Mixed Signals

Straight-forward gaming

Before there was Curse of Strahd (CoS), possibly the most famous 5e adventure, there was the 3rd edition adventure Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. Instead of running CoS, I sometimes run Expedition. It's fun for players who have never experienced Ravenloft before, and it's got a few surprises...

Before there was Curse of Strahd (CoS), possibly the most famous 5e adventure, there was the 3rd edition adventure Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. Instead of running CoS, I sometimes run Expedition. It's fun for players who have never experienced Ravenloft before, and it's got a few surprises...

I've written before about how much I love Citadel's Contrast paints. I recently decided to try out a similar line of paints from Vallejo, not because I'm looking to replace Citadel Contrast but because I want more. I love painting with auto-shading pigments, so I wanted to see what colours Valle...

Mansions of Madness by Fantasy Flight is an investigative RPG with a scripted Game Master. In fact, game play is guided by an app you can run on Steam or on a mobile device. The app tells you what tiles of the board to set out, what tokens to mark the board with, and helps you through exploration...

Published by Atlas Games, Dungeoneer is a dungeon crawler that uses a deck of cards for tiles. This is a big deal if you've got limited space or you travel a lot, because there's a lot of game in this simple 104 (or thereabouts) card deck. The game is out of print now, as far as I can tell, bu...

What Next? by Big Potato Games is a cross between a game book and a cozy party game. It's essentially a choose-your-own-path adventure written on a deck of cards. There are three decks of cards in the box, each with a self-contained adventure. Pick a deck, and turn over the top card. Read it, make...

Dark Cults by Kenneth Rahman was published by Dark House in 1983. It contained 108 cards, came in a plastic ziplock bag, and even got an extension pack later on. It's my all-time favourite game, not just for its clever mechanics but for its atmosphere and interactive creativity.

At the start of t...

In 2009, Pathfinder became the successor of D&D. It literally took the existing rules and re-published them with a bunch of improvements as Pathfinder. It was so successful with RPG players that it's spawned a video game, a board game, and a card game. I've played several rounds of the card...

In my review of the Mansions of Madness board game, I noted that you could play the game with one player running the mansion, making up a story, while other players could play the characters. Like in an RPG. There are a few games like this, but the ones I own and enjoy are Mansions of Madness an...

Before there was Curse of Strahd (CoS), possibly the most famous 5e adventure, there was the 3rd edition adventure Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. Instead of running CoS, I sometimes run Expedition over Halloween. It's fun for players who have never experienced Ravenloft before, and it's got a...

Before there was Curse of Strahd (CoS), possibly the most famous 5e adventure, there was the 3rd edition adventure Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. I run this adventure around Halloween, sometimes starting with Death House, the free introduction to Curse of Strahd. It's fun for players who ha...

I've been painting lots of Pathfinder and Cursed City miniatures lately, using my Citadel Contrast and Vallejo Xpress Color paints. Because I've been using them a lot, I thought it might be useful to provide a review of each Xpress Color paint based on how I've been using it, and what I thin...

If you use miniatures in your tabletop games, it's easy to get spoiled when you start buying Citadel miniatures. Games Workshop miniatures tend to be high-quality, highly detailed, and super imaginative. In fact, if anything, Games Workshop is too imaginative. Really. Some of their sculpts are bizar...

Interested in playing Warhammer 40,000? Don't make the mistakes I did! Whether you're playing Warhammer or something else, wargaming requires preparation before you can actually play the game. This is different than what you're probably used to, if you play other tabletop games. You don't just go...

Interested in playing a wargame that isn't Warhammer 40,000? Wargaming is a complex landscape of gaming possibility, and it can be a little confusing to navigate at first, especially if you venture too far away from firmly established franchises. I do think that Games Workshop, the creator of Warh...

Last year, shortly after the 10th edition of the game was released, I played my first game of Warhammer 40,000 and recorded my process, the battle, and my thoughts. I have no fancy White Dwarf style photos to go with this post, but I think it's interesting to see a game through a new player's ey...