by Rachel Carpenter

Okay. We were out most of today. Errands and such. I'm tired, so I'll make this quick.

I'm happy with how Mugs of Madness is shaping up. It works. It's cute and thematic and sarcastic and I'm really loving it. The spot playtesting event has began and the Great Playtesting Race is just around the corner. Harder cards, a more extreme solo mode, and a 2-player cooperative mode are all in the works. It may be a solo contest, but Mom wants to play... and I think it's a worthwhile addition in the long run.

On the other hand, I'm not really happy with the current state of Rachel's Spider Solitaire Project. It needs more time, less interruptions, and I need to figure out how to draw a winged lion (shirdal) gargoyle.

Sooo... I'm going to shift Rachel's Spider Solitaire Project to the backburner and split my focus (design-wise) only between Mugs of Madness (Solitaire Print and Play Contest) and Caturday (54-Card Contest: WIP coming soon).

Catch you all tomorrow!

Happy Saturday and happy playing!
-Rachel

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by triccardi

You are a special breed of animal as you have mutated from some sort of chemical as you were brought up to fight crime. With your training and expertise you hit the streets as you will go up against some nefarious forces. Will you rise up and take back the city from the scum that haunt these streets? This is the setting of the famous release from Palladium books welcome back to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness.

Originally released in 1985 this massive hardcover tome is broken up into two sections and we are going to talk about the first section which would be the core rules. The first step is to create a character and that involves rolling up the core attributes which are IQ, Mental Endurance, Mental Affinity, Physical Strength, Physical Prowness, Physical Endurance, Physical Beauty and Speed. Next you would roll up or choose your animal and each of these have something called Bio-E. These are points that can be used to give your animal speech, bipedal, hands, looks and even natural abilities and weapons. You can gain bio-e by either taking some disadvantages or if your animal is big enough you can change their size (and this can work if your animal is smaller as well). You will then roll up your animal’s origin as they can either be a subject of a military experiment or of some sort of random mutation. Each of these will give you how many skills that you can select from and they are broken into two categories which are
Amateur and Professional. Professional skills are more learned and can be such things as advanced combat or electronics. Amateur skills would be different skills with simple weapons or handguns or some basic skills such as driving a car. Each of your characters will have an alignment which is what the character would do in a certain situation (such as would they keep their word or do they kill their opponents). After all of that you can purchase weapons and equipment and your character is ready to play! The core rules also has a variety of adventures that you can run ranging from fighting a band of ninjas to dealing with a bunch of mutant bears called the ‘terror bears’. The last part of the book gives you sample characters if you wanted to run them in a campaign. From various mutant animals to the famous turtles such as Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo and even Donatello along with other characters and villains such as Baxter Stockman and even the infamous Shredder.

The second part of the book has two sets of adventures that were released for this system and the first one is called Turtles Go Hollywood. You will play as the iconic teenage mutant ninja turtles as the adventure starts in New York as they break into the SoloChem building in order to uncover a sinister plot. The plot shifts to California dealing with the plans to start to insert subliminal messages into Hollywood films. Along the way they will try to blend in and find out what is going on as they will fight not only a sinister mastermind but they will also deal with the foot clan and even the Shredder! The next adventure is called Truckin’ Turtles as you will play as the turtles once more as you intervene in a fight at a local bar and save a man named Bert. He is a trucker and invites you along to help deliver his load from Pennsylvania all the way over to Nevada. Along the way you will deal with ninjas, spectral beings and even terrorists that will push your players to the absolute limit. There are even rules for driving in this adventure and can be used for other adventures as well. This includes things like traffic, random encounters, crashes and other roadside attractions that you can introduce your players to.

The last part of the book goes into behind the scenes on how the book was made. Included are notes from some of the people who worked on the game such as Kevin Siembiedia and other people who discovered the game. The shining star of this book has to be the interior art as there are colored versions of the original black and white art that was in the original volumes. There are also some full color images that have not been seen anywhere else all contained in this massive 272 hardcover book. And of course this is based off the Palladium Role Playing system so it can be used with any of the other systems out there such as Palladium Fantasy Role-playing or Heroes Unlimited.

If you were a fan of the original role playing game or you love TMNT you need to check out this game. For more information on this and other products head on over to
https://palladiumbooks.com/ and get ready to unleash your inner animal

Number of players: 2-5
Age: 14+
Time: 90-120 minutes

by Forbidding

Gamescom is a video game trade fair held annually at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. This years convention will run from August 26 to 30.

