Like many geeks, I'm a fan of a well-designed system. When I look at something and see harmony and cohesion and logical dependencies, I consider it a thing of beauty. I also enjoy a system that's robust, and built to last. It's why "my" edition of D&D will likely always be 3rd edition (in the form o...
I helped fund a Kickstarter for dice with unusual number ranges. I ended up with several sets that include a d22, d19, d18, d17, d15, d13, d11, and d9, plus a hexadecimal dice (1 to F), a d3 in Roman numerals, and a d26 alphabet dice. My intent was to spring them on my players when their character h...
I'm reading The Hobbit again, as I roleplay as a Tolkien scholar in an attempt to understand Middle Earth, its lore, and its effect on modern gaming. I'm reviewing each chapter of the book as I read, and this is my review of Chapter 15: The gathering of the clouds and Chapter 16: A thief in t...
Recently, Mantic Games released the PDF version of the Epic Warpath rulebook to Kickstarters. I appreciate this, because it means that while I wait for my game assets to arrive, I can start learning the game. As a player of Firefight, I predicted the rules would be at least a little familiar, bu...
In 2023, Games Workshop re-released the first edition (titled Rogue Trader) of Warhammer 40,000 to celebrate the game's 30-ish year anniversary. I'm a sucker for nostalgia for things I missed out on, so I bought a copy and now I'm reviewing it as I read. This post covers Chapter 4: The Advanced...
I recently saw the movie Ready or Not (2019), and these are my notes about it. This isn't a review, it's honestly just so I remember what the movie was about 3 months from now. This post does contain spoilers.
A young couple go to the groom's family home for their wedding ceremony. There, the br...
As obvious as it may seem, when I play a tabletop game with a roleplaying element to it, I never lose sight of where I am. I'm always aware that I'm sat at a table, manipulating game tokens or character sheets, flipping through pages of rules, rolling dice, and so on. After the game is over, and I'm...
I'm reading The Hobbit again, as I roleplay as a Tolkien scholar in an attempt to understand Middle Earth, its lore, and its effect on modern gaming. I'm reviewing each chapter of the book as I read, and this is my review of Chapter 14: Fire and water.
This review contains spoilers.
What h
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Back when I bought my first box of Warhammer 40,000 miniatures, I naïvely expected to open the box, follow the assembly instructions, and end up with a valid battle unit. What I found instead was that every soldier in the box could be assembled with any one of several weapons, heads (helmet and no...
Combat Heroes was a fun experiment in game design by Joe Dever and released in 1986. Each book was a pick-your-path story told mostly through illustrations. Each Combat Heroes book showed you a fantasy world, which you explored through a navigational system that guided you to a corresponding page...
Games Workshop re-released the first edition (titled Rogue Trader) of Warhammer 40,000 to celebrate the game's 30th anniversary, and I'm reviewing it chapter by chapter. This post covers the second half of Chapter 3: Age of the Imperium.
So far, Age of the Imperium has provided a little lo...
There aren't any simple armies in the Warhammer 40,000 game. Even if you field 4 units of the same one-trick soldiers, there are army rules and enhancements and detachments and stratagems to consider. Simply put, Warhammer 40,000 is a game designed to provide options to the player and force diff...
I've been thinking about the games I play, and what kinds of games I tend to enjoy playing the most. I've written about soundtracks, atmosphere and mechanics previously, and those apply equally to tabletop (yes, even music and video games. Another thing that often attracts me to a game is th...
Everybody knows that a wargame doesn't require a Games Master. You grab a friend, you each put an army on the table, and you play. Nothing could be simpler or, for a busy roleplayer tired of trying to find the convergence of an available date and time across 5 people's schedules, more liberating. An...
Imperium Maledictum is a skill-based d100 roleplaying game set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. I purchased the PDF from Drivethrurpg and enjoyed it so thoroughly that I special ordered the hardcover (I even had to import it from the UK). This is my review of the book and the game system.
Cu...
In an effort to keep better track of what movies I've seen, I'm taking notes on what I watch. This post contains some major spoilers about The Lost World (1925). The short version of the post is this: It's a great adventure film, with amazing shots, leaps and bounds in film technology, and a compe...