Browsed by
Category: Games

Conan Unchained!, The Keep on the Borderlands, and the 50th Anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons

Conan Unchained!, The Keep on the Borderlands, and the 50th Anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons

Comments 5 comments


Advanced Dungeons & Dragons CB1: Conan Unchained! by David “Zeb” Cook (TSR, 1984)

Before TSR created the Conan Role Playing Game with its own rules and conventions, they released two Conan adventure modules for use with AD&D, but with a few interesting rules additions, including Fear Checks, Luck Points, and more lenient Healing rules.

This adventure was written by the legendary David “Zeb” Cook and illustrated by the incredibly talented Jeff Butler. As I’ve had the pleasure of meeting both gentlemen at several conventions, I managed to get the book signed and personalized by each of them. It would be epic if I could get Arnold to sign it. šŸ˜‰

…

Read More Read More

A Dark, Forbidding, Action-packed Experience: The ShadowDark RPG

A Dark, Forbidding, Action-packed Experience: The ShadowDark RPG

Comments 0 Comment

Back in December I received the ShadowDark RPG from the fine folks at The Arcane Library. This game looks wonderful, so far, and the production values are second to none. Thick, durable paper; library-sewn binding; clear, readable font selections with good white space. All these little things make for a better user experience.

I’ve had the pleasure of playing this game with its creator, Kelsey Dionne, whom I consider to be a wonderful creative force in the TTRPG (tabletop role playing game) industry. She has carved out her own niche in the hobby, presenting a dark, forbidding, action-packed experience.

…

Read More Read More

The Mad Wizards at Planet X Games

The Mad Wizards at Planet X Games

Comments 0 Comment


Rayguns & Robuts, issue 1 (Planet X Games, August 2022). Cover by Ed Bickford

“…system-agnostic universe filled with galactic space rangers and square-jawed heroes zipping across the phlogiston, with a jet pack strapped to their back and a raygun in hand…”

Back in 2022 I received the first issue of Rayguns & Robuts, by Planet X Games. This sci-fi zine is loaded with incredible content and art, and the design esthetic is second to none.

…

Read More Read More

When Your First Language is Role-Playing Games

When Your First Language is Role-Playing Games

Comments 6 comments


A1-4: Scourge of the Slavelords by David “Zeb” Cook, Allen Hammack, Harold Johnson,
Tom Moldvay, Lawrence Schick, and Edward Carmien (TSR, 1986), and Oriental Adventures:
Night of the Seven Swords by Jon Pickens, David “Zeb” Cook, Harold Johnson, Rick Swan,
Edward Carmien, and David James Ritchie (TSR, 1986). Cover art by Jeff Easley and Clyde Caldwell

Always a writer, the first significant things I wrote were role-playing adventures, some for old-school Dungeons & Dragons, but mostly for what the kids today call a home brew system based on the PrinceCon rules (kudos to the very very few who know that one). Later in life Iā€™d write for TSR, Inc., including some AD&D stuff, work for the Indiana Jones game (hats off to the great Harold Johnson who had way too much fun making paper cut-outs exciting), writing for a family game called CrossCheck (I think? That assignment = a zillion or so crossword puzzle questions), basically whatever the company needed doing that no one else wanted to do.

But in these early, formative years, I came up with games and ran them for my friends, first in high school, then in college. By then I worked on poetry and fiction, too, and ran into a problem. I spoke RPGs. Fiction was essentially a second language.

…

Read More Read More

Goth Chick News: Bring on the Retro, 16-Bit Games Are Coming Back

Goth Chick News: Bring on the Retro, 16-Bit Games Are Coming Back

Comments 0 Comment

RetroRealms – Halloween Gameplay Screenshot

There is almost nothing I love better than a thunder-stormy Sunday afternoon spent playing video games. These days, those hours are spent in my souped-up home office which I have rigged for a VR system, as well as standard PC-gaming.

But it feels like only a short time ago that I was dumping quarters into upright machines at my local arcade. Like a whole lot of people, I feel an incredible amount of nostalgia toward the pixelated games which sucked down so much of early job income. This is why retro arcades have started popping up all over the place and I spent my entire tax refund a couple years back purchasing an upright arcade machine of my very own.

That said, it shouldnā€™t be the surprise that it was to read that a game developer was reimagining two iconic horror-movie-themed games from the early 80s.

…

Read More Read More

Thereā€™s Nothing to Say

Thereā€™s Nothing to Say

Comments 2 comments
Image by LoggaWiggler from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn, Readers!

I have to admit, Iā€™m a little stuck as to what to share with you today, given the horrendous news cycle. I am struggling to think of anything else but all the awful things that are going on in the wider world, save for the current work in progress that I have finally begun writing again after many, many months off (I was supposed to have finished this book in February). And I canā€™t really talk about that since, the book being in the unfinished first phase rough, no one will know what the hell Iā€™m referring to when I do talk about it.

