This week the final episode of my Let’s Play of Citizen Sleeper went up – and for those who didn’t want to sit through that last video to get my thoughts on the game itself, or want something a little more organized – here you go.
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Supers RPG Experimentation: A-Ko
So, with tabletop RPGs, I like to pick out a few character concepts to use for creating characters to help learn the system – often based on anime, movies, TV shows, or novels – trying to emulate those characters to help learn the system. For example, for Fantasy games I tend to go with the Heroes of Lodoss. Recently I’ve picked up a couple of supers RPGs – the Marvel Multiverse RPG and the Sentinels Comics, and I’m creating some test characters in the process of trying to learn the system. My first trial run: A-Ko.
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Playing at the World: Book Review
This week I’m covering a non-fiction book on the history of Dungeons & Dragons, and the various influences that fueled it.
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GBP – Curse of the Azure Bonds #6: The Wizard’s Tower
When we last left off, through a fit of impulsiveness, I had advanced the party into a cut-scene trigger that routed us to the top of the Wizard’s tower.
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Pool of Radiance: Video Game Review
This week I’m giving my thoughts on the first of the Gold Box games, Pool of Radiance, after the conclusion of the first part of my Let’s Play, which I didn’t capture gameplay footage of this time, so this review is going to be strictly a talking-head review.
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GBP: Pool of Radiance Part 12 – Valjevo Castle
We now, at last, come to the largest and final area of the game – Valjevo Castle, the home of Tyranthraxus.
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GBP: Pool of Radiance Part 11 – Kovel Mansion
The Koval Mansion isn’t the last City Hex we have to go – Stojenow Gate and Valjevo Castle still remain. However, it is the last city hex we have a quest for – and indeed there are no official quests for those areas, so theoretically we can just push through right now. But, first, let’s get this last city hex.
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Shadowrun: Hong Kong – Video Game Review
The first two parts of what I’d call the “Shadowrun Returns Trilogy” – Shadowrun: Dead Man’s Switch, and Shadowrun: Dragonfall, showed steady improvement over their earlier installments, reaching a zenith in Shadowrun: Hong Kong. Dead Man’s Switch re-introduced the game mechanics and the world of Shadowrun to video games after decades of absence, along with telling a story that adapted parts of the setting that hadn’t been adapted before.
Dragonfall, for the first time, took Shadowrun, in video game form, out of Seattle – and in the process gave some fanservice to the game’s very vocal German fan base. It also demonstrated elements of the evolution of PC RPGs that the first game lacked – regular party members each with their motivations and story, along with quests specific to those characters that helped to progress their story. However, both games had some mechanical hiccups that made them frustrating to play.
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GBP: Pool of Radiance Part 10 – Wealthy Area and the Temple of Bane
These two city hexes are effectively linked, in the sense that one cannot be cleared without the other, and both are light on fixed encounters, so I’m covering them here in one combined post.
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Video Game Review: Shadowrun Dragonfall
When I beat Shadowrun Returns: Dead Man’s Switch, I enjoyed the game but found it lacking in a lot of respects. While Dead Man’s Switch was an RPG that captured a bunch of the feel of the world of Shadowrun and invoked one of the classic adventures from the game, it was missing some of the dynamism of the RPG that other PC RPGs brought to the table. Shadowrun Dragonfall addresses these concerns and creates an RPG that is a more marked improvement over its predecessors.
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Gold Box Playthrough: Pool of Radiance Part 7 – Ruins of Adventure
This time I’m getting into something slightly different. I ordered a copy of the tabletop RPG adaptation of Pool of Radiance, titled Ruins of Adventure, and while I’m getting through the next chunk of the game, I figure this is a good time to talk about that.
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Book Review: Dungeons & Dragons – Art & Arcana
This week I have a review of an art book covering the history of Dungeons & Dragons from the start of the game to now.
