As a 12-year-old, I spent every waking moment crafting D&D adventures for my friends to play. The older I got, however, the less time I had to devote to creating encounters from scratch. Thankfully, there was a wealth of modules in the early D&D days that presented the DM with the “bare bones” of an adventure that could be tailored to individual campaigns. Of course, as a teenager, I...
Note: Just want to remind everyone that input, criticism, etc is welcome and appreciated. I noticed last week’s article wasn’t read by many. Are you getting tired? Do I need a new direction? Was that article really that bad? Remember, you tell me if it’s a hit, miss, critical hit or a critical fumble. Thanks. On with the show!! This week we move to something other than RPGs. We play all...
Where are you? Actually, don't tell me - I'll tell you where you are. Not you, specifically, of course - but "you" as an anonymised aggregate. "What's Morrus blathering on about this time?" is probably near the tip of your tongue right now. Well, WotC recently asked if I (along with, I assume, other large web communities of gamers) would be able to pull an anonymised list from Google...
One of my gadget-strewn quests over years of gaming has been finding a good way to track initiative. I've seen a lot of methods -- and everyone loves what they're doing (or doesn't obsess about it), but I've got my favorites. What We Need Initiative is important for DMs, who need to keep things running in an orderly way. Taking control of initiative is critical to good tactical play...
Do you know who Bluma Zeigarnik is? Well if you don’t then you should totally click on that link because, in addition to be awfully pretty (as Russian scientists go), she did some really fascinating research back in the early 20th century. The “Zeigarnik Effect” came out of that research, which is basically how your brain won’t let something go if it got interrupted in the middle of doing...
This week we have 10 excellent and interesting PDFs to take a look at. We have Shadowrun mixing with politics, advice on comedy, some new rule sets with cool settings, some new settings for cool fantasy campaigns, some books that can be used in just about any game and a mix of other styles/genres/systems. The Spotlight highlights an old but superb game system making its way to PDF form. It’s...
As a GM and game designer, I think it’s laughable that you could ever separate people into different personality types, let alone gamers. However, since I have to write another article, why not? Yes, today I’ll be pigeon-holing all gamers into several broad, vague, and inaccurate ‘types’ with no hint of useful information anywhere in sight. In fact, this article’s sole purpose can be said to...
Not sure I agree with the 3.75 out of 5.0 score. The minis are all high quality. You know what you are buying ahead of time, so it's not like you are going to get blind-sided with randomly packaged minis you don't want or need. I'd give them a score of 4.0 or 4.5, with a 5.0 score reserved for an incredible sculpt and or paint job.
Wil Wheaton and guests Ed Brubaker (Writer—Captain America, Criminal, Angel of Death), Robert Gifford (Founder—Geek Chic), and Morgan Webb (Host—X-Play) play Pandemic over on Geek & Sundry's latest episode of Tabletop. Pandemic is a cooperative board game designed by Matt Leacock and published by Z-Man Games in 2008, based on the premise that four diseases have broken out in the world, each threatening to wipe out a region. The game accommodates 2 to 4 players, each playing one of five possible specialists: (dispatcher, medic, scientist, researcher or operations expert). The game is unlike most boardgames as the gameplay is cooperative, rather than competitive. Through the combined effort of all the players, the goal is to discover all four cures before any of several game-losing conditions are reached.
Thanks so much for the review - I'm glad you like the game. The finished artwork and layout I hope will clear up your issues with the pre-release version. One minor point for clarity - 13th Age does not preclude the use of maps or miniatures. It simply removes the necessity for a grid, and makes maps and miniatures optional. We certainly used them in the game Rob ran for us at GenCon.
Thanks for the review. A friend of mine pre-ordered this so we should check it out soon. Question though: with all the classes having unique talents and abilities is this game really as rules light and more free wheeling as it claims to be? And And the Monk is definitely worth checking out, as it reminds me of the old AD&D Monk without being a complete worthless mess at love levels. Of...