Trying Out: Mansions of Madness

Mansions of Madness is one of the games I have avoided intentionally. I had a presumption about it being a dull game of overly complicated gaming system and too much fighting the Mythos. Luckily yesterday proved I was wrong. After visiting a few local caves with Santtu and Sami we headed to my place and I got to try out the second edition of Mansions of Madness by Fantasy Flight Games.

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AI Rights, Bodies and Mortality: a Game of Shock:

To my tastes, science fiction in RPGs and television is too often about adventure and excitement. The scifi that grabs me, though, is about ideas and their impact on life and society and thought. Joshua A. C. Newman‘s RPG Shock: Social Science Fiction is built on this very premise. I tried it out with a couple of people I’d never played with, and who hadn’t had any experience with games as Forge-y as this. The experience was two-sided: fun and cerebral on the one hand, heavy and somewhat disconnected on the other. Continue reading

Trying Out: Eldritch Horror

Last Solstice I had the uttermost pleasure to finally have a group of friends with me to play some games influenced by the Mythos.

Since I hadn’t had the chance to try out Eldritch Horror before this I convinced the group to play that particular game. And it was as good as I had expected.

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Trying Out: Civilization VI

I’ve been a long time fan of Civilization games. I don’t know exactly how many hours I’ve clocked playing them, but in the last 25 years, I wouldn’t be surprised, if we were talking about more than ten thousand. Sure, the game has always had its problems, mainly that the endgame is always somewhat anti-climactic, but its still fun to try out different things with different civilizations.

So, of course, I couldn’t help myself and buy the game pretty much right after it was published. And, boy, was I disappointed.

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From 13th Age to Fate Core: Same World, Different Systems

13thfate2

I started a 13th Age game late this summer. I like the world and I admire the design, so I wanted to try it out. The sessions, however, were quite far apart, which was a clear signal that something wasn’t quite right. I wanted to continue the story of the characters and talked the players into converting them to Fate Core; now, I want to share my observations on how system matters. Continue reading

Sylvan World #1

use-with-dw-OnLightTwo years ago I ran my first Dungeon World-campaign and it was fun. But thinking back to it I might have not been familiar enough with the AWengine to make it the most memorable. I liked the basic idea in it though – it was a world entirely covered in forest.

This idea did not come up that too often in the few games we played. So when I started thinking about running a new campaign I realised I wasn’t done with that world. So last Saturday I got a new group together and started a new campaign with my favourite fantasy system. And this time we tried out it with Funnel World. Continue reading

Trying Out: Uncharted Worlds

spiliaprime1Short version: Uncharted Worlds is an Apocalypse World hack by Sean Gomes. It is a game for a space opera in the style of Firefly (amongst other things). It’s a complete game not requiring the understanding or ownership of the Apocalypse World by Vincent Baker. And it is a good hack with a lot going on.

Long version: After a number of times failing to get the group together we finally managed to sit down for a game of Uncharted Worlds. Sami (our GM) has been talking about this and has prepared for it by running the Out of the Abyss-campaign. He has even vowed to write about running it at one point. With 20+ sessions I would imagine he has quite a bit to say about it. Once he actually does it…
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Trying Out: Codenames

Cedric Phillips is a Magic player. He lost a game at a GP because he was playing this game I had never heard of and missed the start of the round. The name was Codenames and when I checked it out, its apparently very popular all over the world. In fact, so popular, every place I tried to look for it, it was sold out. So, I had to order it from abroad.

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Trying Out: Easy Roller Dice

While browsing Instagram for new things to follow I accidentally stumbled on a picture of metallic dice. As I have mentioned before I consider myself both – a dice-enthusiast and an “instrument athlete”, I was immediately intrigued by them. They were kind enough to send me a sample for review. So here we go! Trying Out: Easy Roller Dice!

Disclaimer: In all fairness I have to admit that I contacted the store and asked them if they were willing to send me some dice for review. And they did. So in my books they are awesome in any case! But this does not mean that you should howl them for dice. Keep ’em in business by supporting them and/or take part to their giveaways.

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Trying Out: Limbo

Actually, I’ve played through this before, but on PC. I happened to come across it in the AppStore, so I decided to try it out again. It isn’t exactly new (it was published five years ago), but since it was done by a small indie studio, many might not have heard of it (although it did apparently sell really well on some platforms).

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