RPG & WARGAME NEWSLETTER #118
July 14, 2025
Greetings, Gamers!
Bit of a short newsletter this week as I’ve been prepping for my first session of Daggerheart on Tuesday night. I was asked if I would consider running a campaign of it, and while I was hesitant to do so… I really want to do it. I haven’t run a regular campaign since my Shadowdark session last summer for my youngest son and his friends. Before that was a 5e campaign that ended with COVID. Between COVID and Shadowdark, all I ran was one-shots and short adventures with my playtest group for my zines. This will be six new players and I’m committing to at least eight weeks, but beyond that I don’t know. Just lots of prep work and I’m just about ready. I’ll try to do a recap of each week’s session in upcoming newsletters. Stay tuned.
Now, let’s get to the fun stuff.
RPGs
So, last week I wrote about Daggerheart and my first (positive) impressions. This week, I’m going to talk about some of the things that I’m not sure about just yet (you could say they are negatives, but I’d say more “concerns). I’m about to run my first game (Tuesday, July 15) for six players that I’ve never met. I’ve read the rulebook, watched some videos, and I think I’m ready to go. I’m not committing to anything long-term, but I do prefer to actually PLAY an RPG so I can make an actual informed decision on whether it will be something I play regularly or sometimes (like at conventions). So, let me mention a few things that I’m stuck on and probably won’t have a solid opinion on until after a game or two:
Way too many races and classes to start off with — as a GM, I’m going to have to depend on my players to know their characters and their skills because I simply cannot be expected to know all the little nitty-gritty details for how they work. This also means trusting my players to not take advantage of the fact!
The learning curve — there are a LOT of new rules. This isn’t D&D, and that’s why I’m drawn to it. But I’m not going to put pressure on myself to know each and every rule in the book. I’ll allow players to point me to rules that I might miss or run wrong, but I’ll be playing with the idea of ‘rulings before rules” so the game can move forward at a reasonable pace.
The number of starter-world-settings is too high — I’m already seeing players in online discussions talking positively and negatively about the five different settings provided in the book. For me, I’ll be running my own setting, but while I like that the rules can be applied to different genres (cyberpunk, western, etc), I wish Darrington Press had gone with just a single setting initially and then offered up the others in an expansion… it’s already splintering the player base in the sense that some people are looking ONLY for X setting or Y setting. If someone shows up to my table wanting the Western-Apocalyptic setting, they won’t get it… and may choose a different table OR not even find a game. That’s not good for the game at all.
Campaign Level-Up Rules - With Daggerheart, all characters level up at the same time, and the rules say typically after 3 sessions. If a character dies, the player rolls a new character but at the same level as the entire party. I’m not a fan of this, especially for a campaign where players may not show up every week. It rewards those who miss a session and penalizes those who attend regularly. I’ll probably end up house-ruling this one and eliminating this option.
I’ve got some more concerns, but these are the big ones for me. That said, I’m still going to run the game. I have high hopes for Daggerheart (which has hit Adamantine level sales of DrivethruRPG!), mainly because I’ve tired of D&D but I still want a fantasy-themed game I can run for friends and strangers. I’ve wanted something different — different combat rules, different character creation rules, etc. - for a LONG time, and maybe Daggerheart will do the job. I’ll report back in the next newsletter with how the Session 0 and 1 went. Stay tuned.
More info on Daggerheart here.
A new zine for Shadowdark has been released! Issue #1 of Final Torch is available in print and PDF. The first issue focuses on helping GMs add a jungle theme to their campaign, and the 80-page zine offers up a few adventures plus lots of charts and tables. From the product page:
+ Hex map with 30+ Adventure Seeds for the Jungles of Qaratha
+ Over 50 new Monsters
+ 3 Exciting Jungle Adventures: Sanctum of the Undertoad Queen, Secrets of the Overgrown Pyramid, The Mapping of Adelbog Crypt
+ Rumor Cards for all 3 Adventures (PDF)
+ VTT Maps for all 3 Adventures
WARGAMING
Time is my enemy when it comes to Halo: Flashpoint. I’ve been wanting to get into this game for a while, and I’m hoping once school starts up for my boys, I’ll find some time to get some games in. I’ve only played a handful of games with my limited number of minis, but the game was outstanding. Fast, easy to understand, and SPAWN POINTS! The game isn’t over for you just because you lose a few guys! Mantic just put out a nice little list of 5 Reasons You’ll Love Halo, and I figured I’m already in… so maybe this will help some of you decide on whether it’s a good fit or not…
A huge thanks to my writer friend, Gareth Branywn (of Gareth’s Tips, Tools, & Shop Tales) for pointing me to this one~! Convict Combat by Malev. A micro-skirmish wargame for just $3… yes, please. From the site:
Convict Combat is a miniature agnostic solo tabletop game inspired by the Wargames Atlantic Cannon Fodder boxed set. The entire game is based off of the sprue that comes in this kit, and will be used to depict Convicts equipped with basic firearms let loose in an arena shootout to see who is the deadliest! That's the role that you will take on, a Convict forced to battle others for survival and victory. The game resembles an Arena shooter, but where you have only one life to live! To win a game, you have to simply survive the stage, survive three stages and you win the game!
