An escaped Mad Adventurer on the loose! After playing tabletop RPGs for a decade and a half and GMing for most of that I turned my hand towards writing for/about them! Since then I've added another decade on top of that, oh gods. I got my start with the Gaming Security Agency, and then joined the Mad Adventurers Society for a few years before setting up CHG. I write about games here, have written for games such as Transit: The Spaceship RPG and materials published by Raging Swan Press and Beer Star Games, and have written entire games such as Lost Among The Starlit Wreckage. You can find me personally @RGM79Ace or under cannibalhalflinggaming on the various socials.
Sometimes it’s the last ones to arrive that end up being the secret sauce that make an adventuring party, and even a campaign, fully coalesce into something truly memorable. It was that way with White Coat and High Impact Heroics, it was that way with first Caleb and Patience and then the Alliance troops aboard the Borrowed Time, and so it was with the crew of the Lost and Found. The Dice for Brains Season 4 Pregame crew was coming together pretty solidly as a band of ne’er-do-wells, but even with Zaja they might not have turned out as friendly without the help of their final member, who certainly made an interesting first impression (on the hull) . . .
Transcribed by Bigby, stolen by Shemeshka, dictated by Mordenkainen, and drawing from the many worlds of the multiverse, the Tome of Foes has arrived! Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes is, of course, the latest supplement for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, following in the footsteps of Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. It has lore, character options, and foes aplenty for us to check out, so let’s get started! I’ll be taking us through chapter by chapter, seeing what Mordenkainen has left for us to read, and comparing the final product to the various bits of Unearthed Arcana that got it started!
Here’s the thing about adventuring parties, ad hoc teams, and ragtag starship crews: they don’t always get along with one another. Whether it’s past associations, disagreements over a course of action, or basic personality conflicts, every group is going to have moments where they’re fighting among themselves (hopefully only verbally). The crew of the Lost and Found is no different. Carga found himself joining up with Zaja’s eccentric crew of data pirates, and has even gotten along with the curmudgeonly technician Thraga, but the fact is that the crew has both an ex-Rebel and an ex-Imperial on the roster, and that was bound to come to a head at some point . . .
Marvel has S.H.I.E.L.D., DC has A.R.G.U.S., and Masks: A New Generation has A.E.G.I.S., the Advanced Expert Group for Intervention and Security. In Halcyon City and beyond, while superheroes are wearing flashy colors and punching their enemies through buildings it’s the agents of A.E.G.I.S. who fill in the gaps, clean up the messes, nip nascent threats in the bud, and keep an eye on everything in the name of protecting everyone. A.E.G.I.S. has always been a factor for the New Generation to consider, but we can now learn the Secrets of A.E.G.I.S. in the second Masks supplement from Magpie Games!
Everyone is looking for something, and that everyone includes player characters. After finding himself joining data pirate captain Zaja on the Lost and Found in Part 1, Klatooinian thief Carga now finds himself acclimating to his new comrades. Each of them have come to the Lost and Found for reasons of their own, and not all of them could exactly be described as friendly . . . but most have their own, sometimes surprising, ways of being welcoming. After all, it’s easier to find what you’re after with a crew by your side. There are adjustments to be made, of course, and as we start Part 2 of our Dice for Brains tale some of them turn out to be explosive . . .
We’ve got the basic mecha and we have the pilots to take it into battle, but a single machine does not a mecha game make. While the increasing skill of the pilots is definitely the best way for Our Heroes to take the fight to the enemy upgrading their machines is a close second. In this relatively straightforward System Hack for Genesys Mecha we’re rolling out another four machines in the CHM line of mecha, from an improved general-purpose one to some decidedly specialized equipment. Your Ogo falling behind, and you need to catch up? Leave it shattered on the battlefield and need a new ride? Take these latest machines out for a test flight!
No plan survives contact with the players. I was fortunate enough to be a part of the Pregame for Dice for Brains Season 4 some time ago, a method that GM Ross uses to populate the story with interesting NPCs and setting details. We were told we were to be data pirates, and the assumption going in was that we were going to be (possibly nefarious) antagonists for the main characters of Season 4. That . . . wasn’t exactly what happened. The crew of the Lost and Found operated in the background as Mor’a, Darlene, and Lon tried to complete their own job, only the L&F‘s Captain Zaja meeting them openly. In this five-part Table Fiction we’ll see how that crew came together and how they became what helped shape the events on Centares. Our tale is from the perspective of one Klatooinian thief, and begins on the Smuggler’s Moon . . .
“King Krail of Torengar calls you to rid the border marches of Tanalor of fell beasts, unwholesome fae, and the remnants of the ancient dragon empire. Alongside friends and rivals, carve out your legend and your jarldom in the wild lands north of civilization, seeking fortune and glory worthy of skalds retelling.” So begins the Kickstarter pitch for Dragon Heresy, a Norse-inspired roleplaying game built on Dungeons and Dragons SRD5.1! Kickstarter Wonk put it on the Cannibal Halfling radar, now we get to explore it in depth with creator Douglas Cole. Grab a shield, get ready to grapple, and be prepared to fight with all your vigor as we see what this project has in store!
A hangar full of CHM-01 Ogo mecha stand ready and waiting, loaded up with weapons and gear, their reactors running hot. The alarms shriek, a voice over the speakers commanding “Pilots, to your machines!” So who precisely is going to answer the call? In this month’s System Hack for Genesys Mecha, we’re taking a visit to the barracks to see how we’ll build the characters to pilot our machines. It’s time to create some Archetypes and Careers!
I’m on the lookout for games you can play with kids. Yes, my own is still measuring his age in weeks, and the nature of this sort of thing means that he’ll probably end up a football player or something and hew to the associated stereotype of not wanting anything to do with geeky things, but still. The instinct is there. Got to plan ahead. I thus found it very good fortune to find a game meant just for that landing in my To Be Reviewed inbox. Today The Independents are taking a look at a game built specifically with parents and their children in mind, a superhero world not quite our own, with Power Outage by Bebarce El-Tayib!
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