Rob Wieland

Recent & Upcoming Releases

April 16 2024

Vecna: Nest of the Eldritch Eye

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Bonus prequel adventure for Eve of Ruin.
Replies (161)
May 31 2024

Vecna: Eve of Ruin

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Adventure for levels 10-20.
Replies (499)
June 3 2024

Vecna: Eve of Ruin Platinum Edition

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Boxed deluxe set from Beadle & Grimm.
Replies (23)
June 4 2024

Voidrunner’s Codex

(Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition)
Take your A5E games to space!
Replies (18)
June 18 2024

The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons: 1970-1977

(Dungeons & Dragons)
History of D&D.
Replies (118)
July 16 2024

Quests From The Infinite Staircase

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Adventure anthology for character levels 1 to 13.
Replies (127)
September 17 2024

D&D Player’s Handbook (2024)

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Revised 2024 Player's Handbook.
Replies (155)
October 1 2024

Monstrous Menagerie II

(Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition)
The sequel to the acclaimed monster book!
Replies (34)
November 12 2024

D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024)

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Revised 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide.
Replies (118)
February 18 2025

D&D Monster Manual (2025)

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Revised 2025 Monster Manual.
Replies (89)

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).

Reviews World of Darkness

I Wonder Wonder Wonder Who, Who Wrote The Book of Nod Review

In 1993, The Book of Nod appeared on gaming store shelves around the world. It came just as Vampire: The Masquerade’s hardcover Second Edition was truly exploding into popularity. It shed light on the World of Darkness in an unusual way; as an in-game document. The book sold in stores was the same one that could be discovered by vampire characters in the game. There had been flirtations with...

Dec 23, 2021 1

Dungeon Crawl Classics Reviews

Weird Frontiers Takes DCC West

It’s been a good year for fans of Weird Westerns. Deadlands came out with a brand new edition updated to the latest Savage Worlds rules set and a new campaign to take players from novice cowpunchers to Veterans of the Weird West. Haunted West gives tables the tools to tell tall tales from the perspective of the disenfranchised and little heard voices of the west. Designer David Baity recently...

Dec 20, 2021 5

Achtung Cthulhu 2d20 Makes World War II Even Weirder

Modiphius comes full circle with the release of Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20. The company established itself with the Achtung! Cthulhu Kickstarter in 2013. The game was originally released with Call of Cthulhu and Savage Worlds rules and a Fate version came a few years after. Now that 2d20 has become a calling card for the company, it makes sense that an adaptation into the house system would follow...

Dec 3, 2021 28

Dungeons & Dragons Reviews

My Five Favorite Things From Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos

I don’t play Magic: The Gathering but have enjoyed the sourcebooks that they’ve done for Dungeons & Dragons, from the initial Plane Shift PDFs to the current slate of physical books. They are “new to me” settings full of material that I can use in my own games how I see fit. The newest release, Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos is the first one that I’ve considered running more or less straight...

Nov 29, 2021 59

Other Games Reviews

Cyberpunk Red: One Year Later

Of the two big releases in the Cyberpunk setting late last year, the tabletop one seems to have had the better time of it. Cyberpunk Red sparked some nostalgia in old players while introducing a new generation of players to one of the definitive settings in the genre. Surprisingly, that included me, as I spent my youth (and early parts of my career) over on the other side of the fence in...

Nov 26, 2021 136

Reviews World of Darkness

Sabbat: The Black Hand Shows How The World of Darkness Continues To Change

When Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition made sweeping changes to the setting on its release, the sect of the Sabbat were swept right off the table. The political focus reshifted to a struggle between the Camarilla and Anarchs in every domain. Vague rumors of Sabbat cities being abandoned and many of their members being called to fight in battles against awakening elder vampires were enough...

Nov 19, 2021 8

GameHole Con Is My Favorite Convention

Yes, it’s a terrible name for a convention. The organizers will be the first to admit it. The name comes from the organizers’ name for their game space. That game space, much like the convention, is a hidden gem. It’s full of museum quality copies of D&D products throughout the nearly 50 years of the game’s existence. It’s also full of the things you might expect in a modern purpose built...

