Rpgs

What if Doctor Who were a Super Nintendo roleplaying game?

In the spirit of their 16-bit remixes of Battlestar Galactica and Breaking Bad comes College Humor’s low-tech remake of the Eleventh Doctor’s adventures for the BBCSNES. Witness the Weeping Angels in thrilling real-time strategy! https://gizmodo.com/battlestar-galactica-in-four-minutes-as-a-1990s-rolepl-5873166 https://gizmodo.com/breaking-bad-the-roleplaying-game-is-extremely-depress-5881001 For more pixelated Who, see the time The Doctor invaded a certain classic Super Nintendo RPG and the opening…

Television Cyriaque Lamar Apr 3

Reshape Wolverine and Spider-Man’s worlds with the new Marvel RPG

There hasn’t been a Marvel roleplaying game in print for almost seven years, but the release of Margaret Weis Productions’ Marvel Heroic Roleplaying might prove that MWP is the best at what they do, and what they do best is pretty awesome. Marvel Heroic Roleplaying is the fourth Marvel RPG, and it borrows a few…

Books & Comics Ed Grabianowski Feb 27

Breaking Bad: The Roleplaying Game is extremely depressing

Much in the same way Game of Thrones and Battlestar Galactica have received the RPG remix from College Humor, AMC’s “chemistry teacher turned meth cook” drama Breaking Bad has also been given the clever 16-bit treatment. https://gizmodo.com/battlestar-galactica-in-four-minutes-as-a-1990s-rolepl-5873166 https://gizmodo.com/the-10-most-bad-ass-chemistry-scenes-from-breaking-bad-5853550 Know that there are extensive spoilers in just about every scene (save the very last one). Yeah,…

Television Cyriaque Lamar Jan 31

Why is the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons a big deal?

Yesterday, roleplaying game publisher Wizards of the Coast announced the development of a new edition of D&D. This revision comes less than four years after the release of the last edition of the stalwart RPG. For years, D&D players have drawn battle lines over which edition of the game they prefer, and Wizards is now…

io9 Ed Grabianowski Jan 11

Dungeons and Dragons Wants To Take You Back To Neverwinter

Most people are probably familiar with the Forgotten Realms setting of Neverwinter, from the hugely successful Neverwinter Nights game from 2002 — but it’s actually a well-established city inside that universe, and Ground Zero of Wizard of the Coast’s big push at Gen Con 2011. We talked to WoTC at GenCon, and got some of…

io9 Tim Barribeau Aug 8

The psychological profile of roleplaying gamers (as explained by academia)

In the faraway year of 1993, a study in The British Journal of Psychology provided a (somewhat obvious) personality profile of RPG enthusiasts. And guess what? They like to read. From the abstract: Players of a fantasy Play-By-Mail game were compared with matched controls on personality measures of decision-making style, sex-role, extraversion, neuroticism, empathy, leisure…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Aug 8

Playing Magic: The Gathering as an RPG

We usually approach Magic as a strategic and tactical game with cool flavor, but sometimes it’s fun to let the game’s underlying premise (that you are a wizard with a collection of spells at your disposal) to run free. Could we take that a step further and turn Magic into an RPG? Setting The first…

io9 Ed Grabianowski - Robot Viking May 8

Battleheart for iPad

For your average gamer (me!), RPGs can be daunting. It always seems like some confusing soup of powers and power-ups, like everything’s in some mystifying and dorky language that I just don’t speak. Battleheart, an adorable and addictive RPG, is more my speed. And it might be the perfect iPad game. What is it? Battleheart,…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert Mar 2

The Weird Creatures We Would Have Met in Aliens: Crucible

Aliens: Crucible was an RPG that never got off the ground, like so many other projects in the Aliens universe lately. But it generated a ton of concept art of weird creatures, and some of it’s made its way online. Concept art from the Aliens: Crucible RPG has been going online for a while now,…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders Jan 24

Watch DragonStrike, the most awkward Dungeons & Dragons VHS tutorial ever

In 1993, Dungeons & Dragons manufacturer TSR released the role-playing board game DragonStrike, which was designed to introduce D&D to a wider audience. DragonStrike came with this unintentionally hilarious instructional video. It’s the best of the worst of video ephemera. The 33-minute DragonStrike tutorial video featured extremely Nineties computer animation, hammy acting, and cornball fantasy…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Jan 9

Check out an excerpt from a never-published Dune RPG

Over a decade ago, Wizards of the Coast asked Matthew Colville of Squaremans to write an role-playing game based on Frank Herbert’s Dune. The game never saw print, but here are some samples from the RPG. In 1997 I started working at Last Unicorn Games, a tiny little game company long-since defunct, on the Dune…

io9 Matthew Colville -- Squaremans Jan 8

Win a role in the new D&D movie

Did you know that there’s a new D&D movie in the works? It’s called Book of Vile Darkness, and you can actually win a walk-on role. Not only that, you get to create the character you’ll play in the movie. That’s a pretty cool contest. Silver Pictures is the production house bringing this new D&D…

