The way things are going, it looks like we’re headed straight into the third worldwide economic crisis in less than two decades… and the second since we started this blog. So while it seems likely that things will be very, very bad by the time you read this, even if catastrophe is somehow averted, it should be clear that we’re all living in a world that could melt down at any moment. Gaming, in both electronic and tabletop forms, may not be as expensive as some pastimes (particularly if we limit ourselves to… legal activities), but there’s still some degree of investment if you’re pursuing new and innovative experiences. As well there should be, corporate profits notwithstanding, artists and creators should be paid for their work. But, as COVID isolation reminded us, when you’re stuck with the Old Favorites, they well… get old pretty quick. Going into a future where we can assume we’ll all have less money to work with, how are we able to keep having novel gaming experiences and stay on...

Nazis are the Bad Guys. Saying that shouldn’t be considered going out on a limb, and if you disagree then you probably won’t like this one. In fact, it’ll probably make you pretty angry... although, there are seemingly endless ways to make Nazis angry. If you’ve been a regular reader, it should be no surprise, given some of our other posts , what our stance is. Perhaps you just need a reminder, though. Nazis are the Bad Guys. You should have easily figured that out during your school years by reading and learning of the atrocities they’ve performed and the abhorrent things they continue to espouse. Perhaps you didn’t receive the best education, though, or struggled with your studies, so you might need a reminder. Let me assure you, Nazis are the Bad Guys. You don’t have to take it from Never Say Dice, though, or pour over history books, or visit museums - but you probably should, lest history continue to repeat itself. However, you should still be able to find continual reminders v...

It has happened before, and will happen again. You’ve spent your time aligning schedules and everyone can make it. You’ve been making sure everyone has the things they need to play, the dice, and the pens. Everyone has been well-fed or food has been otherwise arranged. All the details are taken care of... except you’ve spent so much time on all of that other stuff that you’ve neglected to plan for the session. Maybe you have a few ideas in your head, but no solid map or villain for the night. What the heck are you going to run as an adventure this evening?! Does all that sound familiar to you? You could always forgo the scheduled RPG session and just break out a board game. That may be fine every once in a while, but all the scheduling and everything else involved in gathering people (even virtually) is always going to be  next time. Before you break out that (non-roleplaying) other tabletop game, or even while you’re doing it, we might be able to take some inspiration from it for ...

Grilled foods and cold brews are a staple of summer, and with Memorial Day marking the official start of the season in the US, it's no surprise we’ve covered taking tabletop inspiration from both of those subjects on previous holiday weekends. You can already fill some imaginary bellies with a few Risus Burgers and down a cold one from Tapper . It'd be hard to top either of the Risus builds those inspired, so this year we’ve gone with another backyard theme: backyard games! While we’ve talked about incorporating sports into games before, and people have been converting board games into something you can play outdoors for centuries, we’ve never gone into bringing less formal outdoor games brought back to the tabletop.  So let’s jump into our collective backyard to try and find some more tabletop inspirations. A great many backyard games seem to focus on one particular skillset, whether you're hitting a moving target, throwing, or catching, it all boils down to one classic...

Gaming as a pastime is often a solo venture. You pop in the cartridge, disc, or what have you, take the controller in hand and you’re off into the digital world. Likewise, with TTRPGs, you can find ways to game by yourself (we’ve even written about the very subject.) However, gaming, both digitally and at the tabletop, is often a multi-player pursuit. Modern digital games have even been criticized about not having much, or sometimes any, single-player content. What about when it's just two players though? Even board and card games are usually designed with more than two players in mind, so finding the right thing for you and your significant other can be tough. Before you dive right in to pick something out to play, let's do a broad review of potential options and some things you might consider before making your selections. The Digital World Two player games are not uncommon in the digital realm. This is especially true if you’re into indie games like Journey , Cuphead or It...

Quite often, we get pretty goofy on this blog. That's no surprise, with our focus on games and the occasional dive into nerdly music , movies and other media storytelling pursuits . This week, though, and in particular on the day this will be posted, I’d like to talk about something a bit more serious. (Though I promise we will touch on gaming somewhere in here. I can’t seem to not do that.) Perhaps the topic has become more visible in recent years, or maybe I’m seeing that because I’ve grown closer to it, but I still don’t feel like it's talked about openly enough. Especially in today’s political climate with an openly biased Supreme court, and the push to take away the rights of women and other minorities, I think it's important to discuss. Unfortunately, even beating around the bush, this is still pretty vague as to what I’m talking about, and could be any number of important topics. To be clear, I’m writing about miscarriage. (If any of you wish to skip this one, or j...

In the broad scope of media, sequels, prequels, and remakes are all often maligned. This might be less common in gaming, although we do see it there as well. Part of the issue could be the time between between releases, and all the changes that take place across the various industries during the interim. Complain though we might, audiences will still (usually) jump on board to at least get one more taste of a favorite media universe, even if they end up deciding they hate it afterwards. Here at Never Say Dice, we’re no different than any other media consumers - we still long to voyage into our favorite media worlds once again. For this post series, we’re going to venture off the beaten review and commentary path to talk about some sequel, prequel and remake ideas of various properties that we'd like to see... regardless of how likely any of them are happen. For this post, we’ll start off with a few games I'd like to see revisited. One classic video game I 'd like to see rem...

It doesn’t seem that long ago when we were making our 2021 New Year’s Resolutions ...a year that, unfortunately, didn't end up being too dissimilar from 2020. Fortunately, Never Say Dice are fully vaccinated, boosted, and staying as safe as we can. Before we get to our resolutions for 2022, we thought we'd check in on how we did last year, maybe keeping a few of those for the coming year, and set up some new goals. If you’re setting your own along with us, remember to keep them simple and specific. If you set your sights just low enough right, you can accomplish your goals and still be slightly proud of it. How did Never Say Dice do with our Gamer Resolutions from last year, and what are we anticipating for 2022? - A A : I set a few goals for 2021: the first one in our previous post was to actually play in a TTRPG, apart from just running a regular campaign. I have a few updates this year, and I’ll start with an assurance that my regular campaign is still running with the sam...

Gnomes at Night is a cooperative maze game from the developer Peaceable Kingdom. A detailed description is at the bottom. It is billed as a “quick-thinking communication game,” and I certainly agree. The suggested age range is 6 and up, but one could push it lower by simplifying the game and not using the timer. My 8-year-old received this game as a gift for his birthday, and we play it on a semi-regular basis. Setup and play is fairly simple. A vertical board is held up between two plastic grips that clip to the side of the box. One gnome goes on each side of the board, and connect through it by magnets in their bases. Players flip over treasure cards that they collect while navigating the maze. This is where that “communication” and “cooperation” come in. When one gnome's path is blocked by a wall, the other can take over on its own side and free it by moving within its area. The “quick” comes from the game’s sand timer - you have two and a half minutes to complete your tas...