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Howard Andrew Jones Reviews Level UP Issue 1

Howard Andrew Jones Reviews Level UP Issue 1

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gmg9101coverlargeGaming magazines can be a great asset to planning a roleplaying game, but I’ve often considered them to not be worth the cost. This one, reviewed by our very own Howard Andrew Jones, looks like it gives quite a bit of bang for the buck (or, in this case, 2 bucks). The publisher, Goodman Games, has a solid track record for producing quality game supplements.

Level UP Issue 1

Goodman Games (55 pp, $1.99 magazine, April 2009)
Review by Howard Andrew Jones

I like this magazine. Issue 1 comes in at 55 pages, the first offering of a new quarterly publication from Goodman Games devoted to Dungeons and Dragons. It means to fill some pretty big missing boots – you probably know the ones I mean if you’re an old fan of the game – and I think it’s off to a good start.

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Art of the Genre: The Drow

Art of the Genre: The Drow

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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took both…

Jeff Dee shows some skin on the back cover of D3
Jeff Dee shows some blue skin on the back cover of D3

Today I follow the rise of the Drow, both in their conceptual purpose and the art that has defined them.

In modern fantasy there have been dark elves as far back as Tolkien when he speaks of Eol the Dark Elf who forged Anguirel the blade used by Beleg Strongbow in the Hurin mythos. Yet, corrupted elves, and the mystery they hold, have become something else entirely when placed in the framework of role-playing games.

Somewhere, in some nearly forgotten time, Gary Gygax read something, perhaps Funk & Wagnall’s Unexpurgated Dictionary, stating: “[Scot.] In folk-lore, one of a race of underground elves represented as skilful workers in metal. Compare TROLL. [Variant of TROLL.] trow“ and he used it to create the absolutely fantastic D&D monster we now call Drow.

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Twilight Sector & Astra Titanus

Twilight Sector & Astra Titanus

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astraWith Black Gate 15 just around the corner I thought I’d start devoting some time to some products that arrived too late for us to cover, or that just didn’t fit into an issue nearly as large as issue 14.

I was particularly taken by two science fiction titles. The first is a campaign setting, and while it utilizes the Mongoose Traveller rules, it’s in a completely different universe from Traveller itself.

The other is a solo tactical board game. If, like me, you name “The Doomsday Machine” as one of your favorite classic Star Trek episodes, it’s a must have, but it’s pretty darned cool even if you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.

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“My Firefly Atonement” or “Get Cheap RPG Books Today Only!”

“My Firefly Atonement” or “Get Cheap RPG Books Today Only!”

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When a show with a large fan base – especially a large SF fan base – ends, the fans have some small amount of solace, because there’s usually a rich bounty of “extended universe” materials to keep the fix going for a while. Often the avid fan, deprived of new episodes of the show, can enjoy exploring the novels, comic books, and, yes, even role-playing game supplements which are created through license with the show … but all good things must end.

Last Chance to Buy Serenity & Battlestar Galactica RPGs

In recent years, one of the publishers that’s been dominant in the field of licensed RPG materials from such show – including Smallville, Supernatural, Serenity, Leverage, and Battlestar Galactica – is Margaret Weiss Productions, founded by (and named after) the legendary co-creator of the Dragonlance D&D setting and co-author of most of the relevant novels that established that setting, notably the Chronicles and Legends trilogies. These have been some great games, all built around MWP’s proprietary Cortex Rule System (reviewed in Black Gate 14). Serenity RPG was reviewed back in Black Gate 10 and my own review of the Supernatural RPG is slated to come out in Black Gate 15.

The problem, of course, is that both Serenity and Battlestar Galactica are based on franchises that have been over for quite some time. The licenses may have expired or MWP may have just decided it wasn’t profitable to keep the lines going, but the result was the following message in my e-mail today:

You have one day left to purchase The Serenity and Battlestar Galactica RPGs from Margaret Weiss Productions!

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Howard Andrew Jones Reviews Legends of Steel RPG

Howard Andrew Jones Reviews Legends of Steel RPG

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legendsofsteelSavage Worlds is a gaming system designed to provide a basic framework around which games in all sorts of settings can be built, but especially games in the Sword & Sorcery genre will perhaps find the best home there. Howard Andrew Jones explores one such setting …

Legends of Steel: Savage Worlds

Jeff Mejia
Evil DM Games (70 pp, $12.00 PDF, January 2009)
Reviewed by Howard Andrew Jones

A lot of games wear their hearts on their sleeves. They’re labors of love. They almost have to be, because one doesn’t usually get wealth, fame, and women by playing and designing games. When it comes to Legends of Steel, the heart it wears on its sleeve is mine. I wasn’t remotely involved in its creation, but I’m a huge fan of sword-and-sorcery, and Legends of Steel seems to have been designed, more than most other games I pick up, with me in mind.

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Howard Andrew Jones Reviews HeroScape

Howard Andrew Jones Reviews HeroScape

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Heroscape expansion packs

In 2004, I made my first trip to GenCon and was overwhelmed by the experience. I don’t remember much about the specific tables I visited, but I do remember coming across this new game, HeroScape, which applied a modular style to tactical war gaming – not just in the building of the army (which was usually modular in some sense), but in the design of the playing surface and terrain.

Just as Howard describes himself below, I was also the sort of person who always chose storytelling games over wargames. I had bought some Warhammer units, but had spent so much time painting them that I’d never actually gotten around to playing the game … and even if I had, the lack of terrain would have annoyed me.

