RPG a Day: Judging a Book by its Cover

5. What’s an RPG item cover that awesomely captures the spirit of the game?

Today’s question is another toughie. A lot of roleplaying games have excellent, imagination-grabbing covers that really convey the feel of the game. To name a few from the top of my head: Castle Falkenstein (R. Talsorian Games), Burning Empires (Burning Wheel Headquarters), Young Centurions (Evil Hat Productions), Blue Rose (Green Ronin Publishing), Hollow Earth Expedition (Exile Studio), Xcrawl (Pandahead Productions/Goodman Games), Deadlands (pretty much any edition—Pinnacle Entertainment Group), etc.

However, I have to select Tianxia: Blood, Silk & Jade (Vigilance Press), with a cover so delightful that it convinced me back in 2013 to change my Kickstarter pledge from PDF-only to hardcover. This cover turned out to be very truthful to the play experience, which in turn was so much fun that I ended up writing for this game line.

Why do I think it best captures the spirit of the game? Because it shows two very different characters, both very true to the wuxia genre; because it is explosively dynamic; because it is structure around a taijitu (yin-yang symbol), representing a balance which really does infuse the game; and because it really makes me want to play these characters. 

Play Report and Review: Relicblade

On Thursday my husband Edmund, our friend S., and I got to try Relicblade, a miniatures game from local company Metal King Studio. This is a skirmish-level, 35mm-scale game pretty much conceived and executed by one person, Sean Sutter: he wrote the rules, drew the art, and sculpted the minis!

The rule & scenario book

Rules for setting up

Rules for jumping down

The Relicblade had been Edmund’s birthday present this spring, but we had not tried it yet because Edmund wanted to paint the minis first. The basic game set comes with two factions, the Heroes and the Pig Men. Edmund had immediately declared them to be social justice warriors and male chauvinist pigs, respectively. The colour scheme of the heroes was selected to reflect his official team name, the Rainbow Warriors.