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Deathwatch (Review)

A while back, I did a review on a custom race for 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons, based off of the Space Marine. I said back then that it was overpowered and out of place, and it was. Literally the entire purpose of Space Marines is to be more powerful than anything else the GM would give the players access to, the better for them to survive in a world where everything else is equally…

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Bleach d20 (Review)

Not Enough Table has been running for about three years and change, at the time of writing, and thus far it has been a fun, horizon expanding sort of journey. Through the medium, I’ve been able to sample some of the most interesting, experimental and groundbreaking entries made into the venerable genre of tabletop roleplaying. From new methods of storytelling, mechanics of differing complexity,…

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Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game

Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game

I’m bad at video games. I made my peace with this realization many years ago, and have since happily settled into a comfortable den of mediocrity, where the hobby sits on the line between entertainment and something to make unproductive hours go away. Because of this, my relationship with fighting games has been roughly analogous to my relationship to grizzly bears. That is, they’re fun to…

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The Count of Monte Cristo (Great Literary PCs)

The Count of Monte Cristo (Great Literary PCs)

Nerds are like everybody else. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and what gets one going on a nerd-tangent can be something that might as well be Greek to another nerd (and if that nerd is a language nut, then all bets are off). Some people obsess over Star Wars, some obsess about Tolkien, some people obsess about overly elaborate manlove fanfictions based on popular television…

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How to Add Clocks to Your Next Zombie Apocalypse

How to Add Clocks to Your Next Zombie Apocalypse

Over the past week or so, I’ve been engaging in National Novel Writer’s Month, a yearly challenge to put together fifty-thousand words, during the entirety of November. Because I didn’t have an idea for the next Great American Novel to hand, as I usually do, instead I’ve been trying to add to the backlog of content here on this blog. More than likely you’ll be seeing this article months after…

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Ironclaw (Review)

Tabletop games can be a lot of things. Storytelling mediums, massive battle simulators, awkward and gamified ways to talk about your sexual preferences, the list goes on. What draws me, personally, to the worlds of different systems is the setting, as well as the kinds of stories that the system is built to tell. So, when I heard about Ironclaw, a game about the burgeoning middle class in a…

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Aces and Eights (Review)

A new RPG review rolls into town. This one's about the Ol' West.

Realism is a mixed bag. For the most part, people don’t really want it. They say they do, when their favorite game refuses to let them do something that they, themselves, could do in real life without issue. Or they’ll complain when people behave “unrealistically” in a way that disadvantages them. “Why do I need to have ranks in Climb to be able to climb a ladder?” “Why can the corpsec guards do…

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A Meaningless Waffle: Utility Spells in the d20 System

A Meaningless Waffle: Utility Spells in the d20 System

Consider the following:

Midday. The airship suffers a critical malfunction and has to make an emergency landing in the middle of the largest desert on the continent. Sand stretches for miles. The rations can only hold for so long, and any attempt to make the necessary repairs must be done under the merciless gaze of the sun. Strange figures watch on the horizon. Maybe they could be convinced…

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Machinesmith (Witch's Brew?)

Machinesmith (Witch’s Brew?)

Welcome, once again, to Witch’s Brew, the semi-regular feature on this blog where we take apart homebrew and third party content. This time around, I apparently decided to settle on new, unfamiliar territory. Not only am I planning on leaving the battered old dinosaur that is Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons for the less battered old wooly mammoth that is Pathfinder, but I’ll actually be taking…

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8-Bit Theater (Review)

Hey, guys. This is a bit of old content I’m pulling from a site I sort of half-made. It’s about DnD, fantasy nerd stuff, and unchecked cynicism, so you know it’s on-brand. The bulk of the content hasn’t been changed, though it’s received a bit of a paring down and some sentences have been strategically reworded. Enjoy.

I used to be really into webcomics, when I was in high school. As a kid, I…

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The D&D Meta

I was invited to play Warhammer Fantasy, recently. As I was looking over the career choices, I was engrossed in following career exits, charting out the growth of potential characters, and seeing the millions of stories that could be told. In that system, even the lowly peasant could be a viable character, one whose abilities are more organic and well-integrated than anything I’d seen from…

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Pokemon Tabletop United (Review)

Pokemon Tabletop United (Review)

Tabletop games are a mixed bag. There’s something out there for every single intersection of price, complexity, number of friends, setting, tone, content and presence/absence of full frontal nudity that you could possibly have, in your gaming group. Sure, there will always be the old standbys. Everybody will have a character or two on the back burner, that they’re ready to bust out for the…

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Shadowrun (Review)

I have friends.

I know, right? It’s crazy. With the tone of a lot of my earlier reviews, you’d be forgiven for thinking every single rule book I ever read was for a game that either went completely south, or never got off the ground, in the first place. It’s true, however, that I have a regular group of friends who I play games with. Mostly, it’s been Pathfinder, which is the reason why a lot of…

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The Commoner's Guide to Fighting Dirty (Part 2)

The Commoner's Guide to Fighting Dirty (Part 2) #d20 #Pathfinder

Life was tough, in the town of Walker’s Bluff. Kobolds were burning down farms and attacking trading routes, the town guard was sent off to go fight a war, with disastrous results, and the only people left who could save the village from the things threatening it were a bunch of apprentice laborers armed with leftovers from the armory.

As if that wasn’t enough, one of those laborers didn’t seem…

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The Commoner's Guide to Fighting Dirty

The Commoner's Guide to Fighting Dirty #d20 #Pathfinder

I started a new campaign, recently, with my old group. After the adventures of Maechus, the actor who turned into a spy who turned into a Chaotic Good whirlwind of vigilante justice (roleplaying!), it was time to retire the guy and start over with something new.

Our DM wanted to start the game off with everybody playing as Commoners. You know, those generic NPC types, the ones who usually get…

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On the Subject of Devils

On the Subject of Devils

So, I’ve been in the Dungeon Master’s chair again, recently. That means a portion of my time is now being spent in game prep, that time mostly being “the hour or so right before the game convenes.” Mostly, a lot of time has been spent browsing the bestiaries and whatnot, trying to find fodder for good encounters and interesting plot threads to throw at my party, all the while pretending they’re…

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Conan the Barbarian (Barney Sits Through a Movie)

Conan the Barbarian (Barney Sits Through a Movie)

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these. Well, to be honest, it’s been a while since I’ve done the only one of these I’ve done, since starting the blog. The other week, I did a review of Low Fantasy Gaming, a d20 system largely inspired by the old sword-and sorcery films and books that formed the cornerstone of early tabletop campaign settings. I may or may not have mentioned, several…