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In 1984 the growing popularity of TSR’s product line finally managed to gain a license for the Marvel Comics Universe with the release of the Marvel Super Heroes RPG.  It was in interesting endeavor and featured the new table mechanics that were sweeping TSR at the time as well as a heavy reliance on battle maps.  Years later, the success of Wizkids Heroclix showed full well that even in a flagging comic market such a miniatures-driven model could work, but back in 1984 the game never fully achieved orbit.  Still, it did have a massive number of supplements, and I...

There was a point in time when there were so many D20 games being released I had no idea what was in the marketplace.  It was during those days that I completely missed D20 modern by WotC.  Several years after its initial release, and certainly after it had already gone out of print, someone on some long forgotten forum suggested I use D20 modern if I didn’t want to try to readjust my gaming world’s current D&D 3.5 model to Shadowrun for a one-shot distant future adventure. I ended up taking their advice and my gaming experience has been better...

Back in 1981, just before the TSR art department turned on itself when it began to ‘grow up’ and terminated the contracts of Jeff Dee and Bill Willingham, moved Jim Roslof to art director, and relegated Erol Otus to the role of random freelancer, the company created a number of very fun pocket games. One of these, Revolt on Antares, came to my attention when my friend Mark laid hands on a box from his older brother’s gaming collection.  Inside, the pocket game awaited, and on four occasions during my late high school days we had a chance to play...

I was one of those semi-crazed FASA fans, and certainly a devoted player of Shadowrun, so when the company announced it would be taking the plunge into the fantasy market with Earthdawn, I was right there with money in hand. Now, I’ll not address the Earthdawn gaming mechanics here, as that is never what these posts are about, but instead focus on the subject at hand which is the Earthdawn Adventure: Mists of Betrayal. Art Directed by my very close friend Jeff Laubenstein back in 1993, it was also project managed by Joel Biske.  Together, these two guys really, truly,...

In 1988 I was a junior in high school and if I could lay hands on a Dragon Magazine I was pretty happy about it.  In those days, well before the Internet, you had to get all you advertising info from a magazine, and in the gaming industry that primarily meant Dragon.  It was there that I first saw the cover of Game Designers Workshop’s Space: 1889.  I remember thinking, OMFG, that is one of the coolest things I’d ever seen.  I mean, just the tag line of ‘Science-Fiction Role Playing in a More Civilized Time’ was enough to sell...