Browsed by
Category: Games

New Treasures: Warhammer: Lords of the Dead

New Treasures: Warhammer: Lords of the Dead

Comments 0 Comment

Warhammer Lords of the Dead-smallI really enjoy these Warhammer omnibus editions. They’re a tremendous bargain, for one thing. They typically contain 2-3 full length novels, plus the assorted short story or two. I’ve collected more than a few, and while I especially enjoy the science fiction offshoot, Warhammer 40K, the straight-up Warhammer volumes have proven to be a reliable source of modern sword & sorcery, most notably the tales of Gotrek & Felix, C. L. Werner’s Brunner the Bounty Hunter, and Kim Newman’s The Vampire Genevieve.

I’m extremely interested in the new omnibus Lords of the Dead, which includes the first two novels in the End Times series: Chris Wraigh’s The Fall of Altdorf, and The Return of Nagash, by Black Gate blogger Josh Reynolds, author of our popular series on The Nightmare Men. Here’s the description.

The fate of The Old World hangs in the balance. Heroes rise and fall as they battle the Ruinous Powers in a last desperate attempt to save the mortal realm. The Gods of Chaos only want total destruction and their victory seems inevitable……

The Return of Nagash

As the forces of Chaos threaten to drown the world in madness, Mannfred von Carstein and Arkhan the Black put aside their difference and plot to resurrect the one being with the power to stand against the servants of the Ruinous Powers and restore order to the world – the Great Necromancer himself. As they set about gathering artefacts to use in their dark ritual, armies converge on Sylvania, intent on stopping them. But Arkhan and Mannfred are determined to complete their task. No matter the cost, Nagash must rise again.

…

Read More Read More

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The D&D Adventure (Board) Games

The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The D&D Adventure (Board) Games

Comments 10 comments

Wrath_BoxBack in 2010, Wizards of the Coast (WotC) decided to put out a board game that replicated playing 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons. Now, 4th Edition was a debacle, but Castle Ravenloft, which was the first of four games in the Dungeons and Dragons Adventure Game line, is quite the opposite. It’s a cooperative dungeon crawl with set scenarios but random tile placement and in which the game itself serves as the dungeon master.

I’ve not played Castle Ravenloft (previously discussed here at Black Gate), which uses the iconic D&D setting. However, I am pretty familiar with 2011’s follow-up, Wrath of Ashardalon. Ashardalon is a red dragon and the party explores a cave system to eventually try and stop him. It was followed by The Legend of Drizz’t (here atBlack Gate), based on the NY Times best-selling books by R. A. Salvatore. I have also played this one several times. It looked like that was the end of the series, but last year, WizKids stepped in and in conjunction with WotC, produced a fourth installment, Temple of Elemental Evil (and also here at Black Gate). I own that but haven’t played it yet.

The games are all quite similar. There were a few changes in the first three, but I would say they’re at least 90% the same, maybe even a bit more. Temple added a campaign mode, (where you can keep items between scenarios!) that looks to be a notable change and one I look forward to exploring.

THE PARTS

Wrath_ComponentsWrathEach game comes with about a dozen sheets of interlocking tiles that make up the dungeon, as well as on average, 200 Encounter, Monster, Treasure and Hero cards that are the game play, plus tokens of various types. There’s a nice glossy, short, easy to read rule book as well as a similar Scenario book. And of course, one 20 sided die. But the real draw is the figures.

Each has about 40 heroes and monsters! They are not painted and all are reissues of official D&D minis. But where else are you going to get this many minis for the price? And you can always paint them or buy painted versions (I did that for some) if you want to jazz it up. For me, the components are well worth the cost. It all comes in a HUGE, sturdy box. I sleeved one game and everything still fits (though not in the same places). If you like to buy board games that come with a LOT of stuff, these games absolutely are the kind of thing you’re looking for. And nothing looks cheap: they use solid components.

