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When Stellar Empires Clash: GDW’s Dark Nebula and Imperium

When Stellar Empires Clash: GDW’s Dark Nebula and Imperium

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Dark Nebula Game Designers Workshop-smallIn this new Golden Age of science fiction and fantasy board games, when all the chatter is about the latest and greatest mega-games (when it isn’t about the big Fantasy Flight Holiday Sale), I’d like to take a moment to appreciate two classic games of interstellar combat: GDW’s Imperium and Dark Nebula, originally published in 1977 and 1980.

Both may appear simplistic compared to modern games of empire-building in space, like Eclipse, EVE Conquests, or Empires of the Void. At first glance, they may seem more comparable to fast-action games like Perry Rhodan: The Cosmic League, Astra Titanus, or the Warhammer 40K game Relic.

But just because both are packaged in relatively small boxes with a slender set of rules doesn’t mean they aren’t ambitious and nuanced games. Both are set in the Traveller universe designed by Marc Miller and, if you’re familiar with that game, they’re a great way to play out some of the far-ranging conflicts that shaped The Third Imperium.

Although it’s probably more accurate to say that Dark Nebula shared a setting with Imperium, which gradually became part of the Traveller universe. Imperium, an ambitious two-player game of space empire conflict set in 22nd Century, was released by GDW in 1977 — the same year the company also published Traveller.  Imperium had a very intriguing backstory, with two great empires in conflict, hints of failed diplomacy, and a vast stellar empire in slow decline.

Conversely, the original boxed edition of Traveller didn’t really have a setting — it was sort of a generic system for role playing in space, and it drew on the popular vision of a galaxy-spanning human civilization found in the science fiction of the time by Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Keith Laumer, H. Beam Piper, and others. (James Maliszewski did a splendid job of re-constructing the formative SF behind Traveller in “Appendix T.”) It was a game desperately in need of a rich setting, and it found one in Imperium.

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Take Advantage of the Fantasy Flight Games Holiday Sale!

Take Advantage of the Fantasy Flight Games Holiday Sale!

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Gearworld The Borderlands-smallI jumped over to the Fantasy Flight Games website last night as I was fact-checking my article on their acquisition by Asmodee, when what did I discover but a major holiday sale, running from November 19th through December 1st.

The sale covers a wide range of their catalog, from board and card games to miniatures and expansions for their Dust Tactics, Tannhauser, and Wings of War games, as well as great prices on their Warhammer, Warhammer 40K, and Anima RPG products. They’ve even got great discounts on 20 of their novels. Here’s just a sample of their holiday pricing:

City of Thieves: King of Ashes — list $39.95, sale price $10
Descent: Sea of Blood Expansion — list $59.95 sale price $5
Fortress America — list $79.95 sale price $25
Gearworld: The Borderlands — list $49.95 sale price $10
Reiner Knizia’s Kingdoms— list $29.95 sale price $10
The Hobbit Boardgame — list $34.95 sale price $10
Ventura Board Game — list $79.95 sale price $10
Warhammer FRPG: Black Fire Pass — list $39.95 sale price $5
Warhammer FRPG: The Edge of Night — list $29.95 sale price $5
Black Crusade: Core Book — list $59.95  sale price $20

Whether or not the sale is linked to their recent acquisition (and whether or not it signals they will no longer be supporting some of these products in the future) is obviously open to debate. All the more reason to move quickly if you’ve been contemplating getting any of these games — they may not be available for much longer.

There are hundreds of items on sale, but they won’t last long at these prices, so act fast. Check out the sale here.

Asmodee Acquires Fantasy Flight Games

Asmodee Acquires Fantasy Flight Games

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Fantasy Flight logoFrom time to time, we’ve talked about Fantasy Flight Games, a company at the very forefront of the resurgence of fantasy board games in the United States. Their catalog includes some of the most popular and acclaimed genre board games and RPGs of the last decade, including Deathwatch, Descent: Journeys in the Dark, Dust Tactics, Merchant of Venus, Middle-Earth Quest, Relic, Runebound, StarCraft, Talisman, Tide of Iron, Twilight Imperium, A Game of Thrones, Age of Conan, Arkham Horror, BattleLore, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures, and many, many others.

France-based board game publisher Asmodee may not be as familiar to many of you, but we’ve mentioned them a few times — most recently with our coverage of their fantasy exploration game Cyclades and the massive space epic Eclipse.

On Monday, Asmodee announced that it had acquired Fantasy Flight Games. Leaders of both companies are trumpeting the strategic benefits of a merger, as it will give Asmodee access to Fantasy Flight’s North American operations and marketing infrastructure, and in return Flight Games will benefit from Asmodee’s distribution and marketing prowess in Europe. No plans to move Fantasy Flight’s headquarters from St. Paul, Minnesota were announced.

This is the second major acquisition for Asmodee this year. Back in August, they announced the acquisition of Days of Wonder, publishers of Ticket to Ride, Shadows Over Camelot, Small World, Pirate’s Cove, Memoir ’44, and many other board games.

