Interview: Kieron Gillen on his roleplaying comic, DIE

Quinns: If you like comics, we’ve got a real treat for you today!

This month saw the release of the book collecting the first five issues of DIE, a fabulous new comic about a group of people who become trapped in their fantasy roleplaying campaign.

Written by Kieron Gillen, creator of THE WICKED + THE DIVINE, and breathtakingly illustrated by artist Stephanie Hans, DIE quickly became a series where I’d devour each new issue on the day of release. In two words, Kieron describes it as “Goth Jumanji”. In three words, I’d add that it’s “Very, very good”.

What makes this even more exciting is that Kieron Gillen is a personal friend of mine, and agreed to an interview about not just about the series, but the accompanying DIE RPG, and Kieron’s thoughts on roleplaying games in general. This is SU&SD, after all.

Before we get started, the three preview pages below give a summary of what DIE’s about. Click to see them at full-size!

Read more

SU&SD Play… the Star Trek Adventures RPG!

This was one of our favourite shows from SHUX 2018. Quinns ran a game of the Star Trek Adventures RPG, something we’ve wanted to do ever since our review.

“These are the adventures of the Star Ship Canada. It’s continuing mission: For crew-members Paul, Matt and Pip not to embarrass the Federation.”

Is the resulting story the worst Star Trek episode ever made? You be the judge.

Read More

SU&SD Play… The World Wide Wrestling RPG!

Did you enjoy watching SU&SD play Dungeons & Dragons under superb GM Mark Hulmes? Well we’re afraid that’s irrelevant, because today we’ve got something completely different.

Anyone who’s been following our RPG reviews will know that there’s a lot more to these games than D&D, and today we’re showing off an absolute belter: The World Wide Wrestling RPG. Contained in this one hour video is a one hour Wrestling TV special, and only one of our contestants can come out on top.

Are you cheering the loudest for Batterin’ Berg, Warrbeast, The Bristol Mudler or Car Boy? Or will you just jeer and throw beer cans at ring? Let us know in the comments.

Read More

SU&SD Play…. Dungeons & Dragons, Part 3

What follows Part 1 and Part 2? We’ve got some news for you: It’s the third part of our D&D adventure!

In this episode our team of a tory, a crank and a lizard descend into their very first dungeon,  the very engine room of D&D. What monsters will they fight? What puzzles will they overcome? And what treasure will they find?

It’s easy to poke fun at D&D. It’s a lot harder to argue with the thrill of beating up a boss and taking his gold. Get ’em, Badger!

Read More

SU&SD Play…. Dungeons & Dragons, Part 2

It’s time to rejoin the adventures of Badger Kennington, Mr. Balderk and Sean Dragonborn! Our group’s inevitable descent into “being the bad guys” continues apace.

If you missed part one, check it out right here. If you want to watch more from our sickeningly good guest dungeon master, Mark Hulmes’ own channel can be found here. Or were you looking for something a little… stronger? If so, all of SU&SD’s role-playing game coverage is here.

Tell you what, this “Dungeons & Dragons” thing is a lot of fun. Expect big things from this game. As cutting edge board game critics, we’d stake our reputation on it.

Read More

Dungeons and Dragons with Mark Hulmes

Last year we transported our bodies to Bristol for a day of filming with Mark Hulmes – a Dungeon Master extraordinaire who specializes in creating high-grade fun within the realms of Dungeons & Dragons. Be aware that whilst we’ve snipped out the swearing, the series does contain infrequent graphic descriptions of violence.

Joined by friend of the show Pip Warr, we delved into a world of monsters, fine wine, and terrifying levels of socioeconomic privilege. Quintin squeezes into the boots of a tired and possibly dangerous Dwarf, Pip is a Druid Dragonthing who doesn’t entirely understand humans, and Matt is just a terrible man who also unfortunately seems to have acquired a gun.

This is a three part series which will continue next Wednesday, and shortly after this one wraps up we’ll have a video of the same group playing The World Wide Wrestling RPG. Honestly, it is quite the thing. 

