I wanted to talk a little about Far West, a RPG set in a Wuxia/Spaghetti Western world. I recently ran a one-shot of it and had a few thoughts. I'm not going to talk about all of the drama about the Kickstarter and troubled development of the game. If you're interested in that, you can … Continue reading Far West – a review of the kung-fu western RPG.
What’s #RPGaDAY2025 ? See the details here. Day 21 - Unexpected For this prompt I'm going to talk about a RPG I unexpectedly liked. The Cthulhu Hack I'm generally a fan of OSR games. I like trying out the different versions, comparing the various rules, seeing what each system emphasizes. One of my favorite of … Continue reading RPGaDAY2025 – Day 21 – Unexpected – A RPG I unexpectedly loved
Just picked up a free little indie game called Spice World by Aaron King. Despite the name, it's got nothing to do with the 1997 musical comedy (if you're interested in that, try this game instead) Spice World is a mash-up of the Traveller and Powered by the Apocalypse systems, set in Frank Herbert's Dune … Continue reading Spice World – a free, unlicensed Dune RPG
A self-described "lo-fi space western", Orbital Blues is a simple 2d6 system, in some ways quite similar to Traveller, with a lot more emphasis on emotional stakes. I recently ran a one-shot and ended up making some custom character sheets. The Game Players in Orbital Blues will be playing low-rent adventurers in a run-down sci-fi … Continue reading Orbital Blues: A small constellation of character sheets for the low-fi sci-fi RPG.
Lilliputian is a short(62 pages), rules-light fantasy RPG by Matthew Morris. It's based heavily on Into The Odd, Mausritter and other NSR/OSR systems. The game is intended to create seafaring adventures of exploration in a fantasy world. I recently ran a quick one-shot of this, and made some fillable character sheets that I thought I'd … Continue reading Lilliputian: A review and fillable character sheets for a fantasy seafaring RPG
From the 1960s onward, the writer Michael Moorcock has been writing in many different genres, but he's probably still most known for his character Elric, and the Eternal Champion series. The Elric stories, about the adventures of an albino sorcerer, heir to a dead kingdom, were a big change from earlier pulp fantasy stories. Elric … Continue reading Five Levels of Elric
The second edition of Barbaric by Stellagama Games was released earlier this year. I discussed the first version of the game in a previous post, where I also posted my custom character sheets. It's a high-fantasy, D&D-style game using the Quantum Engine rule set, which is a simplified stripped down version of the Cepheus Engine\Traveller … Continue reading Barbaric 2E: Mini-Review & Character Sheet
The Cepheus Journal is a free fanzine for the Cepheus Engine, the OGL-licensed RPG based on Traveller. I've discussed my love of this system in the past. Issue 14 of the Journal was recently released and thought I'd go through some of the highlights. You can download issue 14 (and you should) and all of … Continue reading The Cepheus Journal 14: A review of the free Cepheus Engine fanzine
I've been going through Sherwood, the new RPG from Richard Ruane. It's based around the various tales of Robin Hood. The most interesting thing about Sherwood, is that it's a OSR-style game that's not based on D&D. It's pretty clearly based on Traveller, the venerable sci-fi game, first published in 1977. I've posted before about … Continue reading Sherwood: A review and custom character sheet for a Robin Hood RPG
I recently ran a one-shot of Mouth Brood, a system agnostic science fiction adventure from Amanda Lee Franck. It's difficult to find in print, which is unfortunate, as it's a lovely book, but it's still available in PDF format over at DriveThru. The setting for the game is a mysterious geodesic dome in a remote … Continue reading Mouth Brood: Adapting a sci-fi exploration setting to the Cepheus Engine
Polyhedral Nonsense 