…

Read More Read More

Legend of Legacy: Laborious

Legend of Legacy: Laborious

Comments 1 comment

Atlus has been one of the major players in getting unique and interesting RPGS onto the various Nintendo handhelds over the years: From the recent side stories of Shin Megami Tensei, to my personal favorite, the Etrian Odyssey series. However, not all of them can hook me, and today’s game Legend of Legacy is a case where thinking outside the box proved to be its undoing.

Legendof LegacyLegend of Legacy starts out as most JRPGs (Japanese role playing games) do: Mysterious setting, hidden treasures and a group of heroes on a quest, but the game quickly changes things up.

You can choose one person to be the main character at the start of the game, quickly meeting and teaming up with two other characters with the option to swap party members at anytime from the starting town.

The story is just a loose reason to go exploring, and the game allows you to skip cutscenes if you so choose. Similar to Etrian Odyssey, the main point of Legend of Legacy is to explore and build an effective party.

…

Read More Read More

Art of the Genre: AotG releases The Folio: The Roslof Keep Campaign

Art of the Genre: AotG releases The Folio: The Roslof Keep Campaign

Comments 2 comments
Folio 1-6 once again available in print!
Folio 1-6 once again available in print!

Today marks several large releases for Art of the Genre. The small press has recently restocked its The Folio: Roslof Keep Campaign books and now has them all available at their online store both individually, and in a package containing all 6 issues from 2015.

In a homage to TSR‘s Dungeon Magazine, The Folio combines incredible masterwork covers (featuring the likes of Jeff Dee, Jeff Laubenstein, Daniel Horne, Jim Holloway, Todd Lockwood, and David Martin thus far) that can be fully removed like the classic TSR modules of the 1970s & 1980s, along with detailed 3D maps, ‘Blue’ OSR maps, a fully formed campaign Gazetteer booklet and Dungeon booklet. Named for former TSR artist and art director Jim Roslof contribution to the cover of B2 The Keep on the Borderlands, this first campaign set takes characters from 1st thru 12th level in both 1E AD&D and 5E mechanics. If you’ve ever enjoyed campaigns the likes of Against the Giants, Bloodstone, or The Temple of Elemental Evil, then this is for you!

This series has been run exclusively on Kickstarter to this point so it is with great excitement that AotG now has the ability to offer these to all those who missed it. Copies can be purchased as a single unit or issue by issue, and remember all are in shrink wrap to keep them in mint condition. Interior adventures include: ROS1 Beneath Roslof Keep, ROS2 Tremors in the Machine, ROS3 Curse of the Violet Corruption, ROS4 Glade of the Burning Dead, ROS5 Deep Dive into Flooded Halls, and ROS6 Realms of Madness and Despair. The AotG website also includes digital bonus supplements for the campaign to help flesh out world and parties as they explore Mithelvarn’s Labyrinth and match wits against the Infernal Machine that drives it.

Coupled with the announcement of this release, AotG has also provided an incredible preview of two module trilogies for 2016 that can be pre-ordered with a Folio Subscription. Press releases for these promise the following.

…

Read More Read More

3 Days of Nemo

3 Days of Nemo

Comments 0 Comment

nemoSome years ago I brought the attention of Black Gate regulars to a nifty solitaire board game from Victory Point Games: Nemo’s War. (Here’s a link to my review of the original edition of the game.)

The Kickstarter for the second edition was launched several weeks ago and now only THREE days remain to join the voyage and pledge for a copy of the game yourself. All stretch goals have already been met (and quickly!).

The first version was a grand adventure where players took on the role of the famous Captain Nemo from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and explored the seas of Earth while trying to stay clear of imperial powers. Well, actually, there are four separate ways to play the game, and not all of them involve staying clear of those powers… You can play as an explorer, a scientist, an anti-imperialist (voyaging around the world and inciting revolutions to lend support to captive peoples) or as a warrior. What goal you choose results in different ways to tabulate your final scores as the days wind down. For instance, scientist Nemo doesn’t get nearly as many points for blowing up ships as warrior Nemo.

