli: I am so excited to focus on subcultures within tabletop that never get the attention on other sites. International communities, volunteer aid efforts for global catastrophes, labor stories; I love getting to bring these efforts that go largely unsupported or unacknowledged into a space that has largely been dominated by whatever drives the most clicks.

One perhaps for Lin here, but how able do you feel to do the kind of reporting -like, say, around the Dungeons & Dragons OGL debacle- at Rascal that you could somewhere like IGN with more structural support?

Lin Codega: While we don’t have the structural resources like a team of lawyers, a bullpen of editors, or even some of the tools we would have at those larger sites, we’re also removed from the intrinsic political rat race of content creation. Time, focus, and care are three things that facilitate deep reporting. We can hire a lawyer to review work. We can each take time to edit ourselves. The lack of additional staff is a burden, but it’s one that’s eased by the fact that we have autonomy, training, and extant talent that is available to us through both our own connections and our partnership with support organizations like the Tiny News Collective.

You're a couple of months in now, so how's it been? Any unexpected highs or lows?

Chase Carter: We are steadily growing day-to-day and month-to-month, so I can’t find anything to complain about. The biggest hurdle has been adjusting our expectations regarding timescales. When you’re a team of three building the plane as it leaves the runway, everything requires much more time, energy, attention, etc. But people showed up in an explosion of support when we first announced—I’ll never stop wondering at that fact.

Rowan Zeoli: Working with people who actually care about me on a human level has been a revolutionary experience in the most genuine sense of the word. I’ve had coworkers who care about me a lot in previous jobs, but they never had the power to do anything about mistreatment or exploitation, because they themselves were being victimized by it as well. We care about each other and maintaining Rascal in the long-term, and we know that to do that requires unlearning a lot of the toxic and detrimental expectations of work-till-you-drop capitalism. It’s hard, but there’s no one else I would be rather doing it with.

Now you’re set up what are your longer term goals for the site? What's on your wishlist for the next couple of years?

Chase Carter: A fourth Rascal would be killer. It was always our goal to expand the team as soon as we could offer that person a non-embarrassing salary. To that end, we would like to increase our wages to something approaching livable (full transparency: we take home about $1,200 per month, each). After that, it’s finding and platforming as many new, varied voices as possible. Also, I want a podcast or two.

Rowan Zeoli: Agreed, I want to expand this team so much and bring in other voices and perspectives. A fourth Rascal, consistent contributors, they’re what I’m most passionate about building for the sites future as we build the foundations for our own stability.

Looking beyond Rascal, what's most exciting to you in the TTRPG-sphere at the moment? Obviously DnD is this unassailable behemoth, but where do you see the interesting stuff happening?

Chase Carter: I’m extremely curious where the trend of licensed tabletop RPGs goes from here. We’ve seen some great adaptations from Free League (ALIEN, Blade Runner, The Walking Dead), and Magpie’s Avatar Legends was a lightning rod of envy and disdain for two solid years. But the next few years will prove whether they were easy revenue for film/TV licenses without any current output or a new and abiding sub-genre.

Lin Codega: It’s a tired answer but the new round of fantasy heartbreakers are fascinating to me. They all stand to make a lot of money over the next five years, and with D&D’s shift away from 5e, there’s an opportunity for the industry to diversify and for new consumers to come in through different avenues. I think as far as industry movement, that’s where the interesting momentum lies.

Rowan Zeoli: Actual Play is having a moment. More and more we’re seeing small productions elevate their game to in-studio filming, bringing in techniques from other mediums to expand on the folk tradition of tabletop gaming. Some notable examples include My First Dungeon, The Panic Table, Transplanar, Queen’s Court Games; the “ambitious middle” as Dr. Emily Friedman likes to call them.

And apart from better press kits, what would you like to see more of from game publishers?

Chase Carter: With all respect and love, more media training and reliance on third-party PR. Hiring someone trained in press relations makes both of our jobs easier, and I don’t need to invest time teaching designers how to wear yet another hat just to answer some questions or communicate embargoes.

Lin Codega: I would love for the industry to be more willing to accept critical press as a neutral status within the ecosystem. As it stands now, it’s seen as a personal insult. A little bit of professionalism, and some distance like Chase is suggesting, would be great. 

Rowan Zeoli: Not quite from game publishers, but from actual play folks I would love to see more of an ability to pitch a show on the merits of its story and attempt to reach audiences outside of our little niche. Actual Play is a storytelling medium at its core, and it’s so much more than just a group of friends at a table, despite what you might have heard.

Finally you're directly funded by your readers so what's your pitch to the general public that they should support Rascal and indeed that writing, journalism, is worth paying for?

Chase Carter: One of the greatest sins of the modern internet was convincing everyone that Stewart Brand’s “information wants to be free” quote referred to a price tag. Journalists are directly involved in placing truth in the public light, but that labor cannot exist without that same public’s material support. It’s not a sexy pitch, but writers want to eat and pay rent. 

Uh, wait, hold on: we have a pretty cool Discord server?

Lin Codega: This site exists because other people want it to exist. If people want to see a variety of media out there, all contributing to the ecosystem, then please consider a subscription. We’re weird, horny, funny, irreverent, and sometimes insightful. I think a space like Rascal is worth it. 

Rowan Zeoli: What they said!! Also, the more journalistic coverage given to tabletop gaming and actual play, the more people are able to learn about it. Appealing to the more self-serving nature of your beautiful, wonderful readership; if you support Rascal News, people with money to spend on tabletop will be able to delve deeper into the hobby. And maybe, just maybe, they’ll find your thing and want to give their money to you. Think about it. 

For all your horny, weird, funny and definitely insightful tabletop game coverage head to rascal.news now

This feature originally appeared in Wyrd Science Vol.1, Issue 6 (August '24)

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