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It seems every RPG Kickstarter claims to do something different. Most aren't, but Orun by New Agenda Publishing definitely is — a “Post-Apotheosis, Afro-futuristic Sci-fi RPG mixing Mysticism and Adventure to create a unique gaming experience.” If you've never heard of New Agenda...

Give your players a Halloween treat without running an actual horror RPG. Any role-playing game can have a dose of spookiness. Photo by Robert Heiser on Unsplash The genre of the RPG doesn't matter. Everything from epic fantasy to science fiction to superhero games can be made creepy...

A running gag in the game industry is that adding Cthulhu makes everything better (much like bacon) but adding it to heroic fantasy isn't easy. That calls for not just an expert but a specialist, and Sandy Petersen, creator of Call of Cthulhu, is the perfect person for the job. Sandy...

After H.P. Lovecraft – of course – the person most associated with the Cthulhu Mythos is Sandy Petersen. When the rest of the still-new role-playing game industry was making variants of Dungeons & Dragons and related types of epic fantasy, Petersen created Call of Cthulhu, his first game...

Everything goes through cycles of being large to small to large again, like cellphones. So after a long trend of “megadungeons” Tiny Dungeon 2E is a refreshing change of pace. The “tiny” is less about size than simplicity, and it's a full game system, not just a setting. In fact, it comes...

Since the majority of official D&D adventures have been set in dungeons (or the equivalent) and wilderness areas, making the latest hardcover adventure, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, a city-based adventure is a breath of fresh air. It's also a great chance to give the Sword Coast's most cosmopolitan...

I love heist/caper stories and urban fantasy adventures so the minute the D&D team announced Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Now that I've got it? I'm still excited. My full review will follow after I finish reading the book but a few quick impressions...

The main purpose of RPGs is to have fun but ensuring that everyone enjoys themselves is tricky. First you have to agree on a game, then a play style. A dozen or more things after that can make or ruin a game. John Stavropoulos created an elegant solution to a common fun killer by creating the...

Every older RPG that has been revived after being out of print for a number of years wants to be 7th Sea. Its 2016 Kickstarter raised $1.3 million, breaking crowdfunding records for role-playing games and making it a huge success in comparison to its $30,000 goal. Lands of Gold and Fire is a...

GMs and players share a common problem – getting a group started. No matter the RPG or the genre, turning individual characters into an adventuring party, superhero team, supernatural coven or pack, etc. is hard, and yet it's essential for a good game. Group connections help to raise the stakes...

How you feel about Lost Tales of Myth Drannor, which just won the Gold ENnie Award for Best Organized Play at Gen Con, will probably depend upon your needs as a DM and your personal taste. Written by five of the administrators of D&D Adventurers LeagueTM –Robert Adducci, Bill Benham...

When WotC announced the Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron as a PDF release it caused a great disturbance as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in joy and frustration. The joy is because the most requested setting in the player surveys was finally being released for 5th Edition. The frustration...

Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes is so packed with material, my first review mainly focused on the lore and race options. Now we'll address the other half of the book – the bestiary. One of the complaints about the Monster Manual was the relative scarcity of higher level creatures, especially ones...

Unlike 4th Edition, 5th Edition D&D has had a much slower pace for book releases. While some fans grumble, the change has worked in WotC's favor, making each release an event, and interest is doubled for source books like Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. While Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (MtoF)...

Satine Phoenix had already done a lot in the game industry before becoming one of the more recognizable women in the industry and a celebrity GM due to her work DMing for the official D&D Twitch channel and her popular video series, GM Tips. This is the second part of our interview with Satine...

Satine Phoenix might be the most recognizable woman in the game industry. Her popular video series GM Tips, regularly has about 100,000 views per episode. She's a GM for D&D's official Twitch channel, where she co-created Maze Arcana and DMs the popular Sirens of the Realms stream, in addition...

Xanathar's Guide to Everything packs a lot of useful content for both players and DMs in its 192 pages. Here I'm going to expand on the first part of my review to cover the section that will probably be used the most by its readers – character options. The Player's Handbook defines classes...

As the first actual rules expansion of 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, Xanathar's Guide to Everything (XGtE) is facing an immense amount of scrutiny, guaranteeing that it won't please everyone. That said, there's a lot there for fans to like. Who will like XGtE: Players and DMs who like to...