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Mecha are typically portrayed in a military setting. They can be kings that stride the battlefield, hot fighter craft that streak though the emptiness of space or, in some cases, a little of both. Salvage Union, from designers Aled Lawlor and Panayiotis Lines, fit these robots into a more...

Some folks don't have to go to reddit for wild conspiracy theories and folks who won't change their minds despite mountains of evidence. They just have to go to holiday dinner.

I think one of the challenges to this line of reasoning is that people rarely change their minds. It can happen, but it's just as likely they'll reenforce their current belief system and rationalize it away. Even if presented with multiple instances of evidence, people will go to great lengths...

There's a Mothership adventure in Hull Breach that does that. You can't see the monsters unless you're looking through the special prototype camera and that sound terrifying. Or consider doing something like Silent Hill, where your phone vibrates harder as the ghost gets closer...

I’ve been writing horror material for RPGs for over ten years. I’ve run horror games for much longer, dating back to the early 90s. In all that time, I keep hearing a strange declaration. “Oh, I can't run horror games in the modern day. Technology makes them not scary and too easy.” My knee...

Comedy and horror seem like unlikely partners. They both can achieve a direct emotional response when properly executed. Monsters often follow a track from terrifying creature to comedic mascot and back again as a new generation refreshes what made the beast scary in the first place. Vampires...

And they are cutting the dangerous island games with flashbacks plus a meta element about whether or not the players are there to win or to blow up the game. I'm looking forward to it and hopefully a review will turn up here.

Survival is one of the big themes in Mork Borg style games. It’s the end of your world as you know it, whether your world is one of fantasy, cyberpunk or even pulp duck adventure. Cast Away, from designer Matthew Chiamis, applies the Mork Borg aesthetic to a classic survival scenario. It’s also...

"Bored rich kid who gets into the occult because reasons" works well enough, but proper motivations help me portray villains and their reactions better, even the insane ones. What can I say, it's the theater kid in me.

Call of Cthulhu campaigns tend to come in two broad flavors. There are the globehopping pulp adventures of classics like Masks of Nyarlathotep or Horror On The Orient Express on the one side. On the other hand, there are campaigns set in “Lovecraft Country”, the New England countryside home to...

Link updated. That is, indeed, weird.

This hobby is inherently strange. We spend hours playing let’s pretend, crafting stories, painting tiny dolls and sitting around a table hanging out with friends. Yet that weirdness is also what makes these experiences memorable. Everyone has a story about how a story took a wrong turn or how a...

I think you could turn Pirate Borg into Our Borg Means Death with just a click or two of the dial. It has a Tim Burton feel in some sports, but back when Burton was legitimately weird like his Beetlejuice era. By the same token, I feel that way about Shadowdark. It seems like a great simple...

All of the games in the Morg Borg family are dark. (Spoiler alert, that’s what the word ‘mork’ means in Swedish). Vast Grimm, from designer Bran Colin, includes much of the same darkness one might expect from a game using the Mork Borg style and rules set. But hidden inside the review copy he...

That's a feature not a bug for me. Alien is consistently scary and dark because that's the license. They put out a book a year for that line so they have time to let it marinate to focus on the classic themes and mood. Mothership can afford to be more experimental. There's a firmer grasp on...

I'm aware of the delay to the printed materials; I'm a backer. Vaporware implies there's been no motion on the Kickstarter at all. I've been part of those Kickstarters that just stop. While Mothership is overdue, it's not been radio silent. They've done a great job on the PDFs with the Warden's...