Black Gate

Shadow of the Beanstalk is a near future campaign setting book released by Fantasy Flight Games in 2019. This book is intended to be used with Fantasy Flight Games’ Genesys role-playing rules. Shadow of the Beanstalk uses the Android setting as its background setting. Android was a board game originally published in 2008, having several such games released over the years. Perhaps more well known is that Android was used as the basis for a popular collectible card game, Android: Netrunner.

Android, and by extension, Shadow of the Beanstalk is a cyberpunk, science fiction universe, set primarily on Earth in a mega city called New Angeles, though extensive populations live on the Moon and Mars. Dark and gritty, Android features many of the tropes of cyberpunk literature and film: flying cars, extremes of poverty and wealth, barrages of consumer-focused media. As with any cyberpunk setting worth its salt, hacking, or running in Android lingo, is a common activity. While the Genesys core rules cover hacking, given the more complex and embedded nature of running in Android, supplementing the rules for the setting made sense. The result is one of this writer’s favorite ways of conducting computer hacking encounters in a tabletop role-playing game.

The principle is straightforward: the runner wants to get into a network for some reason — steal information, wreak havoc, whatever. The owner of the network wants to keep keep the runner out — the opposition to the runner is the sysop, short for systems operator. One of the challenges around running in RPGs has been that the encounter is either disassociated from the remainder of the party or it becomes a solo encounter occupying a lot of time as the other players lose interest, look at Facebook, or buy things off the Internet. Shadow of the Beanstalk aims to solve this by allowing the encounter to be embedded seamlessly with other social (rest of the party is at a night club attempting distract a group of corporate execs while the runner steals their money) or combat encounters (the party is attempting to infiltrate a building and the runner is turning off cameras and defenses).

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Different games appeal to me for different reasons. Coriolis and Cold and Dark interest me because I like dark science fiction adventure; I enjoy Starfinder because I like a richly inventive settings. Sometimes, though, it’s a little harder to quantify.

Take Raccoon Tycoon, for example. I’ve wanted to play this game since the instant I laid eyes on it. Why? Who knows! Maybe it’s the evocative and colorful cover scene. Maybe it’s the name. Whatever the case, I ordered this game as soon as I learned it existed at Gen Con this summer, and I’m glad I did.

Raccoon Tycoon is a family game for 2-5 players that simulates an economic boom in the bustling woodland town of Astoria, which is populated by a diverse range of ambitious critters. Players are enterprising investors and business folk ready to cash in on this new era of opportunity, all making money the old-fashioned way: exploiting production of the goods, playing a fluctuating market, and profiting off growth. To aid players with all this imaginative play the game’s creators have commissioned top-notch artwork that brings the various personalities to life in compelling ways. Just have a look at the board and the playing pieces, and see if you can resist the unique charm of this game.

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