Role-playing, war games and fantasy sports Books

Book SynopsisA visually stunning exploration of a legendary fantasy worldThe Forgotten Realms offer D&D players an endless array of secrets to uncover, foes to fight, and treasures to be taken. But there is one name that has always stood out from the rest: Drizzt. Drizzt Do’urden.This legendary drow elf ranger has been adventuring across the Forgotten Realms for decades, whether through New York Times bestselling fantasy novels or award-winning video games. Now Drizzt will take readers on a spectacular journey through his world.This book showcases Drizzt and his travels through the Forgotten Realms in never-before-seen detail, with the glorious artwork produced by Wizards of the Coast put center stage. From the glaciers of Icewind Dale to the teeming cities of the Sword Coast, and the sinister shadows of the Underdark to the chambers of Mithral Hall, fans can explore the Realms through Drizzt’s eyes as never before with this immersive, extraordinary guide

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Book SynopsisPhilip Hammond is Professor of Media and Communications at London South Bank University, UK. His previous publications include Media, War and Postmodernity (2007) and Screens of Terror (2011). Holger Pötzsch is Associate Professor in Media and Documentation Studies at UiT - The Arctic University of Norway. He publishes widely in such journals as Games & Culture, Game Studies, and New Media and Society.Trade ReviewThe volume is separated into three interrelated thematic sections: 'Militarism and the Gaming Subject' addresses players’ situatedness within military-themed games; 'Playing War, History, and Memory' looks at the role of games in influencing military history and cultural memory; and 'Wargames/Peacegames' focuses on how conceptual frameworks are embedded in military-themed games. Though the volume addresses both analog and digital games, it focuses on events in Europe and European games. This is a boon not a limitation in that it adds depth, richness, and specificity to the study of both games and the cultural/historical perspectives addressed. The game This War of Mine, which is based on the living conditions and atrocities civilians endured during the Siege of Sarajevo, is treated in more than one essay … Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals. * CHOICE *The impressive range of perspectives in this collection bring new insight and nuance to the expanding field of war and games. * Debra Ramsay, Lecturer in Film, University of Exeter, UK *Beginning with the predominant tension, and indeed contradiction, between war and games, Hammond and Pötzsch have put together a remarkable collection of essays which at turns surprises, challenges and even provokes the reader into engaging with a core theme running through historical and military themed video games. Namely, how can games (a theoretically ludic and playful medium) deal with war (a vicious and destructive phenomenon which is anything but playful)? The answers to this core question vary from one contributor to another. Some offer approaches from the perspectives of historical enquiry and critical theory. Others are involved in questions of player identification, empathy and collective or public memory. Still others use reception methods like participant observation and empirical fieldwork to understand what players take away from this fundamentally interactive medium of games. What all of the responses in this carefully and cleverly edited collection do offer, however, is a sustained and thoughtful meditation on the centrality of conflict to ludology, ludology to conflict, and the effects of wargaming on players, games, society and the industry. An excellent compendium for an era dominated by war and mediated simulacra of warfare, War Games has brought together some of the cutting-edge scholars working in the emerging discipline of historical gaming to produce a meaningful and important discussion of how war and games are critically and culturally enmeshed in twenty-first-century society. * Dr. Andrew B.R. Elliott, Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies, University of Lincoln, UK *Table of ContentsNotes on Contributors Acknowledgements Introduction: Studying War and Games Philip Hammond (London South Bank University, UK) and Holger Pötzsch (UiT – The Arctic University of Norway) I: Militarism and the Gaming Subject 1. Reality Check: Videogames as Propaganda for Inauthentic War Philip Hammond (London South Bank University, UK) 2. Playing in the End Times: Wargames, Resilience and the Art of Failure Kevin McSorley (University of Portsmouth, UK) 3. The Political Economy of Wargames: The Production of History and Memory in Military Video Games Emil Lundedal Hammar (UiT – The Arctic University of Norway) and Jamie Woodcock (University of Oxford, UK) 4. Understanding War Game Experiences: Applying Multiple Player Perspectives to Game Analysis Kristine Jørgensen (University of Bergen, Norway) II: Playing War, History, and Memory 5. Playing the Historical Fantastic: Zombies, Mecha-Nazis and Making Meaning about the Past Through Metaphor Adam Chapman (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) 6. Machine(s) of Narrative Security: Mnemonic Hegemony and Polish Games about Violent Conflicts Piotr Sterczewski (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland) 7. National Memories and the First World War: The Many Sides of Battlefield 1 Chris Kempshall (the Imperial War Museum, UK) 8. Let’s Play War: Cultural Memory, Celebrities and Appropriations of the Past Stephanie de Smale (Utrecht University, the Netherlands) III: Wargames/Peacegames 9. The Wargame Legacy: How Wargames Shaped the Roleplaying Experience from Tabletop to Digital Games Dimitra Nikolaidou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece) 10. Critical War Game Development: Lessons Learned from Attentat 1942 Vít Šisler (Charles University, Czech Republic) 11. Simulating War Dynamics: A Case Study of the Game-based Learning Exercise Mission Z: One Last Chance Joakim Arnøy (Narvik War and Peace Centre, Norway) 12. Positioning Players as Political Subjects: Forms of Estrangement and the Presentation of War in This War of Mine and Spec Ops: The Line Holger Pötzsch (UiT – The Arctic University of Norway) Afterword: War/Game Matthew Thomas Payne (University of Notre Dame, USA) Index

