Tag Archives: RPGs

Mythoard Tabletop RPG Subscription Gift Box: Because DMs Want Loot Too

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Subscription gift boxes have become incredibly popular in the past couple of years, and now there’s something for everyone. A new one called Mythoard caters to tabletop RPG players.

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Mythoard appears to have launched just this year. It’s run by a young couple in North Carolina and focuses on exposing gamers to DIY and indie RPG shops, who just like them don’t yet have the marketing resources and recognition of bigger brands. To give you an idea of what you’ll get from a Mythoard box, the beta bundle contained a poster and a smaller print from Metalweave Games…

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A sampler of dry erase map tiles made by Red Kobold…

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An exclusive adventure handbook from GM Games…

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A dungeon map by Dyson Logos…

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An illustrated post card by Aengium…

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Awful Good Games’ booklet of magical items for Dungeon World…

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…and a pair of dice from Chessex.

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Roll anything to hit this link and subscribe to Mythoard. Subscriptions start at $25 (USD) a month. You should also check out Bleeding Cool’s reviews of the Mythoard boxes for January and February.

[via Boing Boing]

What Games Are People Playing? The Orr Group Shows off Roll20 Stats

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Roll20 is an interesting game platform. It’s designed for you and your distant friends to get together, just like the good old days, for a session of a tabletop RPG. The difference is that you’re using a virtual tabletop that comes with a ton of digital apps and assistance. The Orr Group, which is the company behind Roll20, has released some stats on what its players are playing. Where is your game of choice?

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One of the things that the Orr Group mentioned in the report was that 10% of players identify as Warhammer 40K gamers, but less than 2% are actually playing the game on Roll20. The report says that this is puzzling to the group, based on the fact that 40k is usually played 1v1, but if you look at what is actually listed under “Warhammer 40k” on the website, it’s all RPGs that aren’t Dark Heresey, which has its own heading.

It seems that nobody is playing 40k, but that the Orr Group thinks that’s what this heading refers to. Notice anything else interesting in here?

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[via The Orr Group]

 

Bastile Day: A French Revolution RPG with Zombies

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The French Revolution was one of the most chaotic and bloody eras in recent memory, but that has in no way stopped game developer Post World Games from adding zombies just to spice things up a bit. Yup, those creepy sewers full of skeletons are now really creepy sewers full of reanimated corpses. HUZZAH!

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Bastile Day will use Post World Games’ original DramaSystem, which is designed to gamify not only the procedural scenes in tabletop RPGs, but also the dramatic ones. Pivotal interactions between characters demand use of a system in which a character designated at the petitioner seeks an emotional or social response from another character or group of characters called the granter. This is all governed by emotional ties included at character creation and a series of carrots and sticks that encourages characters to occasionally give in, just like real life.

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Bastile Day will also come with a built-in campaign that also sounds rather interesting, as a guy who likes a story with some good moral ambiguity to argue about and quote Aristotle over. The press release describes it thusly: “It forces players to work together against a gamut of terrorizing obstacles and moral complexities, begging the question… “are they villains or heroes?” Including a chapter laden with notorious NPCs, Bastille Day offers a game world that entertains, excites, and torments its players.” The game will be raising funds on Kickstarter in early 2015.

[via Post World Games]

Ultimum: Fusing Tabletop RPGs With Mobile Tech and the Internet

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Tabletop role playing games can be great fun, even if they’re a little clumsy, and about 60% of the first few sessions is spent paging through thick rulebooks. That’s not really much of a problem, especially not for the geeky among us, but finding a group to play with can be. It’s all good until you graduate college and it’s suddenly impossible to find anybody who isn’t awkward as hell. You wish you could play with your old friends, but it’s just not in the cards.

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…unless you’re playing Ultimum. It’s a new sci-fi game that can be played traditionally, with assistance from an included app, or over the internet, in the app itself. That’s cool, even if the name “Ultimum” really isn’t. The app can handle maps, character sheets, dice-rolling, and the works, which means that a group can leave the heavy book, and pile of equally heavy supplements, at home and just whip out their phones and tablets when it’s time to game.

Interestingly, players will also be surveyed about their games and the information of what they’re doing, where they are, what they’re fighting, and who they’re interacting with will get uploaded and analyzed by the developers, influencing the future of the setting and story. GMs who are feeling particularly creative are, of course, free to opt out of this feature. Ultimum is on Kickstarter right now, and it’s worth checking out.