• Gamescom 2026 Trailers | Main Showcase, Part 1
• Gamescom 2026 Trailers | Main Showcase, Part 2
• Gamescom 2026 Trailers | Future Games Show, Part 1 (Indies)
• Gamescom 2026 Trailers | Future Games Show, Part 2 (Indies)
• Gamescom 2026 Trailers | Future Games Show, Part 3 (Indies)
• Gamescom 2026 Trailers | Xbox Showcase

[hr]

Neon Hyperdrive
Youtube Video

Chronoscript: The Endless End
Youtube Video

CAAAHR
Youtube Video

Cat Secretary
Youtube Video

Glasshouse
Youtube Video

About Cannons & Sparrows
Youtube Video

Far Far West
Youtube Video

Appulse
Youtube Video

SacriFire
Youtube Video

DeadRoot
Youtube Video

INFERIUS
Youtube Video

CONQUISTA: Tide of Wills
Youtube Video

Food Truck Empire
Youtube Video

Odd Town
Youtube Video

Cairn - On the Trail: Deep Water
Youtube Video

Future? No Thanks!
Youtube Video

Duskfade
Youtube Video

4:AM
Youtube Video

Wishseeker
Youtube Video

Snowtracked
Youtube Video

SATED
Youtube Video

Deck of Memories
Youtube Video

Book Nook
Youtube Video

Usual June
Youtube Video

Being and Becoming
Youtube Video

Dungeon Lurker
Youtube Video

Zeverland
Youtube Video

[hr]

The following games were announced but do not have a trailer available:

• Deadly Days: Roadtrip
• Inkblood
• Pipes.exe
• Agni: Village of Calamity
• Isle Goblin

[hr]

Youtube Video

A new episode has been added to the database: Unlocking the Secrets of Character-First GMing

A new episode has been added to the database: Audio EXP podcast: August 26th - Book Destruction, Chaosium's New IP, and Fringe Finales

A new episode has been added to the database: Barovia V #7 Control

by BG05

$40.00 for RPG Item: Vaesen
Condition: Like New
Location: United States

by bryce0lynch

By Joseph Quinn
BirdEnuf Books & Games
OSE
Level 1+

It began with a strange light in the sky. Now, an eerie glow emanates from the depths. Some creatures of the reef have grown disturbingly intelligent, while others attack with a maddened fury. The source is an object of impossible geometry that whispers psychic visions into the minds of those who draw near. A monstrous giant crab believes itself to be the shard’s protector and has dragged it away into its lair. Locals seek adventurers to delve into the caverns and remove the object before its emanations drive the entire region insane.

This 123 page adventure uses about seventy pages to describe eight loosely connected adventures, each with around twenty to thirty locations. The component parts are generally fine, but they lack a kind of strong running thread/threat that would bring home any kind of gravity or immersion. Can each part be ok and the whole not?

So, we’re gonna ignore the first forty or so pages of this. It describes generic fantasy land world, except there’s this mist around the edges. Actually, that’s pretty standard for a fantasy world also. There’s a hint here and there of RenFaire, like “oh no, all the town’s gremlin residents have gone mad!” I did chuckle, once, in the gazetteer description for the required “great desert” location.” In the section for Common Monsters it has Angels. Wow. This repeats with other monsters and other areas as well, so they are using Common to mean something like Thematically You Could Have One of These Pop Up.

The meat here is eight loosely interconnected adventures. A meteor falls to earth, things start to get corrupted, and eventually you end up fighting The Evil One at Mt Doom, this time in the form of a demon lord at Mt Dread. Yeah, he doesn’t want you chucking the meteor fragment in to the caldera. No word on eagle in this, but that final adventure is levels eight to ten, so, you know, flying?

Man, I’m down on this one and I don’t know why. There are things that hit wrong, like the whole Mordor thing and generic fantasy world description. Also, the first dungeon adventure, for level one, has you fighting a six HD giant crab that has a full time fear spell going. I don’t see how that’s possible, Combat as War or not, at level one.

But if I ignore all those things then it’s not bad? With a major caveat. But, the dungeons are varied. There are sea caves, a point crawl wilderness, a dungeon dungeon, a weird dug out place under a castle that reminds me of those Psychedelic Fantasy dungeons with abstracted environments. Dude is shaking things up and keeping the environments fresh. They are not the most dazzling maps. They are pretty basic. But the variety of environments is there so it’s not too much of the same old same old.

The writing here is … interesting? I think it hits well. Maybe. It doesn’t hit well? Something s wrong, but i can’t tell what it is. “A 30’ deep chamber permanently sub- merged in cold, murky water. Tiny fish dart between rusted mining tools, broken timbers, and other debris. Four stonefish, camouflaged as rocks, lie clustered a few feet apart on the chamber floor.” That’s decent, yeah? And, dovetailing in to the encounters and interactivity, it’s a decent encounter. Stonefish. Fuck yeah! The stonefish integrate well here, inexactly the way that impresses me. It’s obvious, in retrospect, and it’s a common thing tha the party knows of in the real world and, most likely, knows not to fuck with/is dangerous. Not just “Oh, bears are dangerous and we just met one!” but more like a “Yeah, you’ve got cholera.” They just hit more viscerally.

