Newsletter
The compendium is a reference, not a feed. It will never email you on its own, and it has no front page that quietly reorders itself overnight. The Modest Duck newsletter is the one channel that does come to you: a short letter, sent only when there is something genuinely worth sending, about game design and the craft of rules.
If you have been reading the articles collected here and want the thinking behind them — the false starts, the discarded mechanics, the books that changed how an entry got written — this is where that lives.
The Modest Duck
If you liked this, you’ll love my email newsletter, The Modest Duck. Subscribe below:
FAQ
What goes into each issue?
Every issue is built around a single idea and follows it all the way down. Not a link roundup, not a digest of everything published since last time — one mechanic, one design problem, or one question, examined until it is actually useful. If a topic cannot carry a whole letter, it waits until it can.
How often will it arrive?
The Modest Duck goes out when there is something to say, and not on a schedule. That usually means once or twice a month, sometimes less. You will never get an issue written to fill a slot — a quiet inbox is a feature, not a lapse.
Can I reply to it?
Yes, and you are encouraged to. Every issue ends with an invitation to write back: the return address is real, and a real person reads what arrives there. Corrections, disagreements, half-formed ideas, and "this reminded me of…" all routinely shape what gets written next.
Do subscribers see new articles first?
Yes. Subscribers hear about substantial new articles and major revisions before they surface anywhere else on the site. The compendium has no notifications and no chronological feed by design; the newsletter is the closest thing to one.
How do I unsubscribe?
Every issue carries a one-click unsubscribe that works immediately and without ceremony. Your address is used for this newsletter and nothing else — it is never sold, shared, or handed to a third party. Leaving is as easy as joining.