News & Reviews

Jan 28 2013

What about the Star Wars X-Wing Miniature Game? A mini review…

SWXWSeems I am on a Star Wars roll these days…

Recently during a Puerto Rico Role Players geeknic I got to play the Star Wars X-Wing Miniature Game. I rarely play miniature games. I have in the past but they have never really caught my fancy. Many of my closest friends are miniature and strategy games enthusiast, and in the past I have played Epic, BattleTech, Man O’War, and Battle Fleet Gothic. Except for that last one form which I had the basic box, all the others I played with friend’s armies. While some of those games were fun, most of them took too long or gameplay bored me. I discovered that when those games dragged too long I just zoned out. I can role-play for hours but long war games and strategy games just bore me.

(I did play an old Axis & Allies game that lasted about 18 hours, but we had as much fun off the board as on the game itself. Might have been sleep deprivation, but I digress!)

During the geeknic, some friends played the X-Wing game and I just couldn’t resist looking. The minis looked great, but all the components just fueled my interest. After a short explanation I got to throw some dice and try out the game. What can I say? It was fun!

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By • Boardgames, Just my two cents, News & Reviews, Random musings, Reviews & First Looks, RPG • 0

Jan 23 2013

Gaming on the cheap – 2013 Edition (Part 1/2)

”Roleplaying games can be an expensive hobby, especially when you are the game master.” With these words I started a post in 2009 called “Gaming on the cheap” and it’s still true. But in the meantime a lot of new free games have been released which are worth a look. There are also a couple of inexpensive games available if you are willing to spend a few dollars. But I will talk about those in the next post of this series. Let’s start today with the free games. You’ll notice that there are a couple of games on that list I was involved with, so I hope you don’t mind.

Atomic Highway

In 2011 Colin Chapman released the PDF version of his post-apocalyptic roleplaying game Atomic Highway for free.
Atomic Highway is powered by the V6 Engine, a rules-light game system which is as easy as it’s brilliant. While there’s an assumed setting, AH is basically a toolbox for the post-apocalypse.
It works great with Mad-Max-style games and even comes with rules for modifying your ride.
If you are really excited about post-apoc gaming you could also pick up the cheap Irradiated Freaks supplement which adds new options to the game.

Arcane Heroes

Arcane Heroes is a 5-paged rules-light fantasy game I wrote in November 2010 after playing way too much Fable III. It’s inspired by said game and uses a simple dice pool system for task resolution. Even though it lacks a proper setting it should be fully playable if the GM is willing to fill the holes with his own ideas. The system could probably be easily adapted to other genres as well.

Arcane Secrets by my friend Andrew Modro expands on Arcane Heroes and adds new spells.

A Wanderer’s Romance

 awr_cover

A Wanderer’s Romance is a 45-paged game of martial arts duels and tea-making contests written by Chris McDowall. And it’s one of the projects I was proud to be a part of. Back in 2011 I did the layout for AWR and I have to admit I am still proud on how it turned out.

If you are into the fantasy wuxia genre you definitely should check out A Wanderer’s Romance.

Badass

“Have you ever wanted to play a game that kicks that logic in the face, twists its arm behind its back and makes it cry for its momma?”

Jay Steven Anyong’s BADASS is exactly that game. It’s a rules light beer & pretzels game in which you play badasses doing badass things. In Badass you can play dinosaurs, robots, ninjas, cops, teachers (yes, there are badass teachers), gamblers, and more. If you ever watched a totally over-the-top Hong Kong movie, you know exactly how BADASS is meant to be played.

Icar
image

Icar is a space opera created by Rob Lang which comes in the form of a 187-paged PDF. Compared with most of the other games mentioned in this post, Icar is huge – both in page count and depth.

It’s also one of the games I always wanted to give a closer look, but never had the time to. I love the sci-fi genre and I – as I probably mentioned before – have a soft spot for percentile system, so there are multiple reasons to give the game a chance.

I wish I had more free time.

By • Freebies, News & Reviews, RPG • 6

Jan 21 2013

How about a trio of reviews? Books from Kobold Press!

