This is a problem as you grow older (growing up is completely optional, don’t listen to what anyone tells you) but that’s what we are here for! Chimera Games is not just your FLGS (friendly local gaming store for those that haven’t seen the acronym) but we are a gaming center. Our tables are available any time when we are open and we are always looking for people to run or play in games.

So we present the question to our customers, if we gave you a space at a regular time would you want to come in and run a game? We will do everything we can to make it awesome for you, including terrain, maps, figures, music, etc… so why wouldn’t you take advantage of our stupidi…er… generosity?

Already from talking to people we have suggestions for the following games:

- Game of Thrones, a Song of Ice and Fire RPG (Yes, Game of THRONES!)

- Mutants & Masterminds (superheroes at their best)

- Marvel Super Heroics (co-designed by one of friends Philip Ménard!)

- Outbreak Undead (Zombie Survival Horror at its most frightening)

For those who are gaming curious and want to run a game we have copies of all the core books in our library that you can use in store (yes we have an in store library, bet you didn’t know that did ya?) and if you are a player seeking a game please come in and give us your info so we can notify/find you a game!

So what do you have to lose? Not much

What do you have to gain? Meeting some new people and being a part of an awesome gaming group.

Heck, we’ll even have some fun and throw in some prizes for the best games we see happen in store.

Contact us in store to fill in one of our contact sheets (your info will never be shared outside of finding you a game/players) and let’s start building some epic gaming history!

Greg the Jadedpaladin

MWP RPG’s are here! Check em’ out here.

Using their Cortex system MW Productions has adapted some of the best TV shows out there into RPG’s, allowing you to play in some of your favorite settings. Have you ever wanted to be a part of Smallville? or how about the worlds of Supernatural? Leverage? or Marvel Heroics?

Each game is simple to learn and fun to play and the backgrounds of each take directly from their respective universes to give you a really fun roleplaying experience.

So it’s up to you, the role playing universe has expanded, what’re you going to do about it?

Just check out what MW Productions have to say about them:

The rich and powerful, they take what they want. You steal it back. You and your Crew used to be the bad guys, but there are worse people out there. The weak and the helpless need you. You provide… leverage.

Based on TNT’s hit show, The LEVERAGE Role Playing Game puts you in the middle of a dysfunctional but highly specialized group of con artists, criminals, and crooks who are trying to turn over a new leaf. You protect the victims of corporations, mobsters, and corrupt politicians by using your expert skills to outwit and overcome the real bad guys.

Using the award-winning Cortex System as its foundation, LEVERAGE: The Roleplaying Game includes all the rules you need to create a high-voltage team of rogues, plan the perfect job, and get it done… even if it means going to Plan B. This game requires a set of gaming dice available from any hobby or game store. Earbuds and really big HDTVs are cool, but not required.

Every hero has a beginning… The SMALLVILLE Roleplaying Game lets you experience all the superpowered action and coming-of-age drama of the hit show on the CW Network. Whether you’re struggling against your heritage, your humanity, or your heroic responsibility, you’ll need the support of friends and family in order to embrace your destiny. Players may choose to take on the role of Clark, Chloe, Lois, Oliver, or their own original characters in the world of SMALLVILLE.

Sorry to be the one to break this to you, but the truth hurts and there’s no use sugarcoating it. Ghosts are real. Demons too, along with those bumps in the night and maybe even the monster under your bed. The world’s a scary place. If you’re lucky the nasties that creep around in the dark won’t get hold of you.

‘Cept maybe you aren’t lucky. Maybe you’ve already lost something – or somebody – to the darkness. All the booze and therapy in the world can’t put your life back the way it was. And evil has a way of finding you again once it’s had a taste of blood.

So you decide to fight back. It’s not gonna be easy — as this kind of on-the-job training can get you dead. But you can stop being the hunted and become the hunter. There’s no fame or glory in it, and there sure as hell isn’t any money. But if you get the job done, you’ll save lives and send the bad guys screaming back to hell where they belong. If that sounds good, then you’ve got some work to do.

In the Supernatural Role Playing Game you and your friends play hunters from the world of the hit television series. Play characters from the show or use the Cortex System rules to create your own hunter. You’ll also find gory details on ghosts, demons, and other nasties for the Game Master to throw your way. All you need to start the hunt is this book, some friends, some dice, and some time to kill…

The Avengers have been disassembled, the Fantastic Four are somewhere in space, and the X-Men aren’t answering their phone. When dozens of dangerous villains are sprung from the maximum-maximum security prison known as the Raft, who’s going to stop them? You are.

