Role-Playing Games

Once More Unto the 4th Edition Breach

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We’re heading back. A year after our last paragon-playtest of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition (a one shot adventure set  continued our Planetorn campaign) we’re going to be running Revenge of the Giants, a new megamodule for paragon-level characters. I recently received a review copy of the module and that – plus the latest round … Read more

Anticipating Bioware’s Dragon Age

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When it comes to western-style Computer RPGs, the single best designers around have to be Bioware. They created the fantastic high magic, D&D-spawned Balder’s Gate, the Star Wars-themed Knights of the Old Republic, the Oriental adventure Jade Empire and the space opera Mass Effect. This fall they’re returning to their fantasy roots with Dragon Age: … Read more

My MEPACon Fall ’09 events: Star Wars, Day After Ragnorak, Risk 2210

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As I mentioned earlier, my gaming group’s planning on attending MEPACon Fall 2009 in force and true to my word I’ve volunteered to run three events at the con: The Antares Run (Star Wars: Saga Edition), The Ruins of New York (Savage Worlds/The Day After Ragnorak), and Risk 2210. The convention is being held Nov. … Read more

Star Wars RPG Roundup: Canon Fights, Rodney Interview, Initiative Trackers, Make Your Own Crawl

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The WotC’s preview for Galaxy at War leads off this week’s Star Wars RPG round up. After that, I’ve got the blog round-up which includes posts about dealing with Star Wars canon issues, how to write a crawl, and the challenges of switching from a fantasy to science fiction mindset. I also found a number … Read more

Game Day: Fighting SciFi RPG Writer’s Cramp

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We’re well into Episode 5 of our Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic campaign and I’ve got to say I’ve found switching gears from fantasy to science fiction harder than I expected. It’s not that I don’t know science fiction; hell I’ve been reading it ever since I could read. But after a dozen … Read more

Star Wars RPG Roundup: Dawn of Defiance, Rebellion Era Campaign Guide, Order 66

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After seeing several Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition round ups over at RPG Bloggers, I decided that Star Wars: Saga Edition could use a little link love as well. There’s not as much news for Saga Edition as there is for 4E, so expect these digests to be posted once or twice a month. In this round up I look at Wizards of the Coast’s new web articles, a new lightsaber form at Saga-Edition.com, and the latest episode of the Order 66 podcast.

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Role-playing Mechanics: The Third Way

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Recently Chris Youngs at Wizards of the Coast wrote an editorial pointing out that people can role-play in D&D 4th Edition just fine without any rules actually governing said role-playing:

Fourth edition doesn’t include some of the mundane mechanical elements of character building that 3rd Edition did. For example, certain skills (I’m looking at you Craft and Profession) enabled a player to feel like his character had some sort of grounding in the “real world” of the campaign. Odds were good that you never made a Craft or Profession check in your game, but having ranks in that skill made you feel connected to your character’s background. In 4th Edition, those skills are gone. Why? Because we feel like a character’s statistics don’t represent the absolute truth of a character’s story. That’s right — one of the reasons those skills (and other such elements from other editions) are gone is that we felt they hindered roleplaying.

This elicited some “Hear! Hear!”-style posts from gaming blogs:

Getting Ready to Storm MEPACon in Fall 2009

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MepaCon LogoMy gaming group’s making a concerted effort to attend MEPACon this fall. The northeastern Pennsylvania game convention is being held November 13-15 in Scranton, PA (exactly where hasn’t been determined yet).

You can find out more about the con by visiting MEPACon’s home page, Facebook page or by joining the MEPACon Yahoo Group. If you’d like to RSVP, you can sign up at on the Facebook event page

We decided to attend in force while we were at Origins, and it occured to us (well, first Bob, then the rest of us) that MepaCon was an awesome opportunity to run the games we always want to play, but never get a chance. Possible events being kicked around the group right now include a Justice Society of America superheroes game, Stargate SG-1 and G.I. Joe (all powered by Mutants & Masterminds). On the board and card game front, we’re looking at Space Hulk, Race for the Galaxy, and Risk 2210.

Initial Thoughts about HackMaster Basic

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At Origins 2009 I had the pleasure of playing in an Introduction to HackMaster Basic session run by Steve Johansson, one of the designers (Dave Kenzer, another designer, was running the other table). Full disclosure: I’m a staff writer for Knights of the Dinner Table but when it comes to HackMaster I’m as much newbie … Read more