Welcome to the Crowdfunding Carnival for September! We’re seeing the post-GenCon movement begin, and several of the big publishers are starting their engines up again with new campaigns. At the same time, there are a number of good indies out there which are worthy of your attention. Let’s get to it.
Continue reading Crowdfunding Carnival: September, 2025Tag Archives: Onyx Path Publishing
Crowdfunding Carnival: April, 2025
Welcome to the Crowdfunding Carnival for April! The world outside is crazy, so come on in and take a gander at some quality, handpicked RPG campaigns. We’re seeing some solid activity from major players this month, albeit maybe too much activity from some. And then there are of course a number of fantastic indie campaigns, covering the fae, werewolves, kids with weird powers, and more. Check it out!
Continue reading Crowdfunding Carnival: April, 2025Crowdfunding Carnival: October, 2024
Welcome to Crowdfunding Carnival! We’re firmly out of con season and we’re out from under the shadow of Wizards of the Coast trying to release a book. More broadly it seems that the rush to be the next d20 has also abated, which has meant more and more interesting campaigns this month! This was a very full crop with new campaigns shooting in almost by the hour as I was trying to write this thing. That also means there are a few solid campaigns out there I wasn’t able to get to; I’m both sorry I’m not able to cover everything but also glad I didn’t have much dross to read through to get up to ten campaigns this month. We’ll start with a dizzying four different major campaigns, representing The Gauntlet, Renegade Game Studios, Onyx Path, and a Youtube channel.
Continue reading Crowdfunding Carnival: October, 2024Deviant: the Renegades Review
Role-playing games are like most media in that they tend to resonate with the largest audience when peddling a blend of novelty and comfort. That said, the hobby has a history of lashing out when too much novelty is introduced. Consider Fourth Edition D&D. Or Traveller:The New Era. Or Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Third Edition. I could go on, but the point is fairly clear: Gamers like new things, as long as they aren’t actually that different from the old things they already have.
Say, what’s been going on in the World of Darkness recently?
Continue reading Deviant: the Renegades ReviewAberrant Second Edition Review
I don’t review a lot of new editions, at least not of games we’ve already reviewed. While everyone remembers the giant step changes like D&D 4e, Cyberpunk v3, and WFRP 3e, most edition changes are relatively small. Reviewing the playtest version of Pathfinder 2e way back when required very careful reading to pull out the changes that would be most apparent to players of the first edition, and that was a more significant revision than many games receive.
Aberrant is one of very few games we’ve actually reviewed multiple editions of; the only other one I can think of off the top of my head is Cyberpunk, and Cyberpunk 2020 was given a full review only in the context of the Cyberpunk Chimera System Hack series. Aberrant, though, is kind of fascinating. I spent some time jumping between Ari’s review of 1e and the new core rulebook and realized that while many elements of the game have been preserved, there is a core change to how the game is presented that both changes the experience entirely and strikes in complete opposition to a game design ethos which is slowly becoming more central to the hobby.
Continue reading Aberrant Second Edition ReviewPAX Unplugged: Day 2 Log
Well, today was a lot quieter and casual for me. I was doing today with a group of friends who…well, were less interested in cramming into events. And you know what: there is no wrong way to enjoy a con. People come for a variety of reasons, and while I had effectively jam packed myself yesterday, I wound up enjoying different parts of the con that I had actually missed out on. One of the nice things about PAX Unplugged is that there is a wide breadth of things to try, and while some require the dedication to be there at signup at the moment the doors open, there’s plenty to enjoy for people who just want to show up and have fun Continue reading PAX Unplugged: Day 2 Log
Æon gets an ‘A’ for Effort
Æon. Poor, sweet Æon. Or is it Trinity? Depends on who you’re asking and if Viacom is listening. This RPG was meant to be White Wolf’s epic space opera, but fell short financially and was cancelled much to the dismay of it’s small, but loyal fanbase. However, the death of Æon had larger reprocussions. As the first chapter in what became a planned trilogy, its inability to generate sales spelled doom for the other two games in the Æon Continuum. I had written a piece awhile back about Aberrant, the second game in the series, which was White Wolf’s swing at the superhero genre. They introduced us to an engrossing, but nihilistic story of superhumans doomed to be their own destroyers. In the time since writing that article, Amazon released The Boys, which is basically Aberrant the TV show. I had a friend text me, quite serious, asking if White Wolf was planning to go to court over it. They didn’t. He didn’t know it was a comic and White Wolf didn’t invent the grim superhero shtick. They didn’t invent the epic space opera either, but with Æon they gave it an earnest shot.
Aberrant: A Forgotten Superhero RPG Worth Remembering
With both the cultural monolith that is Avengers: Endgame finally upon us, and D&D having sunk it’s claws into my soul after a long absence (I’m trapped in two campaigns at the moment), I felt the urge to play some tabletop super-powered RPGs. Or at the very least, flip through my old books and reminisce about old characters and stories. The RPG I go back to for this fix every time, without fail, is Aberrant, a game that’s out of print and lost in the shuffle. I’ve been wanting to write about it for awhile now because it’s an under appreciated gem in White Wolf’s crown, and I don’t want it to be forgotten.
The gameplay was fun, flexible, and the lore was way ahead of the curve in its depth of world building. I actually think it’s more relevant today in 2019, than when it was released back in 1999. At least a few other people do too, as Onyx Path Publishing is working on a second edition. But I’m getting ahead of myself. What I really want to talk about is the setting.
Continue reading Aberrant: A Forgotten Superhero RPG Worth Remembering