The MARVEL HEROIC ROLEPLAYING Basic Game uses the acclaimed “Breakout” story arc from Brian Michael Bendis’ New Avengers to launch the MARVEL HEROIC ROLEPLAYING product line. The Operations Manual gives you all the rules you need to play, from gathering your heroes to taking on the likes of Carnage and Mister Hyde in a desperate free-for-all!

Magazines have been a tradition in the Role Playing community for a long time, many people still have old, tattered copies of Dragon or Dungeon in their closets, articles they loved safely tucked away for use in their current or future campaigns. With game companies moving into the online realm it makes sense for them to move things online as well, less production costs, no shipping, it’s all business. There is something though about holding a real magazine and the good people at Open Design feel the same way.

Open Design is the company behind one of the last remaining magazines out there, Kobold Quarterly.  KQ provides player and DM alike with all kinds of helpful information that could help you flesh out things in your character or campaign. The articles are all written by some of the best freelancers in the industry at the moment (including Chimera Games customer Ryan Costello Jr.!) and the presentation is just incredible, beautiful art, amazing prose all come together into one great package.

Kobold Quarterly comes out every quarter (Spring, Summer, Fall & Winter issues) but with so much info available it will take you that long just to get the most out of each issue. Chimera Games gets every new issue and has back issues as well, so why not come on down and check it out, if you are part of a campaign and want something to help make it even better we guarantee you will love it.

Kobold Quarterly Issue #21

From the website:

Kobold Quarterly issue #21 takes on the theme of Divine Majesty, with a host of articles to take your campaign into the higher realms, or lower depths.

“The Shaman” introduces a new base class for Pathfinder RPG that gains powers and abilities by unlocking secrets about the natural and spirit worlds. “Daughters of Lilith” presents the ecology of the succubus with new feats, powers and traits fully compatible with Dungeons & Dragons. David “Zeb” Cook’s article “It’s a Mystery!” provides an antidote to generic fantasy religions using the secrets and traditions of the mystery cults that flourished in ancient times.

“Clerical Conflicts” makes the life of a cleric extremely interesting with soul-ripping demands made by his or her god — dilemmas such as Disillusioned Crusader, Chosen One and even Were-Angel! TSR and WotC alum Steve Winter explores how GMs can build a compelling monotheistic campaign setting in his “Howling Tower” column, and “Divine Archetypes” gives players a way to make angelic heroes, holy traps, and celestial Fists of Fury.

KQ #21 also features official Pathfinder Society content, robber knights and vile wizards, new Zobeck and Midgard articles, and alchemists, druids, illusions, and seers for the AGE System — with a sultry pinup cover!

Right now in our media section is a link to the new show Tabletop on YouTube, check it out!

Like him or hate him Wil Wheaton has made it his life’s work to be an ambassador for geekdom and his latest offering, Tabletop is no exception.

Co-created alongside Felicia Day (from The Guild) this show illustrates boardgames in a new way, by inviting celebrity guests to sit down and play while explaining the rules and game play along the way. The 30 minute format would seem to be limiting (considering most games play for at least an hour, if not more) but they manage to pull it off seamlessly, giving us as much information about the games they play as they can while keeping it fun to watch.

All videos are available on YouTube on the Geekandsundry channel.

Check out the first episode

This review comes to us from long time friend and fellow games devotee Davila LeBlanc (co-creator of League of Super Evil), click on the banner below or head over to the reviews section to check it out!

THE CONFESSION:

I think it should only be fair to point out before even reading this review that I mention that I am a SAMURAI FREAK!  So obviously: I love this system.   It should also be mentioned that I have no real knowledge of the previous editions of this role-playing system.  That being said, I love this system.

LEGEND OF FIVE RINGS FOURTH EDITION

Welcome to the land of Rokugan where the Rule of the Emerald Empire and it’s Emperor is enforced by the Seven Great Clans.  A land of court intrigues, bold Samurai, mysteries, magic, monsters and most importantly a land of rich history. 

Legend of Five Rings has one of the most beautiful and rich world lores I’ve ever read.  In the fourth Editions books you don’t feel so much your reading a game manual as a history book.  Rokugan is a world of rich history and the writers of L5R have done a great job in capturing the flavour, thematic and all-around feel of a land that draws inspiration from many Asian mythos.

It CAN feel a bit like standard-fare fantasy with Samurai, replacing fighters, Ninjas and Ronins replacing rogues and Shugenja replacing wizards, and many new players might be turned off by that, however this isn’t a paint-by-numbers standard fantasy with a Japanese flavour paint job on it.  This is a rich world with plenty of room for play adventure and storytelling.

Practitioners of martial arts in particular, or Samurai genre fans will feel right at home in Rokugan.

