by Alexandre Correia

Day 3385. April 8, 2026. Coimbra...

I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. What kid doesn't, right? The one job that could take me closer to what I really wanted to see, visit, discover, explore. Stars. Planets. Stellar objects. Whole galaxies waiting out there.

The universe.

Starstruck, by NASA.
The first time I read Carl Sagan's Cosmos, a wee kid barely ten years old, my mind exploded into another dimension. What a mind-bender! What was that? Suddenly, the universe wasn’t abstract; it was vivid, alive. I would re-read it religiously every year. Use it to feed in what I saw in the night sky during summer beach sleepovers or intoxicated nights in winter. My mind was feasted, and yet always hungry for more.

In a way, I blame Cosmos for my endless gravitational pull toward curiosity and knowledge hoarding.

I'm a child of '79. Meaning that, growing up, everything I knew about people visiting other planets, the Apollo missions, came from history books. Documentaries. Movies. Books.

Not anymore.

Artemis II lift off, by Chris O'Meara.
Since April 1st, my end-of-day routine, my work breaks, the moments I can't really trust what I'm thinking, revolve around visiting a couple of websites to follow the Artemis II mission. This and this. Sometimes this too. NASA's live feed from YouTube.

Through flight paths and pictures, live radio chatter, I imagine what it must be like to be inside Orion's 9.3 cubic meter crew module. To watch, slowly, the Moon getting bigger and bigger. Home, shrinking into a pale blue blur. To wake up and look at the starfield from a new perspective. What a mind twist of provocative daydreams!

Since the mission began, I’ve been pulling my kids into it with me. Show my 5-year-old the spectacular take-off explosion from five different cameras. Tell - no, show! - my daughter about how they sleep in zero-gravity, and what the far side of the Moon looks like. Actually, show her.

Unlike my childhood, they will remember theirs with man returning to the Moon. Day-long travels in spaceships. Live feeds from people walking on the Moon. The building of a lunar colony. And, hopefully, we'll one day share with 8.2 billion people that singular moment when a human being steps for the first time on Mars.

What a time to be alive.

A New View of the Moon, by NASA.
I'm 47 now, and no astronaut. But I could play as one. I've been looking for games in all three mediums, digital, cardboard, and role-play, that could somehow elicit the same awe-inspiring feeling of space missions. Grounded in real science rather than sci-fi.

On the video game planet, there’s no shortage of titles. From Reentry to Kerbal Space Program, some put you inside the cockpit of an Apollo landing module, others in the mission control room. Others, like Buzz Aldrin’s Space Program Manager, have you simulate the entire space program.

Suborbital dreams, by Alex
In the cardboard galaxy, there's no real match to Leaving Earth, the premier board game of planning a space program, implementing it, and watching it unfold. Closely followed by High Frontier 4 All for the deep-end hard-science crowd. There's also the real-time Apollo cooperative with one player as mission control and the rest inside the lunar lander.

On the RPG asteroid belt, things get scarcer and harder to find. Positively indie. There's Takuma Okada's now classic, Alone Among the Stars (and Together Among the Stars), if you want to elicit pure exploration awe. There's the recent, and Traveler-adjacent, Pioneer, set 10–20 years into the future when mankind is starting to explore the solar system. As the designers put it, "for fans of Gravity, The Martian, and For All Mankind."

Eclipsed: A View from Orion, by NASA.
I doubt I could ever be a real astronaut, travel to other planets. But if missions like Artemis keep becoming part of our everyday lives, discussions, chit-chats, and routines, maybe one day my kids will want to visit space. And if they do, some small, stubborn piece of me will go with them.

⭐⭐⭐
One year ago: ...a short ghoulish fable...One year later: N/A

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by sdonohue

Character Collection 4: Wizards is a 2021 item written by Douglas H. Cole. It was published by Gaming Ballistic LLC and is intended for use with The Fantasy Trip. The book contains many illustrations and a team of artists was used to create them all. The cover is by Storn Cook.

Presentation
This is available in PDF and print. The printed version is a staple-bound book with color covers on heavy stock. The interiors are black & white on slick pages. The majority of the book is in a pretty standard two-column layout.

Content
This book starts with a table of contents which is basically an alphabetical list of the 40 wizards described in this book and the page where they are described. This is followed by an introduction which includes some tips on using the characters and some advice on avoiding having them become a smorgasbord of new equipment for players to covet.

Form there, we get into the characters; there are 40 of them, typically taking about 1/4 page each. Each character has a name, a short description (like 36-point eager debutante), a full-body illustration, some information on background and motivations, and then a character sheet. The sheet includes attributes, talents, spells, weapons, armor, and magic items. For characters who speak more than one, language is added to the list; other characters may include equipment if they own some unusual items.

