This weekend (that is, the weekend of 7/31-8/2/2026) at GenCon has seen the announcement of Vampire: The Masquerade V6. There has been some wailing and gnashing of teeth, as is often the case with the announcement of a new edition of a role-playing game. Of note with this edition of Vampire is a mechanical complaint that’s different from the usual – in the new edition the Storyteller doesn’t roll dice. This is not a new situation in tabletop RPGs these days – it’s a common mechanical trait of games that are Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark, along with other mechanical frameworks that have come after. However, I think where it’s notable here, and why I think games that were Forged in the Dark or Powered by the Apocalypse didn’t quite catch on when they were being so heavily promoted in the wake of the D&D 5E OGL catastrophe is that there is a tactile element that’s missing. Not Tactical – tactile. Allow me to explain.
Read moreVlog: Other RPG Campaigns I Have In The Oven
My upcoming Shadowrun/Cities Without Number Campaign isn’t the only game I pitched to my players – here are the others.
‘Solecism’ by Scott Buckley – released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au
Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays
Donation Links…
- To support mutual aid groups in Minnesota: https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
- To support relief and recovery in Ukraine: https://www.charitynavigator.org/discover-charities/where-to-give/ukranian-crisis/
- Donate to Doctors Without Borders: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/get-involved/ways-to-give
- Reproductive Health Care: https://www.charitynavigator.org/search?causes=Reproductive%20health%20care
- Trans Rights: https://www.charitynavigator.org/search/?causes=LGBTQ%20rights
Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen Part 19: Reconsecrated
It’s time to restore the Dragonlance.
Read moreVlog: Next Campaign Announcement
I have an announcement for my next campaign after Shadows of the Dragon Queen: “Shadows Without Number”
Affiliate Links
- Cities Without Number: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/449079/cities-without-number?affiliate_id=2158
- Seattle Sourcebook: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/109295/shadowrun-seattle-sourcebook?affiliate_id=2158
- Mercurial: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/87675/shadowrun-mercurial?affiliate_id=2158
‘Solecism’ by Scott Buckley – released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au
Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays
Donation Links…
- To support mutual aid groups in Minnesota: https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
- To support relief and recovery in Ukraine: https://www.charitynavigator.org/discover-charities/where-to-give/ukranian-crisis/
- Donate to Doctors Without Borders: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/get-involved/ways-to-give
- Reproductive Health Care: https://www.charitynavigator.org/search?causes=Reproductive%20health%20care
- Trans Rights: https://www.charitynavigator.org/search/?causes=LGBTQ%20rights
Dragonlance: Shadows of the Dragon Queen Part 18: Dungeon Crawl
We start the penultimate chapter of the adventure.
Read moreCampaign Diary: Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen – Part 3
The campaign moves on to chapter 5, and a hex-crawl (which I tweaked to a Point Crawl).
‘Solecism’ by Scott Buckley – released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au
Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays
Donation Links…
- To support mutual aid groups in Minnesota: https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
- To support relief and recovery in Ukraine: https://www.charitynavigator.org/discover-charities/where-to-give/ukranian-crisis/
- Donate to Doctors Without Borders: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/get-involved/ways-to-give
- Reproductive Health Care: https://www.charitynavigator.org/search?causes=Reproductive%20health%20care
- Trans Rights: https://www.charitynavigator.org/search/?causes=LGBTQ%20rights
The Things Your Tabletop RPG Needs
I’ve started the process of preparing for my next campaign, and pitching various games to my group, which has got me thinking about what makes an RPG easier for me to prep for and easier for me to sell my players on.
‘Solecism’ by Scott Buckley – released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au
Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays
Donation Links…
- To support mutual aid groups in Minnesota: https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
- To support relief and recovery in Ukraine: https://www.charitynavigator.org/discover-charities/where-to-give/ukranian-crisis/
- Donate to Doctors Without Borders: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/get-involved/ways-to-give
- Reproductive Health Care: https://www.charitynavigator.org/search?causes=Reproductive%20health%20care
- Trans Rights: https://www.charitynavigator.org/search/?causes=LGBTQ%20rights
The Things Your Tabletop RPG Needs
Those who have been reading along with my Actual Play of Dragonlance: Shadows of the Dragon Queen, and who are familiar with the adventure itself, may have noticed that I’m past the halfway point of the adventure. Which means that I, as the GM, need to start thinking about what comes next. This has, in turn, had me looking over some of the game books that are in my collection and coming to some serious thoughts on what things a tabletop RPG needs to help with onboarding – based on what I think would help my players consider some of the more niche games in my collection.
Read moreVlog: My First Year of VTTs
I’ve completed my first year of running a tabletop RPG campaign online using Foundry as a VTT. It’s time to talk about some of the things I’ve learned over the past year.
