Traveller vs Starfinder

Sci-fi role playing games have been around for a long time and I have been a fan since I first found the Traveller box set in the 1980s.  A few decades later I found myself caught up in the Starfinder release by Paizo and ran a year of Starfinder Society play.  I found that both systems had strengths and weaknesses and may appeal to different groups of players. Starfinder is a science-fantasy RPG that is based in the Pathfinder universe.  The game is very much a mixture of science fiction and fantasy.  There is magic in this game and hi-tech.  …

DCC Road Show

I have run two open DCC games now at the Randolph campus of Vermont Tech.  Each game has a unique set of players so I did the Portal Under the Stars for both games and ran a level 0 funnel.  Fair warning: I will be mentioning some Portal Under the Stars spoilers. Game 1 The first game was with some people in my 5e D&D group who have played together for a long time.  They enjoyed the simplified DCC system and really like the idea of the funnel and disposable characters.  The first fatality was met with laughter as a …

Pulp Detective — a review

Pulp Detective is a solo card and dice game set in the mystery/detective genre of the 1930-40s  The art work is very thematic and reminds me of comics like The Shadow. The setup is easy.  You pick a detective from a list of characters.  Each detective has a unique special power that you can use during play.  You have two other cards: one tracks which item is in your inventory and the other tracks stamina (aka health) and how many clues you have found. You have a set number of hours to collect enough clues to confront the villain and …

Origins vs. GenCon

A few folks have asked me about conventions in general and GenCon in particular.  I wanted to share my impression about the two summer time shows in the mid-west. First GenCon.  It is big and crowded and expensive.  It’s the “best four days in gaming” because it is the primary show in the U.S. for most publishers to make big product announcements and releases.  Paizo, Asmodee, Arcane Wonders, Fantasy Flight, Upper Deck, and all the other industry leaders bring new and exciting things to GenCon every year.  It makes sense, this is where those companies can get the most exposure …

Gencon 2018

This year I had the great luck to be near Indianapolis during the best four days in gaming and I attended my 5th GenCon.  Lot’s of exciting things happened while I was there.  The short version is I met much of the development team from White Wolf and picked up Vampire 5th edition and got swept away in the energy at Goodman Games and discovered Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Origins Game Fair

This Sunday I got to visit the Origins Game Fair in Columbus Ohio. This is a four day convention about card, board, and role play games. There are competitions and tournaments for games like Magic the Gathering, Settlers of Catan, and others. The schedule is packed full of things from early in the morning until very very late at night. I did not attend any of the paid game sessions, nor did I get to attend the evening sessions since I only had Sunday. There are a bunch of things to do and see outside the exhibit hall, but I …

Photosythesis – a review

The abstract tree growing and harvesting game from Blue Orange is not something that I would have normally picked up. It’s a game about growning trees. Every once in a while I find a game that is outside my normal fare (pirates, Cthulhu, space conquest, fantasy combat) that I find fun and fresh. Photosythensis is in this club.

GenCon 50

This year was the 50th anniversary of GenCon and it was a large and amazing trip.  We went out for all four days and managed to try some new things.  I played my first convention RPG session, the Starfinder test game.  It was not bad but it did feel a bit off.  We played a much more mechanical combat mission.  With the mat and miniatures it felt more like a board-game than a true RPG experience.  It was hard for me to build rapport with stranger so that I could play my character’s personality beyond the archetype. Another new experience …

Origins 2017

This was my first trip to the Origin’s Game Fair in Columbus Ohio.  This convention is smaller than GenCon with fewer exhibitors and much wider asile space in the exhibit hall.  There were many great demo spaces for trying out games.  I went for just Saturday during the day. I didn’t attend any scheduled events; to be fair,  I didn’t do a lot of research on what seminars were available, but the whole convention felt more like a place to play games rather than buy games or attend paid seminars. Origins definitely had less of a commercial vibe. I found …

The Grizzled with expansion and still no W

We tried the Grizzled with the expansion and it was a better experience.  The new mission deck mechanic is good for taking pressure off the mission leader and makes each mission unique.  Keeping speeches and a more forgiving lucky charm reset does a lot to help make the game feel more winnable. We lost.  It was the very last mission and we might have won but we couldn’t finish the mission and the threat deck ran out.  I can see us winning next time.