Which really amounts to a story hook for a possible D D campaign…

It’s not exactly breaking news that Settlers of Catan – that essential godfather of Euro board games (see my rapturous ode to it here) – is coming to Xbox Live Arcade. I wrote about it here last September (2006), shortly after it was first announced at the Leipzig Games Convention in Germany late that August.

XBLA is currently [...]

Those of you who read my ‘Your DM needs YOU to help tell a good story’ post a while back may remember my stating that the players have a responsibility to know the rules. There is a dark side to this: the min/maxer and the rules lawyer.

How complicated can it be to run an Earth-based D&D campaign? What are the ramifications of mixing mythology, history, and 3.5 game mechanics?

In which MetalJim teaches you how to make your players cry by using only simple templates from the core 3.5 Monster Manual …

Rhelik takes look at Lawful-Good from the new set due out in two weeks!

It’s most unlike me, seeing movies on back-to-back weekends. But I did just that. Interestingly, I saw the same movie twice. Well, not exactly the same movie, but close enough. Scoff if you like, but Pan’s Labyrinth and Bridge to Terabithia are Gemini twins. Of interest here because both are fantasy-themed stories. Of additional interest because the [...]

Do you ever think we D&D players take magical, instant healing for granted? I sure do.

I’ve been a fan of role-playing games for two-thirds of my lifetime. Yet, even I can get burnt out by constant, weekly games that drag or go nowhere. In order to re-energize, you sometimes have to change gears and try something else. It’s that time.

In my old gaming group, we would frequently switch off D&D [...]

In which MetalJim struggles to find some appropriate game to talk about…

Last year I wrote this article, which was an observation that the manner in which some board games end detracts from their enjoyment. I left it an open question as to who or what was to blame – the game, the players, or the combinations of each. I think I implied that a game with a [...]

Some people like to buy adventures. Not me, I hate pre written-adventures. I just can’t maintain intrest in them as a player and don’t like forcing my players on them as a DM.

Everyone has their own ideas about what a “hero” is, a definition that has expanded to include the term “anti-hero” or “fallible icon.” Super-hero role-playing as a genre is different from normal role-playing games in that the expectations are different from those of your usual hack and slash campaigns. I’d like to highlight a few [...]

In which MetalJim takes a little detour into yet another computer game…

– no pictures this week: imagine lots and lots of purloined Magic card artwork…like…here – OK, fine, there’ll be one picture at the end – Random wrapped up last week’s Groundhog Day madness with an excellent article about the latest Magic: the Gathering release. It’s occurred to me that as lifelong-slash-expert-slash-diehard gamers, we tend to offer a lot of [...]

Wrapping up our week long theme of repetition I’ll be looking at the latest Magic: the Gathering set. Titled Planar Chaos, it just full of things that give me deja vu.

In keeping with the theme of Ground Hog’s Day (the movie apparently, not the holiday) I offer this little repetitive annoyance common in comic books, and super-hero games by association.