Tag Archives: Review

Articles, Editorial

Dragonbane Review

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Fantasy is the most popular genre of role-playing game. Even if you don’t count the sheer volume of Dungeons and Dragons players, there are more titles that slot into the fantasy genre than any other. When reading and playing games, one could be excused for beginning to think that many of these fantasy titles are little different from each other; thanks to the early days of Dungeons and Dragons, many of the genre’s tropes are filtered through RPGs in frankly wild ways and that does mean we see a lot of the same basic structures in our fantasy games. Doesn’t seem to bother anyone at Free League Publishing, though. Apparently to them, the ideal number of fantasy games a single company should put out is a half dozen.

Needless to say, Free League’s reasoning for each fantasy game they release is different, and they also reap the benefit of a more stratified European gaming audience where the appetite for different, specific experiences is greater. In many cases, it’s also not hard to see that the genre has a lot of room for variety. Mork Borg and Forbidden Lands have very little to do with each other. That does make it a little interesting, though, when Free League acquires the IP for the grand-daddy of Swedish RPGs. As of 2021 they did make such an acquisition, and the result is out now in the form of Dragonbane.

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A Glimpse Into The Vault, Articles

A Glimpse Into The Unplugged Vault: Self Careless

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It’s your day off! Obviously you should be spending some time on Care for yourself, but then there are all these Chores to do that you won’t otherwise be able to take care of until who knows when. There are only so many hours of the day, so you’re going to have to plan things out – don’t do too many Chores so you actually get some rest, don’t spend so much time on self Care so that the Chores just pile up. Coffee will help! Now if only that darn cat would stop knocking over all the cups. This is Self Careless, the life balance game for 1-2 players from Jason Anarchy Games and Cassandra Calin!

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Articles, Editorial

The Trouble With Reviewing RPGs

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Usually we keep any mention of the Wider TTRPG Discourse to the Discussions section of the Weekend Update, but there’s an exception to everything. Supposedly Matt Colville said some things on a stream earlier this week? I’m sure he did, the man’s got a lot to talk about, he’s got a Kickstarter going on that I’m sure Aaron will talk more about in January’s Crowdfunding Carnival. Of course then the topic got sucked into the ouroboros of social media, starting with Twitter’s rotting alive husk, and do you think anyone is providing any links to said stream? No, of course not. Doesn’t matter, though, because The Discourse spins on, and its latest incarnation is, broadly, this:

Reviewing a game after reading it versus reviewing a game after playing it.

Oh. Oh wow. Are… are we The Discourse?

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A Glimpse Into The Vault, Articles

A Glimpse into the Unplugged Vault: Retrograde

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Ah, the soothing beeps and boops and flashing screens of blasting endless waves of pixelated bad guys from outer space. The realm of arcade shooters down through the ages like Galaga? Sure, absolutely, but you’re not likely to find an arcade machine while wandering the booths of a PAX Unplugged. You could, however, find a dice and card game that makes it feel like you did: Retrograde, the real time roll and write game of arcade blasting from Retronym!

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Articles, Editorial

A Cup of Tea at the Many Worlds Tavern

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Sometimes you need a pick me up, and some times you need something soothing, and depending on what you’ve steeped you can find both of those at in a nice cup of tea. Hey, not that I;m saying that some soda, or beers, or stars forbid even water can’t accompany your games just fine. Sometimes, however, it’s nice to have something a bit nicer, with a large variety of flavors and energy levels. So lets take a look at some Tea for the Tabletop from Many Worlds Tavern!