With HeroScape, all of these elements came packaged together in a master set, and you could expand on the experience easily enough with various expansion packs. Six years later, Howard describes his experience with the current incarnation of the game.

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Howard Andrew Jones Reviews Traveller RPG Supplements

Howard Andrew Jones Reviews Traveller RPG Supplements

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Spinward Marches_cover.indd

The Traveller RPG was originally released in 1977 as a game system in which players could explore generic space adventure games. (One of the game’s creators, Marc Miller, claims the idea came from wanting to do Dungeons & Dragons in space.)

If you like playing games set in space – whether space opera, hard SF, planetary romance, or space cowboys (you know who you are)  – you might want to check out Traveller‘s flexible system to help supplement your gameplay. You can find out more from their current publisher, Mongoose Publishing, or go to the source of all (questionable) knowledge, Wikipedia.

Today, we’re presenting three reviews from the pages of Black Gate which focus on Traveller materials. Two are of new supplements from Mongoose and the third review is for a CD-ROM containing many supplements and modules from earlier editions of the game.

Enjoy!

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Solitaire Gaming

Solitaire Gaming

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island-of-lost-spells
Another great adventure from Dark City Games.

I blame the whole thing on John O’Neill.

A few years back I asked him about the solo Dark City Games adventures that Andrew Zimmerman Jones and Todd McCaulty had reviewed so favorably for Black Gate. John happens to have a larger game collection than most game stores, so I’d come to the right person.

Solo games were great fun, John told me. “Here’s an extra copy of an old game you’ve never heard of that’s really cool. Go play it.”

That was Barbarian Prince. And yeah, it was pretty nifty (you can try it out yourself with a free download here, along with its sister solitaire product, Star Smuggler).

I started playing and enjoying the products created by Dark City Games, which the rest of the staff and I have continued to review for the magazine.

barbarian-prince3But what are these solitaire games like?

The most obvious analogy is to say that solitaire games are a little like computer adventure games played with paper, with dice and cards taking the place of a computer game’s invisible randomization of results.

My first thought was something along the lines of “how quaint,” but it turns out that while the play experiences are similar, the flavors are slightly different, even if playing them stimulates similar centers of the brain.

It’s like switching off orange pop to try some root beer, or vice versa. You may not drink one or the other exclusively, but they both sure are sweet on a hot day.

zulus-on-the-ramparts
"You mean your only plan is to stand behind a few feet of mealie bags and wait for the attack?"

While playing a solitaire game you may not see any computer graphics, but your imagination will paint some images for you.

And there’s the tactile pleasure of manipulating the counters and looking over the game board and flipping through the booklet and rolling the dice.

Solitaire in no way means that you will get the same game play each time, and to my surprise I’ve discovered that a well designed solo board game has better replay value than many computer games.

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Web Freebie – Cortex Game System Review

Web Freebie – Cortex Game System Review

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cortex1Years ago, one of the biggest names in the gaming industry, the woman behind the Dragonlance world of Dungeons & Dragons, struck out by creating her own gaming company: Margaret Weis Productions.

Their first game was the Serenity Roleplaying Game, reviewed back in Black Gate 10 (Spring 2007). Based upon the tragically short-lived “space cowboy” Joss Whedon television series Firefly, the game mechanics were a proprietary system which they called the “Cortex” system. It has provided the basis of their numerous games based on television series: Supernatural, Smallville, Leverage, and Battlestar Galactica. (Coincidentally, the Supernatural RPG is reviewed by yours truly in the upcoming Black Gate 15.)

In 2009, Margaret Weis Productions came out with a stand-alone rules for the highly-adaptable Cortex system. Unfortunately, space considerations kept the review from making it into Black Gate 14, but we share it now for your internet reading pleasure:

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Fantasy Game Review: Ascension – Chronicle of the Godslayer

Fantasy Game Review: Ascension – Chronicle of the Godslayer

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ascensionlogo

Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer is a deck-building game from Gary Games. “What is Ascension?” you may ask. Here’s a quick intro from the Ascension website:

Ascension is a fast-paced deckbuilding game that’s quick to learn, easy to setup, and packed with endless hours of replay value! Our goal with Ascension was to make a game that we would bring out again and again for our own game nights. With an all-star team working on design and development, including Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour Champions Justin Gary, Rob Dougherty, and Brian Kibler, we spent the better part of a year making a game that will appeal to fans of the board games, trading card games, and non-gamers alike.

It’s also useful to have a bit of the background for the world in which the game is set. Again, from the Ascension website:

The game takes place in Vigil, a world that has been protected for millennia by the Great Seal, keeping the realm free from divine influences. It was put in place after an ancient war with a corrupt god, Samael the Fallen, when it was decided that none of the gods should be able to interfere. But now, the Seal is failing, and nightmarish Monsters that had been forgotten are breaking through. Your job, as a hero of Vigil, is to take your small, ragtag band of Apprentices and Militia, and gather an army powerful enough to lead you to your destiny as the Godslayer, and in doing so, slay Samael once and for all.

The next obvious question is: what is a deckbuilding game? Deckbuilding implies that you do not start with a predetermined deck, i.e. one of your own choosing before the game begins. Rather, you begin with a starter deck and customize your deck through the course of the game, hopefully in such a way that allows you to outplay your opponents, who are customizing decks of their own.

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