Assume there are two approaches to game delivery: Books and boxes. Actually there are other methods but these two methods of defining a game, which somebody can buy off of a shelf, encapsulate a good portion of the market. The difference is that a book is just text, and a box has everything in the b...
I've been running a Tales of the Valiant game for about a year, and it's been a lot of fun. I've thrown all kinds of surprises at the group, and they've certainly surprised me in return. As many of my RPG campaigns are, this one has been a highly unfocused one, with most of my hints at a plot goin...
I love the game Zambicide, and I've written in the past that every wargamer should own a copy. The more I play it, the more I realise that actually every boardgamer ought to have it. Aside from my friends who just don't feel comfortable with horror, everyone I've introduced to Zombicide has an ama...
I've written before about how I play games for mechanics, puzzles, atmosphere, power, and even just for music. There's yet one more thing that attracts me to a game, and that's a good story.
It's pretty widely recognised that we humans are suckers for a good story. We love sharing experi...
Roleplaying games are often thought of as a game about storytelling. With no set script, a conglomerated story emerges even when major milestones and plot points have been predetermined. A story, of course, is a kind of journey from one state to another. A humble villager defeats a notorious villa...
I have fun playing wargames as campaigns and even as solo roleplaying games. There are lots of great ways to turn a game of 50 miniatures battling it out into a story, including making decisions based on key character models and just pausing to conceptualise why certain events during the previous ro...
I never had any interest in Tyranids, but recently I found a few spare sprues on Trademe (a local auction site) and it so happened that I needed some threatening aliens for a campaign I was about to run. Of course I had other options, but the price was good, there were a lot of them, and a good vari...
It's a constant battle. You can't get enough of the hobby you love, but you also can't possibly handle everything your hobby has to offer. But conversely, nothing is as annoying as wanting more from your hobby and suddenly finding you've got it all and there's nothing left. You want the perfect pace...
Wargames need soldiers. I own a bunch of miniatures designed for specific games, so I've been feeling the need lately to bolster my all-purpose miniatures. I wanted soldiers I could use across lots of games, from modern scenarios of Black Ops to sci-fi games of Rogue Stars, Space Station Zero,...
The Doom video games are the story of a guy, colloquially called "the Doom guy", killing demons. The Doom legacy started within the Union Aerospace Corporation facility on Mars, where scientists were experimenting with teleportation and ended up unleashing extraplanar horrors into the company, a...
In my Pathfinder Tomb of Annihiliation Pathfinder campaign, my players experienced (for better or for worse) the Tomb of the Nine Gods, a dungeon designed by the lich Acererak. This tomb was written as a modern version of Acererak's other tomb, the famous Tomb of Horrors. In my campaign, both tomb...
In the lore of Warhammer 40,000, the Adeptus Mechanicus is a mysterious organisation. But that's nothing compared to how mysterious the Adeptus Mechanicus is once you start digging into its origins. When I read the 1st edition rulebook for Warhammer 40,000, I was surprised to see my favourite I...
In my experience with wargames so far, there seems to be a predominant assumption that any given type of soldier inherits a specific set of attributes. The attributes are usually numbers, such as a target number to hit an enemy when attacking, or how many wounds a squad can endure, how far a squad c...
When I've earned enough XP in Pathfinder or Tales of the Valiant, or Requisition Points in a Warhammer 40,000 Crusade, or victories in Mansions of Madness, I convert those game points into real-world currency. The only bank that takes game points in exchange for cash is me, but exchanging ga...
In 2023, the Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader video game, by Owlcat Games, was released. I'd previously backed Owlcat's Pathfinder: Kingmaker RPG and enjoyed the result, so I didn't hesitate to buy Rogue Trader. This is a mostly spoiler-free review, but if you want absolutely no spoilers for a g...
Coming as I do from the world of RPG, I'm used to a long-lasting core game release, with several playable modules published each year. After I started playing Warhammer 40,000, I was pleased to learn that Games Workshop provides a similar structure. Over the lifecycle of each edition (which is arg...