Dauntless Mission #4: the Ruby Aurora
The DAUNTLESS flies again! This was literally a “just finishing breakfast, sitting around in our pajamas, saying hey we could play a quick game of InSpace” kind of deal. As usual in less than two hours...
View ArticleNow he’s my real brother
Playing Shock with (nearly) total strangers. We’re doing it old-school, so we secretly pick issues and then brainstorm a Shock that fits, instead of the wussy Shock-first approach. We choose...
View ArticleWe have forks
Great moments in Mouse Guard. The patrol is welcomed to Darkwater after an arduous journey. Tired mice are tired, and hungry mice are hungry. Hearty meals are arranged by the happy hosts. player: mimes...
View ArticleMars Colony Triple-header
“I start a campaign… a totally _fascist_ campaign.” –brand new gamer, solving the problems of Mars I love Mars Colony. It’s hands-down the best game I picked up at GenCon 2009. That’s not even...
View ArticlePolaris: Freedom of the Press
We’ve done a whole slew of Polaris setting hacks recently. Aztecs, Fall of the Roman Republic, 1920s Empire City cops and Battlestar Galactica (twice). The key ingredients of a satisfying Polaris...
View ArticleFlight of the Hornet
We sit down to play Battlestations, a space combat RPG, last night. I’ve had it for a while but this is the first time we’ve tried it out. We plan to spend the evening blasting ships and taking names....
View ArticleThe Temple Stands Empty
Playing A Thousand Years Under the Sun @ Story Games Seattle: The humble Temple of the Winds becomes of place serenity and wisdom, where the Gods speak to men. A thriving market grows around it,...
View ArticleFor Neptune! For Freedom!
A blast from the past, because it’s awesome: “Yes, that’s interplanetary war. Can the ‘seidonians throw off the yoke of the invading Uranians, the cold war puppet satellite of the tyrannical Crimson...
View ArticleLights, Camera, Downfall!
We got together to film Caroline’s new game, Downfall, so you can watch the action in living color. Was there drinking? There might have been some drinking. I’ve been playtesting Downfall over the last...
View ArticleThe owl knows better
Playing a lovely game of Eden at Story Games Seattle. Narwhals and bunnies try to explain reproduction to the innocent humans. Narwhals are convinced it is essential to sing together and have a...
View ArticleHide In Your Own Body
Playtesting Eden again. Baruch has troubles. He accidentally broke Hosanna’s precious dagger so she paid him back by luring him into webs of biting spiders. But it didn’t end there and now she’s just...
View ArticleWe See Dead People
Shock at Story Games Seattle. Our issues (picked independently and secretly, as we do) were Loneliness, Inheritance, and Over-Medication. What kind of sci-fi Shock could we brainstorm that addresses...
View ArticleKit Bashing: Polaris Spycraft (Agents of Northstar)
Forget all that mythic tragedy beneath the fading stars stuff: I wanted to try Polaris as a modern spy game. It seemed perfect for the job, since the key conflict phrases looked like they would work...
View ArticleWhen did Zargon become such a dick?
Back before 3rd Edition D&D came out we used to play HeroQuest* to get our low impact dungeon-crawling fix. Somebody would get drafted to be Zargon, the pseudo-GM who moved the monsters and read...
View ArticlePerils of Abstract Defeat
We went a mad binge last week with the new Descent campaign game (The Road to Legend). It’s an improvement over the original game in a number of ways, mostly because there’s more long-term development...
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Dauntless Mission #1: InSpectres In Spaaaace!
After our last excellent InSpectres game (the Matter of the Missing Mummy -or- the Case of the Peripatetic Pharaoh) we decided to take it out for another spin and see what else we could do with it. If...
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Dauntless Mission #2: Trapped in the Void
Our first InSpectres in Spaaaace! game turned out to be a great way to do cerebral “mysteries of the universe” adventures. But is InSpectres really a winner for this kind of game or did we just luck...
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Dauntless Mission #3: Plague at Prospect Station
Spoiler alert: Like the other DAUNTLESS games, mission three was a lot of fun. Unlike the other missions the story didn’t really wrap up in one neat package. Why not? We accidentally skipped the...
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Goody Patience of Salem
Ahhh, Salem! Good old terrible Salem! I’m no stranger to the Salem Fiasco playset, but this time around we had sexism, racism, and assorted acts of bad parenting… honestly witchcraft was the least of...
View ArticleThe Sword of Thanormyr
I’ve been playtesting Marc’s game Epitaph for years. It’s finally available on Kickstarter, which means soon you can play it too! If you look at the Kickstarter page, you can see the story of “Cyrna of...
View Article2021: A Year of Legacy
Despite the pandemic — or more likely because of it — I played more role-playing games in 2021 than any other year since I started logging my games back in high school. It’s a fact. Playing online via...
View ArticleMind of Sandra Birch
“It’s Inside Out, the game” I have a short list of go-to GMless pickup games, “games to play at a moment’s notice.” What I’m always looking for are games you can jump into easily but still have endless...
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Classic Cartography: Star Frontiers
Time for some map nostalgia! When Star Frontiers came out in 1982, we were so excited about lasers and gryojet pistols that we briefly dropped our long-running D&D campaign like a hot potato and...
View Article“the stories it lets me tell with my dearest friends”
Sometimes it’s very nice to check your email: As we’ve gotten to the end of the year, folks are reflecting on the tabletop we’ve gotten to play over the last 12 months, and the standout for me was an...
View ArticleDo you remember Remember Tomorrow?
Remember Tomorrow by Gregor Hutton is a weird little game that you probably never heard of. It came out back in 2010, and it’s possible that it made less of an impact because on the surface it doesn’t...
View ArticleMy Mom’s a Mech Merc on Mars
I’ve been GMing a very hacked version of Lancer. Our setting has kind of a Cowboy Bebop meets Hammers Slammers meets professional sports vibe: pilots are professionals but it’s just a job. It’s not...
View ArticleWhat’s Making This Downfall So Good?
We’re playing a game of Downfall that has rapidly become my favorite. I was going to say it’s up there, but by now there is no question: this is the best Downfall game I’ve ever played. But because I...
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