I love the whole idea of games where you get to build civilisations, starting from nothing and watching this sprawling creation of yours grow before your eyes.Unfortunately, the vast majority of them require quite the time investment; playing games like A Brief History of the World are,sadly, far from brief. This isn't to say that they're bad, it's just that it can be difficult to get a group...
We've seen a few changes in the TRPG magazine market lately. A few months back, Dragon and Dungeon switched from their daily publication schedule to publishing the entire bundle of content once a month. Then Kobold Quarterly decided to end their long run. Then Gygax magazine kicked off with an excellent premiere issue. Meanwhile, in the broader magazine industry, Time Warner is...
Do you award XP for slaying a monster? What about for resisting a succubus’s lure? Do you award it for discovering a new land, or for building your character’s relationship with another? How about for resolving a plot point, or disabling a trap? Do you award it for bringing pizza to the game, award it differently depending on the kind of PC, or do you just award it every few sessions? Or do...
There are few who would argue with the assertion that the role-playing game fan-base is a very inclusive group. RPG fans come from all walks of life, from nearly every age bracket, and from a diverse range of racial, political, and societal groups. The only criteria that really applies to becoming a role-player is the willingness to just get on with it and ROLE-PLAY an alter-ego/character...
It seems economics is in the air everywhere these days. Just when we got past the Fiscal Cliff, we were plunged headlong into a land where you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting three people with the word “Sequestration” coming out of their mouths. None of those politics will be discussed herein. That’s not just because this is ENWorld. It’s because I am way less concerned with the...
Last week, io9.com posted a list of the 10 Greatest Science Fiction Games of All Time. We like lists, on the internet at least. They're easy to assemble, quick to read and, more often than not, very hit friendly. They drag eyeballs to a page because people want to see what you think the best of the best is and then disagree with it. That generates comments and proves to the author that at...
While there are a number of other sites out there that sell PDFs, rpgnow.com and its affiliate sites are the largest and most used sites for rpg PDFs. So, when they have a sale, it’s kind of a big thing. This week they are sponsoring GM’s Day, an annual sale on a multitude of PDFs on their site with 25% off participating publishers. This sale lasts until 3/12 so you have about a week to find...
Radamond whirled around with his blade, slicing into the creature’s stomach. “Feel the wrath of Radamond the Mighty!” he shouted. His opponent made some type of reply, but Radamond couldn’t understand the hissing and crackling. “What’s that? You are afraid?” he bellowed. A smack across the back caught the barbarian off guard. Garret’s opponent had feinted at the thief with its halfspear...
To design a good RPG adventure often requires creative thinking. Thinking outside of the box and beyond what you would normally. This is one of the most exciting, entertaining, and rewarding parts of being a GM. If you pull it off correctly, the looks of awe on the players’ faces make this kind of thinking well worth it. One way to start thinking outside of the box is to think of things on a...
The last couple of reviews I've done here on EN World have been about pretty complex games, so this time round I figured I'd look at something a little lighter that won't scare off your average person who thinks that Monopoly and Risk are about as hard as it gets. Today's game is playable by pretty much anyone - even young kids should be able to grasp the core concepts - and best of all...
Last time we talked about stealing some character setup tools from the Fiasco RPG. That's a great option for when you're starting a campaign, but most of us don't start campaigns more than once a year -- what sort of options could we come up with that would allow us to give our PCs some creative control in the game during any typical game session. Stealing Again The Fate system -- a...
This is a kind of "transparency" exercise which might help others running Kickstarter. Or it might not. Here it is anyway. FUNDING PROGRESS Generally folks say that you start with a spike, it then stays flattish for the middle of your Kickstarter, and you finish with another spike in the last few days. I *kinda* found that, but the flattish part wasn't very flat. I think that's partly a...
We do not belong here. We've come seeking wealth. Coal, iron, copper, silver, gold, gems. We know they lie there, just beneath our feet. So we dig, we pry, we burrow, our hunger for these hidden objects insatiable. We shouldn't be here. We are creatures of the light, of the field, of the surface. We cannot live without the sun. We must become wealthy, though, and so we dig, into the...
When I was back in college, we had a very active gaming club, and even had enough members to staff a fairly successful gaming convention once a year. During one convention, the local newspaper sent a writer over to talk to the con coordinators, but predictably, we were all busy running around fixing the myriad problems that arise during a gaming convention. So the impatient journalist...
I don’t have any clue as to how many fantasy RPG PCs I’ve played over the 30+ years I’ve been gaming. It’s a lot. Easily over a hundred. And they’ve been all over the spectrum in most ways I can think of from naughty to nice, wizards to warriors, stealthy to spectacular. There has been a big variety that has stretched my creativity in all sorts of ways, except when it comes to fitness...
Some weeks I ask myself, "Will there be enough new PDFs this week that look awesome?" This week looked like there wasn't much coming out and then over the weekend a bunch of really good looking PDFs were listed. My greatest fear is the week when this column only lists a couple of items, but thus far that has not even been close to the case. It is truly wonderful how creative, and prolific, the...