Seek the Wolf in Thyself!
John Watts and his group of friends are diehard Traveller fans and when Mongoose Publishing put out their edition of the classic version, Gypsy Knights Games arose from that group with a whole slew of material for the Traveller fan. 21 Plots is just one small part of the extensive product library.
In 2013, my wife and I picked a couple of cons to go to. First on the list was Mysticon in Roanoke, Virginia (February 22-24). This is a con with an interesting history. In the 80s, Mysticon existed for 3 years and I am not sure about the circumstances behind it’s collapse back then. It is now in its third year in its new incarnation. I remember working with some of their concom, helping them with advice when I worked in the fandom con business. They are good people, very smart about their approach to the business and I think they are going to see the fruits of that intelligence for years to come.
You awaken on the cement floor, naked and covered in goo, surrounded by huge tanks with other humans. You see that you have fallen out of a similar tank, conduits and wires dangling. You are in some kind of experimental facility, dark and strange, and all you know to do is ESCAPE!
Thus is the basic premise of Level 7. It has the feel of other games similar to it with some interesting twists. It is a heavy thematic game with interesting mechanics. One to four players can play a character who must escape from the Subterra Bravo facility while dodging armed guards and alien clones.
Few games bring about more emotional reaction than Fortress America, in my experience. It has come to epitomize the American style of board game. You either love it or you hate it. There are very few who are in-between those extremes about this game. This game has a lot of history for me and for others in the gaming community. And that history has brought out these reactions. I own and have played the original for years and have thoroughly enjoyed it, so my history with it is already fairly positive.
Old school rises up again in a new release by 3Hombres Games. Dark Conspiracy is an old game once published in 1991 by the now defunct Game Designers’ Workshop, and has floated around in different hands since GDW’s demise in 1996. A second edition was published which updated the rules and a few adventures were published by it slowly died after that. A couple of fans worked hard to revive it and after some difficulties, the 3rd edition was put out in PDF form. The results of their labor is now available on DriveThruRPG.
When Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) took over the Talisman license back in 2008, I was more than excited. Being a fan of the game since the 1990s, I was really looking forward to seeing how FFG can improve the game. 2008 was the first year I got to go to GenCon and while there I talked to some of the writers of the game. I was really encouraged by their vision.
Since then, they have done what FFG does a lot – put out expansion after expansion. Not satisfied with just reprinting the classic expansions (of which they have done a few), they have put out a few small box expansions, some of which have some very original and innovative ideas. Talisman: The Blood Moon is one of those small box expansions that has some fairly innovative ideas; however they had already done something similar with Talisman: The Reaper. Blood Moon uses similar rules introduced in The Reaper expansion with a few new additional aspects mixed in.
SCARAB is something that is taking the gaming community by storm in the Carolinas. Del Collins and his team have put on a gaming con in Columbia, SC for the past 3 years. With a clear vision, solid staff and good leadership, SCARAB has developed a solid foundation that is going to do nothing but grow and flourish over the next several years. However, SCARAB is more than just the con. SCARAB is actually the organization behind the con as well as dozens of game days throughout the year, throughout South Carolina and northern Georgia. So the SCARAB Convention is just one facet of what they do for the gaming community but it’s the culmination of all their efforts the previous year.
MACE 2012 Report Part 2 SATURDAY Saturday started out bright and early for me at 7:30 AM, arriving at the gaming registration desk around 8:30 AM. Saturday for me was going to be very busy and I concentrated most of my volunteer shifts during this time. I had to fill in for two GMs sessions…
ConCarolinas 2012 Gaming Report ConCarolinas 2012 marked a year that put us up against Origins on the same weekend. In some ways, that effected us while in others it did not. I did not try to plan around Origins, I just did what I do and hoped for the best. Overall, I feel that ConCarolinas…
ConCarolinas2011 Con Chair Report This year was going to be an interesting year for us. It was going to be a truetest after all we went through the past summer. Coming from the person thatseemed to be at the center of all of it, I was eagerly waiting to see if allthe talk was just…