Red Wasp Designs’ The Wasted Land takes Call of Cthulhu to the iPad and iPhone, transforming RPG horror into a turn-based squad game that seeks to prevent a German mythos cult from unleashing an army of undead during World War I. The game unfolds in the No Man’s Land between the Allied and German fronts … Read more
Majin and the Forsaken Kingdom is an action-adventure game set in a new fantasy setting. Typical of the genre, you’ll also solve various types of puzzles as you explore and defeat enemies. Released about a month before Christmas, this game was quickly lost in the plethora of new games at that time. I never let … Read more
The sun-blasted, magic-scarred campaign setting of Dark Sun is unlike any other published for Dungeons & Dragons. It inverts or eliminates many of the core concepts of D&D: arcane power is rare, psionic abilities are rampant; Halflings are cannibals, dwarves are slaves, and elves are opportunistic, lying traders. The world itself – known as Athas … Read more
The Dark Sun has risen again on the parched, magically devastated world of Athas, bringing with it the new rules and mindset of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. First introduced in the early 1990s during D&D 2nd Edition, Dark Sun was meant to be a brutal, unforgiving dark fantasy setting unlike anything the game had … Read more
As a thirty-something game master, I find myself torn. As a storyteller I love hand-crafting plots and storylines for my weekly role-playing game sessions. But as a husband and dad with a full-time job, extracurricular activities, and household chores to deal with, finding the time to tell those stories is challenge.
My Three-Page Manifesto helps keep my prep times reasonable, but I can still find myself scrambling for ideas the night before the game. That’s why I’ve found the mini adventures in Star Wars: Scum and Villainy and the random adventure creation tables in The Day After Ragnarok so useful, and why I was happy to see Gnome Stew’s Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters arrive in my inbox.
Scum and Villainy is an essential source book for those running a Star Wars: Saga Edition game on the fringes of galactic society, whether that’s trolling for would-be passengers in a Mos Eisley cantina, smuggling spice out of Kessel, or engaging in piracy against the Galactic Empire.
The book does for crime what the earlier Starships of the Galaxy did for starships and space combat, providing scoundrels, bounty hunters and outright criminals with a host of new game rules and options for running a campaign that interacts with the galaxy’s dark underbelly.
Harrowing Halls is a Dungeon Tiles set for Dungeons & Dragons that takes the long-running line to new heights. That’s because they’re not just dungeon tiles … they’re three dimensional dungeon tiles that can be used to build a staircase, raised platforms, tables, and pedestals, all of which player characters can jump on, leap off … Read more
The Martians have landed. Their goals remain uncertain; indeed, they seem to change continuously: one moment they’re attempting to capture Washington, D.C., the next they’re trying to abduct humans, only to turn their attention to the great cow menace. Of one thing, there is no doubt: once the Martians figure out what they’re doing, we’re doomed.
This is the premise of Martian Fluxx, a card game by Loony Labs that’s expands upon the rules of its popular Fluxx card game.
Mass Effect 2 is Bioware’s follow-up to their awesome-but-flawed space opera role-playing game. The sequel is a beautifully crafted game that knows exactly what scifi notes to hit to get player’s blood pumping and keep them engaged, even as the main story is less than stellar.
The game – and that I almost wrote “movie” tells you a lot about it – picks up where its predecessor left off. Exactly where that is depends on the choices you made in the previous game. My main character was woman named Xandra Shepherd, a tough-as-nails, victory-at-any-cost commander who hated the anti-human Citadel Council, the ruling body of much of the galaxy. When their base of operations – a massive alien construct known as the Citadel – was attacked by life-destroying entities known as Reavers, Xandra didn’t lift a finger to save the Council. She did, however, defeat the Reaver incursion. As a result, my game began with a new human council in charge of the Citadel … and the galaxy in denial about the threat of the Reavers.
Dark Void is a videogame with a great deal of promise. When I first heard this game described, I couldn’t have been more excited.
A pulp adventure set in the Bermuda Triangle with alien technology, Tesla inventions, and jet packs! An Indiana Jones-like hero fighting the good fight against Battlestar Galactica-style foes out to conquer the world! Wow, that’s right up my alley.
Or so I thought.