Chomping at the bit for more? Please enjoy this video from last year’s SHUX in which the team and friends played through a D&D adventure as the cast of Rat Queens – with the author of the series acting as Dungeon Master! We had an absolute blast with that one, although do bear in mind that it is honestly very rude.

Dungeons and Dragons with Mark Hulmes

Last year we transported our bodies to Bristol for a day of filming with Mark Hulmes – a Dungeon Master extraordinaire who specializes in creating high-grade fun within the realms of Dungeons & Dragons. Be aware that whilst we’ve snipped out the swearing, the series does contain infrequent graphic descriptions of violence.

Read more

RPG Review: Star Trek Adventures

Cynthia: “Space. The final frontier.” As a kid, whenever I heard Patrick Stewart utter those words, I’d drop everything, leap into my favorite chair (from the back, à la Riker) and watch. Star Trek: The Next Generation is more deeply rooted in my nerdy American psyche than pumpkin pie, Marvel superheroes and football combined. So when Modiphius announced they were publishing the first Star Trek roleplaying game in fifteen years, I began tugging Quinns’ sleeve like a kid passing an arcade. “Can we review that? Please?!

But does it provide that perfect blend of discovery, combat, philosophy and cheap humour that characterised Star Trek at its strongest? Can it submerge us the suffocating moral ambiguity of Deep Space Nine, inspire us like The Next Generation, or make us squee with dread like the tribbles of The Original Series? Does it boldly go where no science fiction RPG has gone before?

Read more

RPG Review: Unknown Armies

Cynthia: The third edition of Unknown Armies appeared in May of this year and got my attention with this pitch: “An occult game about broken people conspiring to fix the world.”

Alright, I thought, I’m hungry for games set in the actual dumpster fire world we live in, and I enjoy creepy, occult things, and I always want to investigate characters with secrets, traumas, and unsolvable problems. So I gathered a small cabal and led them into a morally ambiguous underworld of deadly rituals, paramilitary organizations, ancient crypts that appear only at midnight, young women without tongues, and murder. I plunged them into an international struggle for the future of the TransCanada oil pipeline, of Vancouver real estate, of the White House, and the world.

If you’re ready for a game of of vast conspiracies and sleepless nights, a game in which your obsessions give you strength and great power comes with great corruption, in which you’ll be haunted by invisible demons with ten-inch claws and compelled to do bloody deeds, where heroes are less Captain America and much more Jessica Jones… then read on. Just be warned: in case you haven’t figured it out yet, this game is not family-friendly. Nor is it for the faint of heart.

Read more

RPG Review: Blades in the Dark

Quinns: Remember last month when we reviewed Tales from the Loop, the charming sci-fi RPG of bicycles, bottle rockets and 1980s theme songs? Today we’re going to look at the other new role-playing game that’s been turning heads among my friends, and we’re going as villainous as Tales from the Loop was innocent.

Blades in the Dark is a game by John Harper, who you might remember from Cynthia’s review of superb free RPG Lady Blackbird. But while that game was an improbable 15 pages, Blades is 336 pages. By comparison, it’s his opus.

Which is very good news if (like me) you’re a fan of Scott Lynch’s Locke Lamora books or the heist genre in general, because Blades is a game of playing regency-era criminals. Oh, yes. This is a scoundrel simulator, and whether you want to play a crew of classy vice dealers, some down-and-dirty brawlers, or even a worrisome cult is simply the first of one million entertaining decisions that you’ll be making.

Blades in the Dark also offers a vast, seductive backdrop to your escapades: The haunted city of Doskvol, which will be familiar to anyone who’s ever escaped into gloompunk videogames like Thief, Dishonored, Sunless Sea or Fallen London.

This is going to be a long review, and not just because this is a huge book. You see, not only is Blades the most fun that my friends and I have ever had playing an RPG, it’s also like nothing I’ve ever played.

Read more