PinkFae Archive #42: How to GM Part 4: Running the Game Session

Today, we have another installment of the PinkFae Archives. This article is the next in the 'How to GM' series. It was originally published on 19 November 2016.

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Finally, the time has come to play! You've assembled a gaming group and you've chosen a game. You designed the campaign, and you're ready with the story for the first session. Now you're sitting at a table with your friends, dice nearby, and the players all look at you. What do you do now?

PinkFae Archive #41: Board Game Review: Tides of Madness

We come once again to a PinkFae archive. This article is another board game review. It was originally published on 12 November 2016.

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Earlier this year, Portal Games released a Cthulhu-based card game called Tides of Madness. It was a rework of their game Tides of Time, which was released last year. It's a surprisingly enjoyable game, given that it consists entirely of eighteen cards and a handful of tokens. I got to play it a couple of weeks ago, so I will review it for you today.

PinkFae Archive #40: Descriptive vs Statistic: An Evolution in RPGs

Today's article is another entry from the PinkFae archives. It was originally published on 5 November 2016.

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 Last week, when I posted the interview with Whitney Beltrán, I had to cut out a lot of material. The transcript of our conversation was over 5,000 words long. I usually try to post articles of around one thousand words. Generally, I keep a thousand five hundred as an upper limit. Even cutting out entire sections of the conversation, it was hard to get the article down to two thousand words. This is especially disappointing to me, as there were some really interesting topics that I had to remove entirely. The interview I posted absolutely stands on its own. It does a great job of communicating the important aspects of the game. But one of the topics I had to eliminate was a discussion of the evolution of roleplaying games. In particular, we discussed how roleplaying games are becoming less statistics-based, and more descriptive.

Board Game Review: Architects of the West Kingdom

I've posted before about the reasons why I don't like worker placement games. I find that I don't like feeling like I have no good options available to me; most worker placement games limit the actions I can take, either by restricting how many tokens can occupy a single space or by providing me with a very small number of tokens to place. Often both. So when I see that a game is a worker placement game, I tend to be reluctant to try it.

I am pleased to report that Architects of the West Kingdom does not suffer from these annoying factors. I was pleasantly surprised by this game, and I ended up enjoying it quite a lot. So for today's entry, I will review this game. Starting, as we always do, with the numbers:

PinkFae Archive #39: Bluebeard's Bride: An Interview with Whitney Beltrán

This article is an installment from the PinkFae Archives. It was originally published on 29 October 2016.

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About a week ago, I received an email from Whitney Beltrán, one of the creators of a game called Bluebeard's Bride. I agreed to do an interview with her. We sat down over Skype, and I am pleased to share a condensed version of our conversation. We started with the usual pleasantries, before I described PinkFae's mission.

Whitney Beltrán - That's a pretty fascinating intersectionality. Because Bluebeard's Bride is specifically a feminine experience, whether you are a man or a woman or somewhere in between. It would be really interesting to see what trans men or trans women think of this. Would they react any differently than anyone else? Probably not, but would there be special purviews where they would identify with things more strongly or less strongly? It's a whole separate bag, that I am not super qualified to talk about, because I am not trans. But I would be interested to explore.

PinkFae Archive #38: Board Game Review: Steve Jackson Games Triple Threat

This week's entry is another board game review from the PinkFae archives. It is also an entry in the series of articles on Gen Con 2016. It was originally published on 22 October 2016.

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For my last entry about Gen Con, I'm going to do three board game reviews in one article. Why? Partly because the games are all short and simple. Partly because they're all from Steve Jackson Games. Partly because it's time to finish up the Gen Con posts and get on to something else! So we're going to look at the three games they demoed at their 'Play New Releases' table: Simon's Cat Card Game, I Hate Zombies, and Bill & Ted's Excellent Board Game.

The Ratings

Here are the ratings for all three games.

Board Game Review: Mixed Company

I didn't mention in the article I wrote about Token Con back in October, but one of the things I did was learn about an interesting new game called Mixed Company. As I was walking through the company booths, someone at one of them said, 'Would you like to play a game?'

I responded, 'Is that a trick question?' I sat down and learned how to play. It was a fun little game, and after we played a round and the designers were discussing some of their plans for the development, I asked them, 'Is this game just a way to trick people into learning good discussion and debate skills?'

Their answer was, 'I think that "trick" is a strong word. Maybe "encourage?"'

Being a big fan of rational discourse, I was of course intrigued. Additionally, the game was fun! So I followed their facebook page, and as soon as their kickstarter went live, I immediately backed it.

I've received a reviewer copy, and have played again with some other people, so I think the time has come to review this game so that you can decide if you want to back it.