Guest Post
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.
Classifying roleplaying games in an objective way that makes it easy for people to find a game that suits their needs isn’t easy. Much of the existing terminology carries the accumulated baggage of years of arguments in blogs and online forums. Theories of game design can be helpful in understanding a given game, but they weren’t created for sorting and classifying games. We need something better. Read more
Master of the Game explores the nuts and bolts of how gamemasters run their games. What games do they play and what tools do they use to run ’em?
Liam (aka Boganova), is one of the hosts of Mud & Blood, a podcast that focuses on grim, gritty games. I have been continually impressed with his approach to gamemastering, and he graciously accepted my invitation to share his GMing setup. Read more
We’re living through a Golden Age of tabletop roleplaying, which means games are being introduced in a seemingly endless stream. Some are completely new and some are overhauled versions of games that have been around for ages. Here are three upcoming titles that have piqued my attention. Read more
Gamemastering isn’t as difficult as it’s often made out to be. Is it some sort of mystical power only possessed by a lucky few? Absolutely not. Is it a skill that can be continuously improved? Absolutely. Read more