Iā€™m not sure that even if I had anything constructive to say directly regarding this WIP that it would do any good, as it is the third book in a series, and I havenā€™t even bothered to shop the first book yet. Thereā€™s no point in trying to create buzz around a book that doesnā€™t even have a publication dateā€¦ and may not, depending on how well it does during submission. I mean, I donā€™t have a book coming out until 2026, and if the first book were to be picked up, itā€™d be published maybe 2027 if Iā€™m extremely lucky. Likely much later.

…

Read More Read More

A Weird & Wonderful Treasure Trove: New Gaming Releases

A Weird & Wonderful Treasure Trove: New Gaming Releases

Comments 3 comments

Legacy of the Green Flame (Pacesetter Games)

Fellow RPG enthusiasts, if I may, I would like to direct your attention to a few fine new projects that recently funded on Kickstarter.

Legacy of the Green Flame (Pacesetter Games)

Legacy of the Green Flame (solo play for 5e and “classic”): It was the oldest trick in the book. A man on a dark road asked for directions and you let your guard down. You awake in a nearby inn with a bruised skull and ego. All your possessions are gone, but your courage endures. Helped by the kindly and concerned innkeeper, you are equipped and the chase is on. The bandits fled into the forest, but you will have your vengeance. (Series of linked adventures; this was the first description).

The project successfully funded on Kickstarter in less than an hour, and wrapped up September 21. According to the April 8 Progress Report, they are close to ordering books for retail delivery. Keep an eye out for this one.

…

Read More Read More

Sometimes Itā€™s Exhausting Being a Gamer

Sometimes Itā€™s Exhausting Being a Gamer

Comments 4 comments

Good Afterevenmorn!

I know that greeting is nonsensical, but I do love it, so itā€™s staying. itā€™s a whimsical kind of thingā€¦ and I need that whimsy right about now. You see, Iā€™m exhausted. Itā€™s not just that Iā€™m working several jobs while trying to get a creative career off the ground. But itā€™s also having to deal with some kinds of people that have flooded one of my favourite pastimes. Every so often, like when a new game trailer drops, for example, they rear their terrible little heads and with their full admittedly pigeon chests bellow at the top of their lungs that they were once again not centred and theyā€™re boycotting said game because itā€™s gone ā€œwoke.ā€ Whatever that means.

…

Read More Read More

The Chronicles of Future Earth Player’s Guide – Out Now!

The Chronicles of Future Earth Player’s Guide – Out Now!

Comments 2 comments

Way back in 2018, I wrote an article for Black Gate about the Kickstarter we were running for my science-fantasy roleplaying game, The Chronicles of Future Earth. Subtitled ā€œCosmic Fantasy Roleplaying in the Post-Historical Ageā€, it was a world of long-forgotten ancient technologies, strange mutated monsters, gods, demons, and weird intelligent species fighting against forces of entropy and domination threatening to destroy reality. Using a radical new version of the Fate Core rules system, it was a setting which had inspired me for over twenty years, Iā€™d published a novel in the setting, written RPG adventures and supplements, short stories, and more. Now it was going to be a massive standalone roleplaying game in its own right. I was excited. The Kickstarter funded 225% of its goal. It was going to happen.

Then, my husband was diagnosed with cancer, died, and my life exploded. No warning, fast, brutal. For several years I wandered lost, unable to even read more than a few pages, let alone write. But time and the friendship of good people, the support of the fantasy, SF, and RPG communities, all worked their magic, and slowly I recovered. Last year I published a ā€œsuperheroic swords and sorceryā€ RPG called The Lair of the Leopard Empresses. This year, at last, and with an entire new company, Typhon Games, I published the first book in The Chronicles of Future Earth RPG ā€” the Playerā€™s Guide. John and the Black Gate team have very kindly had me back to give you an update on how the far future of planet Earth is looking, almost six years on!

…

Read More Read More

The Hobby Shop Dungeon, by Benoist Poire and Ernest Gary Gygax Jr.

The Hobby Shop Dungeon, by Benoist Poire and Ernest Gary Gygax Jr.

Comments 5 comments

The Hobby Shop Dungeon Marmoreal Tomb Campaign Starter

The Hobby Shop Dungeon, by Benoist Poire and Ernest Gary Jr. Gygax is a marvel to behold.

One can utilize these books and maps for years — a complete setting loaded with maps, histories, set pieces, dungeons (arguably a mega-dungeon), wilderness, factions, heraldry, unique monsters, unique magic items, and adventure hooks abounding. It is quite a feat and an enormous labor of love.

Poring through it all, I’d say my favorite parts are the heraldry (very Greyhawk in spirit), the wilderness and dungeon maps, and the Prismatic Maze (sounds very Vancian).

I’ve assembled some photos from the box set below for you to enjoy. You can order copies from Troll Lord Games or from Isle of Games.

…

Read More Read More