The inside front cover provides counters for each of the characters, most of which are scaled-down version of their illustration.

Evaluation
This is a good collection of wizards with quite a few interesting characters. The history and motivations can be ignored if the gm just needs a quick adversary, but for characters with more staying power, they definitely add some flavor. I do miss the subheadings that were provided in Character Collection 3: Bandits and Outlaws which made it easier to find a type of outlaw. Maybe they felt wizards were too different for groups, but it still would have been nice to be able to find stealthy wizards vs illusionists vs enchanters and other types. It would also be an improvement if I could look up wizards based on their point values somehow. Of course, there are only 40 entries in 10 pages, so some of that might be overkill.

Even with some shortcomings (admittedly minor), the book does deliver on its promise to provide 40 unique wizard characters. If you're a TFT GM, this is a good buy.

by Rachel Carpenter

This is a very, very special Waffle Wednesday post for me. It's the culmination of years of hard work. And it's also the first day of the rest of my career as a game designer. Sure, I had the badge. But today, I finally feel that I've earned it.

6 games. 6 BGG pages (the final 2 were just approved this afternoon). 9 Game Crafter shop pages (3 of the 6 are available as both print-on-demand & print-and-play games). 11 videos.

Pumpkin Spice & Everything Nice
Eight Elephants
Fireworks for the 4th
Lincoln's Cat
Liberty, DEATH, or TAXES
The United Cards of America

It has been a wild start to 2026. And this is only the start... (cue Anastasia song).

Now that my shop pages are active, I'm going to pivot back to being more social (I'm already caught up on SGOYT, yay!) , playing more games (session reports, including Mythic Mondays will finally! be returning to Herald's Call), and I'll be splitting my design efforts along 3 tracks going forwards:

Track #1: Game Crafter-bound:
These are game designs that already exist, need work, and are appropriate for release on The Game Crafter. Priority designs in this category include 10 Minutes to Midnight, Elements, Abydos & Charge the Circle. Some wholly new designs might appear too... but I'm concentrating my efforts on these 4.

Track #2: New Opportunities:
This is a balancing act. And one that I haven't been particularly good at to this point. New game designs are great. I will never not write down ideas or doodles. That said, new designs developed too quickly or without time to support them... don't really go very far. I need to pick and choose and prioritize. 2025 saw me really drop the ball with Unlucky Spirits and that game has continued to be a sticking point. The campaign didn't get done for the 2026 contest... and I let lack of interest stall my momentum. There's an audience for this game (any Surreal Estate fans here?) but that audience isn't wandering the design contest forums. The game needs to find its people. And it will. In time. That said, finally taking action and getting games onto The Game Crafter led me to not participate in this year's 9-card and Children & Family Contests. I chose existing games over still-in-development games. I'm still planning on doing some design contests this year. Overall, I'm happy with how Monk's Cat: The Book of [Pawprints] performed in this year's In-Hand Contest. I still have some feedback to address and I'm working on a few ideas to further develop it as well. There are a few other design contests that I'll participate in, but moving forwards I'm going to be more particular about the games that I submit and where/when I submit them.

Track #3: Pitching & Promoting:
Upping my social media game. This has already started. Twitter. Instagram. YouTube. BlueSky. Threads. In terms of pitching, I've got 1 pitch that's still ongoing (I think...), but I'm going to stay vigilant and submit existing designs where and when appropriate. More videos need to happen. I'm getting better about this, but I need to continue improving. TikTok may come eventually, but since video (and especially short video) is a weak point for me, I'm just going to keep my video efforts on YouTube and linking to the YouTube content. For now.

In terms of goals, I want 12 different games available for sale on The Game Crafter by the end of 2026. That's another batch of 6 games. If I manage more than that; great. If I just hit 12; that's acceptable. 2023 saw me get my feet wet. 2024 and 2025 were about learning and growing. 2026 is for doing (still learning and growing too, but the emphasis is on the doing). I don't expect to "get rich" from selling on The Game Crafter, but I would like to be able to turn my game design into something that can (at least partly) support me. Also, selling on The Game Crafter gets my games out there. Maybe a publisher will see something they like. Just because I've started doing things this way doesn't mean that I'm forgoing the traditional publishing route. I'm going to continue pitching, and maybe sales on The Game Crafter can help me land a publisher. We'll just have to see.

Happy Wednesday, happy playing, and thanks for your continued support!
-Rachel

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by ced1106g

Introduction
Loke Battlemat's "Rooms, Vaults, and Chambers" (2023) is a spiral-bound set of indoor ground-level and underground rooms. Each map is 8"x12" and its double-page format allows you to use either a single or double page for your encounter. Like other "Big Book of Battle Maps", RVC is printed on sturdy laminated write-on wipe-off cardstock, durable enough to be easily carried. (The larger 12"x16" "Giant Book of Battle Mats" tend to be bulkier for transport. Also, the "Books of Battle Mats" series are hardbound in cardstock slipcovers.) The maps have the same high-quality artwork that you expect from Loke Battlemants, as well as convenient write-on / wipe-off surface and various vinyl cling packs.