TERRAIN
I’m not sure what to make of this new Endless Dungeon Kickstarter project. Dungeon tiles based on a hex system, BUT… they’re tiny. Not made for miniatures. Each one comes with a lid to hide what’s inside, so my thought is this is for solo gamers who want to randomize rooms OR… it’s just an aid for a GM who runs a Theater-of-the-Mind game and is looking for something for the players that will help them visualize the layout of a dungeon (the project description pretty much says this).
It’s pretty-much funded, but two concerns — they’re offering printed-only options and a November 2025 fulfillment date. I hope they have a server farm just in case the number of backers goes thru the roof. Second… the limitation on sizes of rooms since everything is based on the hex system - doesn’t look like you can have LARGE rooms or unusually shaped rooms. Not my thing, but definitely looks cool.
I don’t know if I’ll ever have enough fantasy housing terrain, so that’s why I’m so happy to have stumbled upon the collections from Proxywars on MyMiniFactory. They have these little bundles of buildings for $3.00 each… most bundles come with 3 structures, so it’s a real good price for what you get. below is an image of the three for Medieval Architecture Part 2… and yes, there are many more of them. Some are $5 and some are $9, but they all come with a good number of files.
HEROQUEST PROJECT
Well… my plans to create me a custom HeroQuest game board with my laser hit a HUGE snag. So, I’m pivoting. Let me explain. My plan was to cut the board with my laser and engrave the patterns on the stone to match those of the original game board. These include many checkerboard patterns along with cracks and divots in the stonework. But the problem is… the line used to create these is very thing. LASER thin, right? So I have two options… create the pattern to consist of multiple thin lines that add together to create thickness. Time consuming for the laser AND frustrating for me to design in Inkscape. Another option was to simply engrave the patterns, but this is VERY time consuming. Too time consuming. IT tripled the time to create just a single room’s floor… and there are over a dozen rooms. I also tried to widen the engraving line beam by raising the laser and causing it to go out of focus. It works… but looks horrible. Too light (not dark enough) with the burn and inconsistent look.
So… I went digging. And I have chosen the Dragon’s Rest HQ files. The Thingiverse files looked good, so I’m running with it. Printing has begun!
YOUTUBE
As I start 3D printing my HeroQuest gameboard, I noticed the grid is about 10-15% larger than the provided game board from the Core Box. This means the included furniture (tables, fireplace, etc.) are slightly smaller when placed on the new 3D printed grid. It makes me think I may need to find new furniture to print OR… go the route of MaxDMCraft and make some. The video below is a new one, and he shows how to make the fireplace. Pretty slick.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
For those of you in or near the Atlanta area, you might be interested to know that Level Up Games has released the dates for its inaugural convention, LUG CON 2025. It will run Oct 23-26, four days! Vendors, RPGs, wargames, card games, etc. I have no doubt it’ll be a good one. They’re holding it at the Gas South Convention Center in Gwinnett County. I guess they’re expecting a LARGE turnout! More info here, and I hope to see some of you there.
See you next week!
Jim, The Tabletop Engineer
TO MY SUBSCRIBERS
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Digital copies of all my zines can be found on DrivethruRPG.
My game play-through videos can be found here.
The YouTube Channel name is The Tabletop Engineer Plays
As to point 4 in the Dagger heart thing - you really think you need to penalize players who cannot attend a game by making their characters less powerful? That sounds super rough, my dude. Isn't the fact that they didn't get to play a big enough punishment?