Hobby Games The 100 Best

Hobby Games The 100 Best is Green Ronin Publishing’s anthology of short essays that brings together many top names in the gaming hobby/industry to talk about games. They include designers and publishers of card games, CCGs, computer games, board games, miniatures rules, RPGs, and war games, as well fantasy authors and a cartoonist. Each writes about what he (there is only 1 female contributor) thinks is one of the best hobby games from the last 50 fifty years, from the types listed above, each entry being just 2 or 3 pages long. Although computer game designers contribute, no computer game is included. More board games are discussed than anything else, the earliest title being Avalon Hill’s Gettysburg from 1958, the latest being (excluding later editions) GMT’s Here I Stand and Rio Grande’s Thurn and Taxis (a Spiel des Jahres award winner), both from 2006. Later editions excluded, the earliest RPG discussed is of course, Dungeons & Dragons from 1974, the most recent being the self-published My Life With Master from 2003. It is also the only “indie” RPG to make the list.

The choice is fascinating. Discovering that Alan R. Moon likes the dungeon game Descent, that Jordan Weisman chooses Magic: The Gathering, and Squad Leader was Ray Winnegar’s choice is surprising. That Steve Kenson chooses Marvel Superheroes, and Larry Harris chooses Diplomacy is less so. Easily dipped into, Hobby Games The 100 Best provides a wonderful introduction to, history and overview of our hobby. Perfect on any gamer’s shelf.

The Freeport Trilogy

The Freeport Trilogy is a Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 campaign from Green Ronin Publishing designed to take a party of four plus player characters from 1st to 5th level. It originally appeared in three parts, Death in Freeport (which won the 2001 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Adventure), Terror in Freeport, and Madness in Freeport. Its setting is confined to Freeport, a pirate city on the Serpent’s Teeth isles. Ruled by a pirate captain called the Sea Lord, it is home to many races, and keeps an uneasy peace with the mainland nations. So self-contained, it slots easily into most RPG fantasy settings.

The player characters come to Freeport for adventure, which they find after being asked by a cleric of the Brotherhood of Knowledge to find a missing priest, who had also gone missing years before after a personality change. Their investigations uncover ancient serpent men below the city, a cult that worships the Unspeakable One, a Great Old One, and something strange about Freeport’s towering new lighthouse, called Milton’s Folly after the current Sea Lord. Low on magic, but high on intrigue and conspiracy, The Freeport Trilogy is like a Call of Cthulhu fantasy campaign. It is a good campaign, but is let down by its slightly weak ending. Getting there though is great and The Freeport Trilogy setting is well supported with setting material and different rules such as Savage Worlds and True20, each having their own Cthulhu supplements, making it the best choice for Lovecraft-inspired fantasy.