Latest news with #tabletop
Forbes
07-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Now Is A Great Time To Get Into Numenera With This Humble Bundle
Just your average day in the Ninth World. As we enter the second act of summer, a lot of folks are taking the time to head outside and enjoy the sunshine. The folks at Humble Bundle are making it easy for the indoor cats to enjoy their favorite activity. They currently have two massive role playing game book bundles for those of us who prefer to curl up in the air conditioning with a good book (or, in this case, a PDF). I discussed the Roll Big or Go Home bundle last week, so now it's time to talk about the Numenera bundle which features 45 titles at the highest level. This is a massive chunk of the game line for an amazing price. A portion of the proceeds benefit the ACLU. What Is Numenera? Numenera is a future fantasy roleplaying game where players explore The Ninth World. There are wrecks and relics full of unimaginable technology for the players to discover. It's like Dungeons & Dragons viewed through a post apocalyptic lens with Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law etched on the side: 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' The Kickstarter that launched Numenera was one of the first big six figure successes in tabletop games. It created Monte Cook Games and was the first game to use the Cypher System. The line established many of the hallmarks of the company like simple rules, well-referenced rulebooks and stunning artwork. Numenera Corebooks This Humble Bundle offer contains the two main core books with Numenera: Discovery and Numenera: Destiny. It also contains the Numenera Player's Guide to share with the table. The guide contains everything a player needs to know about the setting and how to make characters. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder These books expand the original core book with new classes, player options and information about the Ninth World. They keep the focus on exploration and discovery while also adding more advice and guidance on the communities where characters live in between their adventures. Even a billion years in the future, players want characters back home to protect, family members to love and rivals to defeat. Numenera Adventures The core books contain some adventures to get Game Masters started but it's always good to have more ready to go. They can serve as inspiration, be split up into original stories, or even be last minite drop ins for those weeks when game prep is too much. My favorite adventure in this offer is Escape From The Jade Colossus. It drops players into Numenera's version of a megadungeon and challenges them with shifting rooms, deadly creatures and an iconic location. It's great for players who want to kick off a campaign to try out the game as a one shot. Numenera Locations The Jade Colossus is but one of many weird locations in the Ninth World. There's a guide book to the entire world that can inspire GMs as well as a collection of smaller locations called Vertices. Any one of these books could be the basis of a campaign. There are also books that detail specific types of areas. I really enjoyed Into The Night which suggests that our planet is not the only thing that's changed over the millenia. It makes perfect sense that if this game is about sicence fantasy, why not include a campaign option that heads out into the stars? Numenera Bestiaries Adversaries are an important part of any campaign. With strange devices that defy the laws of science a we know them, that kicks it up a notch for the wild animals and monsters that inhabit these dangerous spaces. There are three books of antagonists available as part of the Humble Bundle. Non Player Characters are simple in the Cypher System with a level rating that stands as a general difficulty number and a handful of special powers. Simple, however, does not mean uninteresting and each gets a page long write up complimented by the excellent art team. It's very easy to flip through these books, get caught by a great bit of art and then suddenly start dreaming up a proper scenario. Numenera Sourcebooks Numenera has been around Numenera Glimmers
Geek Tyrant
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Delightful Trailer For THE HOBBY: TALES FROM THE TABLETOP a Doc About Board Games — GeekTyrant
Brainstorm Media has released the trailer for an upcomning board game documentary film titled The Hobby: Tales From The Tabletop , a "film for the trained, the casual gamer and beginners alike." The film explores the passionate world of modern board gaming, following enthusiasts who find community and meaning through games. The description for the doc reads: "What can happen when you roll two dice? Everything, apparently. Because dice, checkers and board can be portals to something much bigger than just a game. It's about community, emotion and participation – but it's also about winning! 'This doc takes us from the World Board Game Championships in Las Vegas to dating and all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia, because board games and the desire to play have deep roots. Through personal narratives, players around the world share fascinating stories of competition, passion, creativity and imagination, and about how a single game can bridge people and cultures. 'A character-driven, affectionate portrait of board game culture, this is a documentary film that inventively and charmingly ponders the importance of 'meaningless' activities in life." This looks like a fun and delightful doc that offers a fascinating look into the world of tabletop games. The movie is directed by Simon Ennis, and it will be coming soon to VOD later this summer.
