Just when you thought it was safe to go back on Kickstarter . . . the lazy relaxed summer of June and July has given way to the insanity of a pre-GenCon product push! There were over twenty Kickstarters of new games, and even after picking out the second editions of recent games (Reign, Geist) and games we’ve already covered, it was still tough to narrow it down to just ten! The ten here represent games that do something new, whether it be through new mechanics or new ideas for settings. There are also a couple revivals, which are more than mere second editions due to long absences from publication as well as dramatic rules revisions. All in all, this set of ten Kickstarters represents a swathe of games that are giving us something new with rules, genre, or format.
Tag Archives: RPG
Adventure Log: Flight of the Albatross, Part 2
Now, we rejoin the adventures of the Albatross crew!
Continue reading Adventure Log: Flight of the Albatross, Part 2
Time Travel: Paradoxes as Improv Practice
Time Travel is a daunting mechanic for any GM to attempt to incorporate in their game. While using time travel as a platform for historical settings and conflicts can be fun, eventually your players are going to ask “wait, what happens if we show Beethoven a recording of his Fifth Symphony before he writes it?” or, even more problematic, “can I go kill my grandfather?” These are questions which, for the sake of the integrity of the concept, can’t be left completely unanswered (though you can probably tell the player trying to kill his own grandfather to drop it before something bad happens). The good thing is that time travel as a game concept leans heavily on improv, and does so in a way that can be very helpful with developing your improv muscles in a fun, non-game breaking way. That’s because with time travel, you can come up with whatever consequences you want…the players already have the mechanism to fix it.
Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition Review
A long time ago in a Tabletop RPG company far, far away . . . West End Games released its Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. The game would go on to produce two full editions (plus one revision of 2e) and more than one hundred sourcebooks and adventure supplements, but as with most things time eventually moved on. West End Games closed up shop, the Star Wars RPG license transferred to other companies and other systems, and the fans of the original SWTRPG were left to carry the flame as best they could. Now, however, Fantasy Flight Games has brought it back into the light with Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game 30th Anniversary Edition!
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City of Mist Review
The smoke from the hookah lounge downtown swims through the place, heavy and sweet. At a back lounge sits a bald man with a gold hoop earing who knows just what you need to do to get what you want…if are able to ignore the literal fire flickering in his eyes. In the Industrial District’s meatpacking plant, a grizzled old timer working the graveyard shift wonders how life passed him by, noting with some curiosity how his skin didn’t break on that saw, when he slipped and ponders why all the leftover animal parts always seem to vanish when he takes a nap on the job…and why he just gets hungrier whenever that happens. In the financial district there is a business guru who, despite his age, always seems to be in exceptional vigor and with an improbable knack for turning seemingly useless investments into gold…and nobody seems to know how long he’s been here? It’s like he’s practically immortal. But lots of strange things happen in The City. Once its inhabitants were wide eyed and agape, but now they’ve seen it all…or so they like to think.
No Place Like (The Party’s) Home
When someone says the word ‘adventurer’, the picture of a steady home life is not often one of the images called to mind. The dusty road, the shadows between the megascrapers, the space between the stars, these are most often the places that adventurers spend their time and make their fortune – or lose everything. While being an adventurer, or really any type of player character. almost universally involves going where others won’t either physically or mentally, I think there’s something to be said for breaking the mold and giving them a tavern, a ship, a base, a business, a home. While it might not be the one they were all born to, a party of adventurers with a place of their own can certainly turn it into a place that makes them feel like they belong.
Level One Wonk: Fantasy
It’s the genre that started it all, and it has set the baseline for what people think of when they hear the term “role-playing game”. It’s a literary genre of astonishing breadth, that still seems to get people thinking about elves and wizards. So why is fantasy role-playing such a different animal than fantasy in general? And what sort of games are hiding in the wings around the 500 pound Gygaxian elephant in the room? Today, the Level One Wonk is going to look around what fantasy role-playing is, how it’s related to fantasy literature, and what that all means when it comes time to sit down and roll dice.
Adventure Log: Flight of the Albatross, Part 1
I have previously written about my interest in the Traveller setting, more specifically the Pirates of Drinax as a Beta Campaign, and over the past few months I have actually managed to get it off the ground! I am a more inexperienced GM, and this campaign has marked the first time I have gotten a campaign to two whole sessions! As such, I’ll keep up the tradition of our other CH GM’s and offer a bit of a “Lessons Learned” post-mortem.
Continue reading Adventure Log: Flight of the Albatross, Part 1
Meet the Party: Star Wars: Dawn of Empire
A broken Padawan whose only remaining comfort is breaking others in turn. A star of the academy, now an agent of the Imperial Security Bureau tasked with rooting out traitors and subversives. A pirate with a blaster to the back of his head, forced to serve at the Emperor’s pleasure. An old soldier who should’ve been put out to pasture, but has clung to service for a sense of belonging. We may have seen the Dawn of Rebellion, but light still shines on the Galactic Empire. This visit to the galaxy far far away is going to use the first FFG Star Wars Era Sourcebook to take us for a walk on the Dark Side!
Kickstarter Wonk: July, 2018
Welcome to Kickstarter Wonk for July! This month sees game projects a little thin on the ground, as many people are off at the beach, not running Kickstarters. To make it worse, the dastardly Seamus stole a great Kickstarter, Blackwind Project, out from under my nose and reviewed it already! The nerve! (It’s a Halfling-eat-Halfling world out there. Hence the name. – Ed.) Well, I’ve still managed to gather up ten projects, though there are a few honorable mentions in there to bulk it up. Have no fear though, dear reader: there’s a lot of good stuff in here, and that’s doubly true if you like supers, dieselpunk, or eating game pieces.
Cannibal Halfling Gaming 