…

Read More Read More

Ravenloft Returns: Curse of Strahd is Coming

Ravenloft Returns: Curse of Strahd is Coming

Comments 2 comments
Dungeons & Dragons returns to the Ravenloft setting with Curse of Strahd.
Dungeons & Dragons returns to the Ravenloft setting with Curse of Strahd.

The rollout of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition has not been a rapid release of materials, as in some past editions, but a slower and more steady release of consistently good products, which focus on telling great stories over inundating players with new rule options.

I’m currently running my 10-year-old son and his friends through the Rise of Tiamat storyline – the first adventure released for 5th edition, spread across the two volumes of Hoard of the Dragon Queen and Rise of Tiamat. One of the more intriguing aspects of the storyline is a month-long caravan trip north to Waterdeep, with intrigue and subterfuge as you spy on the dragon cultists in the caravan without giving yourself away. Not necessarily the most natural storytelling option for a group of 10-year-olds, but they handled it well, and it gave an interesting change of pace for those who were used to more shoot-em-up style adventure play from video games.

While considering where to go when the dragon-themed plotline finished up, I was thinking of continuing with one of the other adventure books that’s been released so far: either the Elemental Evil storyline in Princes of the Apocalypse or the Rage of Demons storyline told in Out of the Abyss. Then came today’s press release that Dungeons and Dragons is releasing a new adventure module, Curse of Strahd, that returns to the classic Ravenloft setting.

Ravenloft is the classic, gothic horror setting for Dungeons and Dragons, and has long been a fan favorite. While the traditional enemies encountered are thought of as orcs and goblins, in Ravenloft these enemies look like pussycats (very ugly pussycats, to be sure), as dark forces and undead take a far more prominent role. Ravenloft is a realm where even an orc fears the sounds that come from the dark of the night.
…

Read More Read More

Wizards of the Coast Unveils Self-Publishing Site for D&D Adventures

Wizards of the Coast Unveils Self-Publishing Site for D&D Adventures

Comments 3 comments
d20
CC BY Janet Galore

Finally! A market for my Drizzt/Wulfgar slash adventure where the heroes discover the greatest treasure of all: love.

Wizards of the Coast has just announced the “Dungeon Masters Guild,” an e-publishing site for self-publishing D&D adventures and other content set in the Forgotten Realms. … The Dungeon Masters Guild seems similar to Amazon’s Kindle Worlds — a way that creators can be permitted to use licensed intellectual property and at the same time make a little money on it. In this case, the intellectual property is D&D‘s venerable Forgotten Realms setting. There are just a few restrictions on these adventures. The main restriction is that they must use the 5th Edition D&D rule set. Apart from that, they’re about what you’d expect — no offensive or pornographic material, no copyright or trademark violations, and nothing libelous.

Writers receive a 50-percent royalty, less than Amazon’s 70 percent yet recalling an earlier age when publishers regarded writers as partners and not grovelling slaves (halfsies was the same cut Melville received for Moby-Dick). The rest of the money is split between WotC and OneBookshelf, which runs the Dungeon Masters Guild site. Full story here.

Dungeons & Dragons has to be the most mismanaged IP in existence; its history is one long sitcom of bungling and idiocy. As the article points out, TSR spent much of the mid-90s sticking its fingers in the holes of the Internet spaghetti drainer, even going so far as to claim copyright over out-of-the-barn horses like “armor class” and “hit points.” It’s good to see WotC, in anno Domini 2016, finally join ’em instead of trying to beat ’em, even if they, like most publishers, continue to be the last across the innovation finish line.

Become a Trader Among the Stars with Merchant of Venus

Become a Trader Among the Stars with Merchant of Venus

Comments 5 comments

Merchant of Venus-small

In 1988, during the golden age of Avalon Hill, the company published an unusual game called Merchant of Venus. The title, of course, was a play on Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice… the game was set in a cluster of stars far from Earth, and Venus didn’t feature at all (It also had nothing to do with Frederik Pohl’s classic novella “The Merchant of Venus,” first published in the August 1972 Worlds of If, which featured the first appearance of the Heechee).

