In the 1980’s, underground comics had a bit of a revolution, and one of the lead, definitely not Comics Code Authority friendly, titles was Eastman and Laird’s “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. A rough, gritty comic packed with death, violence, and lacking in pizza obsession, it had little resemblance to what it would become as an animated adaptation aimed at kids. This property was picked up by Palladium Books, then an up and comer in the RPG industry, and turned into the now cult TMNT and Other Strangeness RPG (TMNTOS). However, Kevin Siembieda, the head of Palladium Books, had a moment of clarity then. Realizing that licences don’t always last forever, he tasked Erick Wujcik with coming up with an in-house property to use the systems they’d developed for TMNTOS. The result was After the Bomb, a post apocalypse RPG.
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For some time now, on my radar but not fully explored, have been the Plane Shift products by Wizards of the Coast. The reason being that they were adaptations of the various worlds created for the Magic the Gathering CCG; and to be honest, I haven’t played that since Ice Age, so I wasn’t tracking much except that the game was still “a thing”. However, a combination of writing about Chult, Maztica, and looking into the Tales from the Yawning Portal has changed my online suggestions algorithm and kicked Plane Shift: Ixalan my way. Time for a new review!
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Last year I embarked on the most in-depth, detailed series of posts for this blog to date, as I dug into the Tomb of Annihilation campaign and sourcebook for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. Thousands of words in, and with dozens of research hours burned, the end result was a three-part series which can be found here. At the end of it, a reader pointed out that in their experience with Adventurers League (AL) material, that some of the issues I had taken up were expanded on. While I stand fast on my DM Guild works position (they are not canon), AL is canon, and deserved a full examination with the same critical eye.
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Elves. One of the founding player races in Dungeons & Dragons, they’ve always been a source of consternation for me, while at the same time being one of my top five favourite non-human, non-monstrous player races. But they have a convoluted history with a lot of internal inconsistencies in D&D, and one that is becoming more convoluted with the upcoming release of Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. So it’s time for an intervention, because D&D has a serious elf problem. and by “elf”, I mean Eladrin.
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It’s not inaccurate to say that Dungeons & Dragons is both the largest and most famous fantasy roleplaying game on the planet. But those well deserved accolades don’t mean that it’s the best, or only, fantasy roleplaying experience. Speaking from experience, I know I’m not the only player or DM who’s sat down at one point or another and determined that D&D, while good at what it does, isn’t always the best fit for what you want to do or the playstyle of the group.
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