Warhammer: The Horus Heresy (Second Edition)

 I caved and bought the Age of Darkness boxed set when it came out.  I probably shouldn't have, but that's in the past.  But I have all three of the books out so far; the rules, the Traitor Legions army book, and the Loyalist Legions army book.  Let's dive in.

The World VI: Interesting Places in Galedon

Since one of Godbound's main conceits, setting-wise, is that the world was broken into pieces I kept that idea when working out my own setting.  This particular piece of the multiverse is called Galedon and I thought today I'd share some of its more interesting places.

The World V: The Arts of Magic

There's high magic (known as theurgy in Godbound's rules) and there's low magic.  While the standard traditions exist in The World, they're slightly different and have some new kin.

The World IV: Denizens Continued

More notes on the denizens.

The World III: Denizens

And now a little bit about the denizens of the World.

The World II: The Godbound

Now to go into the various kinds of Godbound that inhabit the World.  Unless otherwise noted, the rules for these Godbound are found in the deluxe version of the rules.  Any changes to their mechanics are noted immediately after the entry.

The World I: An Overview

I've been running a Godbound campaign for a few weeks now and I must say I'm enjoying it.  Sine Nomine Publishing produces a free version of the rules, though I recommend the deluxe version for its expanded material.  While the default setting is cool, I like adding my own twists as usual.  I threw in chunks of Exalted and Nobilis with some of the key defaults for Godbound, as well as some ideas of my own.  Here's the premise piece and a tiny mechanical change from the default assumptions of Godbound.

Miniature Monday 7/24/2017

It's a day late, but I got some sad news about an old old friend that I'd lost touch with, so I feel kind of justified in being late for once.  Last week, I just didn't get anything finished, so there's your reason for a missing week there.

Setting Saturday 5/6/17: Gods of the Havens

I haven't written one of these in some time.  But as I'm jonesing for some tabletop RPG action, I might as well talk about some stuff I did a few years ago.

Miniature Monday: Eldar

Hey, now that I'm not sick as a dog and have finally settled into my new apartment, let's try updating this again.  First up, let's get some miniatures posted.

Chargen Lab: Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition

Well, today's character hails from D&D 3e.  The rules for D&D 3e can be found at the d20 SRD page, though I'm afraid character generation is omitted due to the terms of the Open Game License and d20 System License.

Chargen Lab: AD&D 2e

So now onto a character generated in AD&D 2nd Edition.  This is a bit more complicated than the Rules Cyclopedia and 1st Edition characters, so there's more explanations to be had.  Bear in mind that the character I wrote up is a more complex character than the typical 1st level character.

Chargen Lab: AD&D 1st Edition

Continuing a series of characters generated under the various editions of Dungeons & Dragons, here's one generated under AD&D 1st Edition.

Chargen Lab: D&D Rules Cyclopedia

I thought I'd do some articles on character generation in various editions of D&D  to lead up to Monday's official release of 5e.  I would like to say that it is the same character so that we can compare and contrast the various editions, but differences in the chargen methods across editions make that impossible.  We'll start with the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, because that's what's on my desk at the moment.

D&D Retrospective: Basic Dungeons & Dragons

Once upon a time, there were two Dungeons and Dragons; it was in a time before Pathfinder and D&D 4e were competing for supremacy.  One was called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, the other was simply Dungeons & Dragons.  Sometimes it was called 'Basic' D&D because of the existence of 'Advanced', other times it was called BECMI D&D.  Or it was named after the people who edited the rules for a given edition.

It might surprise younger readers that Dungeons & Dragons had five editions between 1974 and 1994.  These were evolutionary changes rather than revolutionary, small fixes and clarifications to the game rules instead of vastly different versions of the rules.  Want to know more? See you after the jump.

D&D Retrospective: The Fall of Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons and Dragons was the best-selling RPG from 1974 to 2011.  That, by itself, should speak volumes about the popularity of the game; a thirty-seven year reign at the top.  But what happened?  What became the best-selling RPG from 2011 to present day?

The Pathfinder RPG, published by Paizo Publishing, knocked D&D off the top of the heap.  And that is an interesting story in itself.

D&D Retrospective: The Edition Wars

I haven't been updating the blog because of health issues that have been pretty soundly thrashing me, in case anyone was wondering.  I usually try to get these things written up ahead of time as well.  But enough of that.

Since Dungeons and Dragons is relaunching on August 18th, I figured I'd write a few retrospective type articles about it.  Well, retrospective in the sense of looking how the game has evolved over the years, anyway.  Now, I'm not old enough to have been in at the beginning of the game, which emerged in 1974 with a collection of small booklets in a portfolio.  I don't have this edition of the game, even though Wizards of the Coast released a collector's edition of it last year.  But let's talk about the various editions of D&D.

The Burning Wheel: Declaration of Intent

This is a repost from another blog I contribute to, which I'm pulling all the RPG related stuff from to collect all the material into one place.  It was originally published at Cheapie Theatre on 12/10/13.

Review: Double Cross

This will be first of a series of reviews covering Japanese RPGs that have been translated to English.  The second will be Tenra Bansho Zero, and the last in the series will be Golden Sky Stories.

When Double Cross was first published in English, there was a limitation from the Japanese publisher that there would be no PDF version.  Only printed copies.  I'm glad to say that when I was researching this review that I found out that the core rulebook is now available in English Language PDF (the first supplement is also available in PDF).  I am happy that F.E.A.R has allowed the PDF to be made because it means the game is now accessible to a wider audience.

And wow this was a long and complex review to put together.  I am going to space things out a bit by reviewing the Double Cross Advanced Rulebook and Public Enemy supplement before getting to Tenra Bansho Zero, which looks like it'll be just as long of a review...

Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition

Another post I dredged up from my game store blog.  With 5th Edition looming, it seems appropriate to look back at what people consider a disastrous iteration of the biggest name in RPGs.