Recent content by robowieland

I call out when I move into spoiler territory. Those who don't care get a deeper look into the campaign Those who care can stop at the bold text.

The best licensed role playing games have settings where there’s room to run. Luke might be blowing up the Death Star and Frodo might be dropping off The One Ring but there’s still plenty of opportunities for characters to have some adventures and take out some bad guys. Dune is also a great...

Every monster tells a story. That’s the underlying truth of every bestiary released for a role playing game. Whenever the Dungeon Master pulls a monster book off of the shelf, they’re looking for something to help tell their story. It could be an obstacle, an adversary or even the antagonist at...

In the short section of further adventures, the authors suggest going after other heads of state like Mussolini and Churchill.

I don't know that I would call this advanced, really, in the way I'd call Shadowrun or Pathfinder that, but definitely something where I would be careful to chose a group who can handle the adult content and the narrative control. A bit like Wraith.

Most people think of RPG stories in one of two sizes. There’s the campaign which goes on for years, allows for deep character development and the build up of character power and skill. The other option is the one shot made for convention play or trying out new games with a single session...

Stalker and Roadside Picnic are both mentioned as inspirations by the creator. I didn't mention them because I am not familiar.

One of the long standing pearls of wisdom about role-playing games is that there is not a winner. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey in these games we love. The point is to tell memorable stories of heroes, villains, triumphs and tragedies. Designer Raph D’Amico’s The Zone focuses on a...

It’s wild to see how far computer games have come in my lifetime. Modern RPGs can be like a Hollywood blockbuster full of realistic graphics, branching storylines and romanceable characters. When I was a kid, most of these games were text adventures where half the challenge was figuring out the...

If they work like they do in more recent 2d20 releases, traits can raise or lower difficulty by one if they affect the die roll. So if the scene has the darkness trait and you're trying to shoot someone, it's going to be a higher difficulty. But if you're trying to hide from someone it will be...

I will not miss the challenge dice. I've only ever liked them in Fallout and Achtung Cthulhu which are games that are much more tactical. A lot of these systems were part of Dreams and Machines. I like how stress is a flip on how Fate does it: it assumes you are out if an attack hits you. You...

There's not much in the way of direct alternate hooks in the text. That space is taken up by fostering discussion between the players about their character's childhood friendship that summer and how everyone was connected when Ossie died. The idea here is to let the players figure out why they...