ACCESSIBILITY

L5R isn’t a game for beginner players, it’s rules of a roll and keep system are easy to understand, but can get pretty complicated very quickly.  While running my campaign it was always a bit of chore crunching numbers and trying to figure out how many dice a player rolled and how many dice the player kept.  Add that with the fact that the rolls are open-ended and we’ve got a big number cruncher that just might be a bit intimidating for newer players.

But this isn’t really a system for new players; this one is more for Intermediate and up.  Players who’ve run D&D, and want to try something a little new, in world rich in traditions and history will have a blast.

HONOR

The game encourages players to play honorable characters, and although it is refreshing to have a game that rewards behaving honourably, it feels rather nebulous as to what honor can do.  Honor can be added to Courage checks and can be used to help the player out of a jam (kinda like a fate dice) but that is pretty much it.  Also given the fact that players have to keep track of their GLORY, HONOR and a myriad of other stats, L5R CAN be a little bit more intimidating than other systems.  Also be warned that characters can and WILL die very easily in this game.

Players who love to fight first and never ask questions should probably look elsewhere.

I often found it difficult to figure out when to penalize or reward my players with honor points and the rigid honor system of Rokugan can have players scratching their heads and wondering why they lost honor points or gained them for that matter.  There is a chart in the book but it is far from comprehensive.

That being said however I, found the rules easy to follow, the books (all four of them) so incredibly well indexed that I never had any problems finding any rule or reference, and character creation was so easy!

CHARACTER CREATION

With a forty-question survey in the core book, my players and myself found ourselves creating fully fleshed out (more or less) character with about an hour to an hour and half tops.  The game has a very good customized/level up system, players who just want to follow their current Clan Disciplines and Powers can do so very easily while players who want to make more “customized” characters can do so as well, just as easily.

The game has TONS of Character Build options.  With the Core Book alone, players will have countless character types to choose from.  The other books, BOOK OF THE CLANS, ENEMIES OF THE EMPIRE and THE EMERALD EMPIRE, also add other options and powers, although trust me when I say you’ll have more than enough with the core book.

FINAL VERDICT

LEGEND OF FIVE RINGS 4th EDITION, is a very good role-playing system, which while intimidating to new players, is still a great time.  Sure there are imperfections in the system, but LEGEND OF FIVE RINGS has been out for awhile now and it’s developed a loyal following.  I should know, I’m one of them.

I give it Eight Cuts out of Ten.

SAMURAI (pros)

-Books are incredibly well indexed.

-Very rich lore and beautiful artwork.

-Character creation is both easy and fun.

-Great Writing and Presentation.

-A fresh different spin on the fantasy genre.

NINJA (cons)

-Very number crunch heavy on the die-rolls.

-Rich world lore CAN be intimidating to newer players who are just getting into role-playing.

-Honor System a bit nebulous.

NEEDED TO RUN:

-Legend of Five Rings Role Playing Game 4th Edition Core Book.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

AEG has also released a total of four source books for the fourth edition so far.  All of them are great reads and will add TONS of flavour to your L5R campaign.

In order of Importance they are:

1. Enemies of the Empire

2. Book of the Clans

3. Emerald Empire

Marvel Avengers Movie Heroclix are here!

Released in conjunction with Marvel’s hit movie The Avengers Wizkids and NECA have released Avengers Heroclix to help you add this epic cast to your teams! Featuring characters from the hit movie as well as from Thor and Captain America this set is bound to fill in some of the spots you’ve been needing.

To start let’s look at the Fast Forces Set

This set features the core team, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Hawkeye and the Black Widow.

Each on their own is a great ‘clix but thanks to the synergy that the fast forces packs are designed around you can form them into solid 300, 500 and 600 point teams that all share the Avengers keyword (trust us, it’s important) and allow you to build a team suitable for any tournament format!

Also included are maps, updated rules book, powers and abilities card (PAC) dice and tokens, everything you need to start playing with Marvel’s leading superhero team.

Next let’s take a look at the 60 figure movie set.

Traditionally Heroclix has been available in 4 to 5 figure booster packs, the Avengers takes a different route offering each figure in single packs (similar to the Gravity Feeds from previous sets) as well as the new team packs which feature a completely thematic set of three figures to help you build the teams you need.

Characters are taken directly from the Avengers movie as well as from two of the movies that led up to it, Thor and Captain America and players can pull some pretty rare and powerful ‘clix including more powerful versions of the Avengers, Loki, the god of mischief and even the All Father, Odin! (meticulously sculpted to resemble Sir Anthony Hopkins himself, seriously just look at it!)

Players can purchase in either single format or in brick format (6 singles and a team pack) to help round out their collections.

With the Avengers being tournament legal it won’t be long before we foresee them being played in the Infinity Gauntlet Tournament and the Heroclix Supremacy League play.

Greg The Jadedpaladin