2022 Character Creation Challenge (2022/01 CCC)

Hello readers! My output in the latter portion of 2021 slowed down for all sorts of life reasons, so I’m looking forward to getting back into the groove and bringing you a pile of new reviews, along with a project I meant to get to, and some new features that expand the scope of the …

RPG Reviews – Sigil & Shadow (Osprey Games)

I started reading Stephen King at 11, Charles de Lint at 12 or 13, and started playing White Wolf games at 14. The modern supernatural horror/fantasy genre has been a fascination of mine for almost 30 years and with good reason! It's a compelling concept, that of a shadow world alongside ours, populated by monsters, …

RPG Reviews – Children of the Blood (Onyx Path Publishing)

Children of the Blood It’s always helpful to have a list of go-to non-player characters to use in your games. Maybe you need to flesh out your setting, find yourself in need of a background character on short notice, or are tired of creating them yourself. For whatever reason, books focused on a set of …

Comics Review – The RPG Connection

Hello dear readers! I’m doing something new with this post: reviewing comics that have a connection to a published tabletop roleplaying game. I think it’s likely that many of us have read some “game fiction” at some point in our time in the hobby. My start was the Dragonlance Chronicles 2: Dragons of Winter Night. …

RPG Reviews – Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition – Cults of the Blood Gods (Onyx Path Publishing)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Onyx Path Publishing) Someone really wants me to start playing Vampire: The Masquerade again. Reading Cults of the Blood Gods is like discovering the game all over again. There are familiar elements and revised pieces and wholly new inclusions and it gives me the feel I got when I first …

RPG Reviews – The Contagion Chronicle

The Contagion Chronicle (Onyx Path Publishing) My first experience in crossover gaming in the modern supernatural horror genre came from playing on World of Darkness MUSHes. For the unfamiliar, they were text-based games, with computer-coded rules, that operated a little like an online LARP. You would create a character, log in, chat and interact with …

RPG Reviews – Liminal: Pax Londinium

Magician’s clubs, bridge trolls, and ghosts on the Thames...welcome to the Hidden World of the Pax Londinium. Paul Mitchener’s Liminal is a modern fantasy/horror game rooted in the folklore and locales of the British Isles. It’s a great game, with a really lovely vibe, and strongly focused on its geography. As someone who doesn’t live …

RPG Reviews – Vampire: The Requiem – Night Horrors: Spilled Blood

Vampire: The Requiem - Night Horrors: Spilled Blood Night Horrors: Spilled Blood reminds me why I like Vampire: The Requiem so much. I have a great fondness and nostalgia for its ancestor game, the newest edition of which is probably the best incarnation, but it will always be tied to its setting and metaplot. Requiem, …

RPG Reviews – Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition (Renegade Game Studios)

Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition This is a game about monsters. This won't be a game for everyone. In saying that I'm not commenting on its quality or trying to make any comparison between it and any other game, but rather that I cannot guarantee that every gamer will enjoy what this game provides, and …

RPG Reviews – Cypher System Rulebook

Cypher System Rulebook The world was first introduced to Monte Cook Games’ Cypher System in the original Numenera game. This far (far!) future science-fantasy world presented combative Glaives (Warriors), inquisitive Nanos (“wizards”), and wily Jacks (Rogue-types), who explored the Ninth World looking for the Numenera - items of legend and the past. These came in …