KP Logo Vertical.mediumI haven’t done one of these in a while! Between work and classes I’ve been away from the blog and not been as effective at getting to review some books provided to the blog for that very end. This time around I’ll tackle three books by the wonderful folk at Kobold Press for the Pathfinder RPG. So without further ado…

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By • Ask The Readers, Just my two cents, News & Reviews, Other Systems, Pathfinder, Random musings, Reviews & First Looks, RPG • 0

Jan 16 2013

The Top 5 posts of 2012

2012 has been a great year for the blog. According to the stats plugin I use the blog has been viewed about 260,000 times last year. This is quite amazing in my opinion. I never thought so many people were interested in what we’re writing here. Smiley

So let’s have a look at the 5 most popular posts in 2012:

  • #5: Sandbox games: A collection of links
    In early 2012 I planned to run a sandbox game for the first time and looked for great posts on the topic in the RPG blogosphere. This post links to a couple of posts that explain how to create and run a proper sandbox campaign.
  • #4: Our thoughts on D&D 5th Edition
    I am actually not surprised that this post made the top 5. D&D is still the most famous roleplaying game out there and a lot of people are very interested about the upcoming D&D Next. At the time of writing I actually lost all interest in D&D Next. One reason is definitely the fact that it will still take quite a while until the game is finally available and there are a lot of interesting alternatives like 13th Age, Barebones Fantasy, you name it.
  • #3: My thoughts on the D&D Next playtest rules
    Again, this is no surprise to me. D&D Next was and still is a hot topic and I would actually be surprised if my thoughts on the D&D Next playtest had been ignored by the community.
  • #2: My thoughts on the “Star Wars Edge of The Empire Beta”
    Hmm, I am beginning to see a trend here. It seems the readers of Stargazer’s World are very interested what our team of authors thinks about new developments in the gaming industry/community. Perhaps I should try to focus more on this subject in 2013. What do you think?
  • #1: Review: Iron Kingdoms Core Rules
    My review of the new Iron Kingdoms roleplaying game was actually the most popular post in 2012. Since I posted it on September 11th it has been viewed about 4,600 times. It’s actually the 9th most viewed post on the blog since I started in 2008. I never would have guessed this post would be that popular. Wow!

What was your favorite post in 2012? Please post your thoughts below!

By • News & Reviews, Random musings, RPG, Site News • 2

Dec 7 2012

Pen & Paper RPG Bloggers Community at Google+ and RPG blogging tips

Google+ Yesterday Google started to roll out a new feature for Google+ called Communities. Communities are basically what groups are in other social networks like Facebook or Ning. I thought it could be nice to have a community for pen & paper RPG bloggers, so I created one. If you are interested in sharing your thoughts with other RPG bloggers, why don’t you join us?

Apropos RPG blogging. Last year I posted a series about my tips on how to start RPG blogging that I want to share with you again.

By the way, if you have more tips & tricks for RPG bloggers, why don’t you share them in our new community on Google+?

By • Advice, Blogging, News & Reviews, RPG • 0

Dec 4 2012

Kickstarter: Fate Core System

Even though I haven’t played it that often I am a big fan of the Fate system.  It took me quite a while to wrap my head around the Fate rules but when it “clicked” I realized how elegant the system was and how easy it made it for people to focus on roleplaying their characters and driving the story forward. Fate is one of those games where it suddenly becomes more important who your character is and not what he or she can do.

For quite a while Evil Hat has been working on an updated Fate Core System. The rules are pretty much finished. The only things still missing are the interior artwork and the fans’ feedback. That’s where the Kickstarter comes in.

With still 56 days to go, the Fate Core Kickstarter has already reached it’s goal of $3,000 and has already reached a couple of stretch goals. Backers also get access to the latest draft of the Fate Core rules already. If you are a fan of Fate you definitely should support this project. It’s well worth it!

By • FATE, Kickstarter, News & Reviews, Other Systems, RPG • 4

Nov 14 2012

The Kobold, the Quarterly and the Contest!

Fall is upon us (well those of us living in the northern hemisphere at least)! It’s the time of harvest, leaves fall, the weather turns colder, and apparently Kobolds come out of their den. I received a review copy of the Fall issue of Kobold Quarterly, number 23, by the friends from Kobold Press and sat down to write a review about it over the weekend, when their Kobold Courier newsletter arrived in my e-mail I and I read about a wonderful new contest they are having which I thought may be of interest to our readers, so I thought I’d combine both into a post!

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By • D&D Next, D&D4e, Dragon Age, Earthdawn, Just my two cents, Legacy D&D, News & Reviews, Other Systems, Pathfinder, Random musings, Reviews & First Looks, RPG • 0

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