News

Dragons & teen superheroes at the ENnies!
Epyllion & Masks: A New Generation up for an ENnie! The ENnie nominations are up, and Epyllion: A Dragon Epic and Masks: A New Generation are in the running for Best Family Game. Please also remember Magpie Games in the...
Which Hero Are You?
We saw Spider-Man: Homecoming, and loved it! We were wondering though, do you think Spider-Man is a Janus...or a Protégé? Wake up. Breakfast. School. Work. Homework. Sleep. Repeat. It burns me up, being stuck in this life, unable to make...
Where do Gamemasters Get Their Fun?
Every single RPG with a GM has a motivation to run the game, an agenda, for the GM. Most of those games would be better if they stated that agenda explicitly. Because beyond telling the GM what to aim for,...
May the 4th Be With You
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… The galaxy is under threat from a terrible menace. A shadowy empire, led by a dark lord, is bent on subjugating the free peoples of countless worlds to a new...
A Look Back at 2016
As we advance steadily into 2017, we wanted to do a quick look back over some of the best parts of 2016, and look ahead to what they could mean for us moving forward! The Magpie Nest Grew Over the...
Masks Won Silver in Best Family Game!
I didn't have to do this. I could probably have had a safe, decent, simple life. It'd have been nice, but...come on. Come ON. SUPERPOWERS! ALIENS! WIZARDS! TIME TRAVEL! SOMETIMES ALL OF THEM AT ONCE! Sure, I'm out of my...
Fight, Party, and Save the World with Brendan!
Brendan Conway will be at Dreamation 2016, running both his game Masks as well as Wicked Fate. Dreamation runs from Thursday, February 18th through Sunday, February 21st in Morristown, New Jersey, and you will have FIVE chances to play with...
2016 Origins Roundup
Hey Origins Attendees! Magpie Games is excited to support Games on Demand at Origins 2016. We've got a whole bunch of new stuff to show off, as well as opportunities to play Urban Shadows, Epyllion, and Masks! Here are a...
Podcast and Video Roundup
Although all of us here at Magpie Games keep ourselves pretty busy writing, designing, and publishing games, sometimes we get the chance to talk about them as well! Several of us here have been on podcasts and YouTube videos to...
Games of 2016: Pandemic Legacy
It’s the end of the year! And that means it’s time to talk about end of year assessments of the most important piece of culture: GAMES! I might come back to this, so I’m not going to cap myself at...
Gen Con Highlights
It’s been a bit since GenCon closed off, and we want to cap off how grateful we are for such an awesome convention! Thank you to everyone who came by to the IGDN booth and said hi! Here are some...
Con Report! - Origins
It’s been two weeks since Origins Magpie had a whirlwind of a time, and we wanted to look back on some of the awesome games and events we’ve had! We had a blast running a smorgasbord of games! We had...
Two Minutes Hate: FAQ
Since posting “Two Minutes Hate,” I’ve received dozens of emails, read hundreds of comments, and spent 20+ hours talking on phone/Skype with people from multiple communities. After those conversations, I feel I need to both make some apologies and clarify...
Two Minutes Hate
UPDATE: I wrote this post in 2016. In the wake of information that has since come to light, including Mandy Morbid’s post <LINK>, it has become apparent to me that I was wrong. I’m leaving the post up so that...
Enjoyment vs Experience: The Dark Souls Dilemma
Dark Souls 3 came out recently, spurring much writing on it and the Dark Souls series. In particular, this pair of articles, one from Adam Smith of Rock Paper Shotgun, one from Rob Fearon on his blog We Make The...
Picking the Right GM Move in PbtA: Part Two
You can read part 1 here. Navigating the Territory In the first post of this series, I talked a lot about harder moves and softer moves, how to make them, and what those terms mean. I argued that any move...
Picking the Right GM Move in PbtA: Part One
In the Powered by the Apocalypse community, we’ve gotten used to a few pieces of terminology we use regularly—in particular, we talk a lot about soft and hard moves. Steve Segedy of Bully Pulpit Games wrote a post all about...
Tabletop Mashup: XCOM 2
In this series of posts, Brendan will tackle games outside of the tabletop RPG realm, dissecting them for any useful tidbits to apply to tabletop RPG design. XCOM 2: a game of soldiers, aliens, bad calls, upsetting mistakes, a really...
Your Next AW NPC is going to be awesome
Vincent Baker gives some excellent advice about making Non Player Characters in the Principles section of Apocalypse World: “Name everyone, make everyone human”. He instructs you to give them straightforward, sensible self-interests to help drive the fiction, so your players...
Art Director: Process Outline
In this piece I will outline a very basic structure of what an art director responsibilities are in the tabletop RPG scene. I thought I would take some time to explain what it is that I do, so others can...
GenCon Round-up
GenCon is this week, and we’ll be there running games and standing in the IGDN booth in the exhibition hall. We’re all excited to be there! We’re bringing a bunch of the awesome books we’ve made, including Urban Shadows, all...