Robot Viking

Halloween is my favorite time of the year. I seriously get that old Andy Williams tune, “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” going in my head, but with macabre lyrics. On Halloween night, kids will be out getting their annual candy haul. I’ll be doling the sweets out too, but I also dig through [...]

The Legend of Drizzt is the third entry in Wizards of the Coast’s series of D&D based board games. It uses the same basic mechanics as the first two, but adapts the game to the Forgotten Realms, using all the major characters from R.A. Salvatore’s novels instead of generic heroes and villains.

I’m going to step back for a minute from being a publisher and just be a fellow gamer. February of this year my doctor told me that I was pre-diabetic. Thanks to my wonderful girlfriend, I’ve managed to beat it and have lost about 40 pounds of weight. About a month ago, my doctor told [...]

Open Design’s Divine Favor series of Pathfinder supplements serves as a set of player’s option books and optimization guides for paladins, clerics, druids and oracles. They’re fairly straightforward splatbooks with some cool ideas and a few powerful feats and spells that DMs may have to keep an eye on for balance purposes (and if there [...]

Shadowrun is a great game, but it has its idiosyncrasies. It’s not as internally rigid as D&D or other class based systems, which is a wonderful thing, but it also means the game can be utterly broken by crafty players. Here are some tips on running a campaign and reigning in some of the more [...]

There are solitaire games that you play by yourself, and then there are solitaire games you play with others. Sure, the box says, “For 3-6 players,” but really everyone at the table is playing her own game, developing resources and working toward some goal without directly influencing the other players in any significant way. You [...]

Two weeks ago Barns & Noble announced they were no longer buying DC comics because the Kindle got a good deal with the Watchmen eBook. Then last week Books-a-Million announced they are joining the boycott. My first reaction was, “Books-A-Million is still alive? I thought they were dead.” Seriously, the only thing I can think [...]

Settlers of Catan has plenty of expansions that change the dynamics of the game, forcing the players to work together, putting a focus on exploration, or drawing emphasis to a certain section of the map. A new variation from publisher Mayfair Games will add a new wrinkle to the basic game, allowing some players to [...]

All RPG campaigns have their problems. Some of these problems are difficult to solve, involve personality conflicts, bad GMing or other factors. After being involved in quite a few campaigns, I think I’ve pinned down one major problem that pretty much every campaign runs into eventually. And the solution is pretty simple.

Gamers tend to be a tech friendly group. This means a game company needs to use all the tools the internet has to offer to best promote their company. Having a website or blog is the bare minimum. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ are also highly important. However, a game company needs to [...]

Dungeons: the Dark Lord is the sequel to last year’s Dungeons, from publisher Kalypso. In many ways it’s the spiritual successor to the beloved Dungeon Keeper franchise — a game that turned the RPG trope of heroes invading dungeons upside down, putting the player in control of the dungeon and making the heroes the antagonists. [...]

If you make your living designing games (or just dream that you do), the Kobold Guide to Board Game Design is money in the bank. It is packed cover to cover with incredibly useful information on every aspect of game design, written by the most creative, insightful and experienced minds in the gaming industry.

Very few gamers have played through every single 1st Edition module. These early adventures are not only classics that make up the foundation of the hobby, they also document the history of D&D’s early development. Above all, they’re loaded with incredible adventure ideas for today’s DMs to pilfer. Some of them are bloody hard to [...]

Howard Andrew Jones’ Plague of Shadows is a solid entry in the “what happens to adventurers in their twilight years?” sub-genre of fantasy. The elf Elyana used to wander the world with her doughty companions, slaying evil wizards and malicious dragons. As the years passed, some friends died, others got old, and some treaded less [...]