City -- Underground -- Modern Day
Overall, this map set would be best for city-based adventuring. RVC maps are a good compliment to the "Battle Mat Book Set: Towns and Taverns". Some of the maps can also be used in dungeons, and even modern day settings.

"Towns and Taverns" (2020) map set and "Add-On Scenery for RPG Battle Maps: Town Trimmings" (2020) vinyl clings set: "Towns and Taverns" and "Town Trimmings" is my recommended start for your city and village maps. "Towns and Taverns" contains both outdoor and indoor maps, including generic buildings. "Town Trimmings" is quite useful to customize maps, as well as add walls, doors, and roofs. RVC would then be an additional purchase after these map sets to further detail your cities and underground.

Scale: BTW, The outdoor street maps of "Towns and Taverns" have necessarily small buildings, so it may seem odd to have an 8"x12" room from RVC in a 3"x4" "Towns and Taverns" building. My handwavy suggestion is to scale the T&T street maps at 10' per inch, rather than the standard 5' per inch. Alternately, for slum and seedy areas, where buildings could indeed be quite small, you can still use the 5' per inch standard. Otherwise, T&T building maps are the same scale and seamlessly work together with the RVC and other Loke mats.

The left side opens up to a grassy area, while the right goes to the street.

Streets -- Villages -- Dungeons
Other Outdoor and Underground Maps: You can also plop down the RVC book onto a "blank" dungeon map, available in the "Battle Mat Book Set: The Dungeon" (2020) or "Dungeons Reignited" (2026), as a street building; or next to or on any outdoor map, such as one from "The Terrain Set" (2025), as a village building. Of course, the underground RVC maps work perfectly fine alongside other dungeon maps of all kinds.

D&D 5e "Keys from the Golden Vault": Those owning this D&D adventure book should know that many of the specialized areas in the adventures (eg. museum, casino, spa, docks, etc.) are available in RVC. However, not all of the specialized areas (eg. animal cages) are in the RVC or T&T books.

The Maps!
Ultimately, you will want to buy a map set that matches your adventures. As much as I like the RVC maps, if you're going to, say run an outdoors adventure, you're going to want outdoor maps. (BTW, If you're looking for a 3rd-5th level adventure with accompanying maps, I recommend the Loke Battlemat's "RPG Encounter Toolboxes - The Veiled Dungeon & The Long Road" (2023) sets. These are the only adventures I know of that include all the battle maps you need for the adventure. Likewise, if you're looking for outdoor maps, look at the mentioned "The Terrain Set" (2025), which includes its own vinyl clings.) As a result, for RVC, I've made lists of the maps in the book which will hopefully help you decide if this set is right for you. Note that a map can appear on more than one list.

City: Common and Generic: List of commonly used maps for most medieval adventures.
City: Specialized: List of unusual maps.
Dungeon and Underground: Maps useful for hidden rooms below a city building, as well as generic rooms for a dungeon.
Modern-Day Maps: Maps that can be used outside of medieval fantasy.

City: Common and Generic
1-2 : Tavern and lower cellar
3 : Office building
3-4 : Office and jail
5-6 : Library
9-10 : Warehouse
11-12: Sewer
13-14: Warehouse hideout
15-16: Crypt
17 : Backroom
27 : Abandoned cellar
33-34: Rock passage
35-36: Weapons shop and general store
37 : Magic item store
38 : Magic item store
39-40: Inn or large meal preparation area and multiple-person sleeping quarters
41-42: Wizard's area, including portal
43-44: Higher-end tavern and lower-level casino
45-46: Flooded stone building or flooded dungeon
47: Stone staircase
49: Evil-looking stone room with green skull floor
50: Stone staircase
51: Stone pool room
52: Treasure room with skull
55-56: Eating hall and preparation
57: Damaged stone room
59: Generic wooden room
60: Generic stone room

City: Specialized
7: Student lecture hall
8: Student classroom
17-18: Theatre
19-20: Industrial area and furnace
21-22: High-end Spa
23-24: Museum
25-26: Large master bedroom and sitting area
28 : Mysterious magical fissure
29-30: Haunted floor
31-32: Jail converted to vault.
42: Magical portal
48 : Stone room with surrounding lava
53 : Abandoned church
54: Deserted stone hall
58: Lava throne room

