Tag: Fantasy

12/9/15

Classic Reviews: Runebound 2nd Ed

Runebound might be the best adventure you can fit into one evening.  Players have the latitude to customize their characters and pursue their paths to victory, using a variety of strategies.  Build your own hero and save the realm, in one afternoon. ~

Brant Guillory, 9 December 2015

  • Pros:  Well-balanced, nifty movement mechanics, gorgeous.
  • Cons:  Little interaction between players, needs a lot of table space.

Some gamers love the intricate role-playing game full of soliloquies, conspiracy theories, and more character development than a British melodrama.  Others would rather dispense with the backstory, role-play an archetypal character, and kick butt.  In the early days of computer games, most fantasy ‘role-playing’ was the former, not the latter.  Runebound strikes me as one of these computer games, transported to a board game environment.

And don’t think that’s a negative in any way.  Some of the most fun I had in my teenage years was in front of Pool of Radiance and the Wizardry series.  These games were fantasy adventures, but not necessarily fantasy role-playing.  Runebound understands the difference.

RB-classic

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10/16/15

GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #79

GARPA invades your Friday with a mixed bag of gaming goodness.  Explore, rescue, store, and travel…  when all these preorders get delivered, of course ~

Brant Guillory 16 October 2015

 

Warriors of Japan (MMP)
Preorder $33, MSRP $44, made the cut

Built off the Warriors of God system, the Warriors of Japan takes us to medieval Nippon and gives a broad sweeping campaign rolled up into a 4-year period, with leaders changing sides, a gorgeous area-based map, and a new historical period to explore, Warriors of Japan probably ticks many of the boxes that are the reasons you’re a grog in the first place.  It’s been on pre-order forever but is now finally over the line, so jump on board while you can still get it at the cheaper price.

WoJ-Map

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09/18/15

GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #77

Hey now, it’s been a few weeks, so we thought we’d throw another GARPA at you.  Plus, y’know, we had it on the schedule and all…

Brant Guillory, 18 September 2015

 

Mech Deck (Patrick Fahy)
$19k of $75k, ends 1 October 2015

These guys may have over-reached with the funding goal, but it’s because they’re committed to the quality of the manufacturing.  “Manufacturing what?” you ask.  Customizable, multi-component, build-your-own mech-walker-battle-droid-giant-fighting-thingees (trying to avoid inadvertently violating someone’s copyright here, work with me).  It’s a hex-and-minis skirmish game, but with mech figures that you can literally assemble on-the-fly to customize your arms, torso, legs, and “backpack” (back of torso) to make your own mech and then duke it out for bragging rights, or beer.   There’s some card-based randomizing as well as a geomorphic map.  Stomp over to the campaign page and fire off your pledge.

g77-mech

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09/4/15

GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #76

OK, so we’ve got something completely different for you this week.

Brant Guillory, 4 September 2015

 

Hawk The Hunter (Terry Marcel)
$19k of $500k, ends 1 OCT 2015

Remember the old fantasy flick Hawk the Slayer?  Of course you do.  You totally plundered it for campaign ideas for your early no-prefix D&D games.  Jack Palance chewing scenery.  The hokey rapid-fire elf-archer effects.  The cross-necklace-of-course-it’s-a-hidden-knife saving the day at the end.  Well it’s taken them 30 years, but they finally got around to trying to make the sequel, and they’re kickstarting it.  You can start at $5, and score the RiffTrax quip-along, and top out at a couple of grand that gets you a part in the movie.  Why are you still here instead of pledging the campaign?  Oh right, you’re here to watch the movie.


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08/26/15

Classic Reviews: Enchanted Locations

Brant Guillory, 26 August 2015

Flip through it, and compare your needs to the price tag. But don’t just drop $30 on a book full of maps, because the B&W maps aren’t as useful as you might think, and the supporting information is sparse.

Yeah, it’s several years old, but I got it one summer at Origins. And there’s no review of it in the archives (ed note: “the archives” of the original site), so for a lot of you, Enchanted Locations may be new to you, too.

This book is from Fast Forward Entertainment, and was put together by James Ward, one of the “grandfathers” of the game. It is d20 compatible.

First Impressions

This book looks good. It chock full of maps, which gamers love. In truth, that’s one of the main reasons I grabbed it. I’m a map geek – a seriously cartography-addicted gamester. These maps are black and white, but detailed. There’s no index, but it really isn’t needed, since the table of contents covers all the big entries. However, an index might have been helpful to find specific treasures and/or encounters.

Digging In

Reading through the table of contents, you notice an imbalance of maps and encounters. Although there are about 75 maps spread across levels 2-21, there are very few low-level maps. I happen to like lower-level games; the balance of survival and heroism to me is more entertaining than power-blasting your way through every encounter. Continue reading →