Role-Playing Games and Kids

Interested in teaching kids how to play role-playing games? Then check out the article “Role-Playing Games and Kids” by Katrina Middelburg-Creswell on RoleplayingTips.com. She’s a high school teacher and RPG club organizer in the Netherlands, and her two-part article offers tips on how to organize a kid gaming group and then what sorts of games … Read more

Planetorn: A Big, Hairy, Audacious Campaign

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

Star Wars: Saga Edition Playtest Notes

The Star Wars: Saga Edition Role-Playing Game is the third Star Wars RPG released by Wizards of the Coast. Like it’s predecessors, its based on a variant of the d20 engine that drives Dungeons & Dragons. Unlike the previous editions though, this one truly feels like Star Wars. My friends and I (collectively known as … Read more

Game Day: Complexity and Time, Mutant Heroes, Dwarven Quakes

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

Game Day: Savage Worlds, Spectres over Ravenloft, Dragon Countdown

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

My GenCon 2007 Schedule

The first day of GenCon registration was a frustrating, aggravating experience that took an hour and a half to complete, with most of that time spent trying (and failing) to “check out” and purchase my events. I’d be astounded by just how badly registration behaved … if I hadn’t heard how it took hours to complete registration last year. Instead, I’m just disappointed by a process that clearly needs some quality time with some load-testing specialists.

Game Day: The Tarokka of Ravenloft

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.

Gaming in the Round: Lessons from the Dark City

A few years ago, I decided I wanted to try a different kind of role-playing game campaign: a medieval urban fantasy that combined traditional story telling with the sort of open-ended, sandbox-like openness of games like Grand Theft Auto. The setting would be Obsidian Bay, the homegrown metropolis that my friends and I had spent … Read more

Game Day: A Dwarf by Any Other Name

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

Game Day: Munchkin, Munchkin, Munchkin! (and a few Dwarves)

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