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Articles, Editorial

Paranoia The Core Book Review

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It shocked me to learn that it has been six years since I last reviewed an edition of Paranoia; back in 2017 I did a System Split comparison between Paranoia Red Clearance Edition and Paranoia XP, two editions of the game which had significant mechanical departures from each other. At the time, my conclusion was that while Red Clearance Edition was a better game, XP was the better Paranoia. Apparently someone over at Mongoose read my review, because the new edition of Paranoia (called The Perfect Edition while on Kickstarter) takes my conclusions to an unsettling tee: the slicker rules are kept, the setting is rolled back to more reflect a throughline from the older editions, and the cards, which worked way better in theory than in practice, were removed. The result is remarkably close to a version using Red Clearance Edition rules with XP-style fluff, and (unsurprisingly) it turns out that yes, I really do like the version of the game made seemingly in direct response to my critiques. That all said, the new edition of Paranoia is still an edition of Paranoia made in 2023, and that alone has gotten me thinking about this. So let’s set aside the goofy clearance warnings, fake redactions, and admonishments to self-terminate, and talk about how Paranoia, any Paranoia, actually fits into the gaming landscape here in the roaring 2020s.

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Articles, The Independents

PLANET FIST Review – Nano-Powered Narrative Wargaming

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I toss down a disc of nanobots that quickly assembles itself into a squad beacon, sending its beam of light up from the balcony of the building I’m in and into the sky, before looking through the scope of my sniper rifle. A squadmate, Ultra Rare, is trying to 1v1 an assault trooper using only her knuckleblades, and I sigh wistfully; we used to be an item before I accidentally got her demoted. I fire a shot, miss terribly, and am immediately targeted by the assault trooper’s team and ripped to shreds by machine gun fire.

Reassembled in orbit, switching from a force recon loadout to that of an engineer, I crash onto the balcony in a drop pod next to the beacon and the nanodust that was the smear I left behind. I exchange greetings and a salute with another squadmate – “Butler.” “Setback.” – who walked into the room while I was dead, and I look down into the courtyard. An enemy mech is literally stomping all over an allied squad – what a bunch of blueberries. I raise my anti-materiel rifle and blast off one of its arms – and am splattered across the wall behind me by the weapons in its other one. 

I’m considering another drop pod, when suddenly I schlorp back together, on the ground next to Goblin, who apparently got splattered as well at some point. Between us is a spent revive grenade, and standing over us is Butler. More salutes, more greetings. “Setback. Goblin.” “Butler.”

Just another day on PLANET FIST.

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Articles, Editorial

Mystery Dice Goblins Review

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Ah, yes, the shiny click-clack math rocks. While many games now do great things using playing cards, tarot, tokens, or sheer narrative oomph, there’s still something to be said about rolling the bones. Digital dice rollers may make forgetting your bag at home survivable, and enable playing above board across vast distances, and may even make resolving a roll much easier.  The die-loving audience doesn’t take pride and joy in the different apps, discord bots, and VTTs, however. No, they enjoy the physical product, and often claim the moniker of dice goblins gladly. Here’s something a little different for us: a vendor that’s honest about what their clientele want, and who introduces a little mystery to it.

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Articles, Editorial

Shared Fantasy Review

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The era of the RPG historian started in the 21st century, but that’s not when the RPG history has its roots. In the last decade or so, Jon Peterson, Shannon Appelcline and Ben Riggs, among others, have released volumes about how the tabletop RPG came to be. Though the RPG historians of today have different writing styles and research approaches, they share the perspective of being twenty-first century gamers looking back into the twentieth century through the lens of the hobby’s accumulated history, theory, and perspective. It is the very limitation of this twenty-first century perspective that illuminates the value of the few scholarly texts written about tabletop gaming in the time of its ascendancy. That’s why today I want to discuss Shared Fantasy by Gary Alan Fine.

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Articles, Crowdfunding Carnival

Crowdfunding Carnival: November, 2023

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Happy day after Halloween! Whether you had too many pumpkin beers, too much candy, or just stayed up too late doing the Monster Mash, it’s time for a little…post-holiday drop, let’s say. Luckily for you, I had no Halloween plans other than finding and cataloging some really phenomenal crowdfunding campaigns to help you start your November. On the big game side we have Southeast Asian tactics, dystopian game shows, and Ninja Turtles. On the indie side, Halloween is clearly sticking around with some witches, ghosts, cute cultists, and a big freaking multiverse to tie it all together.

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