Seek the Wolf in Thyself!
The Firelands, Talisman ExpansionFrom: Fantasy Flight GamesReviewed by: Ron McClung The Firelands, Talisman Expansion is a new Board Game Expansion from Fantasy Flight Games. Talisman is one of those games I always seem to buy for. I enjoy it with my kids and with my friends. In past editions, it did get repetitive but what…
It takes a lot for me to sit down and write about MACE after it is over. I invest so much time, emotion, and work into it that when it is over, I really go through something like postpartum. But writing about it helps with that in some ways, and the sooner I do it the more I can recall. This year was tough – probably one of the hardest years – and my fatigue has lasted longer than ever before. But I am going to make an effort just to get it down before things are less fresh in my mind.
I asked John Watts once what TV show he would relate his setting to. I predicted correctly that he feels it was most like Firefly. In many ways, it really has that feel – the grittiness, and the feeling of being a western in space. However, at the same time, it addresses a lot of the things that Firefly and the subsequent RPGs ignored – the realism, the vastness of space and the isolation one planet can feel. It keep a lot of the adventure local, instead of planet hopping across the universe. It is that sense that makes it attractive to me.
The Rapture has been the subject of various books and movies and all have approached it from a similar fashion – portraying it as something in the near and foreseeable future. No one that I have seen before this game has ventured out and asked the question “What if it happens way far in the future after man has found ways off this world?” Rapture: The End of Days is a game about that very thing.
Much has been said about the staggered release of the new D&D rulebooks and as much as I understand the complaints, I don’t really think it is all that big of deal in the grand scheme of things. Some say that the staggered release will hurt D&D’s chances of gaining any ground lost to Pathfinder but I seriously do not see it. Come December when the DMG is finally out, people are going to forget all about the staggered release and invest a lot of time in whatever game they choose.
Every once in a while, when I am running events at a convention, a dealer who knows me will drop off a game for me to check out. At ConGregate in Winston-Salem, NC, Dan of Walt’s Cards (out of Maryland) dropped off Shadows Over Camelot, The Card Game, a game based on a very good board game. I love the board game, so I was very intrigued about the card game.
Cascadia has proven to be a fairly descent hotbed of adventuring with the previous two adventures in this series and this closes it out in similar fashion. In this adventure, the players have a great opportunity to do something big for the patron throughout the series and be greatly rewarded. Or if things don’t go well, they could end up with a considerable number of enemies and perhaps be blamed for a terrible crime.
With much anticipation, the release of the 5th edition of the classic Dungeons & Dragons is upon us, with the first teaser product on the shelves – the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set. In the interest of full disclosure, I will say that I was not a huge fan of the major changes in 4th edition nor was I a fan of the abandonment of the SRD/OGL. I liked 3rd edition a lot, although I admit over time it got bloated with way too many rules, feats and classes. I am a fan of Pathfinder but it is running into the same problem D&D 3.5 did, in my opinion. I also did not play a lot of 1st or 2nd edition when I was younger, simply because there was not a lot of opportunity. I played other things like Star Frontiers and Powers & Perils.
Forever instantiated in geek culture are the immortal words of the captain of the Firefly, “I aim to misbehave.” These simple words can inspire a variety of ideas for adventures as well as adventurers. They are quite commonly used in game sessions to announce when a party is ready to take on their mission or bad guy. 21 Plots: Misbehave makes me think of this quote every time I look at the PDF.
First year con jitters. It has been a while since I first experienced a first year con. I had forgotten the struggles it goes through to get attendance, appear attractive to the base, and the general issues first year cons go through. Con-Gregate is a little different from this perspective, however. The experience behind the staff really helps the con jump over some of the traditional hurtles a con has to deal with.