Animal Crossing as Libertarian Paradise

A few months ago I picked up Animal Crossing: Wild World for the Nintendo DS, partly because I’d heard good things about it, partly because its a kid-friendly game I can play with my daughter, and partly because I’m always looking for games for my DS that are different from the norm. What surprised me … Read more

HorrorClix Tries to Scare Up a Hit

According to Gaming Report, WizKids is returning to the Clix-mechanic with HorrorClix. It’s a collectible game in which you control a horde of undead and/or supernatural monsters who are either out to protect or eat innocent bystanders (“protect” them? That reminds me of the great t-shirt with the tagline “Cthulhu Saves … For Later!”). According … Read more

Getting Past a Fear of Girls

A short film, Fear of Girls — about two stereotypical uber gamers — is circulating around the geek community. The ten-minute film tells the tale of two “advanced” gamers who are a cut about your normal geeks, which means they do stuff that would freak out regular gamers, like role-playing sex or dressing up in … Read more

The Big Bag-o-Gaming Web Sites

I finally got around to consolidating all of my Knights of the Dinner Table web notes into one big mega file, which now holds about 38 links. Thanks to this endeavor, I’d say I’ve got about two and a half WebScryer columns researched now, so all I need to do is bang out the actual … Read more

Crawling through Maure Castle

My gaming group is comprised of mid-twentysomething-to-mid-thirtysomething gamers who love role-playing, who enjoy delving deep into the intricacies of a plot, running down leads, fleshing out a setting, and generally immersing themselves in the campaign. Yes, there’s hacking, and yes, there’s slashing, but we’re just as likely to spend a night doing nothing but role-playing. … Read more

Contemplating the Dragon, Dungeon Magazine Changes

Paizo Publishing’s announced some major changes to its flagship Dragon and Dungeon magazines. The changes, apparently based on market research and feedback from readers, are pretty major. Dragon is going to become a more broad-based D&D magazine, focusing not only on the pen-and-paper RPG, but on its various electronic spawn as well. It’s also adding … Read more

Uncover Variant D&D Rules With Unearthed Arcana

The thing that Dungeons & Dragons 3.0/3.5 excels at most is its flexibility: its possible to play the same class for years and never play the same kind of character twice. Unearthed Arcana expands that flexibility by adding hundreds of new options to the game. Unearthed Arcana (Amazon) is not the sort of rulebook that … Read more

Pale Designs Slips Deadly Poisons Into d20

After four years of playing Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 and its kin , poisons are old hat for most players. Depending on the situation, the rules lawyers, power gamers, and even that guy who spends most of the night exploring the nasal possibilities of his dice know what poison a Game Master is talking about … Read more

RPG Xplorer Debuts

Another d20/OGL character generator has hit the Windows platform. It’s called RPG Xplorer, and it’s got a full-page ad in Dragon 331. I’m always happy to see more RPG utilities — heaven knows Game Master’s need all the help they can get — but looking over the site, I couldn’t help but think did we … Read more