Unlike Avalon Hill’s other science fiction games — like Stellar Conquest and Alpha Omega — the focus of Merchant of Venus wasn’t crushing your opponents with massive fleets of warships. Players were explorers and traders in an unexplored part of the galaxy during a reawakening of galactic civilization, discovering long-lost pockets of civilization, and opening fabulously profitable trade routes. Playable with up to six players, the game also had an intriguing solitaire version, which featured action-heavy combat with a strange militaristic race. The Avalon Hill version was designed by Richard Hamblen, and has been out of print for nearly 30 years. Like most Avalon Hill games, it’s highly collectible now, with copies selling for $35-100 on eBay.

In 2012 Fantasy Flight Games, in partnership with Stronghold Games, released a deluxe edition of Merchant of Venus, with upgraded components and a two-sided game board. One side features the classic game by Richard Hamblen; flip it over, and you can play a more contemporary version of the game, with new rules by Robert A. Kouba.

…

Read More Read More

PC Gaming Review: Endless Legend

PC Gaming Review: Endless Legend

Comments 2 comments

Endless_LegendMy first experience with 4x gaming (“eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate”) was a 1989 fantasy game called Warlords. I have many fond memories of the Orcs of Kor and super-mobile wizards and played the bits out of it for about a year, in fact the game probably holds some kind of personal record for cost per hour in gaming in fractions of pennies. I’ve played them off and on ever since, and settled into being a solid Sid Meier fan sometime around Civ III. I’ve played just about everything he’s put out since. Frankly, he’s the king of 4x.

Sid’s throne is resting on an unsteady dais these days, as Amplitude, an upstart indie publisher, captured my imagination and my heart with Endless Legend. Legend is a fantasy 4x that expertly weaves ideas, art, and gaming interface into a synergistic RPG RTS whole that tests brain, bladder, and sometimes marriage (Me: “Just one more turn, hon.” Wife: “So, three hours, then?”). Auriga, the world of Endless Legend, is a place I have a great deal of trouble leaving.

It’s a fascinating tableau, once part of a high interplanetary civilization known as the Endless. They’re gone now – Auriga suffered some planetary catastrophe and the races are just now getting themselves back on their feet. While they have mostly forgotten their higher days, there are ruins filled with secrets that may give you an advantage as you rebuild.

…

Read More Read More

Packed Full of Fantasy Goodness: The Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls RPG

Packed Full of Fantasy Goodness: The Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls RPG

Comments 11 comments

Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls-smallBack in 1980, on my last day of my first year at secondary school in the UK, an 11-year old me saw a kid with a copy of the paperback Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook. I’d discovered Tolkien a year or two earlier, and, leafing through the book, the pictures of dragons and swords and — most particularly — the dungeon map and diagram of the Planes of Existence at the back both enchanted and fascinated me. But as an 11-year-old I hadn’t much pocket money, and on the first day of my summer holidays and clutching a single sheet pricelist catalog from Games of Liverpool, I spent £1.75 on the only thing I could afford which looked even remotely similar — a slim booklet called Buffalo Castle.

I had no idea what I was doing. When the booklet turned up at my house a few days later I realized it wasn’t even a complete game, but part of another game called Tunnels & Trolls — something called a “solo adventure.” Undaunted, I made up my own rules, played the hell out of Buffalo Castle, and made up several solo adventures of my own — and saved my pocket money for the rule book for Tunnels & Trolls.

Completely accidentally, I’d stumbled onto a path which would shape my whole life.

Fast forward 35 years (and try to say “35” quickly so you don’t feel it…). A couple of months ago I bought the newest and greatest ever edition of the Tunnels & Trolls roleplaying game, funded by Kickstarter over the past couple of years and only now hitting games stores and general release. Designed and written by Ken St. Andre, Liz Danforth, and James “Bear” Peters, and dubbed Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls, it’s effectively the 8th edition of the rules — but unlike many other RPGs, even this 8th edition isn’t too far removed from earlier editions, and if (like me) you grew up on the 5th edition rules, you won’t find yourself in too foreign territory. It’s very much the same game — just better.

…

Read More Read More