Features Archive

Feature: Mutant Year Zero: How the end of the world created one of the tabletop’s brightest companies

A Ligan of their own.

Feature: Cyberpunk Red lore guide: the world of the tabletop RPG from 2013 to 2077

Welcome to life on the edge.

If you want to get into trading card games, Keyforge is the best place to start

Fanning the æmbers.

Feature: Scythe’s Automa designer on making cardboard AI feel human in solo board games

Singular achievement.

Feature: Pokémon TCG’s Sword & Shield expansion has British whimsy, haunted tea sets and a super-sized Snorlax - hands-on gameplay impressions

Can you Nickitt? (Yes, you can.)

Why tabletop roleplaying is best when it’s all in your mind

Mind yourself.

Feature: 10 easily forgotten Dungeons & Dragons 5E rules you’re getting wrong - and why you should be using them

Mind Strayer.

"It's difficult to keep things fresh": Pandemic creator Matt Leacock on Legacy, co-ops and Lego

A viral success.

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.

“I won’t rest until Instagram influencers are posing with the game book”: Quest creator TC Sottek on making the world’s friendliest RPG

How podcasts, social media and Adobe InDesign inspired one of the freshest roleplaying games in years.

Feature: The Dungeons & Dragons diet: how to eat like an RPG adventurer

Roll on the side?

Feature: Vampire: The Masquerade - Chapters bridges the gap between board game and RPG

Once bitten.

Struggling to learn Magic: The Gathering? Try playing aggressively

What is aggro, and why does it suit new players who like to go on the offensive?

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.”

How deckbuilding in Dominion helped me find real-life happiness

You play the cards you’re dealt.

Feature: 7 incredible pop culture worlds that should be turned into tabletop RPGs, from His Dark Materials to Avatar

Who wouldn’t want to play a Sesame Street TRPG?

Feature: Shedding light on World of Darkness, the gothic-punk universe of RPG Vampire: The Masquerade

A bloody good time.

Playing Dungeons & Dragons to win is the most boring way to play

Or; why D&D is like chocolate biscuits and pasta sauce.

Feature: Fake board games: the counterfeits of Pandemic, Catan and more putting happiness, health and the hobby at risk

“We’ve had some real shocks where you feel like you have to wash your hands immediately.”

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

Board games form human connections in a world that increasingly seeks to sever them

Check mates.

Feature: A first look at Parks: Memories, this year’s follow-up to the beautiful board game about hiking across the US

Taking a new path.

Feature: From Doom to Cthulhu Wars: Sandy Petersen on 35 years of tabletop design, Lovecraft and leaving video games behind

“I got my toys!”

Feature: ‘There are dogs operating blacksmith shops and being apothecaries’: Inside the world of Animal Adventures: Gullet Cove, an RPG for pet lovers

Pawcerers and Barkbarians.

Why Legend of the Five Rings should be the next fantasy RPG to become a TV show after The Witcher

Toss a koku.

Feature: Magic: The Gathering’s Theros: Beyond Death set is a wild, cosmic ride through myth and madness

Hera today, gone tomorrow.

Magic: The Gathering's Theros: Beyond Death is a perfect tribute to Greek mythology

Homer run.

Feature: Board game releases 2020: 10 upcoming board games you should play this year

Pandemic Legacy: Season 3, new Gloomhaven and Root creator’s next game lead the biggest tabletop titles of the next 12 months.

Feature: The afterlife of Android: Netrunner - the community taking a beloved card game's future into their own hands

“It felt like losing a friend.”

Feature: Adeptus Titanicus: the staggering Warhammer 40,000 game where stories loom as large as mechs

"We wanted each death to be memorable."

Feature: Meet the Original Dungeons & Dragons diehards still playing by '70s rules

Refusing to roll with the times.

Feature: 10 hours with Magic: The Gathering Arena got me back into trading card games

Sparky rekindled.

Feature: Five predictions about the future that the Cyberpunk 2020 RPG did - and didn't - get right (so far)

Twenty-twenty vision.

Game of the Year 2019 guest list: Imperial Settlers designer Ignacy Trzewiczek

The designer of Robinson Crusoe, Detective and more picks his favourite board games of the year.

Game of the Year 2019: Matt Jarvis' Top 5

Ahead of the Pax.

Game of the Year 2019 guest list: Call of Cthulhu creative director Mike Mason

Creative director for Lovecraftian RPG Call of Cthulhu selects his tabletop games of the year.

Game of the Year 2019 guest list: Sushi Go! designer Phil Walker-Harding

The mind behind Bärenpark, Imhotep and the delicious card game series picks his top five games of 2019.

Game of the Year 2019: Sara Elsam's Top 5

Crime, cannibals and cursed potions.

Game of the Year 2019: Alex Meehan’s Top 5

A detective skulks into a bar on a quest to forge a key and eat a salad.

Game of the Year 2019 guest list: Root and Pax Pamir 2E designers Cole and Drew Wehrle

Wehrlegig Games on the appeal of tabletop experiences with an ‘uncompromising vision’.

In being both profound and playable, Pax Pamir 2E became one of the most important board games of 2019

Gaming the Great Game.

Feature: We played the worst Christmas board games on the UK High Street so you don’t have to

Christmas crappers.

Why Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is the best tabletop RPG you aren't playing

A roleplaying game to lose your head over.

Feature: Welcome to Dicebreaker!

Your new home for all things board games, RPGs and tabletop, plus silly jokes.

Feature: Here are the best new board games to play at PAX Unplugged 2019

The 10 games we’re most excited to check out this weekend in Philly.

Going Solo: How playing tabletop games alone went from sad to rad

Party for one.

I was a bisexual teen bloodsucker: how Vampire: The Masquerade saved me from early-2000s homophobia

A monstrous supernatural hunter gave me the space and security to, in some weird way, be myself.

Feature: A dream far, far away? Meet the world’s best Star Wars X-Wing players struggling to turn the tournament scene pro

"I don't see a future where a miniatures game player is professional.”

Dungeons & Dragons' best worst spell: Cooking up chaos and comedy with Conjure Food and Water

'45 pounds of bland but nourishing food'

Feature: Choosing when to settle down is everything in Flotilla, one of 2019’s most unique board games

Catch you on the flip side.