Here's the thing about traps. They're the ONLY encounter in an RPG that players cannot opt out of. Once you encounter a trap, whether your character is physically trapped or you're just being blocked from progressing the story by a really hard puzzle, you basically have no choice but to deal with th...
There seems to be a lot of talk these days about character death in D&D and other roleplaying games. It seems that there's an audience that doesn't want their player character to die. Ever.
Which, admittedly, is the point of the game mechanic. If players don't care about death, then there's no poi...
My first experiences in hobby shops (specifically, but not exclusively, a Warhammer store) were not great. And yet some of my best experiences in the hobby have happened in a Warhammer store. I think there's a secret to turning a geeky hobby, like building and paintng 28mm toy soldiers so you can pl...
In a previous post, I wrote about how tracking encumbrance made loot more "valuable" by enforcing a weight-based economy. However, tracking encumbrance can be hard. In theory, it's exclusively the responsibility of each player, but if the game master (GM) doesn't announce the weight of each item t...
Last year, I developed and published Skuffle Wammer, the universe's smallest wargame. It's designed to be played in 5 minutes or less, with the intent of being the tabletop gaming equivalent of a good stand-up-and-stretch at work. The play area is an A4 sheet of paper, you throw out some miniature...
Everybody has their own tolerance levels for how much paperwork in an RPG they feel is fun. For some people, updating their character sheet is a milestone system for their character. It's as much a part of the game as NPC interactions, decisions, strategy, solving puzzles, and so on. For others, a c...
I think a lot of us gamers think that tabletop roleplaying games are exhilarating at the beginning, but that they tend to taper off toward the end. Commonly, this is expressed as "the problem with high level play." I sense that it's seen as more of a problem in class-based systems that emphasize the...
I'm reading through the published adventures available for Cubicle 7's Wrath and Glory Warhammer RPG. Litanies of the Lost is a book containing four adventures that can be run independently or as a continuous campaign. The framework requires the IMPERIUM keyword, and the first adventure is for T...
Some people have the impression that solo games, or playing multiplayer games by yourself, are consolation for people with no friends. The assumption is that it's "normal" to buy a game for your family or your game group, and that you'd only resort to a solo game when there's something wrong. Maybe...
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'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'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...