Author: Paco G. Jaen

Roleplaying and board games reviews, podcasts, videos and interviews

Blood Moon Rising

For reasons I’ve never completely grasped, there have always been far more low-level adventures than mid- to high-level ones. I suppose it has a lot to do with the fewer number of variables in play when dealing with 1st to 3rd-level characters compared to, say, 9th to 12th-level characters, especially in old school RPGs, where mechanical balance isn’t a significant aspect of their design.

Cyclades–Your own Iliad!

There are a few themes which I love much more than most, and one of them is Greek mythology. When I was a youth, watching Jason and the Argonauts, Clash of the Titans, and reading the Odyssey made a huge, ongoing impact on my tastes and when I was told by a buddy, Matt Drake (www.drakesflames.blogspot.com) about a Greek-themed light wargame, I was thrilled.

Abandon all Hope

By Megan Robertson You might think that it was bad enough to be locked up on an automated spaceship and sent off on a one-way journey to an unknown destination in the company of people even nastier than yourself… but that’s only the start of it. Science-fiction meets horror meets prison drama in this game…
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Tommy’s take on Age Past Preview.

Age Past is an upcoming fantasy RPG by Jeff Mechlinkski, and I have been given the opportunity to preview the book. Now, this is just that, a preview…I won’t be doing a full review here. The PDF I was given clocks in currently at 253 pages, with some material still missing as well as several placeholders for art. The estimated completion date is September 2011, so I think they still have time.

Human Behaviour – Those Pesky Humans!

Dungeon crawlers come in many flavours; there’s your classic hardcore adventures like Descent, filled with statistics and many different coloured dice. There’s also D&D, of course, either in it’s ‘proper’ RPG form or the recently released streamlined variant that is Castle Ravenloft. If you’re after something a little more accessible, you could do a lot worse than hunting down a copy of the wonderful HeroQuest – one of the first ‘big’ games I ever got as a child, and one I still love to this day. I recently spoke with James Mathe from Minion Games, a new-ish company based in Wisconsin in the United States. We discussed what they’re up to right here (have a look, it’s very interesting!) and covered a game they put out last year called Those Pesky Humans. While it may look cutesy, it actually falls somewhere between the three games I mentioned up there – TPH is the very definition of not judging a book by the cover…