Rob Wieland

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Rob Wieland
robowieland

Rob Wieland

I am a game designer with over 15 years worth of game credits and industry experience. My work includes licensed games based on worlds like Star Wars, Star Trek and Firefly, classic game worlds like Dungeons & Dragons and Shadowrun and my own creations like Camelot Trigger and Save Game. I play a wide variety of games as part of Theatre of the Mind Players and have been the guest of honor at several conventions. I live with my family in Wisconsin, born near the heart of RPGs (and just a few short years younger than they are).
OSR  Reviews 
A Tournament of Pigs Review
One of the most fascinating things to come out of the OSR for me is the concept of “the funnel”. These adventures encourage players to make multiple low-level characters that are meant to be folded, stapled and generally maligned by the adventure. It’s a tribute to the lethality of older materials that keeps the player in the game without having to wait around for them to make a new character...
Call of Cthulhu  Reviews 
A Review of the 40th Anniversary Call of Cthulhu Starter Set
In case you haven’t noticed we are in something of a boxed set Renaissance. Sure, they call them Starter Sets these days, but a lot of companies are reviving the tradition of peeling off the plastics and cracking open a few evenings worth of roleplaying. One of the first boxed sets that really caught my eye was the one for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition. Chaosium recently released a new edition...
My Five Favorite Things From Spelljammer: Adventures In Space
The latest Dungeons & Dragons setting is upon us. Review copies of Spelljammer: Adventures In Space hit my front door, giving me something to page through during the dog days of August. I wanted to discuss some of the things I really enjoyed in the book(s) while trying to stay spoiler free as possible. If you want to see some things before the general release on August 16th, here are five...
Reviews  World of Darkness 
A Review of The Black Hand: Playing The Sabbat
In my Vampire: The Masquerade games, The Sabbat always functioned best as antagonists. Even as they grew from the whispered boogeymen of the first edition to the dark mirror image of the Camarilla as presented in Vampire Revised, I didn’t have much interest in ever running a full Sabbat game. There were plenty of opportunities for double agents and turncoats in my games, but a full-on centered...
Dungeons & Dragons 
My San Diego Comic Con "D&D Tavern Experience" Experience
Dungeons & Dragons is having another banner year as part of pop culture. The Internet has been abuzz arguing about the trailer for the Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves trailer. The relationship with Stranger Things made Vecna a household name. I was at San Diego Comic Con last weekend and noticed a lot of “Hellfire Club” shirts and merch adorning the attendees. I also got a chance to...
Other Games  Reviews 
A Review of Swords of the Serpentine
Fantasy gaming tends to bounce between two poles: fantasy epics like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter and gritty sword and sorcery stories like the Conan stories and The Grey Mouser series. Swords of the Serpentine, from designers Kevin Kulp and Emily Dresner, is on the sword and sorcery side of the river. It’s chosen an interesting system to use to tell its tales of rogues, sellswords and...
Reviews  World of Darkness 
A Review of The New Hunter The Reckoning
The modern World of Darkness is not very concerned with tradition. It blew up much of the setting of Vampire: The Masquerade to redefine it for a modern age. It remixed the Clans to better fit some of these newer ideas, such as the death-obsessed Hecata. It also surprised many fans when it announced that the second game in the reborn setting would be Hunter: The Reckoning. When the original...
OSR  Reviews 
A Review Of Academies Of The Arcane
It’s hard to believe the Harry Potter series is 25 years old. It’s harder to believe that there hasn't been an official RPG in that time, though various industry stories have noted that plenty of companies have tried. A few games have tried to corner the magic school RPG market recently. Kids on Brooms let players build their own magic school in the same style of the books with less of the...
Other Games  Reviews 
A Review of Ironsworn: Starforged
If there’s one campaign setup as classic as wandering fantasy heroes looting dungeons, it's space scoundrels flying from planet to planet getting into trouble. From Traveller to Star Wars to Firefly and beyond, there’s just something alluring about standing on the deck of a beat up spaceship trying to keep the lights on for one more big score. Designer Shawn Tomkin scored an indie hit with...
Call of Cthulhu  Reviews 
A Review of Cults of Cthulhu
The cult is an important part of the Cthulhu Mythos mystery ecology, Cultists leave the clues that the investigators find to figure out what’s going on. They provide the soft resistance that can be defeated. Cthulhu may be immortal and powerful but the cults can be stopped providing one more day of life for everyone on planet Earth. But by the time the investigators get on their trail, most...
Reviews  World of Darkness 
A Review of Vampire The Masquerade: Winter’s Teeth
I have a hit or miss relationship with tie-in materials. On the one hand, Dragonlance was my first fantasy series before Lord of the Rings and because of that I am unbelievably excited for the new books coming out this year. On the other hand, as much as I love Vampire The Masquerade, I found the Clan Novel saga left me very cold. My vision of Vampire is personal and focused. I didn’t care...
Powered by the Apocalypse  Reviews 
A Review Of Advanced Lovers & Lesbians
For a variety of reasons, romance is a challenge in many tabletop RPGs. While discussing how a character simultaneously eviscerates and decapitates a Big Bad Evil guy comes naturally to many, fewer people feel comfortable playing out love and romance scenes with their friends. That’s one of the things that made Thirsty Sword Lesbians such a refreshing chance of pace. It put romance and action...
Other Games  Reviews 
A Review of Death In Space
Far too often, genres outside of Dungeons & Dragons style fantasy get pigeonholed into one game. There are hundreds of riffs on swords, sorcerers and elves on shelves at gaming stories around the world, but put out a Weird Western game and there’s always at least one person who thinks all we need is Deadlands. Space horror is breaking that mold thanks to games like Alien and Mothership both...
Dungeons & Dragons  Reviews 
A Review of Ruins Of Symbaroum For D&D Fifth Edition
The popularity of Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition is obvious. Many publishers are doing their best to try and take advantage. So far, most publishers have avoided the pitfalls of the Third Edition era in making a play for that 5e customer dollar.. Some of my first design work was on Swashbuckling Adventures for 7th Sea and converting my design work to satisfy the dual stat mandate was the...
Reviews  World of Darkness 
A Review of Second Inquisition? Let's Begin!
Vampires and vampire hunters go together like peanut butter and chocolate. What is Dracula without Van Helsing? Blade without Deacon Frost? One of the most warmly remembered books from the early days of Vampire: The Masquerade was The Hunters Hunted which did a lot of great work in showing fans how regular people survived the World of Darkness and how an elite few fought back. While ad hoc...
2d20  Reviews  Star Trek 
Expand Your Star Trek Adventures With New Guides For Players And Gamemasters
Good RPG advice can be hard to find. There are often some nuggets in the GM section of the core book, but those are usually too busy running through the rules for broader topics like theme and feel. Star Trek stories play out in a certain way, usually with a moral quandary in the center, with characters we know and love debating the pros and cons of the issue. Modiphius recently released the...

