Monthly Archives: November 2025

Articles, Indie Frontiers

Last Kiss Backerkit Review

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Ever feel like the world is out to get you? It is. Five radical teens with attitude should not be responsible for saving the world. You’re a bunch of god-damned teenagers. You might act like you have it all figured out, but you don’t. How could you when there is a literal evil force making your lives harder? So go ahead, seek out some normal high school goals like dominating on the sports field, kissing the mean girl, or becoming class president. While you play pretend, the darkness will seep in. The darkness colors the world so nothing is quite right. This is a world where disputes can be resolved via duels, where the next town over seems a world away, and where monsters live in secret. Normal doesn’t have a chance. What will you do before it all ends?
Perhaps there’s enough time for one Last Kiss…

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Articles, Editorial

My first corporate convention

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When it comes to nerd hobbies, the convention scene is bifurcated. There are local, volunteer-driven cons that put a lot of effort into building content from enthusiasts around the area. There are also the massive, national affairs that bring attention and revenue to their parents. Gaming cons moved quickly into the latter category, even if the initial efforts were modest; both GenCon and Origins came to prominence after their alignment with TSR and GAMA, respectively. And now there’s a massive leader in the corporate con sphere: Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX.

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Articles, The Independents

Two-Hand Path Review: Getting a Grip on Luck and Magic

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“After the locusts and pits and boiling seas. After the war in heaven and feasting on earth. After the seven years of blood and forty years of night.

There is magic. Magic and bone.

Where streets grow weeds and skyscrapers stand hollow. Where old gods wake and new gods form in the hearts of the wayward. Where cult and banner flourish. Where the dead, they walk. Where the stars disregard their course and Jupiter’s children are born under powerful new signs.

Mages. Mages like you.”

With rings on your fingers, tattoos on your knuckles, and scars on the back of your hand, you’ll delve into the cursed ruins of a post-fall city and walk the Two-Hand Path.

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Articles, System Hack

System Hack: Colony Sim Cortex Base Building

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If any one topic is ‘the core’ of this System Hack, this would be it. Base building is the underlying gameplay loop of RimWorld and it is also a topic du jour in RPG circles, with the (admittedly poorly detailed) stronghold building from the D&D days of yore coming back into focus as more gamers want broader storyline opportunities. For our purposes, of course, if we’re making a colony sim we need to make a colony. But what exactly is the best way to do that?

Base building from my perspective is sandwiched between two examples which effectively bracket the space we have to work in. On the heavy end is RimWorld itself, a computer-assisted colony manager where everything is measured out in five foot squares and the player has complete power to place elements as they want them, as long as everything fits. On the light end is the new generation of stronghold building rules, most effectively typified by Free League’s games, notably Forbidden Lands and Twilight:2000. These games add a strong layer atop their roleplay frameworks, but the actual mechanical existence of a Forbidden Lands stronghold is merely a list of buildings with requirements and effects. We know the first item is too much, but we know the second is not enough. So what will base building in our System Hack actually look like?

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Articles, Editorial

Things to See at PAX Unplugged 2025

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PAX Unplugged 2025 is this weekend! Which you probably already know, on account of clicking on this article while you’re on your way  there or already in Philly. Alas, I won’t be there this time around. I hear tell some other Cannibal Halflings will be there, though, and I don’t have to be present to Know Things Worth Your Time. Let’s go over some games for you to buy, some games for you to play, and some interesting events to check out.

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Articles, Level One Wonk

The design decision which won narrative gaming

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Last week, Apocalypse World came back to crowdfunding, with the Bakers seeking funding for a Third Edition of the game. Apocalypse World was first released back in 2010 and it took the indie RPG world by storm; by the time Dungeon World was released in 2012 it was already all but certain that ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ would be a phenomenon. It’s easy to forget that there was another indie darling riding high in the hobby in the early aughts. Fate was arguably the other big indie game, and it even made its way into the ICv2 bestseller list after the success of its 2013 Kickstarter, an honor typically reserved for D&D, Pathfinder, and a few other corporate games. The ICv2 data point is particularly interesting. Fate outsold Apocalypse World; not only did the game peek into commercial sales charts as late as 2020, Fate even holds the statistically dubious honor of being one of only three games to ever outsell D&D in the ICv2 rankings (the other two being Pathfinder and FFG Star Wars). Commercially, Fate was an indie juggernaut.

Fate has clearly not maintained the degree of impact and influence it once had. Hell, the last three Kickstarter campaigns run by Evil Hat Productions, publishers of Fate, were all Powered by the Apocalypse games. The literal keepers of Fate have, thanks in no small part to John Harper and Blades in the Dark, seemingly seen the writing on the wall in terms of salability and influence of PbtA over Fate. Why is that? To start, there’s an obvious disparity to the degree in which unaffiliated designers took the respective systems and ran with them. That said, it’s fairly clear to me that this is a symptom, not a cause. While it’s hard to beat the Bakers’ approach of ‘sure, just don’t literally plagiarize us’ for licensing, Fate was licensed under the OGL and later Creative Commons, which were both used by tons of creators in other contexts. No, the difference in third party support and expansion has to do with the design of the respective games, not their shepherding by their respective creators. And I think I know specifically which design elements made the difference.

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