A Psychic Warrior who shields their fellows and strikes their foes with the power of their awakened mind. A Soulknife who cuts at the very minds of their enemies with blades of psychic force A wizard of the Psionics tradition, who manifests as pure psionic energy. I hope you’re ready to use your head, because the latest Unearthed Arcana is revisiting psionics with options for the fighter, rogue, and wizard as well as some new spells and feats. Let’s see what these intelligent adventurers can do, and then address the big psionics questions for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition! Continue reading Unearthing Psionic Fighters, Rogues, and Wizards
Monthly Archives: November 2019
System Hack: Cyberpunk Chimera Meta-Game
Welcome back to System Hack! Over the last few months I’ve been slowly but surely building out elements of a Cyberpunk game, inspired by but not really based on Cyberpunk 2020. At this point, we get into the weeds. Until now, the articles published so far have all dealt with simulationist aspects of the game. That is to say, when a character in the game wants to do something, what happens? At this point, we’re going to pivot away from the characters and focus instead on the players.
Meet the Party: Afterlife: Wandering Souls
A Bow who wanted for nothing and had the world at her fingertips before suffering a rude awakening. A Sword who never understood other humans, instead being raised and taught life’s lessons by the wilderness, his only kin the wolves. A Shield who was haunted by the city their parents brought them to, a stranger in a land where they didn’t belong. All three have died. None know how, or even really who they were. As the Boatman delivers them to the shifting sands of the Tenebris, though, these Wanderers will grasp at glimpses of memory and start their journey to the Beyond in this Meet the Party for Afterlife: Wandering Souls!
Eberron: Rising from the Last War Review
“Whether aboard an airship or a train car, embark on thrilling adventures shrouded in intrigue! Discover secrets buried by years of devastating war, in which magic-fueled weapons threatened an entire continent.” The pulp adventure and noir intrigue of Eberron have come to the 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons in full, hardcover form! After multiple iterations of artifice, after reading the Wayfinder’s Guide on the lightning rail ride here, we’re finally Rising from the Last War with new races, new narrative mechanics, 5e’s first all-new class, and a tacklebox worth of hooks to bring your characters into the adventure. Let’s go through chapter by chapter, and see what there is to find under the light of the Ring of Siberys!
The Veil In-Depth
Welcome to another Review In-Depth! Here I explore and attempt to critique a game using not just a reading or even a mere one-shot, but rather a full short campaign of play. While reading may tell you about rules and ease of use, and a one-shot may demonstrate game balance and fun factor, it takes several sessions to really tease out how well a game accomplishes its stated goals. And because rules aren’t everything, I cast an equally critical eye to the content of the story the group ended up telling.
Today’s game tells a sadly real story about the gap that exists between enthusiasm and actually finding time to play something. Cannibal Halfling’s first breakout article was written in March of 2017, about four months after the site was founded, and it was about two Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA) Cyberpunk games, The Veil and The Sprawl. This recent campaign was the first time I successfully ran The Veil, in fact the first time I successfully played it at all…it was over two years after I first read it.
The Independents: Afterlife: Wandering Souls
“Welcome to the Tenebris. You died and something went wrong. You were meant to ascend to heaven, walk the path of reincarnation, be food for worms—that did not happen. Instead, you took a solemn boat ride across darkened water with other lost souls. Desperately trying to retain memories from your former life, you realised you died and cannot go back. The light at the end of the watery tunnel revealed an endless desert, known by its inhabitants as the Tenebris—the dark.” You’ll have to fight against the death of hope, find your own memories and learn about your own past, and find your way to the true Beyond in Afterlife: Wandering Souls from Angry Hamster Publishing!
Continue reading The Independents: Afterlife: Wandering Souls
Cannibal Halfling Radio Episode 3 – Thankfully Winging It
In this episode of CHR our gamemasters ask one another “How Do You apply the experiences you’ve had toward being better at improvising at the table?”, and then reflect upon what in our gaming groups we’ve found ourselves thankful for.
Continue reading Cannibal Halfling Radio Episode 3 – Thankfully Winging It
Carbon 2185 Review
There’s a wide world of RPGs out there. In that world, Dungeons and Dragons represents a small sliver of the gameplay experiences and stories that are possible, but a disproportionately large slice of the games that are actually played. It’s from this juxtaposition that comes the frequent and often irksome question “how do I hack D&D to play [insert genre]?” However, when you mix D&D mechanics with a designer who has actually played other games and given thought to how the mechanics must change, you can get something rather good. Carbon 2185 has taken 5th Edition D&D mechanics, given them a solid restoration to work better in the Cyberpunk genre, and then added some bolt-on systems which take inspiration from the best of sci-fi roleplaying.
Complicated Board Game the Card Game: Time 2 Play – Kickstarter Review
Let’s be honest, there are a lot of board games out there that might as well double their ‘estimated time of play’ because of how long they take to actually start playing. The rules are byzantine, the pieces are better counted by the score than by the dozen, arranging everything on the table is akin to cartography, and shuffling the cards can count as a cardio workout. It’s almost as if the set up portion is its own game . . . hey, wait a minute, there’s an idea. And what if it was actually a really simple card game that’s easy to learn and full of tongue-in-cheek humor about all the board games we love to play and hate to set up? That’s how we wind up with Complicated Board Game the Card Game: Time 2 Play!
Continue reading Complicated Board Game the Card Game: Time 2 Play – Kickstarter Review
Meet the Party: Legend of the Five Rings: Courts of Stone
A Matchmaker of the Deer, manipulating others to maintain Rokugan’s balance. A Spymaster of the Crane, ferreting out secrets and striking at exposed weaknesses. A Deathdealer of the Scorpion, striking down enemies by any means necessary. A Chronicler of the Dragon, maintaining the truth despite a storm of lies. The social scene in the Emerald Empire is just as much of a battlefield as any blood-stained patch of earth outside Toshi Ranbo, and it’s a battlefield that requires warriors that wield words and blades alike with the greatest of skill. Fortunately we have what we need to build an entire party of such warriors for the Legend of the Five Rings roleplaying game from Fantasy Flight Games, using the Courts of Stone!
Continue reading Meet the Party: Legend of the Five Rings: Courts of Stone
Cannibal Halfling Gaming 