About those 3 crossbowmen: When “holding someone at gunpoint” like that, it is assumed that the bowmen have readied actions to fire if their targets make any sudden moves. If they’re not on edge enough for that, then the players still need to beat their initiative rolls in order to try anything underhanded. While the…

Sorry, it’s not a Christmas-themed entry.

I can relate.

This column is exactly the kind of content I want from the AV Club. It has been really entertaining (and educational) to follow along with. Now that the end is in sight, I find it rather bittersweet to see this series conclude.

Years ago, I was at a friend’s house and discovered he had the Perfect Dark remaster downloaded on his Xbox 360. A bunch of multiplayer, er, “Combat Simulator” was played, and a good time was had by all. The game held up; customizing the weapon selection+placement to make the match take on an entirely different style…

This week a lot of my free time has gone into Dungeons and Dragons, specifically the Pathfinder version. Pathfinder was created by Paizo as a continuation of D&D 3rd Edition after Wizards of the Coast moved on to 4th Edition in 2007.

What a shame that the underground river vanishes into the depths, and that your party won’t be able to recover your character’s body, to loot it for all that treasure. Oh, and to give it a proper burial. That too.

On another Minecraft kick. I decided to set myself the task of scooping out an entire lake of lava, one bucketful at a time, and I’ve been digging out massive mineshafts just to create places to deposit this lava, until the day I want it for a stronghold’s moat or something.

I know I can Google it, but I’d rather ask: What’s the goal of the Fallout boardgame? Are players controlling their own settlement, or their own scavenger? Do they win by leveling up enough, or collecting the most caps? I am quite curious how this translates between mediums.

That first Assassin’s Creed game is the only one I’ve played. I didn’t stick with it all the way to its conclusion, but I definitely had some fun with it. My understanding of the series is that each game tells you: “This game might not be worth all the time it asks of you, but fundamentally, if you like architecture,…

The innkeeper slipping something in the complementary round of drinks he provides to the returning PCs seems too natural to pass up. If they were drugged, you could tell the PCs exactly what the penalty to their Initiative would be if they were to try to break free at knifepoint, which might intimidate them into…

Mirage Block (containing Mirage, Visions, & Weatherlight) was actually the cutoff point I mentioned where Poison Counters, Cumulative Upkeep, Rampage, and Banding were all dropped from the game. The first two would eventually be featured one more time, but they would have to wait a decade or more to finally be…

I’d like to begin this week’s post by talking about Poison Counters.

There’s one thing that I learned about FFX from playing it the first time around on PS2, and one thing I learned from watching my brother play the rerelease.

Your mention of Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2005)‘s campaign inspired me to go look up its cinematics on youtube. It’s been years since I played it, but I really loved its framing device, as the memoirs of an old soldier who’s seen things you people wouldn’t believe. It’s the story of one of the first-generation clone…

There is an interesting contrast between awe and authenticity. In the former case, a game presents me with a big idea, something fantastical that couldn’t exist in reality, and if it’s appealing, I immediately want to steal that idea, to adapt it and use it in the things I make, like the magical plague rats…

It’s worth noting on this page as well that Desert Bus For Hope started its yearly run today! LoadingReadyRun are streamers/internet-comedians from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and they do this charity marathon stream every year where they collect donations for Child’s Play and play the game Desert Bus nonstop…

In video games, this is a tough thing to nail down exactly. Open-world games, particularly ones from Rockstar or Bethesda, capture my attention, but the worlds they create: why do I wander them? Because they’re there. That’s the only reason that comes to mind.

I think it’s more that the technology has caught up to the designers’ aspirations. Remember that when Half-Life was released, you either had seperately-rendered (and very expensive) cutscenes like most PS1 games did, or you had 3d models with static faces and hands trying to act solely with body language like most N64…

I spent the last year and half living in a different province, away from my old playgroup, with no inclination of looking online for another one. I have a long-simmering campaign idea that I never got to do before, that I want to get done in 2018 now that I’m back, but it’s not a certainty yet. Life ever gets in the…