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  1. Christopher Helton

    Looking At The Abstract Of Game Design

    Game design should be everything taken together.
  2. Christopher Helton

    Looking At The Abstract Of Game Design

    Game design is a bit like being a shark in that it has to keep moving, or it will die. Of course there are always exceptions, because some sharks have adapted to be able to keep breathing without having to move. This can have its advantages, but sooner or later you've reached a point where you...
  3. Christopher Helton

    Elite: Dangerous Tabletop Kickstarter Hits Snag

    This KS received a lot of attention, which probably brought it to the attention of the rights holder.
  4. Christopher Helton

    Elite: Dangerous Tabletop Kickstarter Hits Snag

    The Kickstarter for the Elite: Dangerous tabletop role-playing game has hit a legal snag. Based on elements from the 1984 computer game Elite, and the sequels Frontier: Elite II and Frontier: First Encounters published by the video game publisher Frontier Development, the Elite: Dangerous...
  5. Christopher Helton

    The Cults Of Runequest Are Back

    The new crew at Chaosium is back with another wave of classic material for their Runequest Classic line, this time resurrecting the Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror books in PDF (with print books to come). With these books, the reprint line of Runequest Classic is closer to completion. Each of...
  6. Christopher Helton

    Looking Back At Chaosium's Stormbringer Role-Playing Game

    The only real differences between Elric! and Stormbringer 5E are art choices and differing font sizes. Although, strangely, after their initial traditionally printed run of Elric! books ran out, Chaosium switched to doing them using POD. However, Stormbringer 5E had another traditional print run...
  7. Christopher Helton

    Looking Back At Chaosium's Stormbringer Role-Playing Game

    After some online conversations on social media, I decided that I should talk about a few older games and supplements in my column here. I ran a Twitter poll with some options, some of which I may visit in future pieces, and Stormbringer came out as a pretty dominating choice. The game took the...
  8. Christopher Helton

    Swords & Wizardry Is Back With New Art And New Energy

    Frog God Games' successful Kickstarter for the third printing of the Swords & Wizardry complete rules funded last Fall, and over the past couple of weeks books started rolling out to those who pledged for the just core book. As more of the add ons are finished and go out to backers, this will be...
  9. Christopher Helton

    DIY RPG Design Done Right With Hubris

    Hubris is a project that I have had an eye on since Mike Evans started talking about it over at his blog, and running online games that I unfortunately could not attend. What came out of all of this is a big, fat module / supplement / adventure book for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG that...
  10. Christopher Helton

    Gaming Zines And You

    There has always been a history of amateur publications in role-playing games, going back as far as Lee Gold's influential APA zine Alarums & Excursions started in the 70s. With the resurgence of zine publishing there has been an explosion of people publishing zines again, and the RPG field...
  11. Christopher Helton

    Get Introduced To RPGs Through Harvesters From Troll Lord Games

    One of the reasons to keep up with the Bundle of Holding is because you never know when you're going to find that interesting new game that you didn't know about before. As a case in point, I follow the games of Troll Lord Games, and I still wouldn't have known about Harvesters by John Seibel...
  12. Christopher Helton

    Looking Forward At The Year To Come In Tabletop RPGs

    For those saying that there aren't successful SF games, I would also point out that Traveller 5 made nearly $300K on Kickstarter, and was the top grossing RPG Kickstarter for a while.
  13. Christopher Helton

    Looking Forward At The Year To Come In Tabletop RPGs

    This is a piece about upcoming trends, not individual releases.
  14. Christopher Helton

    Looking Forward At The Year To Come In Tabletop RPGs

    I'm not one for looking back, so retrospectives of the year that was, or looks back at the best of the year, aren't for me. A lot of good and interesting games came out, and more than a few sad or bad things happened as well. It was a year that we will likely remember for a long time, in and out...
  15. Christopher Helton

    The Power Of Print On Demand

    Unfortunately, unless electronic printing methods change dramatically, the glossier stocks aren't going to be an option for POD stuff. The printer inks just don't stick to the paper as well as the inks used in offset printing (and even that can sometimes come down to the press operator being...
  16. Christopher Helton

    The Power Of Print On Demand

    My occupation as a critic and reviewer has made me a reluctant collector. I picked up the Vampire stuff because I really don't know the system all that well, and I want to get to know it better with a new edition being worked on by WW.
  17. Christopher Helton

    The Power Of Print On Demand

    A couple of weeks ago, word started spreading that Wizards of the Coast was putting old TSR material into their print on demand program. I decided to look into some of the offerings and see what was up, From there, this expanded into a general "State of the Print on Demand" piece for the...
  18. Christopher Helton

    Touch The Puppet Head In John Tynes' Puppetland Game

    My point was that it preceded Sorcerer as the first indie/storygame, not that Sorcerer was diceless.
  19. Christopher Helton

    Touch The Puppet Head In John Tynes' Puppetland Game

    If there is something that John Tynes knows, it is scary. Puppets are scary. Puppets killing their makers are scary. The Puppetland game looks like an unassuming children's book (albeit one written by Neil Gaiman and with art by Dave McKean), but that appearance hides something much darker. I...
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