I recently attended BurningCon, a convention devoted to the games published by BWHQ in Queens, NY: The Burning Wheel, Burning Empires, Torchbearer, and Mouse Guard are the big ones. BWHQ haven’t released as many titles as some publishers but their work continues to be some of the most influential in both my own gaming life… Continue reading Returning To My Roots: BurningCon 2023
Category: Critique
Deep dives backed by actual play.
Deep Dive: A|STATE
We’re deep into a campaign of Handiwork Games’ second edition of a|state here with no signs of stopping. I was just about to leave Forged in the Dark games behind but a|state convinced me to stick around awhile long. Let’s dig into how a|state redeemed FitD for me. a|state is available in PDF from DriveThruRPG… Continue reading Deep Dive: A|STATE
A Tale Of Two (and a half) Trophies
When is a game “published” anyway? Is that even the right word these days? “Released?” I’m old-fashioned. In my dumb head, a game isn’t really out in the world until there’s a dead-tree book available for purchase. Even if 80% of my new game purchases are PDF. Like I said: dumb head. There are two… Continue reading A Tale Of Two (and a half) Trophies
Tales of Xadia and the Limits of Canon
We played four sessions of Tales of Xadia over the past couple months. Tales is the first complete and self-contained game to come out of Cortex Prime, the third generation of the Cortex ruleset by Cam Banks. My personal experience with long-form Cortex play was a rough start with Serenity way back in the day,… Continue reading Tales of Xadia and the Limits of Canon
Fellowship: Close To Great
What is it about gamers wanting to find their Forever Game? That one game they’re always going to be happiest playing, the pinnacle against which they will compare all future games, the one they think about when they’re playing anything else. We just wrapped up a long, like around 20 sessions long, campaign of Vel… Continue reading Fellowship: Close To Great