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When I moved out of my parent’s house, I moved in with a guy I knew in college. Being mostly penniless I had to use a lot of tools and items that he already owned, including the can opener. The problem was his can opener didn’t work very well. When I told him this, he insisted that it DID work if I held it a certain way and turned the crank with a steady motion. And after some practice I found that he was right. The can opener worked when you learned how to deal with it’s little eccentricities....

It'd been a tough day - during work I'd had to spend the afternoon chairing a meeting instead of using the whole day to prepare for my first ever shot at playing War of the Ring like I'd planned. It was going to be a PBEM game via Cyberboard with a long-time PBEM opponent of mine. Our baby had decided that being awake and playing of an evening was a much more fun alternative to going to sleep - can't say as I blame her really - so home time had been awkward too. As a result, I'd wound...

One does not simply walk into Next of Ken--you run your Hobbit ass in, as this week I'm all about gushing over Lords of Middle-Earth, the new expansion for the 2nd edition of War of the Ring.  I've just received my copy, and I'm going to share what my all-seeing eye, uh, sees.  So join us, won't you precious?

Once upon a time, I played inordinate amounts of Magic: the Gathering. I played it so much that information about anything other than Magic: the Gathering could do little more than skitter across the surface of my overheated, addicted brain. Nevertheless I was dimly aware that there were other collectible card games available for those poor, benighted souls who couldn’t cope with the munificence of Magic: the Gathering. It was all very sad, but they had to have something to play, I supposed.This is why, when Fantasy Flight Games released Android: Netrunner, I had absolutely no idea that it...

 Avery was right.

  This began as a reply in "What Board Games Are You Buying"  to my previous post about whether Mice and Mystics was worth getting as a game for adults.  I got mixed answers so I and just went ahead and bought the damn thing. 

At this point in popular culture, it’s hard to swing a stick without running into something about vampires. And as is always true when something reaches cultural saturation, it descends into parody. The ubiquity of the Twilight franchise has rendered vampires just a little less overdone than zombies. It’s easy to forget that vampire literature has a much richer history, one that is steeped in atmosphere and darkness. One has only to see Murnau’s Nosferatu or Tod Browning’s classic Dracula with Bela Lugosi to see the possibilities for the genre. They eschew cheap scares for moodiness and quiet dread....

I can vividly remember the first time I saw a copy of Dungeon! Visiting some of my Dad’s friends who had a son a year or two older than me, he pulled a copy out from under his bed and suggested we play. I was gobsmacked, not only because I’d unwittingly stumbled into the company of a fellow geek in the making, but because up until that point I’d only ever considered Dungeons & Dragons as a role-playing franchise. The idea that it could extend to a board game seemed stunningly innovative to my young self.But it seemed to...

Not to be confused with "Crude: The Steve Avery Game" On the Table Crude. If you like economic or business games, you should play this game. If you like games like Acquire, Power Grid, or Settlers of Catan you should play this game. This is an important reissue of an important game, one that I think is the missing link between Sackson and Teuber. Stronghold’s new edition is a pretty straight reprint with some minor, designer-sanctioned changes and some improvements. It didn’t really need to be modernized all that much. In...

  Come on in for a heftier-than-usual Next of Ken, where this week I'm previewing Road to Enlightenment, talking about the new reprint of the classic Dungeon!, weighing in on the Star Wars/Disney acquisition, and then "Going Negative" as I  talk about common failure points for games.  Join us, won't you?