Robot Viking

Robin D. Laws’ Blood of the City is a brutal vengeance story, a fantasy novel that’s more Tarantino than Tolkien.

I would never have heard of this game if one of the creators hadn’t been in line behind me at the Magic party at PAX. That would be a shame. I’m already addicted to this turn-based fantasy combat game.

Whether you’re into role playing games or not, the Pathfinder comic is worth checking out. However, if you are into fantasy pen and paper gaming, the benefits extend beyond the actual comic.

The bell tolls for thee, 4E. A lot of people have wondered what kind of D&D books will be released in 2013 if the D&D Next playtest is going to take two years. Menzoberranzan answers that question — edition-neutral books packed with fluffy lore and epic (p)ages of fictional history. That gives D&D fans a [...]

There’s a New Event Nearby, and it is in a little game called Guild Wars 2, the latest offering from ArenaNet. Fans of the original Guild Wars and its expansions likely wept tears of joy when it was announced and queued up for the head start weekend.

While I was at PAX I had the chance to talk to Magic Brand Manager Paul Levy about Return to Ravnica. Due to technical difficulties associated with a loud expo floor I can’t give a transcript, but I can pass on the highlights of the talk.

Have I mentioned that deckbuilding games are a big thing these days? One of the earliest entries in the genre, AEG’s Thunderstone, received a major overhaul and was rereleased as Thunderstone Advance earlier this year. Despite the awkward syntax of the name, it’s a great game that lets you visit a town to recruit an [...]

On the surface, Pelgrane Press’ 13th Age RPG looks like a slightly tweaked D&D rule set with a world populated by classic fantasy archetypes. You might think, “Why bother?” I did, at first. But then I had a chance to play it at Gen Con, with co-designer Rob Heinsoo as DM. That’s when I discovered [...]

GMs have competed at game cons all across the realm. Only a select few have had the mettle to prevail and be named an Iron Contender. They have imaginations of steel, creativity of titanium, table management skills of platinum, and nerves of partially depleted uranium. Here they stand.

With the future of the Forgotten Realms up in the air and the conclusion to his Neverwinter trilogy imminent, I had a lot of weighty questions for author R.A. Salvatore. He was kind enough to answer them all candidly — I think you’ll find this a very interesting interview, as he discusses his new novel, [...]

Take a 27-level dungeon with over 600 encounters, a huge chunk of which was designed by Monte Cook (and the rest by the talented crew of RPG veterans at Super Genius Games), add five related adventures with awesome names like Temple of the Black Goat, lay it all out on a website with extensive links [...]

D&D minis are resurrected with this new skirmish game, pitting warband against warband in a deathmatch ruled by shifting orders and a constant influx of reinforcements. Dungeon Command borrows from the old D&D minis game along with a helping of Magic: the Gathering.

D&D is moving toward a new edition, but to make it the “best” edition, the designers have to look at what worked in all the earlier versions of the game. Our gaming group decided to try Basic D&D for a change of pace and a way to figure out what the ineffable “essence” of D&D [...]

The Steam summer sale is ongoing, and I’ve already discovered one unplucked gem – Legend of Grimrock. It’s a great old-school RPG computer game, but better yet, it offers a brilliantly simple plot for a tabletop mega-dungeon crawl.