Vlog: Why JTRPGs Are Great
With the crowdfunding campaign for an English Language release of Sword World 2.5, I get into why Japanese Tabletop RPGs (or JTRPGs) might be the thing that’s just right for your tabletop group.
Dragonlance: Shadows of the Dragon Queen Part 9: Dragonnels of Wheelwatch
This session was tied up with one big adventure and fight, but it was one hell of a fight.
Read moreExplainer: New New White Wolf
Paradox Interactive is bringing back White Wolf Games again – let’s talk about why there is an “again”.
Dragonlance: Shadows of the Dragon Queen Part 6: No Longer “Tacti-cool”
We had a bit of a more role-play heavy chapter this time, somewhat related to some technical difficulties.
Read moreCampaign Diary: Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen – Part 1
I’ve been running Shadow of the Dragon Queen for my D&D Group – so I’m going to discuss the first part of the adventure, including how it went when I ran it.
Affiliate Links:
Please support my Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/countzeroor
Buy me a coffee at Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/countzero
Watch my Live-Streams on http://twitch.tv/countzeroor
Check out my Let’s Plays at https://www.youtube.com/@CountZeroOrPlays
Donation Links…
- To support mutual aid groups in Minnesota: https://www.standwithminnesota.com/
- To support relief and recovery in Ukraine: https://www.charitynavigator.org/discover-charities/where-to-give/ukranian-crisis/
- Donate to Doctors Without Borders: https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/get-involved/ways-to-give
- Reproductive Health Care: https://www.charitynavigator.org/search?causes=Reproductive%20health%20care
- Trans Rights: https://www.charitynavigator.org/search/?causes=LGBTQ%20rights
Star Trek Adventures RPG Character Race: The Abh
Basically, since I watched Crest of the Stars & Banner of the Stars, I’d been thinking about how I’d incorporate the Abh into the various Star Trek RPGs. After a bunch of thought, I’ve figured out some of how to do it… and I commissioned some art to go with it from Kimberly Odessa! I’ll be focusing on the Modiphius Star Trek Adventures rules – for this post, and I’ll do write-ups for Decipher Trek and LUG Trek later, since I have the books for those as well.
Read moreBook Review: Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground
If you know anything about me at all, I have a passion for the history of tabletop roleplaying. One of the books that helped stoke my interest was the book Heroic Worlds, which I read when I was in middle school. That book was a high level overview of the roleplaying game books that were on the market at the time – like the tabletop RPG equivalent of all those Leonard Maltin books giving an overview, one-to-two sentence of a film’s plot, and a one-to-two sentence review combined with a score. Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground provides a more close in view, covering a selection of RPG books from each decade of RPG history to date, with more involved looks at the various games.
Read moreVlog: A Rant About Hasbro’s CEO and AI
After some comments about Hasbro’s CEO about AI and D&D moved in my head and started living there rent-free, I needed to get those out in the form of a comedic rant. (With apologies to Lewis Black).
Documentary (Video) Review: The Dreams in Gary’s Basement
This week I’m stepping into the TTRPG space (something I normally save for August, but slacked off on this year), to cover a documentary film about the life of Gary Gygax.
I Am Running A Tabletop Game!
I will be running a Tabletop campaign! For Real Humans! Who I’m Not Related To!
Starting next month I will be running a D&D 5E campaign for some friends, playing through Dragonlance: Shadows of the Dragon Queen. I’m not livestreaming it, and I’m not going to be giving the players names, but I will be giving some after-action reports here, since I haven’t run a game in a while, especially not for people who aren’t in my family.
Book Review: Designers & Dragons (Vol. 1-4)
It’s time to kick off the new year with a look at a series of nonfiction books that I finished reading last year.
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.
Read moreTRPGs: Potholes to Adoption for Powered by the Apocalypse & Forged in the Dark
It’s August, when I normally do TTRPG videos, so now is a good time for another one of those – in this case talking about a few of the things have that caused me (and my GM) to bounce off of Forged in the Dark & Powered by the Apocalypse games in the past, which you should consider if you want to move from your Dungeons & Dragons game to one of those systems (especially if your group has primarily played D&D).
Read moreAlternative Dungeon Fantasy Games
Well, once again, Wizards of the Coast has stuck their head in it. This time, they sicced the Pinkertons on a YouTuber who had been mistakenly shipped the wrong Magic: The Gathering material – specifically a box of an epilogue expansion to March of the Machine that was due to come out later in May. Rather than just doing the more… practical thing, like leaving a voicemail or sending a certified letter, instead the Pinkertons came out, and threatened the YouTuber with felony criminal charges, in addition to having all their magic cards seized by the police.
Read moreLegend 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.
Read more