The PreambleLike many fans of genre fiction, mystery and suspense fiction in particular, I was excited to watch the new Perry Mason series on HBO. I really enjoyed the series and found that for me the episodes could not be released fast enough. In an era where streaming services like Netflix drop entire seasons of shows, having to wait a week to watch the next episode of a show can add a kind of ..read more

 Alan Bahr is publisher and lead designer for Gallant Knight Games and his company recently launched a crowdfunding campaign for a storytelling game called Swords of Meropis. Alan was inspired by Sword & Sandals films like Jason and the Argonauts and wanted to make a game that captured the feel of those classic fantasy tales.In this interview, I chat with Bahr about the inspiration behind Swords ..read more

Starting with Field of Glory in 2008, and continuing with the excellent Bolt Action in 2012 Osprey Publishing has published a number of high quality rules for use with miniatures in a wide variety of genre. This multi-genre approach to miniature wargaming is best highlighted in the series of blue spined paperback digest books (Little Blue Books? LBB) they began publishing in 2012. This series ..read more

 A while back Geoff Engelstein wrote a 2-part series on his GameTek newsletter about game balance. The discussion primarily focused on different types of balance in table top board games, but it inspired me to think about the different types of balance in table top role playing games and how that focus has moved around over the years. I’m in the process of organizing my thoughts and doing a lot ..read more

 A Grittier James Stewart?“Hell, I don’t think the leading newspaper reviewers even go to see most of the Westerns. They send their second string assistants. And their supposed to be very nasty and very funny in their reviews. Well it’s a shame, because it makes it a crime to like a Western.” — John Ford, 1964Winchester ‘73 (1950) marks the first of nine films that James Stewart would make with ..read more

 On the Independent Fantasy RPG FrontJason Vey has long been a part of the OSR community. He was a part of the OSR community before there was an OSR community, back when it was people making house rules for Original D&D and trying to figure out how to use Chainmail as the combat system. Using Chainmail for combat was my first Substack post because I always attempt to be super topical. Over the ..read more

 Analysis as Loose as OSR MechanicsTL;DR — Ben Milton’s math is off, but it doesn’t matter. His game is great and is as compatible as he says.One of the things I really like about original Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is how varied and loose the underlying mechanics are. While the basic mechanic of “roll a die and roll high” tends to rule the day, there is not a fixed algorithm dictating how ..read more

 The roleplaying game market doesn’t often get “big news” and when it does it is usually about Dungeon & Dragons, but this week fans of Old School Roleplaying games were given a really big story. Rebellion, the company that owns 2000 AD and which created the Sniper Elite video game, are now the proud owners and publishers of the Tunnels & Trolls roleplaying game.Rebellion Developments Limited ..read more

 Peter Cushing’s Tales of a Monster Hunter (1978)As you might imagine, the Geekerati library is filled with volumes containing tales of Sword & Sorcery, Sword & Planet, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and not a small amount of Horror. One of the books I am proudest to have in the library is the 1978 paperback printing of Peter Cushing's Tales of a Monster Hunter.Cushing holds a special place in my ..read more

Wandering Planet Toys, the manufacturers of The Prisoner action figure line, have a new line of action figures coming to the market focusing on the classic children’s sleuth Nancy Drew. Doc Wyatt and Gavin Hignight’s raised over $210,000 in the Kickstarter campaign for The Prisoner and they are hoping that their Nancy Drew campaign will be at least as successsful. This is the first time that ..read more