How PvP Increases Role-Playing

When every player is actively engaged with every other player, this opens up the possibility for role-playing well beyond the conventional model of play. In conventional play, meaningful role-play is limited to player-GM interactions.  Sure, you can role-play conversations within the party, and those in-character negotiations can influence the...

Towards A New Model of Adventure Gaming

As this post goes live, the IP holders for D&D are doing their darndest to rip conventional play away from the hobby approach of “anything is possible at the table (as long as you adhere to story-arc driven narrative games)” and into a consumerist approach of “gatcha driven subscription...

2d Delves: The Campaign Games

In our last post, we covered the basic mechanics of Four Color Studio’s latest offering, 2d Delves.  Today, let’s talk about the campaign game. It’s what the kids these days call “procedurally generated” and “narrative”, meaning that you use random tables and just wave your hands and make up...

Mary Shelley Invented RPGs

Thanks in large part to the bros actively re-inventing and reshaping RPGs through experimentation, session reports, analysis, and (sometimes heated) discussion, the hobby has cycled back to the age old question of, “Who invented role playing games?” Other lesser factors contribute, of course. The upper midwest Boomer Crew is...

The Basics of 2d Delves

The title 2d Delves does not, it turns out, refer to the number of dimensions involved in the game.  That’s a good sign for a miniature wargame as those generally require the use of a third dimension.  Instead, the 2d relates to the dice involved.  Most of the melee and...

Hyde’s Reach: The Forces

The northern nation on Hyde’s Reach is just a generation or two older than its rival, giving it a bit of a head start in the economic development department.  Add to that the extensive agricultural lands and relatively recent discovery of rich silver mines in a mountain valley down...

Hyde’s Reach: A New Campaign

There’s a new wargame campaign in the House of Wargaming, and it’s in a genre that I’m not too familiar with.  Luckily, you don’t have to be to get started.  You can learn on the fly, which is a lot easier when you’ve got a guide like Henry Hyde...

On The Nature of Braunsteins

This post feels a little, as the kids say, sus. There’s a whole lot of journalism going on right now that is nothing but trawling social media and scraping comments from the bottom feeders in order to engage in information laundering. Here’s the process: Identify a narrative that runs...

By Semi-Popular Demand

First of all: big new project in the works. Expect a busy July. Second of all: Hitting the five-thousand subscriber mark over on the Wargame Channel marks a significant milestone. The interest is there, and growth continues at a steady pace of a thousand new subscribers every seven months...