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In some RPGs, sure. The question you must ask is if it serves the game. In D&D, I don't see much point. Assigning stat modifiers to sexes would just lead to sex becoming another mechanical feature that you pick at character generation, and suddenly a female melee character would be regarded as...

As a general thing, I don't forbid my players from bringing up any theme they wish. They're adults, they know the limits. Rape has come up, as has slavery, and we're all okay with that. It's not being fetishized. That said, if I was running a game with underage players, or even players I don't...

Ah, over here, we call that "instagib" (I understand the term originates with FPS games like Quake). Also, someone who dies to such an attack is said to "fall from straight legs" ("kaatua suorilta jaloilta" in Finnish - translates rather badly, actually). Also, someone with one hit point left...

Let's see, going back the past couple of months... Pathfinder Adventure Path #43: The Haunting of Harrowstone Pathfinder Adventure Path #44: The Trial of the Beast The Carrion Crown adventure path looks mighty promising. Though I'll probably never have time to run all the APs I'm accumulating...

Ah, yes, we used this as well. After we moved to Pathfinder Society, the expression became "poluttaa" (or "we path the bodies"). Also, there's "Code Urho 1", allegedly the Finnish military code for calling an artillery strike in your own position as a last-ditch effort when you can no longer...

Well, there's the Wild Talents family of games from Arc Dream, especially Godlike, which is about superheroes in WWII. It's one of my favourite games. They also have the supplements This Favoured Land and Kerberos Club for supers in the American Civil War and Victorian England. All three have...

Over here, that's "kirkko" ("church"), "mökki" ("cabin") or "Kyrkslätt-Vandaforsen" (Swedish proper names of a couple of cities, no idea how this got started). Since my gaming group has mostly consisted of Finns, our jargon has evolved into this unholy Finnish-based mixture of Finnish, English...

On my reading list, apart from a load of stuff for my BA thesis (on Solomon Kane, mind you), are Iain M. Banks' Consider Phlebas and Look to Windward and William Gibson's Mona Lisa Overdrive. Eventually I'll also have to get around to reading Matt Forbeck's Dead Ball since I promised a review of...

This isn't overanalysis, it's just plain analysis. Nobody's even trotted out Freud yet. As for why we do it, it is the logical result when you start to think about what you read. Analyzing the stories enhances our understanding of them. Howard also had a strong female lead in "Shadow of the...

Our Living Greyhawk regional finale yoinked some stuff from Smokin' Aces, mostly the core concept of a big bunch of top assassins coming after a single target. The assassins were almost all recycled hitmen from our earlier modules who managed to survive. None of the players had seen it, and it...

18 out of 22. I made the spetum/partisan mistake as well, and mistook the awl pike for a regular pike, and made a stupid mistake with the glaive-fork. That spetum/partisan thing is amusing, though, since it seems to be very common, but you need to possess some rather arcane knowledge to even be...

Let's see... keeping only to AD&D and D&D settings published by TSR and WotC, lest my list swell and bloat like a balloon... Forgotten Realms. For a long time, my default D&D setting. Played and ran innumerable games here. Greyhawk. I was involved with the Living Greyhawk campaign for many...

The 20th anniversary rulebook was released a year ago. I haven't kept an eye on the game line, either. Catalyst did have an embezzlement scandal during the time period, which might have energised the fanbase into buying more product, but that sounds a bit flimsy as well. Hell, I have no idea...

They do, actually. 2009 4th quarter, World of Darkness, fifth place: ICv2 - Top Q4 2009 Roleplaying Games Not surprising that they've dropped from the top spots, really, considering that they've been so quiet with their RPG material lately that there was recently confusion on whether they're...

Well, accepting for the moment the premise of "required reading", I would have to reject the notion implicit in the question that there has been a point in time when Lovecraft was not required reading. Mind you, the premise is easy for me to accept, since my group is pretty much entirely...

Twilight Imperium, eight players, twelve hours. The game usually runs from six to ten hours. I love it. I've also played an eight-hour session of Trivial Pursuit that just would not end. We were using a British edition from something like 1983, and all the orange questions were about contract...

Well, first and foremost there's King Arthur Pendragon. The system of Virtues and Passions is nothing short of brilliant in how it actively directs the actions of the PCs to model those of King Arthur's knights, and the character generation lifepath is awesome. And the hereditary campaign...

This looks nifty. The comic book purists seem to be up in arms in the comments thread, but the trailer looks promising and I've never even heard of the comic, so... And Helen Mirren with a machine gun? That alone is worth the price of admission.

Saw it. Standing by original assessment. Boring and predictable. Were someone to actually make a film about Solomon Kane, James Purefoy would be quite a good choice. Screenwriter should reconsider career.

I've got a gaming blog, too. It's now a bit over two years old, and called Worlds in a Handful of Dice. I discuss gaming, occasionally my work on Ropecon, whatever I consider interesting at the moment. There's the occasional review, and posts about new games I've tried. There's also the series...