Category Archives: Reviews

Review: Würm RPG

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Having just finished Far Cry: Primal I am totally in the mood for a Palaeolithic and tribal roleplaying. Searching for a game suitable for this kind of a story proved more difficult though than I had anticipated. After coming into conclusion that either was no such game or none of them were very good I stumbled on the Würm (funded via Kickstarter and co-published by Nocturnal).

Summary: Having (only) read the rulebook I have to say that it has some excellent ideas as well as interesting ideas and at least is an excellent tool box for any game set in this kind of environment.

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

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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

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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

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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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Review of HARP Loot, sort of

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I was asked to write about this book, but after skimming through it, it felt like just an accessory to a completely unnecessary game. I recently stumbled on this great notion by Oren Harari.

The electric light did not come from continuous improvement of candles.

This book feels like a continuous improvement of candles, when we are already living in a world with electric lights. And yes, despite some romantic notions, electric lights are better, more cost-efficient and better for the environment. Oh yeah, and you can use them for reading for extended periods of time without going blind. So, my discussion on this book isn’t going to be a usual review. Instead, I’m going to try to use the conceit of having a dialogue with my 12-year-old self, who would have loved this book. Gladly, the world has moved on, myself included.

(With thanks to Ville for coming up with this idea.)

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

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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

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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 →

From Kickstarter: Loot

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9c551d727b15f475c09a3c7ab821a45f_originalWhile browsing our IG feed I came across an card pack that looked interesting – it featured a magic sword with stats and art. Since I was brewing a new Dungeon World campaign (more about that later) it sparked my interested and found out it was a part of a Kickstarter campaign. Since we have been occasionally discussing with Aki and Ville about occasionally reviewing Kickstarters I thought this would be a great place to start.

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Trying Out: Uncharted Worlds

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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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Review: A Dozen Dungeons by Miska Fredman

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adozendungeons_cover_thumbnailLast November I stumbled on Miska Fredman‘s Instagram account and noticed he was drawing maps with #Mapvember. I got hooked. I even draw some maps myself too and Aki wrote about automated map generation.

Since then Miska has gone on Patreon and is drawing maps in addition to his job as the founder of Ironspine (Finnish rpg publisher). It seems like his map drawing has really paid off. At the end of August he published a neat booklet called A Dozen Dungeons (link to DriveThruRPG).

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