Fortress: Ameritrash Blog

Many, many moons ago, I was an RPG adherent, drawing detailed topographical maps on graph paper and using Ral Partha miniatures that I'd painted when I was ten years old. I loved the idea of Dungeons and Dragons, although I was only lukewarm on the actual role playing. I think, in my heart of hearts, that my dabbling in Dungeons and Dragons, as well as my theoretical physicist cousins' love of war gaming, is what influenced my lifelong love of miniatures, fantasy war gaming, and really, board games in general. Of all the games that I count...

My Observations; Planet Side 2’s micro transactions and power creep     Sooner or later I will post a positive post here on the FAT, but until then I will continue to be a Grinch in this corner of the internet.   I’ve been playing a lot of Sony Online Entertainments Planet Side 2 lately. It’s a good game, it could be a great game, but it  has some very suspect systems in place. I like the game because of its theatrics....

  (While I begin by talking about RPGs, I am later going to generalize to all kinds of tabletop and video games - “sit-down games”.)   When I used to write lots of articles about RPGs for White Dwarf, Dragon, and other magazines three decades ago, I mostly wrote two kinds of things: game rules, and advice about how to play and especially how to referee Dungeons & Dragons successfully.  I rarely wrote settings; and only occasionally in the magazines did I write adventures, which are a combination of rules and setting/story. ...

Ok kid, come over here. Take a knee. I want to discuss something with you. You see that guy over there? The one in the dark robes, kinda boney, got a big scythe? Yah? Well he was looking for you. Yes you specifically. It's lucky for you he still relies on Mapquest for his directions. Otherwise he'd have found you rather than standing over there with that puzzled look in his dark empty eye sockets. Settle down. I didn't tell him where you were. I gave him the old  "At the third light...

It’s going to take a while to get to the point of buyers versus players: please bear with me.   In earlier posts I’ve wondered what the effect of free to play (F2P) video games would have on tabletop gaming.  We already know that it’s a disruptive force in video gaming.  F2P games have helped put pressure on AAA console games and have helped ruin the market for mid-level console games.  They also put video game developers in a dilemma, because F2P requires the game to hold back some of the things that make it...