Seek the Wolf in Thyself!
From: Gypsy Knights Games Reviewed by: Ron McClung Clement Sector Player’s Guide is a RPG Supplement from Gypsy Knights Games. The Clement sector setting continues to be supported by the fine group of people at Gypsy Knights and I have been really impressed with this settings resilience as well as the writers’ dedication to the…
Once again, JustUs Productions was asked to do gaming at ConGregate, a small and growing sci-fi convention in North Carolina. At its core, ConGregate is made up of a lot of experienced people from a con called StellarCon, which they ran for many years. StellarCon was eventually handed over to a new group of people, primarily based out of UNC-Greensboro and has since collapsed from poor leadership and management. Although scheduled during a different time of the year, ConGregate is picking up from the ashes of that con and reigniting fandom in the Triad area.
From: Hogshead Publishing/Greywood PublishingReviewed by: Ron McClung Fright Night: Ghost Ship is a d20 RPG Adventure from Hogshead Publishing/Greywood Publishing. This review is going to be a little different in that it is about an adventure I found, changed and ran. So I am going to not only write about the adventure, I am going to write…
Dawn Adventures 1: The Subterranean Oceans of Argos Prime is a new RPG Adventure from Gypsy Knights Games . The Dawn Subsector is the frontier of the frontier; the fringe of the Clement Sector which has had only a few hundred years to develop. There is a lot of mystery that surrounds what lies in the Tranquility Sector and any adventure based in it needs to have that feel. Dawn Adventures 1, as the name implies, is the first adventure based in the new subsector from Gypsy Knights Games. If adventuring in the politically charged worlds of the Clement Sector is not enough, this is where players go to escape all that and find new ways to adventure.
Even with the new incarnation of Traveller published by Mongoose in 2008, players of the game never really had options to truly flesh out their characters. There was no real character advancement system in Mongoose Traveller and the careers seemed cookie cutter, in many ways. It gets even more difficult if you design your own setting, like the Clement sector as many of the careers have to be re-tooled to apply.
Talisman is one of those games I will always seem to buy for. I enjoy it with my kids and with my friends. In past editions, it did get repetitive but what I like most about the FFG version is the variety they seem to be injecting into the game. Unlike past editions, FFC has put out various sized expansions so as to control the bloat a game like this can develop. I bought two expansions recently – The Firelands and The Nether Realm – that are very small but have significant impact on the game.
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.