With most in-person events cancelled or becoming virtual, it’s no wonder that role-players are also taking advantage of online platforms to get together and conquer their high fantasy, sci-fi or more traditional Dungeons and Dragons-like worlds. We checked out the Roll20 platform over the past few months, and loved what we found.
Chris Spivey is best known for his award-winning RPG Harlem Unbound. Now this African-American war veteran is taking on the weird west with the Haunted West RPG, a game we hope to be able to play very soon.
Why can’t zombies write good music? They can only de-compose. And where to people buy their giant hammers? A maul. These and many other role-playing-centered witticisms can be found in the hilariously great A Dragon Walks into a Bar RPG joke book.
Going well beyond typical advice about improving role-playing games, author James D’Amato actually divides up various games by type, and then offers specific help to keep things interesting and fun. It’s a must read for any game master looking to level up their performance.
Captain Pike is the hero of Star Trek Discovery: The Enterprise War, a book that takes place in the brief moment when Pike was captain of the Enterprise, but before he took over command of the Discovery. It’s a good read and a straightforward sci-fi adventure.
Looking for a new boardgame? Titles like Munchkin, Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, and One Night Ultimate Werewolf are great fun, if you know about them. Bebo’s new guidebook picks 100 top games, and explains what they are all about and who should play them.
The Classic Game Design book is more than just a paper guide. It comes with a CD and all the programs needed to learn, step by step, how to code games that ruled the arcades during the classic coin operated era of gaming.
The studio behind the excellent Layers of Fear and the cyberpunk thriller Observer have crafted another masterpiece in Layers of Fear 2. This one delves deeply into a world of horror, and uses all kinds of sight, sounds and narrative techniques to portray its creeping dread.
Gamers should love the HALO book franchise, because it dives deep into the lore and the universe that is only lightly covered by the games. HALO: Renegades does this, while also delivering a compelling sci-fi story that stands on its own.
In the surprisingly not very radical Marx at the Arcade book, author Jamie Woodcock examines some bad practices in the videogame industry that exploits workers, and explores better ways of doing business that could also lead to better games.
