Category: Games
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Island of Lost Games: Universe
Universe was a science fiction roleplaying game published in 1982 by the well-known wargame company SPI, in partnership with the mass-market paperback house Bantam Books. That meant the game got fairly wide distribution in bookstores rather than just the hobby shop ghetto. Despite that, I don't think it sold many copies. The game itself was…
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Island of Lost Games: Metamorphosis Alpha
We recently got more bookshelves installed, which meant that my roleplaying game collection emerged from the closet where it had been piled up for more than a decade, and now stands again in proud alphabetical-by-title ranks, easily accessible. I found some forgotten treasures in there: my original Call of Cthulhu box set, the battered little…
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Battle on the Tabletop!
Combat in roleplaying games has a lot of variation, but most game systems break it up into two main components: how hard it is to hit someone, and how much damage that person can withstand. So in Dungeons & Dragons, everything has an Armor Class, which determines what one must roll in order to score…
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Experience Points (Part 2): Problems and Solutions
Last time I asked if experience points in roleplaying games are necessary, and more or less talked myself into believing they are. But I can't say I'm happy about that conclusion. How come? Because I think experience points and character advancement have a corroding effect on roleplaying campaigns. Here's why: the unrelenting focus on winning…
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Experience Points (Part 1): Do We Need Them?
For any fan of roleplaying games, the answer to the question in the title of this post is "Of course!" or maybe "As many as possible!" But I'm not sure that experience points are necessary for roleplaying games — and I've started to wonder if they're actually harmful. If you're not familiar with roleplaying games,…
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Convention Report: Albacon 2017
(". . . Featuring ME!") I drove west through sleet, rain, and fog — but no snow, which was a huge relief as I was in a car without snow tires — to Albany, which looks as if someone decided to drop the 1960s capital city of a large post-colonial nation into the middle of…
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Albacon 2017, Featuring ME!
On Friday and Saturday, March 31-April 1 I'll be a guest at Albacon 2017, the long-running convention in New York's capital city. There's a really impressive lineup of people attending: Charles E. Gannon, Stephen Hickman, Lawrence M. Schoen, Ken Altabef, Ken Burnside, Debra Doyle, Jim MacDonald, Chuck Rothman, Ryk E. Spoor, Ian Randall Strock, and…
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The Ultimate Game World
For more than a year now I've been running a Pathfinder roleplaying game campaign at my local game shop. The players seem to enjoy it, and so do I. Though I use the Pathfinder rules pretty much as published, one thing I do not use is the "official" Paizo Publishing game world, Golarion. I don't…
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Nostalgie du Geek: Champions!
The transition from high school to college is a big one for most people. You meet a whole new circle of friends. You live on your own for the first time. You probably try a lot of new things. It's a chance to "reinvent" yourself. And if you're a huge geek who plays roleplaying games, it…
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Nostalgie Du Geek: Hearing the Call
In a couple of earlier posts I've described my reaction to my first two role-playing games, Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller. Those two were followed in the marketplace by a whole wave of other games in a variety of genres: Tunnels & Trolls, Universe from SPI, Gamma World, Chivalry & Sorcery, Metamorphosis Alpha, RuneQuest, Villains…
The Cambias Digression 