Forbes
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
A Hands On Look At Daggerheart, The New Game From Critical Role
Daggerheart came out of years of playtesting to a public release in May 2025. The summer's first big blockbuster has arrived. Daggerheart, from Darrington Press with the support of Critical Role, is now in the hands of role playing fans around the world. The company also turned heads this week by luring away Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins from Dungeons and Dragons. Darrington Press sent me a review copy of the game. I've been able to get it to the table a few times both as a player and as a Game Master. I'm happy to report that I enjoyed my experiences building and playing adventures in fantasy worlds with my friends. How To Play Daggerheart Daggerheart uses a pair of twelve sided dice in its central resolution. Players roll them, add whatever bonuses they have and try to defeat a target number. One die is the Hope Die and one die is the Fear die. If the Hope die is the higher die, the player gains a Hope point and things turn out better than they planned. If the Fear die comes up high, the GM gets a Fear point and things might take a turn. Hope points can be used by players to add their experiences to rolls, power certain abilities. Each class also gets a thematic ability that costs three points to use. My favorite use of Hope points is the tag team attack where once per session a player gets to describe how they and another player do a big, flashy combo and both roll attack and damage to put the hurt on a brutal bad guy. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Fear points let the GM put some nasty twists in the narrative. They can interrupt players, add bad guys to the scene and activate special attacks. It's a fun feeling to tell the players you've spent a few points on something wicked, then watch them sweat for a few moments before you reveal what it is. Daggerheart Corebook Contents The core set contains two parts. The main rules are a gorgeous full-color book full of evocative art full of plenty of Easter eggs for fans of the show. The second part is a box with cards that reference the main parts of the character to make making characters and playing the game easier. Characters are built using classic elements from role playing games. Players pick a class, an ancestry and a background that gives the character spells, combat techniques and other cool tricks to use in play. The cards make these powers ebay to reference, though they aren't required for play as every character element is detailed in the book. Each class also provides access to two domains. The domains overlap one another so part of character creation is figuring out which domain power each player claims if they share one with another player. It's one of many examples of how Daggerheart encourages collaborative play between the players. This cooperation extends to building the world together. The game offers worldbuilding advice for session zero and encourages the GM to ask the players to develop the world in play. The game includes some blank maps for the group to fill in together to get started. For those groups who want a little more guidance, there are a handful of campaign frames as examples of settings where Daggerheart shines. There are a few fantasy ones but the genres also dip into technomagical science fiction and weird westerns. They also contain some rules that groups can use for their original worlds, such as cooking monsters, crafting weapons and gear and adding firearms into the mix. Daggerheart Impressions Daggerheart is a gooey, narrative indie-style game baked inside a crispy Dungeons & Dragons crust. It takes inspiration from several games that do things differently than D&D but also shines in tactical combat and specific character builds. Players who want high stakes drama while also busting out the minis for a fight will find a lot to love here. The game cites influences front and center complete with a bibliography in the first few pages. Every designer is inspired by other games and it's nice to see one of the biggest releases of the year encourage its audience to go out and play more games. I've played a lot of the games on this list and not only have they come together well, in a few places, they've improved upon the original idea. The Duality Dice supply a steady drip of Hope and Fear points. It was nice to stock these points if a dice roll didn't have a clever twist I could use. I never felt constrained as the GM by Fear, knowing that I could save up a stack to make the final combat more epic. Combat features a fluid initiative that I enjoyed. Rolling with Fear gives the GM a chance to cut in and do some damage. I really enjoyed the groans and cursing of my players when I would spend those points to give my bad guys a turn. Every player character can take two big hits, three medium hits and six little hits. Armor can reduce the severity of the hit and also affect how big the damage is. Even one hit damage from non-battle focused characters feels significant and the heavy hitters have ample opportunity to one shot bad guys if the dice are kind. I really appreciated the digital side of the launch. The main website has character sheets, printable cards, game play aids and even a preview of upcoming classes. Making characters with the Daggerheart Nexus was easy and it was a great resource during play. I like how the cards enhance play by having the full text of abilities right there. No more scribbles in the margins or lookups that kill gameplay momentum. This could have easily been an accessory that would have made Darrington Press more money but it's a shrewd way to lower the bar of entry to their game. Calling Daggerheart a 'D&D killer' is looking at it from the wrong angle. It celebrates the best parts of D&D while also not having to worry about legacy mechanics and earlier editions. Daggerheart stands on the shoulders of giants to climb to bigger battles and brighter adventures ahead. Daggerheart is available directly from Darrington Press, online retailers like Amazon and at Friendly Local Gaming Stores around the US.
