Rob Wieland

Recent & Upcoming Releases

September 17 2024

D&D Player’s Handbook (2024)

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Revised 2024 Player's Handbook.
Replies (156)
September 26 2024

Dungeon Master's Screen (2024)

(Dungeons & Dragons)
4-panel screen revised for the 2024 rules.
Replies (59)
October 1 2024

Monstrous Menagerie II

(Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition)
The sequel to the acclaimed monster book!
Replies (58)
November 12 2024

D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024)

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Revised 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide.
Replies (147)
February 18 2025

D&D Monster Manual (2025)

(Dungeons & Dragons)
Revised 2025 Monster Manual.
Replies (91)
July 1 2025

D&D Dragon Anthology

(Dungeons & Dragons)
A book of 10 dragon-themed adventures.
Replies (40)
October 1 2025

Heroes of the Borderlands

(Dungeons & Dragons)
New D&D starter set.
Replies (609)
November 1 2025

Forgotten Realms Player Guide

(Dungeons & Dragons)
First 5E player's guide for the setting.
Replies (291)
November 1 2025

Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide

(Dungeons & Dragons)
DM’s book digs into different parts of the Realms.
Replies (11)

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).

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...

May 20, 2022 8

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...

May 13, 2022 9

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...

May 5, 2022 4

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...

May 2, 2022 16

Other Games Reviews

Time Is On Your Side When You Are Undying

One of the coolest powers of the vampire is their immortality. Living forever is one of the reasons most people would sign up for unending bloodthirst and elbowing their way into a web of immortal intrigue. This aspect of the vampire myth is one of the more challenging aspects to play with for RPGs that feature these nobles of the night. Undying, by Paul Riddle, puts their long lives at the...

Apr 22, 2022

Other Games Reviews

A Look Inside The Marvel Multiverse RPG Playtest Edition

It’s hard to believe nearly ten years since the last official Marvel RPG was released. In that time. Marvel has gone from a comic book company to a cultural behemoth. It’s brought home its favorite neighborhood webslinger, made a star out of a talking space raccoon and keeps the water cooler bubbling with weekly streaming shows. This time the company is releasing Marvel Multiverse Roleplaying...

Apr 19, 2022 38

Other Games Reviews

Build Better Worlds Together With Arium

Worldbuilding is generally considered to be the responsibility of the Game Master. Either they’ve labored away at hand crafting a world for the campaign or they’ve done all the research and read as many setting sourcebooks as they could. Many modern games have moved toward shared creation at the table, whether it’s the small tidbits of Blades In The Dark fleshed out in play to Powered By The...

Apr 8, 2022 4

Other Games Reviews

Steal From The Vampires And Give To The Poor In Brinkwood

In screenwriting, the “elevator pitch” boils down an idea to the barest essentials. The practical idea is to focus a story on its strongest concept. It gets its name from the idea that if a creator is ever riding in an elevator with a Hollywood executive, they can turn to the executive, give the one line pitch, and intrigue the power broker long enough to get a meeting. Elevator pitches can be...

Mar 25, 2022 6

My Six Favorite Pieces of the TTRPGs For Trans Rights In Texas Bundle

There’s a lot of darkness in the world today. Endlessly doomscrolling through social media can stomp down any desire to fight back or fix things. There are some bright lights, such as the current game bundle raising money to fight for trans rights in Texas.Three hundred creators have donated over five hundred games, playbooks, classes and more to split between proceeds between Transgender...

Mar 18, 2022 25

Dungeons & Dragons Reviews

My Five Favorite Things From Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep

The next collaboration between the world’s largest role-playing game and the livestreaming behemoth is almost upon us. Dungeons & Dragons Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep offers an adventure path that spans levels 3 through 12 for fans of the show or for D&D players curious as to what it feels like to play in the world of the successful show. Preview copies of the book are landing this...

Mar 11, 2022 36

Other Games Reviews

An Early Look At Avatar Legends

Avatar Legends made waves in the industry last year by making 9.5 million dollars last year on Kickstarter. The game was originally due out at the end of last year but the supply chain woes affecting everyone struck here as well. The revised timeline has books coming out in the middle of this year, but Magpie Games recently dropped a huge PDF for backers recently featuring the full rules and...

Mar 4, 2022 5

Reviews Warhammer

Forge Epic Gear With Steam And Steel

Crafting is one of those gaming niches that can be difficult to pull off. The players who love it want it to feel like their time and resources are worth the investment. Crafting feels like a good fit for the heavy metal heroes of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Soulbound. They seem less likely to stumble upon a magic ring in a forgotten side chamber of a bad buy’s layer and more likely to forge a...

Feb 25, 2022

Other Games Reviews

They Came From Beyond The Review!

There are two nerdy products that I am proud of that came from my region of the US. The first, of course, Dungeons & Dragons. We wouldn’t be here on this website without that game. The other is Mystery Science Theater 3000. It turned a childhood of HBO afternoons and midnight movies into a life-long love of terrible films that were still quite entertaining with the right perspective. Onyx Path...

Feb 18, 2022 2

Other Games Reviews

Return of The One Ring: A 2e Review

The Lord of the Rings is a story about the journey. Mordor is scary and memorable, but the books and films are more about the adventures and the people along the way. The One Ring also focuses on travels. There are rules for classic fantasy battles, of course, but also a lot of pace devoted to finding the path, unexpected encounters and the weariness that sets in from a long trip, no matter...

Feb 11, 2022 11

Other Games Reviews

Master The Index Card RPG In This Collected Edition

When thinking about using a generic RPG system at my table, I think that simpler is better. Rules sets are easier to adapt to specific genres when there is room to add things. It’s stronger to add in ideas rather than pull things out. Remove mechanics, and it can be a challenge to see how it damages parts of the rules before it’s too late. I’ve seen Index Card RPG bandied about as an excellent...

Feb 5, 2022 13

Other Games Reviews

Go Down The Hobbit Hole Of The One Ring Starter Set

Dungeons & Dragons has offered players a chance to get their medieval fantasy stories on for years but there’s always been a desire to play in Middle-Earth and let folks show off how much lore they’ve absorbed from Tolkien. There have been several official RPGs over the years with The One Ring performing well in the eyes of many fans of the films and the books. Free League Publishing acquired...