No immediate changes to Fantasy Flight are anticipated, which will be a relief to most fans. Read the complete details, including an FAQ on the merger, here.

Step into a Dark Alternative London in Unhallowed Metropolis Revised

Step into a Dark Alternative London in Unhallowed Metropolis Revised

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Unhallowed Metropolis-smallThe dark fantasy role-playing game Unhallowed Metropolis was published by Eos Press in December 2007. I never got a copy, but I sure heard about it.

Set in an alternative London of 2105, two hundred years after a zombie apocalypse very nearly destroyed civilization, the game included ghosts, psychic powers, failed supersoldier experiments, zeppelins, ghoul colonies, vampires, and darker things. The futuristic dark-age London was made real with a well-conceived historical timeline, fascinating detail, and some terrific art.

The game was updated in 2011 with Unhallowed Metropolis Revised, which features new art, a foreword by Kenneth Hite (Trail of Cthulhu), streamlined rules, complete rules for volatile psychics and spectral entities, details on the wonders of aether technology, and much more. I bought a copy last month at the Fall Games Plus auction, and settled in for a read through today.

So far, I’ve been very impressed. The world building is strong indeed, and the setting splendidly realized. The art is a mix of pen and ink work and black & white photos of some very talented cosplay (the credits list 37 models, two make-up artists, and four photo manipulation artists… a pretty major production, no matter how you look at it).

All that effort has paid off. Unhallowed Metropolis Revised sucks you into the game world in a way I haven’t experienced since Ashen Stars. This is a game that makes you ache to play it.

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Can You Really Role Play on a Board?: Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords

Can You Really Role Play on a Board?: Pathfinder: Rise of the Runelords

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Pathfinder Rise of the Runelords-smallFantasy board games have tried to capture the addictive nature of role playing for decades, but without much real success. In the past few years though, a number of dungeon-delving games have come close, including Descent, Talisman Fourth Edition, Castle Ravenloft, Legend of Drizzt, Claustrophobia, and a few others. In his recent review of Paizo’s second Adventure Card Game Base Set, Skull & Shackles, Scott Taylor fingered another contender, this one from Paizo:

Of late Paizo had expanded their market with several new product lines, the most intriguing of which are their Boxed Set Card Games. These sets ingeniously combine card building with role-playing with table-top (Think D&D meets Magic the Gathering meets anything done by Fantasy Flight!) Indeed, it is an amazing breakthrough by the Paizo design team, and guess what, it actually works!

Bob Byrne was even more positive in his assessment of the first title in the series, Rise of the Runelords, in his August article on “RPGing with a board”

By far, the best board/card game I’ve found that emulates the role-playing experience is the Pathfinder Rise of the Runelords Adventure Card Game. The adventures get more difficult, you level up and the gear gets better. You maintain your items, spells, and levels from scenario to scenario through an entire Adventure Path, rather than start over each game play session. I’m sure I’ll post on that excellent game in the future.

While I wait impatiently for Bob’s full review, I went ahead and ordered a copy. It arrived a few days ago and, while I haven’t had a chance to play a full game yet (mostly because I haven’t figured out how to do that without tearing the shrinkwrap), it looks very promising indeed.

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Modular: The Warlords of the Accordlands

Modular: The Warlords of the Accordlands

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Accordlands_CodexI’m going to try to periodically post some reviews of RPG modules and supplements. If you see “Modular” in the title line, that’s such a post. And here’s one!

Warlord: Saga of the Storm was a d20-based collectible card game from AEG. I’ve never played it and know as much about it as I’ve read on Wikipedia. But I do know that in 2006, AEG released four books that made up a fine d20 RPG setting and campaign.

The World Atlas is the best starting point. There’s a long history of the world of Larisnar, going back to The Great Dragon, which destroyed gods and nations before finally being slain. But the essence of the Dragon escaped into the air and became The Storm. While its body fell deep into the earth and produced demon-like Abyssals. Most of the remaining nations and races signed The Accord as a means to survive the changed world.

The Atlas profiles each of the major nations, including those of the dwarves and elves. As part of The Accord, the Dwarves agreed to leave the surface (the Dragon had destroyed their lands) and head underground to protect against the Abyssals. They stayed down so long that the surface dwellers forgot they existed and their selfless dedication.

Meanwhile, the Elves had become short-lived, barely lasting thirty years, so they turned to necromancy. These ain’t Tolkien’s elves!

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The Dungeons (and Dragons) of My Life, Part Two

The Dungeons (and Dragons) of My Life, Part Two

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Warhammer First Edition box set-smallHey, folks. Last month I posted the first part of this blog about the Dungeons & Dragons campaigns I’ve run. Now I’m back with the second half.

Before I get back into my tale, I need to make a correction. The last section of my first-half blog was subtitled 1989-2002. I need to amend that to 1989-1992, since it only encompassed my college years. Let’s call it a senior moment and move on. Alrighty then.

