The 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set has been with us for five years. It’s sold over 800,000 copies and been hailed as one of the best RPG starter sets ever produced. Now Wizards of the Coast has released its successor, the Dungeons & Dragons Essentials Kit.
A few weeks ago I wrote about a three-factor system I devised for classifying tabletop RPGs. After fielding questions about the system and thinking about it further, I’ve come up with what I believe is a better version of that original concept.
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TL;DR: This 240-page book takes years of hard-won experience about how to make roleplaying awesome, and lays it out cleanly and clearly. It’s easy to read, easy to understand, and it provides enough details without becoming a chore to read.
Read moreGuest post by Erwan Roudaut
Tattoos are an important part of my life. I am tattooed, I have frequented many tattoo artists, and I worked in this field for two years when I was still doing my studies. I made a documentary on one of the most prominent artists in the history of tattooing in France, and I also hosted a show called Color My Skin on YouTube during those two years.
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My name is Nathan, I use the handle “Burrito King” on Discord, and I’m an addict.
I’m addicted to new games. A lot of GMs seem to have that problem. Every new, shiny thing that I see, I want. Good art? Got to have it. New mechanics? Got to have it. Historically relevant? Got to have it.
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Guest post by Pablo Ruiz Valls
Degenesis never fails to amaze. In Black Atlantic (BA), the closure of the Jehammed Trilogy adventures, the game shows its strengths in full. I won’t, very unjustly, go over the excellent production values of the art, typesetting and graphic design. If you’ve seen them you know they knock it out of the park. Degenesis truly sets a new gold standard for the RPG industry. Full stop.
Read moreIn the early 1980s I was way into tabletop RPGs, and attempting to find my way through the jungle that is the American high school experience. For the first couple of years in that crucible, my friends and I spent many a lunch break in the safe haven of the library. It had two or three small, glass-enclosed rooms that could be reserved for group activities that might be too loud for the common area. Read more
I’d picked up the Degenesis rule books months ago. I’d pored over them, ordered all the published adventures, and written a glowing review (which you’ll probably want to read before this post if you want a broader understanding of the game). Finally I’d found a game that delivered that same feeling of discovery and amazement that RuneQuest had first given me many years earlier. Which is why I approached the act of actually running the game with some trepidation. As anyone who has played tabletop RPGs for a while will tell you, the easiest way to ruin a promising game is to actually play it. Read more
The Internet has radically changed tabletop roleplaying, just as it has changed almost everything else. Sometimes it’s hard to even recall what it was like before the rise of the Web in the late 1990s and the resulting Internet explosion. But I do remember what it was like discovering and playing what were then called fantasy roleplaying games in the early 80s.
There were (conveniently) three things in particular about that era that can never again be the same: Read more
As the (unofficial until quite recently) Community Manager for Degenesis: Rebirth, Erwan has been a highly visible ambassador for the game. In recorded game sessions he always appears calm and collected. He’s also very active on the Degenesis Discord and has an encyclopedic knowledge of the game. So it was a no-brainer to ask him how he runs his sessions, and he kindly answered my questions.
