Category: Articles

Roleplaying and board games reviews, podcasts, videos and interviews

Starting a duet RPG Campaign

This column will focus on the process of starting a duet campaign, especially for someone who isn’t that experienced of a GM, perhaps even someone who has never GMed before. In many ways, duets are a great opportunity to try to GM. You have one player and usually this is a significant other or good friend who isn’t going to give you a hard time.

Agency in scenario driven eLearning

First of all I will make this very clear; I am a game player -a big, big games fan. I have been playing videogames, board games and role playing games since I was a child and they have had a massive impact in developing my imagination, my visualisation skills, my social skills and even my empathy skills. This is important for me to make clear since the start of this article because I want everyone to know that I am biased. Yes, I believe in games as a medium to develop healthy personality traits and interaction skills.

Urban Arcana

I played a lot of Shadowrun in my teens, and most of our games were set in a futuristic Seattle, so I’m no stranger to urban role-playing games. I’ve never played in an urban setting in a fantasy game, though, and that’s an itch I’d like to scratch one day, perhaps by visiting one of the following fine destinations:

Research Review: Article Investigating Factors That Impact Appeal of Board Games

By Jeremiah Dwyer

This is a review of an article published in the Journal of Consumer Marketing (2007). It is entitled, “An inquiry into the factors that impact on consumer appreciation of a board game.” It was authored by Alain d’Astous and Karine Gagnon, both of Montreal, Canada. Normally I review articles that have more direct relevance to psychology, specifically clinical or forensic (which I post on my blog). However, I also have an interest in blogging about other things (when I blog at all!), and that includes games. I figured I’d see what kind of research was out there about board games, rather than the usual things, such as examining whether video games lead to violence. Thus, one literature search later, I was able to identify a few articles addressing various aspects of board games that I thought might be interesting, including this one. However, this article is much more of a business analysis of board games and board game preferences, rather than a straight examination of the psychology of board games, so to the extent my understanding of particular business terms and concepts is lacking, I apologize.

Yu-Gi-Oh – The Game King

In 2009 Yu-Gi-Oh was named the top selling collectable card game of all time. The Japanamation power house has sold over twenty two billion cards worldwide to date. Things seem to be looking great for “The Game King”.