Mixed Signals

Straight-forward gaming

I'm rewatching every episode of the Man from UNCLE series from start to finish. This review contains spoilers.

Tiny.

Killer.

Bees.

That's the episode. But the actual plot is about failure.

Everything Kuryakin tries in this episode fails spectacularly. He fails to apprehend the villain, h...

I've run Sunless Citadel, originally published for 3rd Edition and most recently printed in the Tales from the Yawning Portal book, a few times and thought I'd give my thoughts on running it in either Pathfinder or D&D. In my experience, it's more or less a perfect adventure for almost any purpo...

I play a lot of tabletop RPG and wargames and board games, and I'll admit I'm often drawn to the ones with complex rules, but that doesn't mean I want every game I play to have complex rules. Sure, part of the fun of tabletop gaming for me is seeing how the interaction of rules affect the simulated...

I picked up Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. The final chapter is a bestiary with an assortment of new monsters for Ravenloft. D&D monsters are a pretty easy target. Dungeon Masters always need new monsters...

I'm reading through the published adventures available for Cubicle 7's Wrath and Glory Warhammer RPG. Null hypothesis is an adventure for Tier 3 or 4 characters. The framework isn't specified, but the quest giver is a rogue trader, while the subject of the rescue quest is Imperium, so there's an...

I decided that during 2024, I'd reinvent one game every month. This month, I sat down with a game I've regretted buying to see whether I could make it fun.

Years ago, I asked an employee at a big game store about some games for 2 players. One game is quite well known, with lots of awards and posit...

I decided that during 2024, I'd remix one game every month. Last month I created Rebel Blackjack. This month, I've created Magick jack, an extreme remix of Blackjack.

Colour pie

The colour pie in Magic: The Gathering (MTG) isn't often appreciated by people who don't play the game, but it's...

I decided that during 2024, I'd reinvent one game every month. This month, I decided to fix Monopoly.

I can't think of a board game as famous, or as reviled, than Monopoly. Nobody's ever accused Monopoly of good design, and while probably some people enjoy the game it's usually because they've...

I picked up Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. Casually hidden away at the end of chapter 4, there's a Ravenloft adventure called The house of lament. The back of the book says nothing about this, so I was...

I'm rewatching every episode of the Man from UNCLE series from start to finish. This review contains spoilers.

In this episode, the UNCLE agents go to a small Hellenic island called Circe, after the goddess. In myth, Circe's island was called Ææa and I'm assuming that the show producers were equ...

I picked up Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. Chapter 4 contains Dungeon Master advice, and several new mechanics including a whole new type of playable character. That's a lot of content, but that's not all...

I'm reading through the published adventures available for Cubicle 7's Wrath and Glory Warhammer RPG. Affliction Ascendant is the fourth and final book in a quartet of adventures, preceded by Bloody Gates, On the wings of Valkyries, and Lord of the Spire. The books aren't quite sequential,...

After you paint a hundred miniatures or so, you might find that you start to get a sense that some miniatures are fun to paint, while others are less fun. It might seem strange that there would be a difference. It's tempting to assume that one hunk of plastic is the same as any other hunk of plastic...

I picked up the Horror Realms Pathfinder source book in a Humble Bundle, and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. The final chapter, called Corruptions and haunts contains some mechanical effects for the particularly evil GM and the particularly...

I picked up the Horror Realms Pathfinder source book in a Humble Bundle, and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. Chapter 2 is called Strange far places and it's about seven different regions on Golarion that are prone to some type of horror, so...

I picked up the Horror Realms Pathfinder source book in a Humble Bundle, and have been reading it cover to cover. This is my review of the book, chapter by chapter. Chapter 2 is called Strange far places and it's about seven different regions on Golarion that are prone to some type of horror, so...