Features Archive
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“If this is the only game I ever get to make, I should just do the thing I love the most.”
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Location, location, frustration.
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Once you’ve done your research.
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Feature: Roleplaying games were around hundreds of years before Dungeons & Dragons
The seminal tabletop RPG drew from generations of wargaming, storytelling and parlour games.
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“When including more diverse representation, disabled people continue to be excluded at alarming rates.”
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The character’s version of representation frustrates AAPI fans.
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“A really big thing is having an arena where you feel like you have some control over the stories that are told.”
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Big tabletop events are likely to return this year, but they might look very different.
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How publishers are adopting eco-friendly practices to help the planet.
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Feature: Weekend Play Report - Ex Novo, and the joy of mapmaking games
Routing to recreation.
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It stands heads, shoulders and horns above the disastrous Dark Souls.
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Exploring one of the titles in Jewish roleplaying anthology Doikayt.
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Feature: Cancelled Warframe-inspired RPG highlights the destructive toxicity of online fandom
“This is a demonstration of a vocal minority of angry trolls getting what they wanted.”
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Feature: Queer players find more than a game in Dungeons & Dragons - they find a safe space
“We are here to play whoever we want to.”
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Feature: Good Old Plays: The throwback RPGs giving modern roleplaying “a breath of fresh air”
OSR designers are reviving the genre’s roots with compact rules, player-led storytelling and creativity in abundance.
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Less Harry Potter than high school.
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Feature: Indie RPGs show roleplaying can - and should - be far more than Dungeons & Dragons
The tabletop games and designers taking players from fantasy stories to real-world change.
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Feature: D&D's answer to American Idol changed the RPG - and its winner's life - forever
You could say it was open to ‘Ebberyone’.
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“We like people to make difficult choices that are also fun choices.”
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Together, they hope to overcome national restrictions and find a deserving audience.
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Feature: d007: How the all-but-forgotten James Bond RPG changed roleplaying
Tomorrow Never Dice.
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A D&D film was promised to rival Star Wars, but its cinematic debut ended up a box-office bomb. What happened?
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Boldly Action/Bonus/Moving where no one has gone before.
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Lead designer Ryan Verniere talks team building and trusting vision to others.
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Feature: Board games are expensive, so we tried to make our own for a tenner
It went about as well as you’d expect.
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Feature: 10 Catan house rules that make the classic board game even more fun
Don’t settle for less.
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Board game café owners and retailers on the impact of lockdown and social distancing.
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Feature: Here are some of the best tabletop sessions from PAX Online x EGX Digital 2020
Queue up some of the best videos you might’ve missed at the online convention.
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Feature: 7 board games to check out at PAX Online x EGX Digital
Get onboard with these tabletop titles.
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Exploring the Dungeons & Dragons cosplay community, how to start and why it’s worth doing.
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Feature: The fatigue and loneliness of playing tabletop RPGs online in a pandemic
For players used to the intimacy of face-to-face sessions, taking games such as Dungeons & Dragons onto the internet can be exhausting and alienating.
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Feature: ‘It was a mess’: The disappearance and return of legendary ’80s board game Dark Tower
In 1981, there was no game bigger. Then it vanished. What happened to Dark Tower, and why is there such hunger for it to come back?
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Reprints and rares both essential and exorbitant.
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“I would lie awake at night thinking how fun a dungeon crawl would be.”
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“There were a whole lot of people that thought it was an evil company.”
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Two halves make a whole lot of fun.
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Feature: How Magic: The Gathering’s biggest fan landed the role of a lifetime as its head designer
Mark Rosewater on discovering the card game, working with Richard Garfield and balancing his professional and personal passion.
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Feature: Indie video game platform Itch.io has given tabletop RPG designers a new way to thrive
Through kindness and community.
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Feature: Critical Role’s Matthew Mercer on world-building in D&D and creating Wildemount
Plus, whether he’d rather live in the homeland of Vox Machina or the Mighty Nein.
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Feature: "They’re gods you could go have a beer with": Eric Lang talks Ankh: Gods of Egypt
Behind the stories, surprises and down-to-Earth deities in the epic finale to the designer’s mythic trilogy.
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Feature: Burgle Bros. 2 board game preview - a tighter co-op caper that sneaks in new surprises
Ocean's 11 by way of legacy board games, Betrayal at House on the Hill and Left 4 Dead.
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Feature: Where to Start With… deckbuilding board games
Building up your confidence.
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Feature: 30 years on, fantasy board game HeroQuest is still inspiring modern dungeon-crawlers
From Gloomhaven to Star Wars: Imperial Assault, the legacy of a groundbreaking classic.
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Feature: Schnapsen: the Austrian card game that healed a grieving family
A gaming gift through the generations.
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And the connection between poisonous mushrooms and Magic.
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My one dream, my only dungeon master.
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“It’s a confirmation that all your good ideas aren’t that good.”
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From predicting the internet to breaking it.
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Feature: Pack o Game is the perfect board game collection for players tight on space and cash
A Handy little something.
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Feature: Cyberpunk Red lore guide: the world of the tabletop RPG from 2013 to 2077
Welcome to life on the edge.
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Feature: Scythe’s Automa designer on making cardboard AI feel human in solo board games
Singular achievement.
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Feature: The joy of modding board games, from house rules to total conversions
Whether you're adding small personal touches or embarking on an ambitious remake, modified board games are a key part of the tabletop hobby.
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Feature: The Dungeons & Dragons diet: how to eat like an RPG adventurer
Roll on the side?
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Feature: That time the US Secret Service mistook a cyberpunk RPG for a hacker's handbook
"It was dumb, not to put a fine point on it.”
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Who wouldn’t want to play a Sesame Street TRPG?
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“We’ve had some real shocks where you feel like you have to wash your hands immediately.”
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Feature: Tabletop RPG releases 2020: 10 upcoming roleplaying games you should play this year
From the first Warhammer: Age of Sigmar RPG to Nordic horror and underground cities
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