reading
Stuff I’ve read and felt compelled to write about
-
Rust and Resolve: Why Salvage Union Might Be My Mecha Game
For me, a good mecha RPG isn’t really about the robots. Or rather, it’s not only about the robots. I’m not here for Gundam melodrama or lovingly tracking armour facings on a hex map; I’m closer to ABC Warriors than Wing Zero. I want players to feel how absurdly powerful a mech is in the
-
Snow Crash Synapses, Neuromancer Nerves: Which Cyberpunk RPG Actually Plays Like 90s Cyberpunk?
I grew up on flat black CRTs and dog-eared paperbacks promising that by 2020 we’d all be plugging our brains into ice-slick grids while wearing sunglasses at night. I then did a master’s degree in AI and, plot twist, ended up working in the bit mines where the cyberpunk future arrived without mirrorshades: inequality at
-
Mythic Bastionland: All Knights, No Homework
I have always wanted to love Pendragon. On paper it should be my perfect game: doomed knights, big feelings, generational tragedy, Britain drenched in rain and prophecy. In practice, the Pendragon Starter Set and I parted ways somewhere between the tournament rules and the very polite railroad of The Sword Campaign. The tourney and mass
-
Gothic Feelings, Urban Nightmares: Playing in the Shadows of Buffy, Liminal & Vampire
Like a lot of people who were young adults in the late 90s and early 00s, I spent evenings watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and hanging around with at least one black-lipsticked vampire enthusiast. I was not, it must be said, one of them. No eyeliner, no ink, no romantic belief in anything supernatural. I
-
More Than Meets the Shelf: Licensed RPGs in the Age of Too Many Games
At some point, I picked up a Humble Bundle of licensed RPGs: G.I. Joe, Transformers, and Power Rangers (all Renegade’s Essence20 line). This was not because I had a burning need to run a Power Rangers campaign, but because the price-to-page-count ratio made the lizard part of my brain clap its little hands. They now
-
Putting Down the Sonic: Why I Sold Doctors & Daleks
There are books on my shelf that say something noble about my taste and discernment. Then there are the others. Doctors & Daleks belongs to the latter category: the sort of purchase that clearly involved a momentary lapse of judgment, a credit card, and the words “5E” and “Doctor Who” in unwise proximity. By the
-
After the War – Space Bears and Trauma (Review)
I’ve owned Apocalypse World and Mutant: Year Zero for ages and, like a true GM, never actually run either. I like the idea of post-apocalyptic survival, but when I sit down to prep, my brain quietly puts on a trench coat and leaves the scene. So I picked up After the War, hoping its “rebuilding
-
FiveEvil – A Quick Review, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Fear 5E Again
Every so often I am reminded that Past Me cannot be trusted with a Kickstarter account. At some point he apparently thought, “You know what you need, as a person who has deliberately drifted away from 5E? A 5E horror game.” And then, months later, a perfectly handsome PDF arrived and Present Me had to
-
Conan the Hyborean Age – Quick Review
My take on Conan: The Hyborian Age (Monolith 2025), read alongside the old Modiphius Conan 2d20 and your usual S&S suspects (Barbarians of Lemuria, Crypts & Things, Swords Against the Shroud, Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells). The core engine is simpler than 2d20, spicier than BoL.Monolith Conan is: pick a Stat (Might, Edge, Wits, Grit),
-
Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game – Quick Review
Here’s my “first-impressions” review of Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game, taking it on its own terms and then comparing it to my current fantasy standbys. The engine is clean and decisive (dice-pool, target-under). You build a pool of d10s equal to a Characteristic (typically 2–6), roll them, then each die ≤ your relevant Skill