Movies Ed Grabianowski -- Robot Viking Dec 26

Ash Is a 16-Bit RPG Time Machine on Your iPhone

The graphics your iPhone can pull off are mighty impressive these days—but what about you gaming purists? Rather than dust off your SNES and give a Back in my day, whippersnapper speech, check out ultra-traditional iOS RPG Ash. Ash deals with your typical golden age RPG tropes—a fallen kingdom, a hero up against the odds,…

Tech News Sam Biddle Nov 9

Smallville RPG wields big drama

Did you know they made a Smallville RPG? Ed Grabianowski of Robot Viking recently scoped out this new role-playing game and found that this character-driven title offered a lot for Smallville and RPG aficionados alike. Margaret Weis Productions has a host of TV licenses in their stable of RPGs, from Battlestar Galactica to Leverage. These…

io9 Ed Grabianowski - Robot Viking Sep 4

The many stupid, pointless, and unforgiving deaths of Shadowgate

In 1989, the classic point-and-click adventure Shadowgate debuted on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Shadowgate was notorious for mercilessly killing players at every turn. Thanks to the internet, you can watch every death scene without actually playing this insanely frustrating game. The closest analogy to ICOM’s Shadowgate I can think of is a choose-your-adventure novel in…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Aug 18

46 Swedish RPG character cards from throughout the ages

Even if you can’t read the language, these old Swedish RPG cards are pretty darn neat. The collection ranges from 1982’s Drakar och demoner to modern RPGs. The below cards have a lot of karisma. [Via Piruett. Thanks Magnus!]

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Aug 16

Watch out! It’s a Beholder emergency!

This happens to me all the time. I’m trying to get somewhere on the train, when a giant Beholder comes along and destroys everybody’s minds with psionics. By the time some competent magic users arrive, I’m already late. French artist Guy-Pascal Vallez says he drew this mega-Beholder after having a long conversation about Dungeons &…

io9 Annalee Newitz Aug 2

Epic Win App Turns Your Chores Into a Role Playing Game

This might actually get me to cross some items off of my ever-growing to-do list: an app called Epic Win that turns chores into quests, and rewards completion with experience points, loot, and leveling up. And it looks great. That’s probably not surprising, given that one of the minds behind Epic Win was also Little…

Tech News Brian Barrett Jul 9

Secrets of the Gamma World reboot

Tabletop gamers may remember the scifi sister to Dungeons & Dragons in the early 1980s was Gamma World. And now it’s getting a reboot. Game writer Rich Baker spills some details about this long-awaited release. Gamma World playtests have been discussed publicly and Baker has blogged specifically about it. Recently I did a long interview…

io9 Ed Grabianowski Jun 28

Kotaku Reviews Final Fantasty XIII: Not Perfect, but “Fresh, New, and Highly Enjoyable”

Our game-loving sister site Kotaku reviewed the newest of that king of all RPG series, Final Fantasy, and found it, if not a blockbuster, worthwhile, and “a step in the right direction.” Read the whole review here. [Kotaku] https://kotaku.com/final-fantasy-xiii-review-a-new-paradigm-for-an-old-fr-5490042

Reviews Dan Nosowitz Mar 14

What if Doctor Who were a Super Nintendo roleplaying game?

Reshape Wolverine and Spider-Man’s worlds with the new Marvel RPG

Breaking Bad: The Roleplaying Game is extremely depressing

Why is the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons a big deal?

Dungeons and Dragons Wants To Take You Back To Neverwinter

The psychological profile of roleplaying gamers (as explained by academia)

Playing Magic: The Gathering as an RPG

Battleheart for iPad

The Weird Creatures We Would Have Met in Aliens: Crucible

Watch DragonStrike, the most awkward Dungeons & Dragons VHS tutorial ever

Check out an excerpt from a never-published Dune RPG

Win a role in the new D&D movie

Ash Is a 16-Bit RPG Time Machine on Your iPhone

Smallville RPG wields big drama

The many stupid, pointless, and unforgiving deaths of Shadowgate

46 Swedish RPG character cards from throughout the ages

Watch out! It’s a Beholder emergency!

Epic Win App Turns Your Chores Into a Role Playing Game

Secrets of the Gamma World reboot

Kotaku Reviews Final Fantasty XIII: Not Perfect, but “Fresh, New, and Highly Enjoyable”

Ryan Coogler Is Shifting ‘Animorphs’ Into a Disney+ Show

No Fooling, ‘Spaceballs 2’ Will Hit Theaters April 2027

I Regret to Inform You That the Artemis II Astronauts Are Having Lots of Screen Time

The First ‘Maul: Shadow Lord’ Reactions Are Most Solid

‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 3 Is Doing What You Hoped

Wearables Are Getting Very Messy

Trump Wants to Start Privatizing TSA in Latest Budget Proposal

Lost Warship From Battle of Copenhagen Found After 225 Years

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Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

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