Author: Chuck Platt

  • Tabletop Review: White Dwarf #379

    White Dwarf #379 Publisher: Games Workshop Cover Price: $9 Page Count: 120 Get It Here: Your local game shop that carries Games Workshop products When it comes to gaming, Warhammer and Warhammer 40K are not my first loves but they might be my deepest. I have been a Games Workshop customer for over 15 years…

  • Tabletop Review: Vornheim

    Vornheim: The Complete City Kit Publisher: Lamentations of the Flame Princess Author: Zak S. Page Count: 64 Cover Price: 12.50€ for Print+PDF Get It Here: Vornheim: The Complete City Kit I read gaming blogs voraciously. My RSS feed is filled with OSR blogs and science fiction RPG blogs, blogs about the 80’s games of my…

  • Interview with Duane Fleck of Recruits

    Duane Fleck was kind enough to answer some questions I had about the Recruits Fall Convention in Lee’s Summit, MO, September 9th-11th. Chuck Platt: How many Recruits conventions have been held? Duane Fleck: I believe we are working on Recruits 18. Started in the Spring of 2003 as a GamesDay but since that name is…

  • My Favorite D&D Books: Aurora’s Whole Realms Catalog

    Aurora’s Whole Realms Catalog is a strange book to pick as my favorite D&D book of all time. Even people who were playing D&D when it came out have likely never held a copy in their hands, let alone read it. That is a shame. When it came out, every D&D release was a boxed…

  • My Favorite D&D Books: Oriental Adventures

    Oriental Adventures is a strange book. As with most of my D&D purchases, I got it used and didn’t have the exact rules it was made for. When I ran my sadly short Oriental Adventures campaign, I was using the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, Oriental Adventures, the Fiend Folio, and Monster Manual II. The resulting campaign…

  • My Favorite D&D Books: The Complete Book of Gnomes and Halflings

    The Complete Book of Gnomes and Halflings is probably not a book you would expect me to love. My favorite setting, Dark Sun, renders halflings as cannibalistic little monsters. There are no gnomes in Dark Sun. I generally prefer sword and sorcery to high fantasy. I hate elves. All of that is true, yet I…

  • My Favorite D&D Books: Dark Sun (2nd Edition Campaign Setting)

    The original Dark Sun boxed set was a revelation for me. My Dungeons and Dragons tastes evolved in a different way than most, pieced together from the BECMI (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master, and Immortal) version of D&D and whatever 1st Edition books I stumbled across. Since I didn’t read fantasy novels, my vision of fantasy…

  • My Favorite D&D Books: Fiend Folio

    The Fiend Folio was my very first 1st Edition AD&D book. I had started with the classic BECMI D&D books and moved on to the Jeff Easley covered 2nd Edition books. 1st Edition had a certain cache with me, due in part to age, but more to its weirdness. When the guy in my video…

  • Tabletop Review: Devious NPCs and Curious Creatures

    Devious NPCs and Curious Creatures Publisher: Troll In The Corner Author: Benjamin Gerber Page Count: 21 Cover Price: $1.99 Get It Here: DriveThruRPGs At a deceptive 21 pages long, Devious NPCs and Curious Creatures is a neat way to spice up a low-level campaign. While intended for Pathfinder, it is close enough to D&D that…

  • Tabletop Review: Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures

    Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures Publisher: Cubicle 7 Page Count: 170 Cost: $24.95 Release Date: 06/24/2010 Get It Here: DriveThruRPG When I received Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space, I received Doctor Who: Aliens and Creatures at the same time. I took care to not touch Aliens and Creatures until I was done reviewing…

  • Tabletop Review: Masks: 1000 Memorable NPCs

    Looking for some new characters to fit into a campaign? Masks has the answer! Find out how well it works here.

  • Tabletop Review: Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space

    Doctor Who: Adventures In Time And Space Publisher: Cubicle 7 Page Count: 262 Release Date: 12/18/2009 Cover Price: $49.99 Get it here: DriveThruRPG Licensed role-playing games have been good to me. The very first RPG I ever bought and played was the 80’s Marvel Superheroes game from TSR. Palladium’s quirky Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by…

  • Interview With Keith Baker about Cthulhu Gloom

    We interview Keith Baker about the upcoming tabletop card game Cthulhu Gloom inside. Check it out.

  • Tabletop Preview: Abney Park’s Airship Pirates

    Abney Park’s Airship Pirates Publisher: Cubicle 7 Release Date: August 2011 There are pedigrees and then there are pedigrees. For a steampunk RPG, I cannot think of a much more impressive pedigree than the credits for Abney Park’s Airship Pirates. Based on the songs of ‘Captain’ Robert Brown, some of which predate the band Abney…

  • Tabletop Review: Enemies of NeoExodus: Widowmaker Scarlet

    Enemies of NeoExodus: Widowmaker Scarlet Publisher: LPJ Designs Page Count: 15 Release Date: 07/20/2011 Cover Price: $1.99 Get It Here: DrivethruRPG This LPJ Designs product is set in their Pathfinder setting, NeoExodus. With a decidedly anime flavor, NeoExodus is a very different approach to Pathfinder. With only nine pages of text, this book is packed…

  • Tabletop Review: Kobold Quarterly #18

    Kobold Quarterly #18 Publisher: Open Design Page Count: 100 Release Date: 07/17/2011 Cost: $4.49 Get It Here: DriveThruRPG Like most gamers of my generation, I grew up reading Dragon Magazine. The saddle-stitched issues would usually lose their covers from being thrown in my backpack or piled on top of each other in my footlocker. When…

  • Tabletop Review: Mor Aldenn Creature Compendium

    Mor Aldenn Creature Compendium Publisher: Headless Hydra Games Page Count: 35 Release Date: 07/14/2011 Cost: $4.99 Get it here: DriveThruRPG There are a pretty wide variety of RPG books out there. There are core books and modules, setting guides and splatbooks. My favorite, though, has always been the monster catalog. The Monster Manual, the Fiend…

  • Tabletop Review: Faces of the Tarnished Souk: Brynhild Eirensdottir, the Shining Valkyrie

    Faces of the Tarnished Souk: Brynhild Eirensdottir, the Shining Valkyrie Publisher: Rite Publishing Page Count: 14 Release Date: 07/13/2011 Cost: $1.99 Get it here Faces of the Tarnished Souk: Brynhild Eirensdottir, the Shining Valkyrie is a 14 page PDF, including cover. Like the rest of the Faces of the Tarnished Souk line, this book is…

  • Review: Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls (Sony PlayStation 3)

    Labyrinth of Lost Souls is the first Wizardry game to come here since 2001. Has it aged well?

  • Review: Virtua Tennis 4 (Nintendo Wii)

    Virtua Tennis 4 Publisher: SEGA Developer: SEGA Genre: Sports Release Date: 05/10/2011 I have seen video games sold on the merit of their graphics alone. I have seen video games sold on the merit of their novel control scheme alone. I have even seen video games sold on the merit of their replayability. The one…