Forbes
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
A Tabletop Games Gift Guide For Geeky Dads On Father's Day
You might not be able to afford a real Battlemech for your dad this Father's Day but you can help ... More them learn how to fix one. Having a geeky dad can make Father's Day easier. Beyond the traditional ties and cologne, they will likely be interested in comic books, collectibles and tabletop games. For anyone still looking for Dungeons and Dragons loving dad gift ideas, I'm here to the last minute rescue. The following list shies away from specific games for the most part and leans into accessories and other items that enhance the games dad likely already has. I came up with a similar list for Mother's Day that also can work for this gift holiday too. Evaluation copies of the items on this list were provided by the manufacturers. Heroscape is the only game that appears on both lists. It's a very light miniatures battle game that pulls from multiple genres. Players build forces and battlefields made of interlocking hex pieces for a different game experience every time. But it serves another function for gift purposes with terrain that's easy to assemble, deploy and store. Renegade Game Studios sells several packs of just terrain that expands options for their game as well as other miniatures based games. Many of my nerd friends kept their Heroscape from its original release for this very purpose and are excited there's new compatible accessories on the horizon. Monster Fight Club manufactures a lot of terrain options. The company is best known for its Cyberpunk RED Combat Zone game. One of the easy ways to expand that game is to pick up a pack or two of their Container sets. These boxes offer cover during a firefight as well as a sweet vantage point for the snipers in your crew. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder These containers look good in almost any modern or futuristic game setup. For fans who want a more detailed look to their cityscapes, Monster Fight Club has a Kickstarter running until June 28th, 2025 for Monsteropolis 2.0. The Kickstarter looks to fulfill next year around this time, but there's nothing like getting the jump on next year's present. There's a common misperception that miniature games require a massive amount of time and money to play. Everyone must start somewhere. Black Site Studios offers a suite of games that can be played with any miniature, though they do offer ones for fans of their games that can be painted and even printed at home. I recently played Don't Look Back which is a cooperative game where players face off against an 80s style movie slasher in a variety of scenarios. I really enjoyed the killer's ability to jump out from behind any bit of scenery which made the game feel like a face-off with Jason or Freddy. Cooperative games are also great for families to play together, although the subject matter of Don't Look Back might be a better fit for adult kids to play with their dad. Paizo, the publisher of Pathfinder, is very good at making accessories that fabs love. Their flagship game can be intimidating but they work hard to make it accessible. The company also invests in great art for its books that really bring Golarion to life. These two elements come together in the boxed set of Pathfinder Monster Core Battle Cards. Over 550 tarot-sized cards feature the monster art on one side and the stat block on the other. They are perfect for in game reference or flipping through for encounter inspiration. Many dads have dedicated spaces to their gaming hobby. Much of it is likely taken up by game boxes, paint supplies and all the stuff needed to make the game experience most satisfying. Let's end this round-up with a suggestion on decor. Battletech: Technical Blueprints contains four blueprints of some of the most popular mechs suitable for framing. The Mad Cat, Dire Wolf, Phoenix Hawk and Warammer add futuristic flair to any gaming room. Each print is on heavy poster stock with dimensions of 24' x 36'. These products can be found online, directly from the vendors or at Friendly Local Gaming Stores around the world.
