I’ve been a fan of Kobold Press’ setting of Midgard for a while now. Part of what makes me appreciate the setting is that it manages to walk the line between feeling just right for level-based fantasy RPGs and pushing into territory that many of the currently published settings don’t touch. There is just enough difference to make that difference
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I have mentioned before that monster books are hard to review, because the rules are hard to evaluate before they are used, and stat block after stat block can numb the gamer brain and make it easy to miss cogent details. Everything that was true of monster books is also true of a book whose contents are primarily new spells.
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I have many weaknesses when it comes to RPG products, but one thing you will never hear me say is “there are too many monster books.” I love collections of various creatures from which I can draw inspiration. No, I don’t think I’ll ever use every single creature in one of these collections, but having access to them just kind
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Growing up, I remember Thundarr the Barbarian, a cartoon set in a future where modern society had fallen apart, magic had returned, and the setting was populated by strange animals, cyborgs, and sorcerers. I also remember my first impressions of Masters of the Universe, from the original storybooks that came with the action figures. This was a world with advanced
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I’ve got another article on the way that is going to dig a little bit deeper into some of the current issues with Wizards of the Coast and some of the missteps they have made recently, and what that could mean for D&D going forward. I’m not going to advocate for a boycott, and I’m not going to tell you
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I moved my current review up the list, in part because it’s related to another recent review, and in part because I missed this product in the context of another review that I was writing, and it’s relevant to a point that I made in that review. I’m going to look at Custom Ancestries and Cultures from Arcanist Press, a
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It’s no secret that I’ve invested a lot of my gaming efforts to Kobold Press’ Midgard in recent years. I ran a campaign set in Zobeck, and am almost finished running the Tales of the Old Margreve adventure anthology. Because of that, it’s probably not a surprise that I backed the Kickstarter for the Empire of the Ghouls adventure, and
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There has been a lot of discussion about race in Dungeons and Dragons, and what the mechanics and terminology says about the biases we have in the real world. There have been several passes at this concept so far, including James Haek’s article on D&D Beyond, and Grazilaxx’s Guide to Ancestry (which I reviewed at the link). This has become
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I love the concept of shadow magic in fictional settings. I have ever since I saw characters like Cloak, who could tap into a dimension of darkness for their powers. There is something compelling in going against the tropes of many stories and having a hero that controls the darkness as a weapon to do good. I was not a
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I am a simple creature, and certain combinations of elements trigger my Pavlovian responses, like “D&D Campaign setting” + “pirates.” Given that I actually have two Kickstarters from last year that I backed for which this description applies, I’ll elaborate and say that the one I’m referring to this time is Seas of Vodari. I did a first look based
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