News — Jeff Laubenstein

I make no bones about artist Jeff Laubenstein being my favorite fantasy artist of all time.  Maybe that makes me odd, or maybe it makes me a genius, but whatever the case, there is no argument with the fact that Jeff has been doing RPG work for thirty years, and his contributions to non-D&D are astounding.  Today, I look at just random pieces of his that have always brought me joy. The 'Ladies Laubenstein', certainly a subject matter of his that has always kept my interest A nice trio of characters, and he certainly has a way with creating distinct...

Dwarves, we've all played them at one time or another, so I thought I'd share a few that I thought were inspiring. The hefty older dwarf with the small white stash... he has a story to tell Yeah, he's going to kick someone's ass really soon... Wayne Reynolds always does a nice dwarf, and I mine did typically use a crossbow Is there anything better than a b/w Holloway dwarven god illustration? Well, maybe a Laubenstein Earthdawn smith next to an Elmore basic one? Anyone ever play a female dwarf?  Well, other than in the Slave Lords series? How about...

I have to say, at one time during my early college years I was a Shadowrun junkie. The game was so cutting edge at the time, so ‘real’, and yet so far-fetched, I just couldn’t help but buy everything I could get my hands on. I remember my roommate at the time, Jason, who was a non-gamer, pick up the 1st Edition Core book, read some of it, and then said ‘This game is on this side of cool’. For a pre-med student, that was pretty high praise, and I absolutely agreed with him. One of the first supplements I...

Rolling D20s for Gamma World might sound odd, considering how the system has evolved over the years, but because of the D20 boom of the early 2000s, there is a rather substantial Gamma World edition based around the mechanic. Today, to continue my Gamma World series, I’m going to look at the art of the Sword & Sorcery’s release of Gamma World D20. Based on the D20 Modern core rules by Wizards of the Coast, this edition is a nice collection of rules that feel a bit forced and not as lovely as I’d like considering the source material.The artwork,...

Today I’m taking a look at FASA’s Earthdawn Companion. Earlier in the summer I showed some of the art of the Earthdawn core book, and this 162 page supplement, produced in 1994, is just one of a dozen truly inspired books for this game.I remember I used it extensively when I ran a campaign I called ‘Mother’ during the last stages of my college career. The campaign took place during weekend visits with my friends from high school, and in fact the first ever ‘The Week’ of gaming was run almost exclusively with Earthdawn during my last spring break.My girlfriend...