Mixed Signals

Straight-forward gaming

This is Part 10 of a series wherein we talk about generating an entire campaign, on-the-fly, for your favorite fantasy role-playing game(s). In the future, it might have a tighter focus on either D&D or Pathfinder, but for now, let's consider this material more-or-less generic.

NOTE:...

I picked up a hardcopy of Black Monastery (you can also purchase it as a PDF), which I'd purchased once before as a PDF in a Humble Bundle and found to be slightly overwhelming as a digital-only module. The module, such as it is, consists of 87 pages of a single mega-dungeon, with no particular...

You may know Magic the Gathering as a card game, but many Magic the Gathering (MTG) players also know it as a multiverse of rich lore and exciting tales of adventure. Wizards of the Coast, the creators of MTG, have published books (both hardcover and online) and comics about the characters an...

If you've been a longtime Magic the Gathering player, or else just a longtime fan like me, then you may recall the Portal and Portal Second Age sets from the late 90s. If you're too new to the game to recall the Portal sets, then there's roughly an equal chance you may or may not have...

The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is deck building and narrative card game set in the world of Golarion and based on the Pathfinder RPG. I'm playing through the Rise of the Runelords adventure, and this is my log for each scenario.

Deck building

The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is a...

The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is deck building and narrative card game set in the world of Golarion and based on the Pathfinder RPG. I've owned the base set for a few years now, and I've played a few scenarios with friends, and once we got up to speed on how it worked, we enjoyed it. I've be...

Can you play Magic: the Gathering by yourself? Is there such a thing as solo magic?

Well, now you can!

Single-player Magic: the Survival format

Single-player Hagic: the Gathering is a survival-mode game. You (the human) are pitted against on onslaught of brute force mechanics by two d...

In my previous post, I wrote about why D&D shouldn't be seen as a half-day hobby and instead ought to be seen as a 2-hour board game. To many people, the idea of a 2 hour game is baffling, either because they grew up playing in 8 hour sessions as kids with nothing better to do, or because they're u...

Most people seem to think that D&D takes, at a minimum, 4 hours to play. I understand the desire to play an extended game, and indeed 4 hours isn't really that long, especially if you have memories of 8 or 12 hour marathons as a kid. And if you can afford that kind of time, then you may as well...

Over the past few weeks of the New Zealand summer, a friend and I decided to speed run through the D&D 5e module Out of the Abyss. There was only two of us, so I played the DM and Sophia played a dragonborn cleric. We decided to play a chapter a day, so we estimated it would only take about two w...

This is Part 09 of a series wherein we talk about generating an entire campaign, on-the-fly, for your favorite fantasy role-playing game(s). In the future, it might have a tighter focus on either D&D or Pathfinder, but for now, let's consider this material more-or-less generic.

NOTE:...

The Ghosts of Saltmarsh module is a Fifth Edition re-release of several old AD&D adventures. It includes all three of the U series (The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, Danger at Dunwater, The Final Enemy) by TSR, and several from Dungeon magazines. In the introduction, the book is posit...

This is Part 08 of a series wherein we talk about generating an entire campaign, on-the-fly, for your favorite fantasy role-playing game(s). In the future, it might have a tighter focus on either D&D or Pathfinder, but for now, let's consider this material more-or-less generic.

NOTE:...

I don't always use battle maps in my D&D games, but when I do, I often use whatever I have lying around for miniatures. I've used Lego figures, glass game tokens, cheap wooden beads from a thrift store, and coins. I lead a pretty minimalist lifestyle, and D&D miniatures just haven't been high on th...

Put down that copy of The Monster Mash. It's All Hallow's Eve soon, so we're all due for an annual pilgrimage to Barovia, but that doesn't mean you have to resort to the obligatory shopping mall Halloween soundtrack. Here's our top 6 picks for dark music you can play during this year's spooky tab...

This is Part 07 of a series wherein we talk about generating an entire campaign, on-the-fly, for your favorite fantasy role-playing game(s). In the future, it might have a tighter focus on either D&D or Pathfinder, but for now, let's consider this material more-or-less generic.

NOTE:...