Greetings gamers! Last time we began a discussion comparing the differences between the classic World of Darkness (WoD) and its reboot, the Chronicles of Darkness (CoD) settings. I gave my thoughts on ways in which the WoD setting, while being one of my all time favorite TTRPG settings, suffered from some pretty significant problems. Mainly…
Greetings gamers! As you may have gleaned from previous articles, I am a die-hard horror fan. As a consequence, Halloween is my favorite holiday; the celebration of which I extend to the entire month of October. In the spirit of the season, I am going to share some of my thoughts on the classic World…
Magic has been a staple of TTRPGs since their inception with the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons. The very name Dungeons and Dragons suggests a fusion between medieval tactical tabletop wargaming and magical narrative elements drawn from the realm of myth and legend. In particular, I have always had a fondness for stories that…
Greetings gamers! Three weeks ago, we took a look at the game mechanics of the generic TTRPG, the Cypher System. This week I will look at the game that the Cypher System was derived from: Numenera. As I mentioned in the article on the Cypher System, Numenera is a critically acclaimed science-fantasy TTRPG published by…
Greetings gamers! This week we celebrate the life and work of Jack Vance (August 28, 1916 – May 26, 2013), an award-winning American sci-fi and fantasy author. While Vance was responsible for the creation of a sizable corpus of literary works in the mystery, fantasy, and science fiction genres, it was his Dying Earth series…
Greetings gamers, and welcome to the latest installment of Beyond the d20 System. In this week’s article, I’m going to take a look at Fate, the last game in our series of TTRPG systems. Fate is a generic roleplaying system designed to minimize dice rolling while leaning heavily into the narrative elements of gameplay. As…
Greetings gamers, and welcome to the latest installment of Beyond the d20 System. In this week’s article, I’m going to take a look at the Cypher System; the third of four systems of game mechanics that may serve as an alternative to the d20 system. The Cypher System is a role-playing system created by veteran…
Greetings gamers, and welcome to the latest installment of Beyond the d20 System. In this week’s article, I’m going to take a look at Savage Worlds; the second of four systems of game mechanics that may serve as an alternative to the d20 system. Savage Worlds is a rules-lite generic roleplaying system designed for a…
In this week’s article, I’m going to take a look at The Storytelling System; the first of four systems of game mechanics that may serve as an alternative to the d20 system. The Storytelling System is the successor to the Storyteller System, the ruleset of the World of Darkness line of games popular in the…
These are good times to be a TTRPG gamer. The growing popularity of D&D has been responsible for increased production of D&D products, celebrities playing on livestream, and even an upcoming live action movie. Best of all, popular culture’s interest in D&D has drawn a whole new generation of gamers to TTRPGs as a result.…