Dungeon and Underground
15-16: Crypt
28 : Mysterious magical fissure
33-34: Rock passage
41-42: Wizard's area, including portal
45-46: Flooded stone building or flooded dungeon
47: Stone staircase
48: Stone room with surrounding lava
49: Evil-looking stone room with green skull floor
50: Stone staircase
51: Stone pool room
52: Treasure room with skull
54: Deserted stone hall
57: Damaged stone room
58: Lava throne room
60: Generic stone room

Modern-Day Maps
2: Wine cellar
3: Office building
5-6 : Library
7: Hogwarth's student lecture hall
8: Hogwarth's student classroom
9-10 : Warehouse
11-12: Sewer
17-18: Theatre
19-20: Industrial area and furnace
21-22: High-end Spa
23-24: Museum
25-26: Large master bedroom and sitting area
27 : Abandoned cellar
29-30: Haunted floor
33-34: Rock passage
43-44: Higher-end tavern and possibly underground casino
45-60: Various occult, abandoned, and remote areas

RVC Generic Rooms with "Town Trimmings" and "Dungeon Dressing" vinyl clings
Plenty of Maps (and Vinyl Clings) to Choose From
Loke BattleMats has a wide variety of map books and vinyl clings. While a complete buying guide is beyond the scope of this review -- no, I don't have a copy of every Loke map book! -- here're some recommendations for the Loke items I've mentioned in this review.

"Towns and Taverns" (2020) and "Add-On Scenery for RPG Battle Maps: Town Trimmings" (2020): IMO, This is the best "core" set of town maps. You customize the "Town and Taverns" maps with the "Town Trimmings" vinyl clings. Buy whichever "Big Book" and "Giant Book" maps you need for your adventures. Maps are spiral-bound into two volumes.

"The Terrain Set" (2025): Same idea as "Towns and Taverns", but for wilderness maps. For additional vinyl clings, search on "Loke add on scenery".

"Battle Mat Book Set: The Dungeon" (2020) or "Dungeons Reignited" (2026), and "Add-On Scenery for RPG Battle Maps: Dungeon Dressing" (2020): The market has quite a few dungeon maps and tiles, yet you'll want a set that matches *your* dungeon. Take a close look at the maps before buying. Loke Battlemats feature write-on wipe-off surfaces, and the "Add-Scenery for RPG Battle Mats: Dungeon Decorations" (2020) vinyl clings to customize their maps.

"RPG Encounter Toolboxes - The Veiled Dungeon" (2023) and "RPG Encounter Toolboxes - The Long Road" (2023): These boxed sets have a 3rd-5th level adventure with accompanying maps and random encounters. You'll still supply your own miniatures, but you won't be scrounging for maps for the adventure. The maps are loose and fold-out. They're also generic enough for other adventures.

Conclusion
Hopefully, this review will help you decide if the RVC map set is right for you. The 8"x12" write-on / wipe-off book certainly has the high-quality and detail of Loke Battlemats so you can better enjoy your roleplaying and other miniature games!

by sdonohue

Character Collection 3: Bandits and Outlaws is a 2021 release from Gaming Ballistic LLC. It is designed four use with The Fantasy Trip. The book is written by Douglas H. Cole and illustrated by a team of artists.

Presentation
This is available in pdf and print versions. The print version is a 20 page staple-bound softcover with thick color covers and slick interiors in black & white. The layout is two columns in portrait.

Contents
This book contains 72 characters for TFT and focuses on those who have less savory reputations. The book starts with a table of contents and it not only shows all the characters, but it has subheadings to help you find characters of different types like discontented, farmers, heavily armed, merchants and wanderers, outlaws and pariahs, soldiers and warriors, and finally townsfolk. There are several character in each of these sections.

After the table of contents, there's a brief introduction and then we get to the meat of the book, the characters. Each character has a name (usually somewhat terrible like Trem or Vatsk), a single line description (like 30 point unhinged assistant), a small illustration, a description of their history and motivation and then a character sheet with attributes, talents, languages, spells (if applicable), and weapons. All of this typically takes about a quarter-page with typically 4-5 characters per page.

Both the inside front and inside back covers include counters so every character has a counter which matches (generally) their appearance in the illustration.

Evaluation
I like the addition of subheadings in the table of contents. The primary use of this book for most gms is going to be finding stats for an NPC on the fly, and the subheadings and groupings make it much easier to find a farmer or an outlaw, than just thumbing through the book. The history and motivation are interesting and could be used if the character becomes a recurring element of the game or if the gm is looking for some quick npcs for a planned encounter.

The presence of illustrations and counters also helps to make the book more useful, although I don't think I'd cut up my cover to use those counters. Overall, I think this is a good book and somewhat of an improvement over the first two volumes in the series.

A new rpg item has been added to the database: Alexis' Mystery Box