Nov 13, 2021 12

2d20 Reviews Star Trek

Time For Some Star Trek Adventures In The Shackleton Expanse

One of the strengths of the Star Trek Adventures line is the robust adventure support. Between the two published episode collections, the short starter box campaign, the individual PDF stories, the one page episode briefs and the living campaign adventures, GMs have enough Star Trek stories to tell that they will be well into the Beard Season of a campaign before having to write their own...

Nov 5, 2021 15

Call of Cthulhu Reviews

Call of Cthulhu Celebrates 40 Years of Madness and Mystery With A Deluxe Edition

Forty years may be the blink of an eye to a Great Old One but for the tabletop games industry it’s the sign of an institution. Call of Cthulhu arrived on the scene in 1981 introducing games to the terrifying world of H.P. Lovecraft and has since become synonymous with horror gaming. The RPG has star-spawned books, tabletop games, video games and media of its own.This game arguably introduced...

Oct 29, 2021 8

Other Games Reviews

Count On The Troubleshooters For Heists and Hijinx

Comic books have never been just superheroes. Like any media they’ve explored all sorts of genres from romance to crime to fantasy. Comics like Yoko Tsuno and Tintin, for example, offer worlds full of globetrotting adventure, lost treasures and exotic locations. Comics like these are the inspiration for The Troubleshooters from Helmgast. While I’m not very familiar with these comics, I felt...

Oct 25, 2021 16

Reviews Year Zero Engine

Marines, We Are Reading! (An ALIEN Colonial Marines Operations Manual Review)

The first question nearly every fan asked after the release of Free League’s ALIEN RPG two years ago was “Colonial Marines book when?” It’s an understatement to say that Colonial Marines Operations Manual is highly anticipated. Free League scored a massive hit with the core book and the pressure is on. Not only is it the first book aimed at campaign play, but it’s also an RPG book that fans...

Oct 15, 2021 7

Dungeons & Dragons Reviews

My Five Favorite Things From Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons

Even though the release of Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons has been slightly delayed by the ongoing shipocalypse, Wizards of the Coast still got preview copies out on time. What did I enjoy most on my first pass through the book? A Gem of an Ancestry The first chapter features a lot of cool player options such as dragon themed subclasses, spells, feats and magic items. Of the things you can use...

Oct 13, 2021 13

Other Games Reviews

Asunder Brings Primal Flavor To Tabletop Fantasy

Most fantasy RPGs lean into the medievalism of Lord of The Rings, a handful throw things farther back to Iron Age fantasy that mimics the other big influence on fantasy RPGs; Robert Howard’s Conan The Barbarian stories. Here the protagonists are more mercenary, the magic more mysterious and battles less reliant on armor. Asunder, created by Adam Lawson and Landon Tom, leans into this primal...

Oct 8, 2021 2

Reviews Warhammer

Find Powerful Reinforcements For Soulbound In Champions of Order

One of the true joys I’ve discovered over the past year is Warhammer: Age Of Sigmar: Soulbound. It’s the RPG adaptation of Games Workshop’s Warhammer setting. If you see Warhammer and immediately think of grim battles in a gloomy world, this setting will shock you. Instead, it’s a high fantasy hopepunk setting that feels more akin to Thor: Ragnarok than Witchfinder General. Chaos remains the...

Oct 1, 2021

Hearts of Wulin Is A Soaring Swashbuckler

When Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came out twenty years ago, it exposed a new audience to a new side of the wuxia genre. There were plenty of western fans of the exquisite fight sequences, but many also were hooked on the stoic romance between the main characters. This has always been part of the genre but American releases of these films tended to focus on ones with hard-hitting action...

Sep 25, 2021 2

Dungeons & Dragons Novels Reviews

Rise Of The Drow is Three Good D&D Books In One

There are a lot of solid campaigns out for Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons. Wizards of the Coast’s strategy of one new campaign a year seems to be working for them. By focusing on campaigns that run through ten levels with just enough information to get through the storyline, the company has given new players a lot of different ways to play in campaigns. Still, there’s a market out there...