Justin Schmid

Justin started tabletop gaming in 1983 with Basic D&D (red box) and never looked back. He runs and plays in a wide variety of games, including Savage Worlds, Dungeon World, Trail of Cthulhu and many, many more. He also writes professionally for role-playing games, including writing and creating Night's Edge an Alternate Reality Universe for Cyberpunk 2020. He went on to write eight more adventures and sourcebooks in the Night's Edge line, adding vampires and other supernatural perils to the already dangerous world of Cyberpunk. As a freelance writer, he wrote The Bermuda Triangle for Call of Cthulhu, Shadows of the Mind, and Psi Wars for Conspiracy X and contributed to Last Unicorn's Star Trek RPG, as well as to Cybergeneration sourcebooks, and many other games. When he's not creating imaginary worlds for his daughter, he's running games for his friends and writing new adventures or designing new game systems. He currently lives in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.

Game Design: The Strange Case of Intimidation

 Posted by on July 12, 2015  Filed as: Editorial  3 Responses »  Topic(s):
Jul 122015
 
Game Design: The Strange Case of Intimidation

There are a small set of skills that tend to recur in almost every game, as they represent common tactics and approaches that players use in games. One of them is intimidation – representing under various names (coercion, threats, etc), the skill of being able to get others to do what you want through threats or power. While most skills comfortably sit in one of the [Read the article]

Jul 102015
 
Gaming Life: Warhammer World – Session 5 – An Eye for an Eye

Our final session of the Eye for an Eye adventure brings our heroes together in the library of Lord Aschaffenberg’s hunting lodge in the Reikswald Forest. Brought here by fate, they were enlisted to help the Aschaffenberg uncover what is wrong with the staff of this newly acquired property. They soon discovered some kind of conspiracy involving some of the staff being drugged. Having failed to [Read the article]

Jun 212015
 
Gaming Life: Warhammer World – Session 4 – Let's Split Up!

We pick up this session with our heroes at a feast in a hunting lodge deep in the Reikswald Forest. They have just accused their host’s staff of being part of some kind of cult and attempting to poison them. While this might well have been true, they unfortunately had no proof of these heinous accusations, so their host, Lord Aschaffenberg, was outraged and ordered them to leave at first [Read the article]

Free RPG Day Today!

 Posted by on June 19, 2015  Filed as: From the Editor's Desk  No Responses »  Topic(s):
Jun 192015
 
Free RPG Day Today!

Today is Free RPG Day! Established in 2007, Free RPG Day works with participating hobby game retailers and RPG publishers to bring new and exclusive RPG quickstart rules and adventure modules into the hands of gamers. This year, I’ll be watching for four items in particular: We Be Goblins Free! by Paizo: This is the third instalment in the We Be Goblins! series. Though I have to admit [Read the article]

Jun 182015
 
Spirit of 77 Encore, Review Follow Up and Another Scenario!

My Victoria gaming group asked for an encore of Spirit of 77 and I was happy to oblige them, giving another chance to check out the game. This time, we had five player characters (pictured below) Hugh Mungus, a Good Ol’ Boy who’s One Bad Mother looking for Thrills Rex Cranium, a Vigilante who’s a Former Badge looking for Paybac Jackie Chung, a Kung Fu Tough [Read the article]

Jun 172015
 
Gaming Life: Warhammer World – Session 3 – The Plot Thickens

We pick up with our group as they continue their investigations into the mysterious hunting lodge staff. Hired by the new lord of the lodge to find proof about what is afflicting the staff, they had just about finished interviewing the guards and the burgher and performer go search the gardens some more, but only find signs that it was not kept well for some time. Looking back at [Read the article]

Jun 122015
 
Spirit of 77 RPG - Review and Scenario

I had the chance to try out Spirit of 77, a funky 1970’s tabletop role-playing game. I had backed the kickstarter back last fall and thought it would be fun for my Victoria group of friends. As it turned out, although I already had the pdf, my hardcopy arrived in the mail the day before our game. The game is described by its creators as follows: Spirit of 77 is an [Read the article]

RPG Kickstarters: June Roundup

 Posted by on June 10, 2015  Filed as: Editorial  2 Responses »  Topic(s):
Jun 102015
 
RPG Kickstarters: June Roundup

It seems like the number of RPG Kickstarters that interest me is declining. Not sure if that’s because there’s less RPG kickstarters generally or I’m becoming more picky. This month there’s only two, both ending shortly, be sure to check them out. Custom Pro Tabletop Audio Background Loops (Ends June 16, 2015) This Kickstarter is for professionally-produced audio backdrop loops for tabletop gaming. Each professionally designed and [Read the article]

May 312015
 
Gaming Life: Warhammer World – Session 2 – Investigating the Manor Staff

In our second session of Warhammer World, the heroes have just made it to the safety of the Grunewald Lodge’s walls and as the howling beastmen rage outside, they are ushered into the main building and, after a quick bath, meet with the current master of the house, Lord Aschaffenberg. A big burly man, he quietly reveals to the heroes that he suspects the staff is up to no [Read the article]

May 242015
 
Gaming Life: Warhammer World - Session 1 - A Beastly Discovery

Just in time to play, I had the first version of my new Warhammer World game ready to go. The players created their characters using random draws from the career deck and we have a Burgher (merchant), a Dilettante, a Soldier and a High Elf Performer. The group is travelling from Bögenhafen to Stromdorf in a carriage. The Burgher deals in rare weapons and is travelling [Read the article]