Product Review: Monopoly Gamer Puts Nintendo Twist on Classic Game
Is it weird that I simultaneously feel offended, as a gamer and nerd, to be blatantly pandered at and almost assuredly going to get it? https://t.co/Y9wfRieKBK
— Joshua Brickley (@OriginalRubahak) June 28, 2017
When I first heard about Monopoly Gamer, I rolled my eyes. “Yet another cheap shot at gamers to buy Monopoly for the 50th time with a dumb gimmick,” I thought to myself. It’s not the first time a company slapped “Gamer” onto a product in a cheap attempt to sell a few more products. (Full disclosure: I did end up buying one some time later, with some personal disgust in my heart, but I couldn’t pass up the color scheme.)
At first glance, it’s just Monopoly with plastic Mario figures instead of generic metal ones, and coins instead of money. Plus, they’re adding IRL downloadable content by means of extra figures you can buy. Commence even deeper eye roll. However, as ashamed as I am of myself, that was enough for me to buy it.
Spider-Man: Homecoming Review (Spoiler Free)
[caption id="attachment_22415" align="aligncenter" width="2048"] Spider-Man climbs the Washington Monument in Columbia Pictures' "Spider-Man: Homecoming" [Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures][/caption] Class in session for a review of Spider-Man: Homecoming Hey, guys, Professor Bill of Comic Book University and I saw "Spider-Man: Homecoming" twice… because comic books! Spider-Man is one...
Origins 2017 – game convention from a new perspective
Attending a game convention is not new territory for me. Fresh off of Origins 2017 in Columbus, Ohio, the gaming juice runs at an all-time high and I’m pumped to plow forward with gusto on as a fan of tabletop roleplaying games as well as a savvy up-and-coming Nerdarchy aide-de-camp.
My first game convention was, coincidentally, Origins Game Fair back in the early 90s when civilization was at its peak. I’ll never forget inadvertently joining a world championship tournament of Diplomacy, having never played the game. For about an hour I had my opponents thinking I was some kind of savant, making bewildering moves they’d never seen. Then they realized my cluelessness and my stint as a global leader quickly ended.
Nord Games unleashes Revenge of the Horde on your D&D game
Ultimate Bestiary: Revenge of the Horde from Nord Games offers an awesome resource for incorporating a variety of monstrous races into your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game. At nearly 200 pages, the book presents creature options for bugbears, gnolls, goblins, hobgoblins, kobolds, ogres, orcs and more. The book is available through Nord Games in PDF and hardcover options, for $15-45. In addition to the D&D version, there is a Pathfinder edition, too.
Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch backed the Kickstarter campaign, and you can watch their Nord Games-sponsored flip-through video above. In addition to the hardcover book, they received the reference deck, all five encounter builder decks and 258 pawns featuring the new creatures from the D&D book.
IDW D&D Comic Book – Frost Giant’s Fury
Hey, guys, Professor Bill of Comic Book University and by my name, you can probably tell that I kind of like comic books. I review a lot, and one of my current favorites is one that may appeal to every Nerdarchist. The comic in question...
D&D 5E initiative from the Mike Mearls AMA gets a look from Nerdarchy
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNpLHTHLKWo&w=560&h=315]
During a May 15 Reddit AMA with Mike Mearls, lead designer of 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons at Wizards of the Coast, he mentioned how the D&D 5E initiative system bugged him and shared a house rule method he uses for his own games.
Critter Compendium brings D&D monsters of the past into the present, with creative new creatures
Critter Compendium by Tobias Beis is a collection of monsters for 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons, available now as a PDF through the Dungeon Masters Guild for $15. The hefty book presents a wide variety and number of creatures from earlier D&D editions converted to the current ruleset, along with original creations that includes artwork by the author. With 135 entries and appendices describing additional creatures and templates, Critter Compendium has enough creatures to populate several campaigns across the whole gamut of challenge ratings.
‘Dice, Camera, Action’ never waffles on D&D fun
How can your game go wrong when the lead story designer for the team behind creating Dungeons & Dragons runs the campaign? In “Dice, Camera, Action,” Wizards of the Coast’s Chris Perkins leads a core party of adventurers along with several guest players through a live streaming season of the official published campaign Curse of Strahd in season one. The second season continues the party’s adventures with Storm King’s Thunder.
D&D AARPG IS your grandparents’ Dungeons & Dragons
For this week’s look into streaming RPG programs, there’s a wonderful series put together by Geek & Sundry called D&D AARPG. In this series, writer and actress Amy Vorpahl guides a group of older players through a D&D adventure. Vorpahl handles Dungeon Master duties, while seniors Annie Coty, Bobby Reed and Art are joined by younger players Hector Navarro and Josh Flaum.