Watch the video…
GBP: Pool of Radiance – Part 4 (Podol Plaza)
After taking care of the bandits in Kuto’s Well, you’ve got a few options ahead of you. In order to reach the Cadorna’s Textile House, you have to go through either Mendor’s Library or Podol Plaza. You also get your first quest specific party member here – a quest to liberate the Temple of Il-Mater, which has been defiled into being a Temple of Bane on the other side of the river. This gets you a sixth party member, the cleric who is carrying out this quest – and he’ll stick with you until you complete the quest. Which means he’ll stay with you for any other quests you do between then and now – so that quest can wait.
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RPG Book Review: Dungeoneer’s Survival Guide
Oriental Adventures was a sourcebook for AD&D 1st edition that sort of re-imagined and re-interpreted the game to fit a setting inspired by various stripes of Asian cinema, with varying degrees of success. However, two things that book did moderately well was to present a setting in microcosm that used the mechanics and the book’s non-weapon proficiency system. What it didn’t do well was to create classes and races that were conducive for adventuring, and it didn’t create a setting that a standard adventuring party could be inserted into.
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Book Review: Oriental Adventures (1e)
AD&D 1st Edition received a smattering of different settings. The longest lasting of those were the Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and Dragonlance settings. However, a little less memorable one is Kara-Tur, which was born out of the Oriental Adventures sourcebook. While it would later be folded into the Forgotten Realms, on the outset it was very much its own thing. Continue reading
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Adventure Review: S1 – Tomb of Horrors
Tomb of Horrors is quite possibly the most infamous D&D module of all time. It’s an adventure that has been credited with annihilating campaigns, and is claimed to be the most broken and unfair adventure ever put out by TSR. However… I think this reputation might be because people are approaching the scenario the wrong way. Continue reading
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Adventure Review: D3 – Vault of the Drow & Q1 – Queen of the Demonweb Pits
I off and on have been reviewing the parts of the first AD&D adventure path – Against the Giants (in two parts – Part 1 & Part 2), and Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Well, now the time has come to the conclusion of the Adventure Path, and while for an inventive ending, it’s kind of a rough one. Continue reading
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Adventure Review: D1-2 Descent into the Depths of the Earth
The Against the Giants series (the first adventure reviewed here, and the other two here) wraps with a hook for further adventures within the Underdark, based on the premise that the Giants were backed by the Drow. This leads to the party heading into the Underdark to do battle against the Drow. Continue reading
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Graphic Novel Review: Rise of the Dungeon Master
Earlier I reviewed Empire of the Imagination, one of the more recent biographies of Gary Gygax. Well, David Kushner, the author of Masters of Doom, has co-written a graphic novel Biography of Gygax. I gave it a read, and thought I’d give my thoughts. Continue reading
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Thoughts on Fantasy AGE
I recently took a look at the Dragon Age RPG from Green Ronin, along with the more generic Fantasy AGE RPG, and I want to give a few thoughts on those. Continue reading
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Adventure Review: B2 – The Keep on the Borderlands
Keep on the Borderlands is a lot of people’s first experience with a pre-written D&D adventure. While it isn’t the first published D&D adventure, or even the first 1st Level D&D Adventure, it’s one of the first ones with a drawn out map and wilderness environment combined, and many people’s first D&D adventure – including mine. Since the first time I’ve played the adventure, I’ve played many more RPGs in a multitude of systems, and had an opportunity to GM a couple times. So, I’m revisiting the adventure. Continue reading
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Book Review: Deities and Demigods (1980)
Probably one of the first sourcebooks put out for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was Deities and Demigods, a book with a collection of beings that would provide something for your Cleric to be, well, a cleric of. However, it doesn’t really hold up very well, particularly compared to later deity books for later editions of AD&D and D&D. Continue reading
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Book Review: Empire of the Imagination
I don’t know if you know this, but I like tabletop RPGs. I really like tabletop RPGs. So, when I learned of the massive amount of scholarship going around RPGs and the history thereof, I got really excited. Though not the first book on the topic that I picked up (that being Of Dice And Men, which I reviewed in the fourth issue of my fanzine) this is one of the first, and one that warrants some discussion. Continue reading
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This time we’re taking a brief look at the West End Games RPG – and the times between the original novels and comics, and the more familiar era. Continue reading