by Spirit of 70

Great review! I have a preference for Fantasy RPGs having a form of commonly known magic that is available to the players, and other forms of magic that aren't accessible or immediately understandable to the players, and I love that both Cidri and this supplement make room for that idea.

by Farydia

An item RPG Item: Return to the Tomb of Horrors has been added to the geeklist 2026 Annual Geek Review Challenge

A new episode has been added to the database: Deadlands Episode 24- Circles ‘R Us

A new episode has been added to the database: 695 DnD Go Away or Die

by Thomas King

Despite how long it’s been, there isn’t an overwhelming number of games. We had a few missed days, and one of our days got turned into a movie day instead since the person who picked that day wasn’t feeling liking picking a game.

I was actually the one who recently suggested that if there’s time and no second/third game picked, we could watch a movie instead. I’ve been trying to make more of an effort to watch stuff lately (I’m not as much of a movie person as I used to be), and one of our players use to be huge into movies before board games became his main hobby. And there are tons of movies we’ve talked about watching, but never got around to organizing a movie night (travel distance is a little inconvenient).

In other news, I’m still making the finishing touches on Winds of the North, and I’m really happy with where it’s at and how these last adjustments improve things overall.

Games Played

>>For the full post with photos, head here!<<

BattleTech TCG
Star Wars: Unlimited
Magic: The Gathering
The One Ring
Xia: Legends of a Drift System
Viticulture Essential Edition
London (Second Edition)
스플렌더: Pokémon (Splendor: Pokémon)
The Vale of Eternity
Wasteland Express Delivery Service
Tiny Epic Game of Thrones
Vantage
Star Wars: Outer Rim
Revive
Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island
Earthborne Rangers
Doggerland


BattleTech CCG

This was our first time with the new fan-made decks. They were certainly more fun than the random pile of cards I had previously! This was our closest game yet, easily. My friend is still getting the hang of it, but has come a long way.

I’m glad I went ahead and bought a bunch right away. These will last me a long time.

BattleTech CCG: 9/10. A favorite.

Star Wars: Unlimited

We played our “new” sealed decks (we’re quite behind the releases, but that’s okay). I’m really enjoying the theme and gameplay of pilots.

It’s kind of funny that SW:U and Gundam ended up doing almost the exact same mechanic for their pilots, which are like old-school Magic creature enchantments. But modern games have reined in removal, so it’s less punishing. Pilots are also generally pretty cheap to play, and in SW:U, you can easily gauge when it’s safer to play one.

I’ve got a box of the base set waiting in the wing, and we both want to play some of Secrets of Power. The political stuff sounds interesting, and we both loved Andor.

Star Wars: Unlimited: 9/10. Still going strong for me.

Magic: The Gathering — Avatar: The Last Airbender

This was my friend’s first taste of Magic, and the first paper match for me in many years. We played a quick round with the demo decks before mixing jumpstart decks. These are, of course, very under-powered decks and easy to pilot. I had considered getting a box, but I don’t know that Magic is going to hit the table that much. Maybe some other time.

Magic: The Gathering: 8/10. A classic game and excellent set.

The One Ring RPG (Strider Mode)

I continued my solo campaign. This session was the journey session. A really good roll got me there in just two attempts. I did a bit of journaling of the travel and setting the scene of my arrival, but next time is the confrontation with the antagonist of the adventure. I’m hoping that once I’ve gotten Winds of the North finished, I’ll have more time for TOR.

The One Ring with Strider Mode: 10/10. One of my new favorites that I can’t wait to get back to.

Xia (plus expansions)

This moved up to my brother’s #1 game, so it’s hit the table frequently. The expansions help a lot by smoothing the chaos and giving the player more agency. It’s still a lot of randomness, and the missions are still a huge pain to try and do, unfortunately. For two of us, it’s a fine game but still a pretty rough experience. Some games, we don’t really get to play.

Xia: 7/10. It’s fine but I wonder if this one might slip down to a 6 for me.

Viticulture (plus Tuscany)

Despite how often my friend picks this game and obsessed over it at one point, it’s not even in his top 25 (though I’ve ribbed him on his ranking practices before). For me, I really enjoy several aspects of it, and Tuscany improves a lot. However, card draws are still going to be quite swingy, especially for how powerful the cards are. We played with an alternative deck, and I liked how the cards worked; there were a lot fewer ways of just accumulating points through cards, and more focus on actually making and selling wine. I look forward to trying the new board, as well.

