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There is something extraordinarily terrifying about Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Sure dealing with vampires and werewolves warring against each other is creepy at times, and everyone has their personal schemes for how they would survive the zombie apocalypse, but dealing with Cthulhu - or any of...

“… take what you learn here, and put it to sensible use.” ~ Mordenkainen, from the introduction of the Magnificent Emporium For D&D gamers “of a certain age”, or at least well-versed in previous editions, Mordenkainen is THE ARCHMAGE, the pinnacle of the magical arts, and all-around bad-ass...

It’s interesting to note how the gaming community changes over time, and what sorts of products they tend to gravitate toward. I’m not necessarily talking about “edition wars” or what sort of genre of game people like to play, but how the types of supplementary products are being offered to...

There has always been a strong link between storytelling and role-playing games, and it is that link that differentiates RPG’s from board games and war games. Sure, board games and war games often have interesting stories or plots to set up the premise of the game, it is the shared experience...

There has always been a strong link between storytelling and role-playing games, and it is that link that differentiates RPG’s from board games and war games. Sure, board games and war games often have interesting stories or plots to set up the premise of the game, it is the shared experience...

Players wanting to make characters based upon monster races is one of those time-honored traditions in fantasy role-playing that tends to drive many game masters quietly mad. On one hand, as the GM, you want your player to have a great time in your game, playing a character concept they really...

I have always thought that one of the more interesting changes wrought to D&D when 4E came out was the massive alteration to the cosmology of the multiverse. For the most part, the core D&D multiverse remained generally unchanged for years, since its conception in AD&D. Sure, there were...

One of the more interesting aspects of D&D 4E - and in some ways, one of the most vexing to some “old school” Dungeons & Dragons gamers - is this current edition’s love-affair with cards. It seems that most gamers I’ve talked to are either in love with the idea of having a neat and tidy way of...

So this past fall, an unusual package popped into my reviewer’s mailbox from the WotC Public Relations team – a brand new Innistrad Deathly Dominions box set, along with an assortment Innistrad and MTG 2012 booster packs. Now I’ve got to admit that while I have played Magic: The Gathering...

Coincidence can be a strange and often ironical force in our lives. Not long before GenCon 2011, I had a computer crash when my hard drive malfunctioned on my laptop, in essence creating a very expensive paperweight. This necessitated that I go through an annoying and tedious reinstallation...

Here we are at the beginning of a new year, and the fantasy role-playing game community is buzzing with news about yet another new edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and about a ton of new releases announced for the Pathfinder RPG system. And in the midst of all this, we have the first Kobold...

If you ask a group of a dozen gamers why they enjoy fantasy roleplaying, it’s likely that you’ll likely come up with a dozen different reasons why this type of game is so appealing. For some, it is the chance to become a legendary hero and do great deeds in a faraway land, but while others...

When I was in college, I belonged to the campus gaming club, as you can well imagine, and every year we put on a gaming convention for the local community. In fact, BASHCON is still going strong at the University of Toledo in Ohio, and is celebrating its 27th year. Back in my college days, I not...

Gamers who play role-playing games are really authors and screenwriters, whether they realize it or not. Gamemasters create detailed plotlines, characters, and sets to allow their players to participate in the “theatre of the mind” that occurs every time they sit down at a gaming session...

This month, Wizards of the Coast is once again setting up a trifecta of D&D 4E fun for players and Dungeon Masters alike. Starting on February 22nd, the new season of D&D Encounters begins in local gaming stores, featuring a story arc entitled The Elder Elemental Eye. And along with this new...

Since the days of R.E. Howard’s famed Conan stories, fantasy combats have been messy affairs at best. In fantasy novels, comics, and movies, limbs get hewn off, blood flies everywhere, and monsters are incinerated, frozen, or otherwise disintegrated with a range of magical effects. Even in movie...

So there’s a game designer, a fantasy illustrator, and a cartographer… and they open a virtual adventure shop… Sort of sounds like the start of a bad gamers joke, doesn’t it? But it’s actually a reality. Tomorrow on the first of March, a new online “store” is beginning to offer its services...

I’m not sure if it is just me, but somehow it feels like there has been a greater diversity among types of published adventure material with this current edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Rather than just the plain old “adventure module” of past editions, it feels like 4E spawned a number of new...

We here in the gaming community so often think of Wizards of the Coast as synonymous with Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering that we tend to overlook the fact that WotC also produces some amazing board games. And not only have they picked up and still produce several of the lines from...