Robot Viking

While at GenCon, I managed to sneak in a few minutes with WoTC’s Adam Colby to talk about where Magic is right now. While Wizard’s big push this year is Neverwinter, Magic was there in force for the Nationals, as well as a large Duels of the Planeswalkers booth. I asked Colby about the upcoming Innistrad set, a classic horror themed expansion which already has caused a lot of chatter about how it will work. Unlike, say, The Dark, Innistrad will be more like classic movie horror than the “mage-punk” style of Magic that we know and love. Read more

WoTC’s big push at this years Gen Con was a return to Neverwinter, the venerable northern city that’s been a major crossover location for decades. Most of our readers probably remember Neverwinter Nights, the Bioware game from 2002 — but there was an even older title with the same name that AOL ran as one of the world’s first MMORPGs from 1991-1997. Read more

I had a chance to talk to Paizo’s James Sutter at Gen Con 2011, and calling Pathfinder a mindblowing success is understating it. Read more

You may have noticed some posts this weekend from freelance writer Tim Barribeau. While Robot Viking could not attend Gen Con in person this year, Tim was covering it for io9.com, and he was awesome enough (and Annalee at io9 was awesome enough to arrange) to provide us with some direct coverage of new games and breaking news straight from the convention floor. He also takes amazing photographs. Don’t forget to follow his Twitter feed, and check out his website. Thanks Tim!

One of the major announcements at GenCon was sprung on everyone on Friday — Margaret Weis Productions is getting the license for Marvel RPGs. They have an extremely aggressive plan with 16 books already in the works. Read more

I was a Rookie rebel pilot in my first battle, with a Red leader and another pilot at my side. At the other end of the table? Six TIE fighters, bearing down on us at full speed.

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It’s already been revealed that tribal mechanics will play a part in Magic’s fall set, the horror themed Innistrad. We also know that the almost completely forsaken werewolf tribe will be getting a lot more attention. Inspired by one of Bennie Smith’s columns at Starcitygames, in which he speculated how the werewolves will function mechanically, I decided to create some speculative werewolf cards and see how they shake out.

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This week saw some incredible announcements in the gaming industry. Monday, Paizo and WizKids announced they were doing pre-painted plastic minis of random heroes and monsters. Then Tuesday, Fantasy Flight finally announced they got the Star Wars license as many of us had previously guessed. Read more

Speculation has been swirling for months about who bought the Star Wars gaming license from Lucasfilm. Most of the speculation, including the speculation on Robot Viking, centered on Fantasy Flight Games. Turns out the speculation was correct, as FFG made the official announcement today. Want to talk about skillful marketing? They’re creating a whole lot of buzz the week of Gen Con.

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With a compelling Pathfinder adventure called The Gift, Rite Publishing begins an ambitious three-part series called Curse of the Golden Spear. Filled with tales and creatures from Japanese folklore, this campaign carries players to land wracked by angry spirits, where death is never truly the end.

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The long-awaited third volume in Blackbyrne Publishing’s 4E Dark Veil adventure series has arrived. The Prophecy Revealed lets the PCs explore a jungle island infested by spiders and learn a strange secret that will shape their destinies.

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Chris Kluwe is the punter for the Minnesota Vikings with a penchant for pinning opponents deep in their own zone. He’s also widely known for playing World of Warcraft, and it turns out he’s a serious tabletop gamer as well. It’s relatively rare that the pro sports and gaming worlds intersect, so I thought it would be interesting to get Chris’ thoughts on gaming and sports culture, among other things — and he was kind enough to agree.

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So there I was spending all sorts of time, crafting monster stat blocks for a chief-lieutenant type of recurring foe for my players and what did they do? They beat the holy living bejeezus out of him before he could even fire off his heaviest powers. Now my recurring foe was recumbent in death. So what did I do? I introduced the party to his big brother, who was a higher level priest (and at the upper end of their ability to deal with according to the stats).

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It’s been a few weeks now since M12, magic’s latest core set, hit game store shelves. Instead of doing a full set review, here’s a look at some of the most interesting cards in the set and how they might affect a variety of formats.

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