d20 Radio 2020 Gift Guide

Another year nears its conclusion. Time to buy people presents! And after the year we’ve had, everyone could use a nice present. Check out this years d20 Radio Gift Guide!

Linda Whitson Gift Guide

POTION DICE SETS

For stuffing your favorite gamers’ stockings (or whatever containers suit their winter holiday/s), you can’t beat dice, because everyone wants more. Protect The Caravan offers sets of potion themed dice for pre-order. (Estimated delivery date is given as December.) Each matched set of solid color or swirled dice is named after a potion (16 different ones, from sparkly green Acid to translucent azure Water Breathing). I am in love just looking. I know someone who is using the Potion Dice as one-stop-shopping for their gaming buddies’ gifts. And I’m on the list! Each set has 1 d4, 1 d6, 1 d8, 1 d10, 1 d100, 1 d12, & 1 d20, stored in a cork-stoppered, labeled bottle. Sets are US $12 each or $172 for all 16.

UNTITLED GOOSE GAME 2-PLAYER and TEE SHIRTS

I had the game on last year’s list and it’s returning because it was updated in September so 2 people can play cooperatively! (Plus there are other goodies for fans.) Your pair of honking geese can tag-team to drive the hapless locals nuts on their way to finding the MacGuffin. If you didn’t take my advice and get it single-player before, pick it up now. This is a great time for a simple, silly game. UGG is $19.99 for Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, Xbox One and PS 4.

Already have the game? There’s some cool tees and socks ($9-25), and a physical card with download code ($19.99) for gift-giving.

PATHFINDER: KINGMAKER VIDEO GAME

I’ve been hearing a lot about this game the last couple months. One of my friends says it plays “just like D&D!” The raves, plus looking at videos online, have been more than enough for the game to make it onto my gift list for my husband, the longtime Pathfinder RPG fan in my house. I enjoyed reading the Companions descriptions on the Owlcat Games website. They are a diverse bunch, in classes, backgrounds, and personality. Good prices too. Downloads from Steam and GOG are $20, even less during some recent promotions. It’s also available for PS 4 and Xbox One, which include 6 DLC sets, for about $50. Some tiers for the various platforms have other goodies as well.

MUTANTS & MASTERMINDS 3E

This line, one of my favorite RPGs, has released some good content this year, in spite of everything. Superteam Handbook was Green Ronin’s big release this year. I reviewed it earlier this month. My own group has already made good use of it for the M&M campaign we just started. It is $34.95 hardcover or $18.99 PDF. Also new this year, is Astonishing Adventures, $5 PDF modules for the game, released about once a month. There’s a variety of one-shots plus a full 6 part campaign. I covered the overall series, focusing on the multi-part “Nether War,” and the one-shot “The Reign of Cats and Dogs” earlier this year.

JT Dimino’s Gift Guide

Orna
Price: Free (in-app purchases)

Orna is a fantastically fun GPS game for iPhone and Android. Like Pokémon Go and other popular GPS games, Orna gets you walking around. The neat twist is that instead of catching Pokémon, you’re battling monsters and leveling up in classic 8-bit RPG style! There are tons of classes, specializations, and customizable gear to choose from. You can battle everything from goblins to dragons to the legendary Hydra. Playing Orna is completely free, but they do have in-app purchases available to give you items that will speed up the leveling process.

Cover Illustration by Merilliza Chan
TM & © 2020 Fandom

Cortex Prime Game Handbook
Price: $49.95 for a hardcopy + free PDF +digital access; $24.95=9 for all-digital.

Cortex Prime is a generic, modular RPG designed to allow you to play exciting and cinematic games in any setting you can imagine. Cortex’s strength lies in the wide variety of mechanics available to help you tailor the ruleset to best suit the sort of game you want to play. With numerous famous IPs under its belt, including Firefly, Marvel, and Supernatural, you can rest assured that Cortex can handle anything you throw at it. Supported by Fandom, Cortex Prime also comes with full digital support, making it easier than to roleplay in the digital age. The basic rules and an example game setting are available for free at https://www.cortexrpg.com.

Wayne Basta’s Gift Guide

Dungeon Mayhem

I reviewed this game a few months ago. It’s a quirky, fun, and quick game to play. You battle each other in a D&D bar fight between members of a hero party. You can take on the role of a Wizard, Barbarian, Thief or Paladin. Each deck has unique cards that give them a flavor and playstyle all their own but everything is simple enough that you can play any without needing to relearn anything. It plays fast and works great as a lunch time game when you only have a few minutes to play. You can think about your actions and maximize your play but it works best as a rapid fire slug fest. Enjoy the mayhem.

Marvel’s Champions

This game has gotten a lot of play this year. And that’s just since August. It’s a LCG that captures the deck building joy of TCG’s without the costly card hunting. The mechanics of the game fit the superhero theme well, giving each hero unique play while feeling like that hero should. There are already a fair number of expansions and plenty more in the pipeline. You can purchase them all of just the ones you want to play. The Rise of Red Skull big box is your best bang for the buck in terms of expansions.

Egg Embry’s Gift Guide

ALIEN RPG Starter Set from Free League Publishing

The ALIEN RPG is the best RPG adaptation of a property I’ve experienced. For d20 Radio, I reviewed the ALIEN RPG and, at EN World, I interviewed Tomas Härenstam, CEO of Free League and the designer of the ALIEN RPG. The system is ingenious, playing it feels like being in ALIEN or ALIENS. This version of Free League’s Year Zero Engine focuses on the cinematic stress of those movies with every rule and roll meant to simulate the feel of that universe. The only way to improve on on the experience available via the core rulebook is by adding dice, a deck of quick reference cards, a map, and game markers; in other words, the ALIEN RPG Starter Set. This set includes a 104-page condensed ruleset, the 48-page Chariot of the Gods scenario, and everything I already mentioned. These accessories plus the game makes the ALIEN RPG Starter Set the gift I’d want under the tree!