The adventure has this ability to create these little things like that. In one room, I think it’s inside Mt Doom, you meet a dude in a room. A cultist, maybe. Unarmed except for clutching a dagger to his chest. When the party gets close he stabs himself through the heart. Oh, yeah, when you die in this dungeon you turn in to a 2hd fireball. “Immolation” and the dude is a nihilistic devotee to the demon lord/cult shit. Well that’s kind of fun. I mean, in a horrible sort of way. It hits. It’s painted as a devotee, butI like to think of him as a brainwashed young adult, maybe bribed with a better life for his mom and younger siblings. Nervous, clutching a dagger to his chest. Maybe mumbling. Yeah yeah, I added shit not present, but that fucking encounter is what made it possible.

In another place you find a small golden statue in a chest. Great! Loot! Oops. It’s a ‘golem.’ It comes alive and stabs you and shit. But, hey, once you kill it you get the cash value. 🙂 Again, this just meshes in perfectly. Or, how about this baddie: “The Bronze Minotaur A scalding hot kettle of liquid fire in the shape of a towering, bull-headed man. Guards the building’s lower level.” Yeah man! That hits the spot and dredges up some memories, right? It FEELS right. And so much of this adventure, the individual encounters, they FEEL right.

But Denmark, as is well known, is stinky.

We got this pyramid place in one of the adventures. There’s a high level MU and a lich in it, at the end. Here’s the room “The pyramid’s angled walls meet above, sheathed in a layer of ice, forming the ceiling of its apex chamber. The room is ar-ranged as a study, but is lacking any comforts. Telos and Vlagrim are here.” Well, that’s less than stunning. How about the lip of Mt Dooms lava? “The northern exit of the Hexenruin lies upon the Great Caldera’s edge, the Magma Citadel visible in the distance, rays of ultra- black anti-light strobing out from the lava below. The Demon Lord Py’Rexus swiftly approaches, his wings outstretched, mere seconds away from reaching the ground.” Maybe a little better? I mean, there’s SOMETHING there, even if it is uninteresting? That’s the extent of those rooms, I’m not cherry picking sentences.

There’s this thing going on where some rooms have ok descriptions. And then some rooms have some decent interactivity in them and even some “interrelated” interactivity where things in one room impact another room. For things like the brone minotaur we can see some talent in creatures that is present here and there. But nothing just ever feels put together. The first dungeon is supposed to be a sea cave. There are some descriptions in rooms that maybe are wet. There’s the usual tide stuff. But it just doesn’t come together to feel like a sea cave. Or Mt Doom. Or any of the other environments. And, then, the same goes for the linking of things across the various dungeons. Whatever glue is required to really make a dungeon, a room, or a campaign visceral is missing. Specificity, maybe? Nothing to really hang your hat on? It’s like you can almost see what this be. Or, you CAN see what it could be, and you can also see that its just not it. It comes off as a generic adventure campaign instead of something that would stick, with villains and the like. Everyone is a Lareth. And Lareth is no way to run a railroad. I’m not mad. Just disappointed.

This is $12 at DriveThru. The preview is the first 54 pages. Page 49 is where the first dungeon starts, so check that one out. It’s a good indicator of the content.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/573958/adventures-in...

by Eric R.

There was a stretch of time during which this was my zen tv. Winding down for the night I'd find an episode of Globe Trekker on PBS and that's how I'd wind down the day. And this was the song that always put me in a slightly more contented mood for the end of the day.
Youtube Video

A new episode has been added to the database: Episode 4 - The Road To Rough Iron

A new episode has been added to the database: Episode 173 - Pretenses

by Bruce McG

Image from our RuneQuest campaign:



New releases at your FLGS (sourced by Leisure Games)

Daggerheart
⭐ Hope & Fear - Darrington Press

Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game
⭐ Holy War - Arc Dream Publishing

Wyrmlings RPG
⭐ Wyrmlings RPG - Lone Colossus Games

New PDF releases @ DriveThru

Daggerheart
⭐ Daggerkin - Daggers Expansion - StarRune Press
⭐ Daggerkin - Hearts Expansion - StarRune Press
⭐ Hope & Fear - Darrington Press

Dragonbane
⭐ Arkand: City of Waves and Flames - Free League Publishing
⭐ Book of Magic - Free League Publishing

Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game
⭐ Tome of Adventure Vol. 8: Dying Earth - Goodman Games

Gates of Krystalia TTJRPG
⭐ Lumina Expansion Book - English Version - Top Notch International LTD

Star Trek Adventures Second Edition
⭐ Allies and Adversaries Sourcebook - Modiphius Entertainment

Storypath System
⭐ Storypath Ultra Tasty Bit 08: Cybernetics - Onyx Path Publishing

Tales of the Valiant
⭐ Death on the Styx - Kobold Press