I recently attended BurningCon, a convention devoted to the games published by BWHQ in Queens, NY: The Burning Wheel, Burning Empires, Torchbearer, and Mouse Guard are the big ones. BWHQ haven’t released as many titles as some publishers but their work continues to be some of the most influential in both my own gaming life… Continue reading Returning To My Roots: BurningCon 2023
Something that occurred to me just this year: having an encyclopedic knowledge of RPGs hasn’t actually made me happier. In fact it’s probably made me less happy participating in my hobby, because I don’t share the same assumptions as the players with whom I spend most of my time. It’s given me all the tools… Continue reading The Usual Suspects
Last week I talked about how I’ve finally jumped into the deep end of the online roleplaying pool. The game we’re playing is Adrian Thoen’s Impulse Drive, a Powered by the Apocalypse game in the spacefaring scumbag genre. It’s the first of many games I’ve played that has really captured the kinetic romp I want… Continue reading Deep Dive: Impulse Drive
I posted the 2014 edition of my ongoing “Best of the Twenty-Teens” series recently. In it, I called 2014 “The Year of the Trindie,” which got me thinking about what trindie even means. There’s quite a lot in that space as I conceive it: conventional (“trad”) power and resolution arrangements paired with unconventional (“indie” aka… Continue reading A Few of My Favorite (Trindie) Things
Another week, another year looking back at the 20-teens and what they brought to small press roleplaying. To recap the games I've focused on so far: 2010 was Apocalypse World, 2011 was Burning Wheel Gold, 2012 was Monsterhearts. All huge games. But 2013 brought one of my all-time favorites, which I continue to play today.… Continue reading A Decade of Indie Roleplaying: 2013