This Week in TTRPG

Reviews

Other Games  Reviews 
Parsley Turns Classic Adventure Games Into Fun For Everyone
A new spin on a retro form of text adventure games.
Cypher System  Reviews 
Use This Ghost To Show Off The World Of Old Gods
A one-shot adventure which evokes the generational horror of Stephen King.
Other Games  Reviews 
Welcome…To Jurassic Murderworld
A beginner adventure written by comics writer Jim Zub.
Reviews  Warhammer 
The Wrath And Glory Starter Set Lets You Purge A Little Heresy, As A Treat
An excellent introduction to the 40K universe.

Dungeons & Dragons

Critical Role  Dungeons & Dragons  Miniatures 
WizKids Announced Unpainted Minis for D&D, Critical Role
New individual-packed unpainted minis available for pre-order
Dungeons & Dragons 
Vecna: Eve of Ruin's Table of Contents Leaked (Spoilers!)
The full table of contents leaked by YouTuber 'Gamemasters'.
Dungeons & Dragons 
Field Guide to Floral Dragons Joins Million Dollar Kickstarter Club
One of only two TTRPG creators with four separate million dollar Kickstarters!
Dungeons & Dragons 
D&D Beyond: No More À La Carte Purchases But US Customers Can Buy Physical Books
Plus UI changes and more product information in listings.
Dungeons & Dragons  Video Games 
Hasbro Has Invested $1B In Video Games, Including A New D&D Game
There's "something like" Baldur's Gate 3 coming.
Dungeons & Dragons 
Vecna: Eve of Ruin Player Advice from WotC's Amanda Hamon
Senior designer Amanda Hamon offers advice for players playing through the upcoming Vecna: Eve of Ruin.

Industry News

Dungeons & Dragons  Industry 
The Dungeon Dudes Notch Up Another Million Dollar Kickstarter
Passes the million dollar mark with just a day to go.
Industry 
Hasbro's Tabletop Is On The Up Again
After a disappointing 2023, latest earnings call from Hasbro shows tabletop games starting to recover.
Industry 
Asmodee Owner To Split Into 3 Companies
Publisher of video games, Star Wars TTRPG, and owner of Middle Earth Enterprises restructures after turbulent year.
Industry 
D&D AI Fail
Twitter thinks there's a new WotC president who will give you a baby dragon.
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