After a week away from home at the Portal 2007 higher ed conference at Gettysburg College, I’ve returned home to an inbox overflowing with games. My Xbox 360 will be seeing heavy action this weekend as I put Shadowrun and Forza 2 through its paces, while my non-video game moments will likely be consumed by … Read more
A while back at My Play, Gerald Cameron proposed the idea of the “BHAC” (Big, Hairy, Audacious Campaign), the sort of campaign that’s earth-trembling huge its shear audacity and (I’m assuming) its variance from the norm. He throws out one example: normal D&D campaigns usually have a home town or city … what happens if … Read more
The headline says it all. I’m reviewing the new Star Wars: Saga Edition as a freelance gig. My review copy arrived Wednesday; my playtest of the game was scheduled for Friday and the game review is due Monday. At the same time, my Knights of the Dinner Table column was due Friday, my next freelance … Read more
Friday was utterly consumed by an all-day staff retreat at work, denying me my normal lunchtime opportunity to write my Game Day column. But here we go again, one day late, but a little wiser nonetheless as I take some time to look at the new Star Wars: Saga Edition RPG, consider lessons learned during … Read more
You can always tell how frantic my Fridays are (and thus, how much I really, really need a Game Day) by how long it takes this column to get online. Yesterday I had a working lunch out of the office, and didn’t even sit down at my desk until 3 p.m. Fortunately though, there was … Read more
There comes a point in every expedition to Ravenloft Castle where the stalwart adventurers must seek out a certain Vistani woman for advice … and to have their “Tarokka” (a fantasy version of the Tarot) read. The cards drawn set the objectives of the expedition, and determine where certain random elements — like the fabled sun sword — can be found.
We have reached that point. Tonight we will visit the fortuneteller, get our futures told … and the real adventure will begin.
Board games return to the forefront this week as we prepare to play the game of Risk 2210 that got snowed out in March. Risk 2210 is a supercharged version of regular Risk that adds sea and moon colonies, special commander units that allow people to buy and play diplomacy, naval, space, land and nuke … Read more
Our brave adventurers are back in the dwarven stronghold of Khelez-Mar after nearly being consumed by a duegar-built green slime trap in the Obsidian Maze. The group argued mightily about the retreat, with the dwarves eager to press on and the others stating that a withdrawal to the stronghold was needed to restock and perhaps … Read more
It was a bitter-sweet game day on Friday as Paizo Publishing and Wizards of the Coast announced Dragon and Dungeon magazines would cease publication after Wizards pulled the license to publish the books from Paizo. Since they didn’t give it to anyone else, this means that the magazines will cease publication in August with Dragon … Read more
This week’s Game Day sees us returning to role-playing with Khelez-Mar: The Dwarven Imperative. If memory serves, our last adventure saw the dwarves at the cusp of entering the Obsidian Maze, a sprawling subterranean dungeon in the Drachensgrab Hills of the Pomarj in the World of Greyhawk. It’s been years since our campaign ventured back … Read more