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Monster Manual 2 – In Depth #5
Now that it is nearing the end of 2009, at long last I bring you my final in depth analysis of the Monster Manual 2 and the creatures contained therein. While the book has been out for half of a year now, I still have not gotten anywhere close to usi...
Inq. of the Week: Friendly Local Gaming Stores?
Over the weekend I’ve done my fair share of video game playing, the most fun of which was easily several hours of playing four player New Super Mario Bros. on the Wii. With the great selection of new games that have come out this Fall, it seems...
Inq. of the Week: Video Game Playing, 2009
Last week, Bartoneus asked about what formats you watch your movies in. DVDs remain the king, with 86% of the vote. Online downloading/streaming comes in second with 52%, which I personally feel like is the way things are moving, and way better than ...
Inq. of the Week: Video Formats?
There are tabletop RPGs that focus on story? Seriously, how many people actually like that kind of stuff? I’m kidding, of course, but that’s what our Inquisition last week focused on – What’s your experience with story games/i...
Are You Watching Venture Brothers Yet?
About three weeks after the 3rd season of The Venture Brothers started, I wrote about it to make sure that anyone who hadn’t heard of it by then knew to check it out (Venture Brothers: Watch It). Now it is three weeks into the 4th season and I&...
Inq. of the Week: Story Games, Or Whatever You Want To Call Them
How often do you play? Once a week is the most common answer, with several times a month being a close second. I was surprised to see such a showing for several times a week: to all you multi-game night warriors, I salute you! And one lone person ...
Review: “Kobold Quarterly #11″
There’s a reason every review I see of the Kobold Quarterly magazine compares it to the Dragon and Dungeon print magazines from years passed, even opening a PDF of the book and seeing the cover makes me immediately think of seeing those issues ...
Pain of Campaigning: Literature and Adventure Planning
Despite stereotypes that say otherwise, gaming groups are not monolithic in their cultural consumption. Most groups have a few shared interests (anime, sci-fi movies, etc.) and a few niche interests (history, literature, comics, etc.) This can read...
Warhammer the Smart Way: How to Play the Game Without Emptying Your Wallet
The most common complaint associated with Games Workshop games is that they are too expensive. Warhammer and its futuristic cousin Warhammer 40,000 are wonderful games for many reasons, but their ability to drain money from bank accounts is legenda...
Inq. of the Week: Frequency of Play?
I have to apologize for the lack of an Inquisition for last week, with some of the things that have been going on for the last few weeks I didn’t even realize it hadn’t been done until Wednesday evening. Two weeks ago Dave posited a que...
Preview: “Draconomicon: Metallic Dragons”
Through an unexpected source, we were able to get our hands on an early copy of the sequel to last year’s Draconomicon, this one focusing on the metallic dragons. In previous editions, metallic dragons were good aligned, meaning that a DM would...
Preview & Review: “Primal Power”
Late last week, with a copy of Primal Power in hand, I decided to give people a chance to preview the book by asking questions that I would answer on Twitter as well as at our page on Facebook. Below I'll share most of the questions and answers from...
Leveling Up As An Inexperienced DM
I still consider myself an inexperienced DM. the 4th Edition campaign that I'm currently running has just passed twenty adventures and is the longest campaign I've ever run. Hell, it was the longest game I've ever run when it hit ten adventures back...
Inq. of the Week: Gaming Women
Gaming genres were the topic last week, and not altogether unexpectedly, fantasy came out on top, with 95% of voters saying it’s what they enjoyed. Second place, with science fiction, took 72% of the vote, which says I need to get in more Trave...
Our Ladies of Sorrow: Modern Gaming, Scary Women
To D&D players, it can take some explanation of why I like modern gaming and put it on my list of favorite gaming genres. I like that there’s no buy-in, and I find that it’s easier to pull off horror and weirdness stories since the ch...
Inq. of the Week: RPGs in Various Flavors?
I've really enjoyed reading Dave's posts about his 4th Power project and adapting the 4E D&D system to a modern setting game as well as the comments on those posts, but it's started me thinking about the genres of RPG that people play and in add...
Critical Hits 4th Blogiversary
Art by Jared von Hindman - Head Injury Theater So yeah, we’ve been doing this for roughly 4 years now. I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, but Danny and myself did want to send out a big thanks to all our readers. Our biggest joy o...
Making Your 5×5 Campaign Plan Into A Grid
Hello, my name is Viriatha from Bard of Valiant, and Dave was kind enough to let me talk to you about how his 5×5 Method inspired me to morph it for my own game. Maybe it’s the gamer in me but when I first read the post title “The 5&...
Inq. of the Week: Tell Us Your Critical Hit Story
We're coming up on our 4th anniversary this week (expect our usual yearly wrap-up this Thursday), and this year, we thought we'd do something fun. At gaming conventions this year, we asked our interview subjects about their favorite critical hit stor...
Review: “Fantasy Craft”
Fantasy Craft is a D&D 3.0 OGL full-service RPG that boasts a robust set of classes, innovative and interesting feats, and a refreshing skill-based system of spell casting. With systems for item crafting, downtime for players, acquisition of hol...
Inq. of the Week: Tears or tiers?
I have a small handful of polls that creep back into my consciousness every year or two and the few that I've done multiple times before have been very enlightening. On that note I'm bringing back a poll that I last ran in March of 2008......
In Depth: 4E Assassin and Q&A with Mike Mearls
Last week Wizards of the Coast released a new class for Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition called the Assassin, an exclusive class only available to subscribers of their D&D Insider service. I was very intrigued by this new class, so I asked if...
Review: “Revenge of the Giants”
Revenge of the Giants is the first WotC "mega-adventure" for 4e. It's also the first adventure put out by them for 4e that comes in hardback book form (with a double-sided flip map attached in the back) instead of the double book folio style. The boo...
Review: “Dungeon Master’s Guide 2″
For Dungeon Masters of all stripes, new and experienced both, the DMG2 is a must-have and will challenge the ideas of even someone who regularly dispenses advice on running RPGs (such as myself). This is the first 4e book that I can recommend to non-...
Inq. of the Week: Tiers of Play?
Dave and I both started running 4th Edition D&D campaigns when the system was released, now over a year later Dave's game is solidly into the paragon tier while mine looks to be entering paragon in the next few weeks....
Preview: Magic the Gathering – Planechase
While at GenCon this year I got to sit down and play a preview game of the new Magic the Gathering variation called Planechase that Wizards of the Coast is releasing September 4th. Like MtG except there is always one plane in play that drastically c...
Inq. of the Week: Cthulhu Who?
I believe it is too late for me now. With each new tome I uncover, the more I find myself drawn away from my usual realm and into a realm of insanity. Are you with me?...
GenCon 2009: High Level D&D Seminar
While at GenCon this year there were many events and seminars which I wanted to attend, but one of the seminars that I really didn't want to miss was the High Level D&D one hosted by Bruce Cordell and Stephen Schubert from Wizards of the Coast....
Inq. of the Week: Cataclysm?
This passed weekend was Blizzcon '09 which came with a slew of new announcements from everyone's favorite delayed publishing game company. (Yes, I'm still bitter about Starcraft: Ghost - No, I will not let it go until StarCraft 2 actually comes ou...
Review: “Dragon Magazine Annual”
When WotC announced that the venerable Dragon and Dungeon magazines were becoming digital-only offerings, the reaction was controversial. The magazines are only available in PDF, and to subscribers of the D&D Insider service. There is still no w...
