Legend of Vox Machina Season 2: TV Review

The first season of Legend of Vox Machina left off on a significant cliffhanger – Vox Machina had overcome the Briarwoods and liberated Whitestone – and had succeeded at their first major act of deliberate heroism. However, the Chroma Conclave were literally on the doorstep. Season 2 kicks off the start of the Chroma Conclave arc.

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The Elusive Shift: Book Review

In writing my review of The Game Wizards, I came to a horrifying realization – I hadn’t given my thoughts on the other previous sequel by Jon Peterson to Playing at the World that I’d read – The Elusive Shift. Considering that all three of these books kind of form a full narrative, I realized I really needed to rectify that situation. So I’m rectifying that situation.

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Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Anime Review

There are not a lot of anime series explicitly based off of tabletop RPGs – Record of Grancrest War, Record of Lodoss War, Rune Soldier Louie, and Night Wizard are some of the few that come directly to mind. None of those – I should mention, are particularly based heavily on Western tabletop RPGs (aside from Lodoss starting as a D&D campaign, before moving through Tunnels & Trolls and eventually becoming a Sword World campaign). So, it is impressive to see Cyberpunk: Edgerunners to be perhaps one of the first anime series to wear the western TRPG connection right on its sleeve. Yes, the show is tied in to CD Projekt Red’s video game – but right from the jump the series credits leads off with “Based on a world created by Mike Pondsmith” – showing how much of its influences it wears on its neon sleeve tattoo. Thankfully, Studio Trigger, who animated this, also does right by its source material far more Cyberpunk 2077 did from the jump.

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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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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 “Adventure Review: D3 – Vault of the Drow & Q1 – Queen of the Demonweb Pits”

Adventure Review: G2 & G3 – The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl & The Hall of the Fire Giant King

A while back, I reviewed G1: The Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, an adventure that launched AD&D’s first real adventure path, and had some really interesting adventure design concepts.  The other two adventures in the series – G2: The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl and G3: The Hall of the Fire Giant King,  are much more conventional dungeon crawls, so they’re worth discussing together. Continue reading “Adventure Review: G2 & G3 – The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl & The Hall of the Fire Giant King”

Documentary Review: The Dwarvennaut

Back when I was getting actively into gaming again, I started reading Knights of the Dinner Magazine, and some issues of Dragon Magazine when I could. In those issues of the magazine, I encountered ads for Dwarven Forge, a company making miniature dungeon terrain out of really durable material, what I presume is plastic resin, called Dwarvenite. It was incredibly well sculpted, beautiful to look … Continue reading Documentary Review: The Dwarvennaut