I've only read the first two issues and it's been a while. It's kind of a pastiche of Cthulhu Mythos stories that the protagonist walks in on while researching something involving his lover after he committed suicide in a public suicide booth ala Robert Chambers. I haven't read Neonomicon, but I think it's meant as a…

I had all these intentions to finish games and I keep starting new ones and revisiting old ones. Fallout 4 has fallen by the wayside and I got back into Bloodborne for a little while, just to try out a nice, simple axe/kirkhammer character. I've gotten to the Forbidden Woods, which is when the game starts to become a…

From what I can remember, early D&D dungeons often had a good deal of empty rooms in them. Sometimes it was to pad out a map and give it a sense of serving more purpose than just housing traps, treasure and enemies. But the other factor was that the adventurers needed those easily defended spots to rest and…

I wasn't too impressed with Hoard of the Dragon Queen, personally- though it could just be that the art for the half-dragons really through me off. I'm running Princes of the Apocalypse and I'm finding it to be fairly fun, but I think it's also pretty poorly organized. And while the big bad guys are all interesting…

Yeah, I miss how funny the original games could be- even though Fallout 3 did have some funny/dark/creepy bits here and there (like the Vault of Garys).

I've been enjoying Fallout 4 much more lately than I did when the game first came out. I still think New Vegas is my favorite, but there's a lot to like about 4 now that I've spent more time with it and engaged with different factions. I'm at the point where I'm wondering if I want to push the main quest forward by…

That song is just the gift that keeps on giving.

Yeah, I wish the bosses had a little more of that Dark Souls weirdness sometimes. Only one in particular late in the game stands out as having that great WTF aspect that Gaping Dragon and other bosses had in the first one. But I personally did quite enjoy Dark Souls 2, warts and all.

When Diablo 3 first came out, I was lukewarm on it at best. I liked it a good deal more when the Reaper of Souls expansion came out and I was getting good loot for my class (I also really really like the Crusader class), which is the whole reward cycle of the loot treadmill. It became much much more fun when I got it…

On the other hand, "Abyss" seems like a lot of homework to run smoothly but there are a ton of points that will shape up as cool moments and I think the plotting is a little stronger. And I just like Underdark stuff, personally.

I think the sandboxy nature of Princes isn't our style; the PCs have run into similar situations in getting over their heads before and gotten out of it- which was a highlight of the campaign, though it wasn't scripted. I think Princes just wasn't that well designed, in my opinion, beyond having some pretty memorable…

D&D has been sidelined for a bit for attendance issues, so the fate of our party in the Princes of the Apocalypse campaign still hangs in the balance. Does it make me a bad DM if I kind of want the party to wipe so we can play Out of the Abyss (a campaign I'm a lot more psyched about)? This is the highest level…

"The Rats in the Walls" is my father's favorite from when he was younger and I like that one a lot. I think "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" is his strongest, though- the chase from the hotel was genuinely nerve-wracking when I read it and it comes together really well. I do love "The Thing on the Doorstep" as well and…

I've never once finished a campaign. Sometimes, I'll admit, it's because a monster was just too powerful (there's a monster in Rise of the Runelords that was far more powerful than it should have been for where it was in the campaign, for instance) but a lot of the time it comes down to players that won't back away…

As far as video games go, I'm kind of all over the place. I play Icewind Dale or Rimworld while I listen to a podcast and that's pretty relaxing but it doesn't feel too substantial. I still have to finish Wasteland 2 and just get it outta there but part of me wants to jump back to Fallout, even though Fallout 4 didn't…

Last weekend's Princes of the Apocalypse D&D game ended on a cliffhanger; since the PCs have found the connective tissue between the various cult strongholds, they've opted to just go straight for the portals instead of going for the temples first. It's managed to work out fine for the air and water portals, even…

Nice, I wish my group was into Call of Cthulhu. The Trail of Cthulhu campaign, Eternal Lies, is one of my favorite RPG campaigns I've read but there's no way my players would stick with it.

Would you say that you miss him badly enough to purchase a Phil Hartman coloring book? Don't balk, it's the only thing keeping the publishing industry going!

Between flying out to a wedding over the last weekend and July 4th the previous weekend, I didn't have a ton of time for games and D&D has been put off for the past two weeks. I'm hoping to have a little alone time this week to play something for a few hours, but I'm not sure exactly what to get into.

On the one hand, I completely sympathize that the Staff could really mess things up in-game. It gives more spotlight time to one PC, it does a lot of high-level stuff, etc. On the other hand- it is nice to let the players enjoy their new toy for a little while, especially since they fought so hard for it.