Scarlet Sisterhood is a different kind of streaming RPG
Moving closer to home this week, I’m taking a look at a live streaming RPG show that has grown to become one of my favorites to watch. The Scarlet Sisterhood of Steel & Sorcery is streaming live every Wednesday evening at 7 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy’s YouTube channel. Each week, DM Nerdarchist Dave hosts Staff Writers Megan Miller and Samantha Karr with gamer girl and Nerdarchy fan Vex on their D&D 5E adventures in and around Gryphongaffe, Nerdarchy’s homebrew campaign setting.
Sourcebook Review: Recovery Dice Options
In Fifth Edition Dungeons & Dragons, healing works a little bit differently. Each class, as usual, has a certain type of hit die that you can roll to get more hit points at higher levels. What isn’t quite so usual is the idea that you have a pool of these dice you can use to heal yourself during short rests. The reason for this is to allow parties to keep moving longer without having to camp inside dungeons. Spend some hit dice, recover your health, and keep moving.
Recovery Dice Options ([amazon_link asins=’1545236488′ template=’PriceLink’ store=’nerdarchy-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’d4c37b80-209b-11e7-8ec2-75f53789e3bc’] from Amazon) is about alternative ways to use these dice. Conceptually, the idea of being able to use your recovery dice for things other than recovering hit points is intriguing. After all, you are quite literally using your own life force to fuel some of what you can do with this, and it is taking a resource that is, otherwise, very limited, and giving it more purpose.
The TitansGrave role-playing game show is a top-notch production
Returning readers might make me eat crow for the RPG encounter planned for this session. D&D is hiding in shadows and moving silently this week while the Fantasy Adventure Game Engine sets the stage for Geek & Sundry’s TitansGrave: The Ashes of Valkana. There is a huge variety of live streamed and recorded RPG play sessions out there. The merits, value and impact are debatable among many, but not me – I enjoy them as entertainment and believe they add value to the hobby. For those reasons, I’m taking a closer look at my favorite programs and sharing not only what makes each program fun to watch, but what gamers can take away and bring back to their gaming tables.
The C Team innovates live streaming roleplaying games
As promised last week, I’ll be taking a closer look at the myriad online roleplaying game programs that I enjoy to offer some reviews and analysis as well as any tips or pitfalls therein. The criteria for me as a gamer, fan, audience member and for the purposes of this series are the entertainment value and the takeaways I can bring back to my own game group.
Most of these shows (okay, all of them on my initial list) are Dungeons & Dragons games. In keeping with that spirit, I’ll rate where each program has a Success or Failure along with where it scores a Critical Hit or a Critical Fail, and wrap up with a Perception Check for miscellaneous observations and standouts as a viewer.
Comic report: Saga, Volume One
Saga: Marko and Alana
Saga (written by Brian K. Vaughan with artwork by Fiona Staples) is just one of those comics you need to read. The perfect combination of action, romance, drama and inappropriateness is definitely what makes this a story to indulge in. It’s basically like an epic space odyssey of a couple, Alana and Marko, two separate alien races (both super hot, horned, winged aliens with attitude, peoples) escaping the life they lived as military personnel to two opposing racial forces in a war between the planet Landfall (Alana’s home) and its satellite wreath (Marko’s native moon). In order to start anew with their newly-birthed (from forbidden love) child, Hazel, they are forced to flee in secret and hopefully escape the never-ending war between their two races, which they want nothing to do with. This world, mind you, is full of magic and strange scientific advancements similar to recent Star Wars movies, so you see a lot of creepy and strange characters which makes it intriguing and makes you want to keep reading!
Easy Roller Dice – Fantastic Dice Company
Have you heard of Easy Roller Dice? If not than I have a treat for you. Happy Monday everyone. I am taking a break this week from my normal post about board games. If you missed last week and want to hear about Dragon Slayer Dice, you can go here.
Nerdarchist Ryan introduced us to these awesome dice this past weekend and I have to say I was impressed. The dice are crisp and clean and seem to have a very even rolling ratio. Admit it you all pick up dice and ‘look’ for the one that seem to be waited for higher numbers. Well Easy Roller Dice are waited evenly assuring you get the random rolls you are supposed to. Lets face it if you always succeed where is the challenge?
Now we have all seen the buckets or bins of plastic polyhedrals and have sifted through to find those precious few that have whatever desired quality we are looking for, so you are asking yourself by now what is so special about Easy Roller Dice? To take a quote from their website:
