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If tramping through musty tombs, undead-ridden castles, and trackless wastes have lost their appeal to your Pathfinder gaming group, then maybe your players need a nice vacation to someplace warm, near a tropical sea, and filled with all new horrors and deadly dangers to liven up their...

When thinking of scifi outer space epics, certain tropes leap instantly to mind. Whether a fan of Star Wars or Star Trek, or any of the many other science fiction space operas depicted in movies, TV or literature, fans expect aliens, space ships, high tech gadgets, and lots of strange locales...

When the Bard wrote the line, “the play’s the thing”, he obviously wasn’t talking about role-playing games. And yet, for many RPG fans, that centuries-old line has a certain resonance to it – for some gamers, it is in how they play the game, and how portray their characters, which is much more...

In this wonderful era of open gaming licenses, there are very few RPG Systems out there that fail to benefit from a growing number of indie publishers, who sacrifice their skull-sweat to bring more new products into an RPG’s growing collection of content. And the new Traveller RPG core rules...

It was not long after the first offerings of Role-Playing publishers to the gaming community, that some gamers in that community took a deep hard look at the newly created game systems, and then decided to house-rule them to hell and back. The house-ruling of RPG systems is a sacred right that...

The Prancing Pony… The Vulgar Unicorn… The Silver Eel… In heroic fantasy novels and short stories, there are always those places where heroes go to carouse, gamble, drink, and spend their treasures – the local inn. Heck, even in a “galaxy, far, far, away”, heroes meet and bar fights break out...

OK, Fellow RPG Fans… Pop Quiz time! What was the second modern role-playing game ever published – D&D being the first? If you quickly answered, “Tunnels & Trolls”, then give yourself a gold star! Following in the wake of a rising star in the role-playing game market called Dungeons &...

As I discussed in review last week of Kromore 2154 (Kickstarting Kromore 2154: Steampunk & Space Opera fuse into a Mind-Blowing RPG Setting), mash-ups are the name of the game these days – role-playing games in particular. I’ve been receiving a number of these genre-bending role-playing games...

Making mash-ups of genres seems to have become the new paradigm in the role-playing game industry. Where once, long ago, it was deemed an oddity to stray from a game's designated Sci-Fi or Heroic Fantasy genre niche, RP game players now revel in cross-genres settings and game systems. And many...

There are some gamers who might argue that D&D d20 was one the most flexible RPG systems ever created. In its wake, dozens of different games and game settings, from nearly every genre imaginable, have been translated into d20 under its OGL. But could the same be said about D&D 4E...

They say that when a true synergy occurs, the results can be greater than the sum of its parts. Certainly, the idea of creating this kind of synergy was behind a gathering of writers and game designers by The Design Mechanism to create The Book of Quests for the 6th Edition of RuneQuest. In...

Veteran gamers and OSR fans have most likely heard of the infamous troll named Grimtooth, and his fantastic assortment of deadly and diabolical traps. (*nod* Flying Buffalo) Well, old Grimtooth has some competition these days from a mere human named Gavin the Trapsmith...

For some SciFi RPG fans, space-operas are made for exploring planets, blasting the heads off aliens, and rescuing the space princess. Other fans run tactical campaigns as mercenaries and space marines, using battling armies and armadas as the backdrop for their heroes’ saga. But for some fans...

When it comes to superhero role-playing games, there are plenty of choices from which your average comic book fan/gamer can pick and choose. Villains & Vigilantes, Champions, DC Heroes, Marvel Super Heroes, and Necessary Evil are just a few of the product lines that offer RPG players a chance...

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with using random encounters in my role-playing games. All the way back in my early AD&D days, random encounters seemed like just another intrinsic part of the gaming experience, like clerics turning undead or wizards casting fireballs. Later however, I...

Early last month, I had the opportunity to review a new Medieval Fantasy Horror RPG called Shadows of Esteren. The designers released the first English version of the game late last year with two books, Book 0 – Prologue and Book 1 – Universe, which provided a foundation for playing the game...

Only a couple weeks ago, Wizards of the Coast released another addition to their growing line of older D&D edition products reprinted anew in premium formats. The Premium Magic Item Compendium is the most recent product in this line of Dungeons & Dragons source books, recreating the 3.5 Edition...

This review has been a long time coming: I’ve had Chaos & Alchemy for over six months now, and that’s more than enough time for a playtest! Back in January, the head designer at Clay Crucible Games sent me a box containing Chaos & Alchemy – a card game inspired by the history and writings of...

For many old AD&D gamers (like myself), the old content releases that we've seen in the past eleven months has truly been a blast from the past! And for OSR gamers looking for great new material to use in their favorite game systems, it’s been like trying to sip from a fire hose! In answer to...

Does gritty and grim Shadows of Esteren, with its dark gothic horror elements, have what it takes to challenge classical High Fantasy fans among RPG players? I’ve had the opportunity to review a massive amount of Role-Playing Games over the past couple of years for EN World News, and the sheer...