Game Days can be a fickle thing. Almost everyone in our group is middle-aged (or getting close), most of us have kids, and those kids are old enough to have Game Day-smashing activities of their own. As a result, our weekly Sunday game can go from looking like a lock to no one being able … Read more
My weekly gaming group took a break from our regular Dungeons & Dragons campaigns to play Fiasco … in space! Fiasco (Amazon/Indie Press Revolution ) by Bully Pulpit Games is a role-playing game of ordinary people with powerful ambition and poor impulse control. It’s a role-playing game for 3-5 players and no game master inspired by movies such as Fargo, A Simple Plan, and The Way … Read more
In 2008 I wrote, “Beware the Megadungeon”, a post about delving into depths of the sprawling deathtraps known as megadungeons. At the time, the Blackrazor Guild was just coming off of a prolonged — and frustrating — foray into the legendary ruins of Maure Castle. What started off as a fun side adventure turned into a … Read more
After the end of our long-running Obsidian Frontier campaign, we decided to venture to a little-explored region of Greyhawk: the Archbarony of Blackmoor. Inspired by Dave Arneson‘s legendary campaign setting of the same name (one of Dungeons & Dragons first-ever settings), Blackmoor promises a mix of ancient magic, weird technology, and the strangeness of the Egg of … Read more
After four years, 53 episodes, and over 200 hours of gaming, we closed the book on our Obsidian Frontier campaign for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Begun as one of two playtest campaigns for 5th Edition, we had so much fun with the campaign — and the game — that we transitioned from “playtest” to “ongoing” campaign … Read more
My son and I spent the day at PAX Unplugged. Held at the Philadelphia Convention Center from Nov. 30-Dec. 2, 2018, PAX Unplugged in a three-day event dedicated to offline games: card games, board games, role-playing games, their various iterations. We took advantage of PAX’s Kids Day and based on the number of children I saw … Read more
My Waterdeep: Dragon Heist campaign kicks off in October. Anyone who’s played Dungeons & Dragons for any length of time has likely heard of Waterdeep, the famous “City of Splendors” in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. The nearby megadungeon of Undermountain is equally legendary. Even the Blackrazor Guild (my Sunday group and diehard Greyhawkers), know of Waterdeep and it’s dungeon, which served … Read more
The Gamer Working Group, my lunchtime gaming crew, is restarting this month with Waterdeep: Dragon Heist (Amazon), Wizards of the Coast’s new urban adventure set in the City of Splendors. It’s my first full-time campaign set in the Forgotten Realms, WotC’s signature campaign setting. Historically my group played in the World of Greyhawk, which has … Read more
There’s a lot of cool role-playing game material coming out this autumn. I find myself flitting from product to product, excited at the prospect of picking a new game, then realizing that my budget can only support so many purchases. Thus the shopping list. It’s largely aspirational — again, the budget can only support so … Read more
It’s summertime. And things are getting weird. The slipcase two-volume edition of Delta Green arrived in early June after two years of waiting for the Kickstarter to make its production run. After reading lots of positive reviews, I picked up the Tales for the Loop RPG, which features kids on bikes investigating mysteries in a … Read more