Viticulture: 7/10. A solid game, even if it’s not one of my favorite themes.

London 2nd Edition

We’ve played this one a few times, and I still enjoy how clean it is for a pretty crunchy economic game. The poverty cubes got me this time. I just couldn’t get the cards I needed to get it under control.

London: 7/10. A quick, crunchy economic game.

Splendor: Pokémon

This was our second game of the Pokémon version. I love what this version does to Splendor to add a bit more theme and more interesting decisions. I’d love an expansion to it, but I don’t see that happening. I really wanted to get a venusaur but wasn’t able to get things lined up just right.

Splendor: Pokémon: 7/10. A much more fun version.

Vale of Eternity (plus Artifacts)

We properly finished a game this time instead of getting to 98% of the way there. It was a close game this time. My combos were slow to get going and were earning me smaller points instead of huge points. My friend had one combo he was doing all game to replay a card for 6 points every round. Artifacts definitely adds more depth to the game, but does slow it down quite a bit as well.

Vale of Eternity: 8/10. A really fun card game all about combos with a unique economy.

Wasteland Express Delivery Service

My brother was still on his pick-up-and-deliver kick, so this one came back out. This was also a close game, with my friend being just one turn behind me for winning.

Even though my brother really likes the game, we all agreed that the map didn’t need to be so modular. It’s fiddly to set up, and the level of modularity doesn’t really add that much to the game. Most spaces are just spaces to travel through. Unlike most pick-up-and-deliver games, especially ones with a more adventure theme, there’s little interaction with the map. Just occasional radiated spaces or raiders, but most of the time, it’s all easy to avoid.

Wasteland Express Delivery Service: 7/10. Fun but nothing that really stands out.

Tiny Epic Game of Thrones (co-op)

This series of games lost me a long time ago. There are some early ones I’d try, and we tried Tiny Epic Galaxies (thought very little of the base game, haven’t tried the expansion yet), but none in recent years have looked interesting. But my friend is a MASSIVE GoT fan, so he had to get this and give it a try. We played co-op since my brother won’t like the normal mode.

What a disaster. The rules are such a mess, and the co-op mode is so wishy-washy with a lot of its language. You’d swear the co-op mode was made by someone else long after the game came out, not made at the same time by the same people. So many cards were hard to interpret for the co-op mode. We played for like 2+ hours and had barely gotten anywhere. I think this is the only game we had to just give up on part-way through?

Tiny Epic Game of Thrones: a generous 5/10. Could be less tiny, more epic, and with better rules.

Vantage

I needed some RPG-adjacent adventuring, and Vantage is about as close as you can get.

For the second game in a row of Vantage, I somehow found a boat to steal (different boat, too!). This old lady ended up doing a fair amount of stealing, and just at the very end, I found some sort of thieves’ hideout (numbers are censored, so no spoilers). We escaped on a repaired ship.

Vantage: 8/10. A great open-world exploration adventure. Not particularly strong writing, though.

Star Wars: Outer Rim (plus Unfinished Business)

My brother needed yet more pick-up-and-deliver. Back to space! This was our friend’s first time playing this one.

Despite picking up Garindan for my crew almost right away, it was still incredibly slow finding bounties. Even at 3-players with the expansion cards that flip over additional bounties, it’s just so slow if only one player is looking. Clearly, FFG intended players to be more aggressive trying to accumulate crew, but that’s not how everyone plays. If my brother didn’t have horrible luck with his jobs halfway into the game, he probably would have won.

Star Wars: Outer Rim: 7/10. A fun SW adventure with some rough edges.

Revive

We had played this on Board Game Arena, and when I was considering getting a copy, my friend found a great trade for a copy. The copy was almost perfect except for one tribe board that was missing, which we later found had been hidden beneath the campaign punch-outs (seriously, who hides game pieces like that? It didn’t just fall in there; the previous owner didn’t play the campaign).

Anyway, I really enjoy how clean the game is for how crunchy it can be. You only have a few resources to track, but things quickly get tricky as you build your machine with abilities you can combo. I also really enjoy the modules you can slot in to upgrade your card slots. It’s a fun theme, too, though the game is extremely Euro, and it’s a pretty dry experience. Maybe the expansion does more with the theme.

