scormey

[scormey]

A mostly digital future?

Note: I���m writing this a month in advance, but I doubt the Trump Trade Wars have gotten any better by the time this is published, so… Let’s face it: Everything sucks, especially in the Tabletop Roleplaying scene. It doesn’t matter if you are a big publishing house, or a small indie developer, Trump’s trade wars with, well, everyone else, have made doing business very difficult. Paper is more…

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Off The Shelf: Fireborn

So, I said I would eventually get around to covering a game that I really don’t like, and today is the day! “Fireborn” sucks! Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. Seriously, though, I am not a fan of this game. I want to like it, I really do. I bought the Players Handbook and Gamemasters Book for this TTRPG years ago, at my wife’s request. We both agreed that the game art was beautiful, and it…

[scormey]

Back to Youtube?

So I was chatting with a few folks on Reddit recently, regarding the level of gaming discourse on Youtube. Specifically we were talking about coverage of “Starfield”, but other games as well, and how negative videos about certain games do better than positive ones. It all comes down to the algorithm, which favors videos that enflame passions in the viewer, so negative videos tend to be favored by…

[scormey]

Happy Anniversary, Baby!

I’m taking this week off, as this is when My Lovely Bride™ and I celebrate our wedding anniversary! We’ve been together for 31 years now (seriously!), and are happier now than ever before! So, rather than posting something here, we’re off taking day trips with our two pooches, playing video games, and generally just enjoying each other’s company. No worrying about work, this website, or anything…

[scormey]

Killer Red Panda on the Loose!

I like to think that I’m a pretty nice guy, when you get right down to it. Sure, I’m opinionated, especially when it comes to politics, but I don’t go around wishing harm to others. That would be ridiculous, even if they absolutely suck (as in Trump and the MAGAts). Now, I have a long commute to and from work. It is about an hour to get to work in the evening, and upwards of 90 minutes to get…

[scormey]

Just a quick hit of Crowdfunding

As of this post, I have been clean for not quite twelve weeks. I haven’t backed anything on a Crowdfunding service like Kickstarter or Backerkit since early February. I can’t recall the exact date, my last few days backing Tabletop Roleplaying Games via Crowdfunding sites are a bit of a blur. But I’ve picked myself up, brushed myself off, and am ready to embrace my sobriety… for good, this…

[scormey]

This was "Game of the Year"?

First things first: I really like “Balatro”. It is a very fun Poker-based card game, with lots of additional rules and modifiers that keep the game fresh. I and my sweetie have found ourselves playing it for hours on end, where I’m at the controls, and she making suggestions on what hand to play, and so on. Like I said, it’s fun. But it isn’t “Game of the Year” material. I know that everyone has…

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Off The Shelf: Star Wars 2nd Edition

I really need to cover a game out of my collection that I outright hate… but this is not that game! “Star Wars 2nd Edition, Revised and Expanded” from West End Games (WEG) is easily one of my top five tabletop roleplaying games of all time. Considering I own roughly 300 games, and have played most of them, as well as many that I don’t own, that is indeed saying something. But let’s get into why…

[scormey]

Hypocrites & Hippogriffs

So I’m thinking of buying the core books for “Dungeons & Dragons” 2024 Edition. Really. That’s it. Now I’m fully aware that for the last couple of years I have railed against the corporate machine that is Wizards of the Coast, the makers of D&D since the 3rd edition. They are objectively bad for D&D, bad for tabletop gaming in general, just plain bad. And what of Hasbro, the corporate overlords…

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Avowed? AWOWed!

So apparently “Avowed” sucks. That’s news to me, as I’m enjoying the hell out of it! Okay, I did notice there was a potential issue with this fantasy game from Obsidian (if you don’t recognize this company for its back category of amazing RPGs, then I can’t help you). What was that problem? During character creation, you get to choose whether or not they prefer to be referred to as “He”, “She” or…

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Off The Shelf: Vampire the Masquerade

From an obscure, extremely niche game last month in “The Whispering Vault”, today I bring you one of the most enduring and mainstream “horror” games of the last 35 years… “Vampire: The Masquerade”. And when I say we’ll be talking VtM, I mean old-school “Vampire”. I only own and have played 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition, and I outright refused to buy or play any of the “New World of Darkness” (nWoD)…

[scormey]

Why do they ruin everything?

So my wife and I love movies, and have a shared fondness for superhero films. We prefer Marvel over DC for the most part (except for Burton and Nolan’s Batman films), but unless they are just gawd-awful (live-action “Spawn”), we’re watching it. That said, we’ve fallen a bit behind recently. There has been a lot of hate thrown at certain films and shows, mostly of the Marvel and Star Wars variety,…

[scormey]

Into the... Microtransactions

I love “Starfield”. I have loved the game, warts and all, since it launched in September 2023. I have played the game nigh religiously for the better part of 18 months now, and have no intention of stopping anytime soon. Why? Mods, or as Bethesda likes to call them, “Creations”. Now Bethesda has added in many bug fix patches and content updates into the game over the last year or so, but by far,…

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Off The Shelf: The Whispering Vault

So today I’d like to talk about one of my favorite tabletop roleplaying games of all time: “The Whispering Vault”. This game of creepy, cosmic horror came out in 1994, but I didn’t get a copy until a couple of years later, as I have the 1995 second printing. This softbound game may seem rather plain in appearance, at first glance, and also rather slim, at only 140 pages, but oh what wonders await…

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AI rolls a 1

Okay, so this is stupid. Techbros keep leaping onto the “next big thing” in technology, and keep trying to cram it down all of our collective throats, so they can get rich off of whatever it might be. In recent years, there was Cryptocurrency, because I know that what I want to invest all of my money into is some decentralized currency that is backed by nothing, based upon nothing, and can…

[scormey]

What I'm Looking For In The Nintendo Switch 2

Since we don’t know much about the Nintendo Switch 2, I think now might be a good time to engage in some speculation about the hybrid console. I’m not asking for much, but I do have a few… personal expectations… for the Switch 2. Now then, as a bit of a baseline, let’s talk about what we do know about the system. We know it is larger than the current system, has re-engineered joycons that appear…

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Off The Shelf: Feng Shui 2

This series takes a look at random tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs), taken from my prodigious collection of physical tabletop roleplaying games. Some you may know, others you may not. Some will still be available in print, others… not so much. Not all of these articles will be positive, but most will. Now, with all that said, let’s begin. “Feng Shui 2” is a TTRPG by Robin Laws, published by…