1993-2002

So, after college I found a group of players back in my hometown. A couple were old friends from my high school days, and some were new friends. At the time, I was getting into the Warhammer Roleplaying Game as well, so I tried to infuse my D&D campaign with some of those dark, gritty elements. As a result of a growing love of fiction writing (I was still years away from being published at this time), I was also developing more of my own adventure material.

The first campaign out of the gate began with the adventurers waking up after a battle with collective amnesia. They followed a trail of clues to find out who they were and why they had been attacked. Sadly, this campaign only last about half a dozen sessions because I played a rather nasty trick. I allowed my brother to play a double agent inside the group with instructions to betray them when he saw an opportunity.

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Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

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boothillAs my children will tell you, a frequent refrain around my house is “I’m so glad I was a kid in the 1970s.” I say it often enough that my teenage daughter – Lord, help her – is starting to wish she’d grown up during the “Me” Decade as well. I could probably write several posts about why I say this and why I say it with conviction, but I’ll spare my readers such blather at this time. However, I will explain how it’s pertinent to the present post.

Television during the 1970s was a funny thing. Outside of “prime time,” first-run programming was broadly limited to game shows, soap operas, news broadcasts, and, of course, Saturday morning cartoons. That left a lot of air time to be filled, which, coupled with new rules passed by the Federal Communications Commission intended to foster the creation of local content (but generally didn’t, at least in my neck of the woods), meant that I saw reruns of many, many old TV shows and almost as many old movies.

Even though I started watching most of this stuff because there was nothing else on, in retrospect, I’m glad that I did so. Not only did it expose me to content, genres, and actors with which I might otherwise have never become familiar, it also provided me with pop cultural connections to my parents, grandparents, and even just the older guys I’d later encounter in the hobby shops. That’s why, to this day, I’m very much a man out of time, with the tastes and interests of the generation before mine, such as my abiding interest in the Second World War. I suspect many of my age peers are similar in this respect.

One of those pop cultural connections to earlier generations was the Western, a genre that had peaked during the 1960s and was well on its way out the door by the time I was born. Yet, thanks to syndication, I got to see plenty of Westerns (as well as shows, like Gunsmoke and Bonanza, which were still being produced in my early childhood). It’s no surprise, then, that, once I discovered roleplaying games, I’d seek out any that recalled the Western TV shows and movies I’d enjoyed. The first – and, as it turned out, only – one I ever played was TSR’s Boot Hill, co-authored by Brian Blume and Gary Gygax.

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Judges Guild Premium Editions Coming

Judges Guild Premium Editions Coming

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JudgesGuild_KelnoreWhen I began playing Dungeons and Dragons in the late seventies, I was a Judges Guild fan. My friend, who had more money, would buy shiny TSR modules. And I would get the cheaper-covered Judges Guild products. F’Dech Fo’s Tomb, Ravenscrag, Inferno (with a real cover), City State of the World Emperor, Wraith Overlord… I loved reading those things.

Frontier Forts of Kelnore guarded the border of my kingdom of Troya, ruled by the great warrior, Astyannax (I got more creative over the years). I even subscribed to Pegasus magazine, right up to the day it was discontinued.

Now, I liked those Judges Guild modules and supplements, but looking back, many did not age well (though a few did). Gaming has changed a lot over the years and reading them is kind of like watching an early talkie from the thirties. They’re out of place.

Having said that, they can still be interesting. I recently considered updating Glory Hole Dwarven Mine to work with Forge of Fury as a Pathfinder dwarven adventure. However, converting those old AD&D/Universal modules would take a LOT of work.

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Game Review: Dead of Winter from Plaid Hat Games

Game Review: Dead of Winter from Plaid Hat Games

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dead-of-winter-boxColor me rotting-flesh green and call me thunderstruck. I believe I’ve been playing the best board game in my thirty years of dice rolling this week: the Plaid Hat Games survival horror magnificence that is Dead of Winter.

Ron Burgundy “That’s No Lie” seal of approval. I know I often write here with tongue probing my cheek, but this time I’m undeadly serious. Maybe it was just the subject matter, or how dark the game can get as desperation builds, but I found it my most enjoyable gaming session in memory.

I’m not just trying to squeeze in another gore-dripped Zombie-related post before Halloween, either. I was perfectly willing to let my one sad little movie post for the month be my fall contribution, but honestly, this game has taken over my brain like a Venusian virus brought back to Earth and I must write about it.

Like tabletop gaming with friends? Like Zombies? If either of these conditions = TRUE, you can read through all my blah blah questionable-humor blah blah blah, or you can get off the Internet, utilize your preferred mode of transport (I don’t care about your hair, that’s why God created baseball hats), go to your Friendly Local Game Store and grab this jewel so you can read the rules and play it over the course of Halloween all the more quickly.

You’re welcome.

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