Ken Newquist A few years ago, I reviewed (Internet Archive) Avalon Hill’s then-new Risk 2210 board game (Internet Archive) for SCI-FI. Our gaming group loved it how the game took the game’s core mechanic, added a great deal of complexity and strategy to it, threw in a sci-fi theme, and still managed to retain that bizarre Risk luck factor. … Read more
CNN has a story about the growth of home schooling in the United States, which has increased by 29% since 1999. What I found interesting about the article isn’t the growth of home schooling — it’s hardly a surprise to anyone outside of liberal circles (and maybe them as well), it’s this paraphrase from Ted … Read more
The Two Towers provides gamers with a second invigorating soundtrack to augment their campaign’s audiospace, albeit one that isn’t quite as successful as its predecessor, The Fellowship of the Ring. As a movie soundtrack, The Two Towers is very enjoyable, providing an epic, cinematic score to a movie that sweeps across the vast lands of … Read more
What a weekend. It started with a fun game of Settlers of Catan, and ended with a 2 a.m. trip for StarGirl to the emergency room. It started on Thursday, when StarGirl became cranky and moody. She was drooling too, so figured she was getting another tooth. But with 16 teeth already, we were surprised … Read more
In The Libertarian Gamer: Spycraft, Part 1, I discussed the basic outline of the campaign and possible heroic organizations. But what’s a hero without a villain? The Villains Fortunately, when you’re running an espionage game, there are plenty to choose from! The traditional mad dictator, hellbent on world domination via some sort of super weapon, … Read more
I’ve been contemplating running a play-by-email campaign for a while now, and with the launch of the Libertarian Gamers Project I’ve decided to make it a campaign with a libertarian bent. Offline, I’ve got a Dungeons & Dragons campaign (set in the World of Greyhawk) so for the online game I’m looking to run something … Read more
Spycraft (Amazon) is Alderac’s d20-based game of modern espionage. It draws upon the classics of the genre — James Bond, Mission: Impossible, The A Team, Sneakers, Alias — to create a game that’s reminiscent of classic RPGs like James Bond: 007 and Top Secret. By default, the Spycraft source book assumes that the players are … Read more
The Web site for Joss Whedon’s upcoming Serenity movie, based on his “failed” series Firefly is online. Although Firefly was cancelled by Fox after only a handful of episodes, it managed to garner a small band of fans in the short time it was on the air. When it was released on DVD, those fans … Read more
George R.R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones offers fantasy fans a gritty, realistic medieval adventure that stands in sharp contrast to the aloof elves and all-pervasive magic populating endless Tolkien knockoffs. The book is set in the land of Westeros, a fantastic realm removed in time and space from our own medieval period. In this … Read more
NukemCon has come and gone, and now that I’ve caught up on my sleep and my caffeine twitches have faded, it’s time to evaluate our first-ever home-grown convention. Overall, I think it went quite well. We got to play a heck of a lot games, although not nearly as many as I’d hoped. The final … Read more