Role-playing is like Vegas: What happens at the game table should stay at the game table. That’s not because gaming stories are scandalous, it’s because it’s very rare for gaming stories to be the slightest bit interesting to anyone outside of the group of people who played the game. A lot of of them boil…
Last week, I briefly mentioned how the “hack until it’s out of hit points” standard for combat in RPGs can suck every bit of the excitement and drama out of an action-oriented adventure, and that I’ve been working on ways to get around that in the new version of M-Force. This week I’m going to…
Last week, I posted an excerpt for the upcoming second edition of M-Force and mentioned that we’d been working on it for quite a while. We planned to release it much earlier this year, but it’s taken a lot longer to write than we expected. Some of the delays are the usual “real life getting…
I just got back last night from another fun but exhausting Archon weekend, so I’m going to post something I’ve already written today. As some of you know, we’ve been working on a new version of M-Force, our monster hunting game, for quite a while now. M-force takes place in the same world (which we…
An Interview with Hobomancer Companion Writer Josh Burnett, Conducted by Dale Ryan Josh Burnett was a co-writer of the ENnie Award-winning Hobomancer, and now he has written the first Hobomancer supplement, the Hobomancer Companion, all by himself. The Companion includes new hobomancer powers and secret hobomancer signs, new monsters and sample evil sorcerers, a new…
An interview with Steve Johnson and Leighton Connor, conducted by Jeffrey Johnson I remember back in the olden times when if you wanted behind the scenes information about movies or games you had to settle for the little snippets in Starlog, or on E! entertainment TV and piece the whole story together bit by bit….
Sorry about the skipped column last week–I did the National Novel Writing Month thing and was rushing to finish before the deadline. Since I’m still recovering, this week you’re getting a table of random monsters (most of which are conveniently described either in the Monster of the Week column, and which are individually linked for…
A lot of times, I’ll start off a game by asking the players to describe what their characters are doing. While this always works out well with the Hex group (with the intro scenes often becoming the focus of the adventure), I’ve found that groups who are used to more typical mission-based role-playing don’t…
Also Known As: NA Description: Ungnuzi are hideous humanoid creatures with tiny spikes all over their bodies. They stand between 3 and 4 feet tall and have slimy, sickly green skin. They do not have visible eyes, ears, or other sensory organs. Except for the small (1”-2”) spikes that cover their entire bodies, their heads…
Also Known As: Bull of Minos, Infamia di Creti Description: Minotaurs are large, muscular humanoid creatures with cloven hooves and bull-like heads complete with large horns. Their tough, leathery skin is typically black, red, or brown, but other colors have been reported. BMA Classification: Minotaurs are classified as monsters by the BMA. Facebook Twitter…
