Year of the Fans By The Warden Less than 48 hours from now, the year will come to an end and with such endings comes the tradition of looking back at the previous 364 days of 2012 and writing up a summary of how this year fared for roleplaying games, publishers, and their fans. Over the past couple of days, I’ve been going over old columns, news posts, and other tidbits of saved data, aiming...

Stress Testing By The Warden A game is not a game until you’ve broken it and put it back together. Amen. It’s a remarkably true sentiment and represents the blood, sweat, and tears of the game designer’s art, much like the trials and tribulations suffered by painters, directors, and musicians the world over. All games, good or bad, begin with an idea and evolve through a progression...

Dice Like No Other By The Warden You really have to give it to Evil Hat Productions and everything they touch. Simply from a marketing standpoint – and maybe an awards standpoint and a business model standpoint – they are perhaps the ultimate success story for independent publishers out there. And I don’t just mean those still struggling to make their games known and have actual staff and...

The Journey Continues… By The Warden Excuse me while I get a little teary-eyed for a moment, but today is a momentous day. One year ago this weekend, Under the Hood premiered with the first article, Initiative in the Computer Age. How fitting is it then that the inspiration for that first piece plays a role in this anniversary edition? That’s right, the Pathfinder Online MMO is back in...

Monopolizing the RPG By The Warden Last month, I bitched about treasure and expected some negative (or at least polite disagreements) feedback. Instead, it was in agreement for the most part, meaning I didn’t learn my lesson and now want to up the argument to another level. I hate money. Not just in my games, but reality as a whole. Everything runs on it and there never seems to be enough to...

NaGaDeMon: The Challenge with the Evil Name By The Warden There are two demanding challenges going on this month in Fantasy Land (AKA the Internet), each more daunting than the last: NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and NaGaDeMon (National Game Design Month). The first taunts each willing participant to write a 50,000 word story within the 30 days of November, while the second is an effort...

Racial Limitations By The Warden Look at this dwarf? What life do you imagine he lead prior to this portrait – a life in battle or one in peace? I’d like to talk about dwarves for a moment. I love these bastards and one of the things I love about them is that they’d call themselves bastards to their face while clinking two mugs of ale together in cheer. I’ve always appreciated...

Mo’ Treasure, Mo’ Problems By The Warden I’m going to make a confession, one that will not make me very popular. I hate treasure. Magic items, coins, crafts, weapons, armor, even packs to carry them all in. Perhaps if I actually walked into a room where piles of sparkling gold, silver, and swords glistened across my peripheral vision, I would be impressed and adore treasure again like...

Lock ‘n’ Load By The Warden Jonathan Tweet was talking about flat damage on the 13th Age website this week and offered up some positive arguments favoring the locked output of weapon damage rather than a random dice roll. The predominant point is the increased speed to the game (though I’m not completely agreeing with his thoughts on modifiers “slowing down” the game), but it’s...

Theme Mechanics By The Warden If you’re a frequent reader of this series, it is my duty to inform you about Indie+, an online RPG convention going on through Google Hangouts. Many games mentioned in this column will be available for independent fans to try out, including the Matrix RPG, 6d6, and my own creation, Killshot. Dates are posted through the link above and there’s loads of room for more...

Playtest Releases By The Warden I think we can all agree the market is absolutely flooded with options for the eager roleplayer. We’ve been talking about it for the past couple of weeks and as one of those desperate masses trying to shove yet another RPG down your throats, I have to admit it is fiercely competitive out there. Releasing a new game – let alone a supplement or adventure – is much...

Reading vs. Playing By The Warden Not but one hour ago, I finished running my first game of the Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game. It is also my last game as a Watcher. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast playing it and I was pleased to see the mechanics I had read and gushed over months ago come to life and fulfill exactly what they set out to do at the table. It was just a bit more complex than I...

6 Seconds By The Warden If there’s any aspect of roleplaying games which best describe the difference between how the game is played and how the game plays out, it is time. What takes us four hours to play out at the table really only covers minutes in our make-believe world. Even this amount varies depending on what exactly goes on in an individual game; playing out transition scenes of heavy...

The Wide World of Roleplaying By The Warden Why, oh why, did I choose to take a break in August? Over the previous two months, there was nary a story to latch onto for this column other than a few loose threads here and there related to a topic I had already chosen in advance. As the month of August approached, I told myself I needed a bit of a break to catch up on Killshot and a few more personal...

The Future of Sales By The Warden Selling your game means convincing at least one of a crowd to stop and look at your product. Then you have to convince them to buy it. Once you have a game designed, tested, and ready to engage a skeptical public, there’s still one last hurdle to overcome: selling the damn thing. And if you thought you busted your hump just getting a finished product ready, you’re...

Infamous By The Warden Let’s take a look at the big picture: there are thousands of different roleplaying games available. From popular publishers to independent systems to homemade remedies, it just may be possible to find at least one RPG on any topic, film, novels, series, moment in history, or comic book somewhere. And there are some leaving people scratching their heads wondering why it must...

Recognition By The Warden Writers – and by extension, game designers – are a rebellious bunch. Our goal is to make stuff up for a living and if we become successful, we can continue to make up more stuff. Our work is never real, but it becomes a quintessential part of a person’s reality for the few hours they take that fiction and use it to be entertained. Unlike the backbreaking labor of...

The Best of the Unknown By The Warden On Friday, the ENnie Award nominations for 2012 were announced. If you’re a publisher, one of two things happened. Friday was either a really good day leaving you tweeting like a mad dog in heat or you felt left out in the cold with the occasional condolence email for comfort. For the fans, the ENnie nominations are a perfect time to see our favorite games...