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One of the long standing pearls of wisdom about role-playing games is that there is not a winner. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey in these games we love. The point is to tell memorable stories of heroes, villains, triumphs and tragedies. Designer Raph D’Amico’s The Zone focuses on a...

It’s wild to see how far computer games have come in my lifetime. Modern RPGs can be like a Hollywood blockbuster full of realistic graphics, branching storylines and romanceable characters. When I was a kid, most of these games were text adventures where half the challenge was figuring out the...

Convention adventures are built to highlight the cool parts of a role playing game. In theory, they are made to make the players wander over into the dealer hall and pick up the main rulebook. They have lives beyond this original purpose. They can be taken home and played with friends as a break...

It’s been about 10 months since the Marvel Multiverse Role Playing Game officially released. It seems to be doing well with a ranking on ICV2’s 10 ten sales chart and a hotly anticipated X-Men Sourcebook hitting on the heels of a revamp of the classic animated series. While Marvel Heroic...

Game worlds like Warhammer 40,000 operate under a double edged sword. On the one hand, the world of Warhammer has decades of lore and history to discover. On the other hand, mountains of information can be intimidating for new players to figure out where to start. The key for an introductory...

The basic gameplay loop of Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy RPGs is pretty simple. The players head into the dungeon to bring back loot. They use the loot for better stuff to go back out into the dungeon to get more loot. Some Dungeon Masters add in a third step where they must survive the...

Games like Savage Worlds Adventure Edition are toolkits for enterprising Game Masters to use in building their own worlds. But even the best carpenter can use help from time to time with solid instructions and advice. That’s where the genre companion books for Savage Worlds come in. They’ve got...

Dragonbane remains one of my favorite products to recommend to new role playing gamers. It contains everything for a lovely campaign in the Misty Vale. Free League Publishing recently released the first expansion for the game with Dragonbane Bestiary. For a game that’s steeped in classic fantasy...

Time is of the essence when running a game demo. I try to keep the demo sessions I run at cons to about two hours. The goal is to get in, show off what makes the game fun and get the players back on the con floor to buy the game from the booth. When I picked up Gateways To Terror from Chaosium I...

Arrakis is central to the Dune setting. It’s home to a valuable resource, the setting for the majority of the novels and the first thing most fans think of when someone mentions the world. The latest campaign book for Dune: Adventures In The Imperium focuses on the titular planet with a...

For many of us, office life is an ongoing proof of the truth of Jean-Paul Satre’s infamous quote from No Exit. “Hell is other people” is easy to see when stuck in a pale cubicle with co-workers engaging in annoying behaviors like clipping toenails and cooking foul smelling dishes in the communal...

“Spoopy” has become one of my favorite new words in recent years. It describes stuff that has the trappings of horror like haunted houses or skeletons but plays those things for cozy vibes and humor. Scooby-Doo is a perfect example of this. The kids wander into a location allegedly haunted by a...

Licensed games are a double edged sword for Game Masters. On the one hand, the world building is done and players have bought into a setting they love. On the other hand, it can be tough to create adventures that feel important to the setting. How can players feel like heroes if the big...

The haunted house remains a staple of horror stories. It offers a location full of haunts for players to explore. It also allows the juxtaposition of the familiar and the supernatural. Call of Cthulhu has some excellent haunted house stories such as the classic The Haunting. They’ve collected a...

There are many flavors of Dungeons & Dragons. Heroic fantasy is one of the most popular as well as gritty sword & sorcery stories. In recent years, cozy fantasy has risen as a trend. Games like this take their cues from video games where the world is still full of adventure and excitement but...

The most common gameplay cycle of fantasy games involves trekking through the wilderness, exploring a dangerous location, returning with loot to sell for the next expedition and starting over. Cities in fantasy settings can speed up this cycle by offering dangerous locations close to home such...

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...

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...

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...