Mixed Success Issue#1: Negative Space

Mixed Success is a bi-annual TTRPG magazine that aims to bridge the various microcosms of designers, hobbyists, and writers across the internet. Each issue, we propose a theme to get your creative juices flowing. Think of it like a gamejam every six months. We hope that broadening horizons will lead to fresh ideas and new perspectives in game design. Not just game design, but we hope to bring interesting stories inspired by your campaigns or that will inspire your next campaign. Art is a conversation: with curation and themes, we want to showcase certain points of that conversation. 

For our first issue, our theme is Negative Space. After my conversation with Ram and co about how negative space is the invisible heart of OSR games, I started seeing negative space everywhere in TTRPGs. If there is no gap to fill in, you have a novel, not a game. A system may be concrete in its rules, but a session is far less rigid. Negative space is flexibility. Or is it? Art is a conversation, after all, and I hope you enjoy what these pieces have to say about negative space. 

The conversation doesn’t end here. What theme would you like to see next? Have an article to pitch? Want to be on our roster for cover artists? Find us on twitter and Cohost @MixedSuccessmag or email us at editor@mixedsuccess.com.

You can find more work by the authors here:

• voidcrawler loves omega by coffee
• Negative Space by Ramanan Sivaranjan (also on Mastodon)
• Open House by HB
• Marginalia by Ben R
• While You're Not There by Misha Grifka Wander (also here)
• New Game Minus by The Medusa Doctrine (also on Twitter)
• Her Cup Overfloweth by Dora Dee Rogers and Allison Cole
• Fellipe da Silva, Forgotten Ballad by Alice Pow
• it goes like this by Dvorah Sperling