Revive: 8/10 (first impressions). Really solid with great combos and engine building.

Robinson Crusoe

Finally, my brother was done with pick-up-and-deliver games. We tried a new scenario this time, Treasure Island. While we really liked the deck mechanic, the card draws really screwed us. We had tons of wood, but kept running out of food. Didn’t draw any healing or bonus weapons, and that ultimately did us in. We’ll have to try again some other time and actually get to see the letter. Without the letter, there’s not a lot of theme to the scenario.

Robinson Crusoe: 7/10. A fun and punishing survival game, but we’re still looking for a great scenario.

Earthborne Rangers

For once, I wasn’t the one to pick it, but I had considered getting it back out since I haven’t started my solo campaign yet.

The ebb and flow of a session is really interesting, espeically now that we’ve upgraded our decks some. The first several rounds are pretty slow and challenging as we build up, take some fatigue, and try to get stuff done. Then, we heal up our fatigue, have large hands of cards, and get a ton done very quickly. The second location we traveled to, we traversed in like two rounds, and bam! we’re off again. I wasn’t sure if we’d reach our mission’s destination in one session, but we got there with time to spare. We’ll see next time what happens next.

Earthborne Rangers: 9/10. A great co-op, but I can’t wait to try it solo for even more immersion.

Doggerland

We love the prehistoric, hunter/gatherer theme, but there aren’t many heavier games that use it; most are pretty light. And my friend grabbed a copy when it was on sale for a great price.

We all generally felt that the mechanics are good, and the map and how things work there is probably the highlight for us. It’s a highly interactive map with very clean exploration and management for animals and resources. Some of the costs and restrictions are hard to remember, and the reminders on the board could have been done a little better.

But there’s a lot of other “been there, done that” mechanics in the game. Even the worker placement is pretty basic. There’s basic set collection as well, and basic contract fulfillment for points. If it weren’t for the map mechanics and the great theme (which the game does an excellent job with), it’d be an unfortunately forgettable game, I think.

Doggerland: 7/10 (first impressions). Really solid, but a bit clunky in some areas, and mechanically not as exciting as I’d hoped.

by anglotiger

Yes, the "NO BOX" is coming... 😄

by Gangof8

Related Item: Mythic Game Master Emulator Second Edition

I took a break for social media for a bit, but I'm back and I LOVE the conversation here. I haven't looked too closely at it, but what I have skimmed I like.

Since this is last, I'll just touch on this first before I begin reading more in depth

Chinkster wrote:

jsteidl wrote:

Dave in Ledbury wrote:

The problem I have with solo is that I find it hard create storylines and situations if I’m not following a pre-written adventure (I don’t have a strong creative muscle!). Hence I have bought a load of books of random tables!

It's fascinating to me that some brains find it easy to create story ideas and others find it difficult or impossible. Makes you wonder what's going on inside that's so different!

It’s just that different folks process info differently. Different strokes and all that.

And I feel like this is one of the main barriers to getting into this hobby as each of us can approach it differently and both answers are right. At least for me, I was looking for hard and fast rules for how to play and interpret, but it isn't that easy. There's so much fluidity in this that it's too hard to give a clear cut answer.

Dave Daffin, I think you're in a good place and I was where you were at. It takes time to develop this muscle and figuring out what works for you. I used Roy's Story Cubes, Tarot Cards, Picture Cards, Random Word Generating. This is not an easy hobby and takes a lot of time and dedication to find what works for you. I think this community is great to hear how others do things and to take what works for you and leave what doesn't.

I've found that words work best for me and that's where I focus the bulk of my random generation for ideas or hints where the story is headed.

by JugglinDan

Related Item: Ironsworn: Starforged

The dice are always listening! Mwahahaaa!!!

by Polybius

by SeaofStars

Related Item: RPGG News

The 25th is Tolkien Reading Day https://www.tolkiensociety.org/society/events/reading-day/

26th March, 2005, sees the return of Doctor Who to BBC television after a sixteen-year hiatus with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor.

by skullchrist

Awesome! Thanks! 👍

by FilipaPT

Merlon Crenel wrote:

Thank you to the person recognizing me as a citizen 🤩 I appreciate you, too 😄

Congrats Merlon, you deserve it for sure! 🥳