Arcana Academy from Murder Publishing

When 2020 got me down, Jordan Palmer’s Arcana Academy acted as a major picked me up. Getting to roleplay as a tween student sorcerer going to school among the best parts of The Worst Witch, Harry Potter, Just Add Magic, and The Magicians is a blast! Using the Powered by the Apocalypse system to guide this game put a smile on my face. At d20 Radio, I talk about how much fun I had playing Arcana Academy along with comic book artist, Steven Cummings, and novelist, John McGuire. Being able to attend magic classes during the day only to sneak out at night for adventures that determine the fate of the wizarding school offered an enchanting combination of school age joy and fantasy drama when my life needed a healthy dose of escapism. If you’re looking for a tabletop RPG set in the world you wish you were in, written for children of all ages, I recommend Arcana Academy.

PDF and print copies available at itch.io

Tales from Vigilante City – Short Fiction Collection for SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City from Bloat Games

Disclosure: Egg Embry wrote or contributed to this product

When Bloat Games kickstarted their superhero OSR, SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City, they also opened submissions for an anthology. When my story – about a woman that, while hiding in an all-night diner, catches the attention of a villain she literally can’t say no to – was selected, I was stunned (validation is a head rush). To promote Tales from Vigilante City at d20 Radio, I wrote an article with contributions from most of the anthology’s authors. With short stories from Clare L. Deming, John McGuire, Christopher Robin Negelein, Aerzyk, James M. Spahn, and myself, there’s a nice variety of street level superhero fiction ranging from the return of a 1950s hero to investigations to the experience of being a nameless henchman. If you need a gift for the superhero reader in your life, Tales from Vigilante City makes an excellent choice.

POWERED by the DREAMR RPG Zine from Egg Embry Publishing

Disclosure: Egg Embry wrote or contributed to this product

POWERED by the DREAMR will always have a special place in my world as it’s the first RPG I kickstarted, wrote, drew, and published. It took longer than I imagined but failing is a teacher (not the teacher anyone wants, but a teacher nonetheless). POWERED by the DREAMR uses a variant of the Powered by the Apocalypse system to create dream states for you to adventure through. In the game you play as Dreamrs, individuals that are XL lucid dreamers with god-like powers in dreams. Designed for the table to create each part of a dream in a silo before the GM mixes it together, the game removes premeditation from the narrative through a series of random questions. This project was inspired by Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts 2, Sandman, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Inception, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Dreamscape, What Dreams May Come, Dream Within a Dream, Black Mirror: San Junipero, The Sopranos: Funhouse, and every life I lived while my eyes were shut. QuestWise was kind enough to do a review of my zine on YouTube, as was my friend, Damien Lagauzère, at his blog (in French). If your special someone wants to play out their dreams this holiday season, POWERED by the DREAMR awaits.

Kim Frandsen’s Gift Guide

SLA Industries Quick Start

Don’t be fooled by the cover of Halloween Jack. This is one of the best roleplaying games out there, and the start of a system that they refer to as S5S – in effect it’s similar to the narrative dice that many of us know from Star Wars, but at the same time, it uses regular d10s.

More importantly, is the world. The setting of SLA Industries is my absolute favorite. The original is basically a “dystopian sci-fi punk inspired by the 80s Thatcher era England.” It’s a bleak setting where appearance and media are everything – used to keep the rabble lucid and entertained through ever more over-the-top bloody TV-programs. But the bloodiest TV-programs are usually the news. Both the stars and the grunts of the universe are the Slops (a derogatory term for SLA Operatives). Your task is to clean up the messes that SLA Industries leaves behind – and in a world where they control everything, and have no morals – there are a LOT of messes to clear up. By the time this goes live, the new 2nd Edition is live, but since the Quick Start is free – why not grab it? 🙂

Never Going Home

Did you ever wonder how things would have played out in World War I, if the destruction had opened the portals between the worlds and let all kinds of monsters and creatures through? Well, wonder no more as Never Going Home will take you there. You’re just a normal human soldier, caught on the front lines and your task is to work together with your team (if you don’t, you die), be smart (if you’re not, you die) and lucky (you might STILL die). Things are coming for you in the night, and in the already horrible conditions of the trenches, things are about to get a LOT worse.

Destiny Aurora

Disclosure: Kim Frandsen wrote or contributed to this product

Created for Starfinder, Destiny Aurora builds a different world, away from the normal Golarion-centric Paizo material. It takes place in a universe where Earth exists and is a major player. The galaxy itself is relatively small when compared to things like Star Wars, but there are many unique inhabitants, ranging from the pixie-like Glykwiis to the terrifying Iron Dragons. Not only that but it provides you with a reputation-system for playing within and outside of the law (though it’s focused on the factions in the Destiny Aurora universe, it is easily adaptable to other universes) and seven entirely new playable races, in a similar format to that presented in the Starfinder Core Rulebook (as opposed to those from the Alien Archive books).

Pocket Lint, Light Loot & Tiny Treasure

Disclosure: Kim Frandsen wrote or contributed to this product

This little book was a love-child of my own. Back when I started playing in the mid-90s, my friends and I came across an article in an old Dragon magazine called Trifling Treasures. That little article always held a special place in our hearts, because it allowed loot to grow beyond “5 silver, 3 copper, a gold piece, and an ugly painting.” Instead, through random rolls on the tables in that article, you were able to populate and liven up the world. Suddenly that goblin didn’t have boring loot. He now had an unfinished loveletter as well, and he gained a personality of being a tragic hero, whose life was cut short by the evil heroes. With this book, I took inspiration from that, and more than tripled the original idea in size, so that there would be something new for everyone.