Blog Archives
sTabletop Officer Training Corps: One Weird Trick
Wednesday , 29, March 2017 Tabletop Games, Wargames 4 CommentsIf you’re looking for a relatively quick and easy trick to painting your miniatures, there’s really only one tool you need in your box – drybrushing. It is an easy technique will give you quick results that look great on the table. There are a host of painting methods that will add detail, depth, and […]
I really did love getting gaming magazines back in the day. Dragon. Space Gamer. Autoduel Quarterly. JTAS. Challenge. Roleplayer. Somehow I seemed to get more mileage out of a pile magazine articles than I did from a big production hardback gaming supplement. Maybe that’s because the writers tended to put stuff together from things they […]
Back in the mists of time, I went to college, in Fairbanks, Alaska. While there, I met a scientist, a biologist, who studied bears. I didn’t know him well but, he moved in the same circles I moved in. He was an impressive guy. He was the sort of guy who drove his snow machine […]
New ACKS Supplements Featuring Heroic Fantasy and Pulp Fantasy!
Tuesday , 21, March 2017 Appendix N, Tabletop Games 4 CommentsA lot of people have asked me what “Appendix N: The Game” would look like. I usually just joke that we already have one: it’s called Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition! The thing is, people have been arguing about this for decades. Open up early issues of The Dragon and you’ll find longwinded letters […]
The best thing about Talon from GMT Games is just how easy it is to get onto the table. It’s got a set of twelve scenarios ranging in order of complexity from tutorials to monster space battles. Thus, you never have to hash out just what exactly you’re going to play when you open the […]
I’ll always have a bit of a soft touch for Palladium games. I mean… no sooner had I stumbled across a stray copy of the iconic Moldvay Basic D&D set, than I had a desire for something like that, but weirder. And Palladium was right there waiting with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness. […]
In the early days of the role playing hobby, particularly in the rapid expansion days when the craze was really starting to hit in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, there was a lot of jumping on the bandwagon. Games were rushed out not fully tested or other types of games had role playing elements […]
There was a time when I didn’t know what sword & sorcery was. I sort of assumed that if it was old or pulpy that it had to be lame. And yet… cruising through the game blog scene when D&D blogging was going through an explosion of growth…? I could tell that there was something […]
Here’s Kevin Siembieda in Palladium Fantasy second edition answering this age old question: That’s up to the Game Master. Many role-playing games allow players to reroll a particularly bad attribute or to roll two or three characters and pick the one they want. Personally, I don’t have a problem with any of this, although I suggest […]
Tabletop Officer Training Corp: Showing the Colors
Wednesday , 1, March 2017 Tabletop Games, Wargames 1 CommentYou’ve got your figures. You’ve got your basic terrain set up. Maybe you’ve played a practice game or two. But things still look flat and dull. When we last left the figures, they were based, primed, and ready for paint. Next time we’re going to look at the single most powerful painting technique that you […]
Jordan K. Weisman on the Genesis of the BattleTech Setting
Sunday , 26, February 2017 Tabletop Games 13 CommentsWriting in 1988 in the introduction to the short fiction collection “Shrapnel”, Jordan K. Weisman reveals the thinking behind the premise of the BattleTech game setting: The BattleTech game, supplements, scenarios, and other related fictional products are all offshoots of an idea that came to me in 1984, when my own imagination was captured by […]
Bradford Walker on “Crusher Joe”
Saturday , 25, February 2017 Tabletop Games, Traveller Leave a commentBradford Walker continues to school the internet on the more obscure sources of the classic BattleTech game: In terms of BattleMechs, you really only get the Locust, so where the Crushers really come in is with the AeroTech and ground vehicle supplementary rules for the game. The primary Lance-scale Dropship is the Joe’s starship. The […]