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Book SynopsisIncludes new chapters with small, easy-to-understand words. Bestselling words!Fantasy football, fantasy baseball, fantasy basketball, even fantasy sumo wrestling: the world of fantasy sports is huge, and still growing. Today, more than 35 million people in the United States and Canada spend hours upon hours each week on their fantasy sports teams. And as the Senior Fantasy Sports Analyst for ESPN, Matthew Berry is on the front lines of what has grown from a niche subculture into a national pastime.In his New York Times-bestselling Fantasy Life, Berry celebrates every aspect of the fantasy sports world. Brilliant trash talk. Unbelievable trophies. Insane draft day locations. Shake-your-head-in-disbelief punishments. Ingenious attempts at cheating. And surprisingly uplifting stories that remind us why we play these games in the first place.Written with the same award-winning style that has made Berry one of the most popular columnists on ESPN.com, Fantasy Life is a book for both hard-core fantasy players and people who have never played before. Between tales of love and hate, birth and death, tattoos and furry animal costumes, the White House Situation Room and a 126-pound golden pelican, Matthew chronicles his journey from a fourteen-year-old fantasy player to the face of fantasy sports for the largest sports media company in the world.Fantasy will save your life. Fantasy will set you free. And fantasy life is most definitely better than real life. You’ll see.

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Book SynopsisJournal 29: Interactive Book GameJournal 29 is a unique book game where you can solve riddles and puzzles and submit your answers online to get the keys and move forward.To solve the riddles, you need to think out of the box.You can write, draw, search, fold pages, combine different methods and try to get those riddles right.Journal 29 is a 148 pages book providing over 63 riddles you can solve.The Story:A top secret excavation did not bring any result for 28 weeks.It was on the 29th week that something unexpected happened.The team disappeared and the only thing that was left behind was their Journal.You must solve the riddles in order to solve the mystery.How to Play:Journal 29 is a book game of riddles and puzzles.To play, you will need:A copy of Journal 29A pencilAn internet connected device ( preferably a smartphone)Every two pages of Journal 29 have two elements:The riddle page and the key page.Step1:You solve the riddle on the riddle page.Step2:Visit the URL from the key page(you can type the URL on your browseror scan the unique QR code available on the page).Step3:Submit the answer of the riddle.Answer correctly, and get a key that is usually a word or a number.Step4:Write down the key.These keys are needed for solving the next riddles.To solve the riddles you will need to think out of the box.Write, draw, search, tear paper, fold pages, combine and more.You don’t need any special app to play the game.Just a browser will do(preferably on your smartphone). 

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Book SynopsisWhen the mysterious Gauntlight, an eerie landlocked lighthouse, glows with baleful light, the people of Otari know something terrible is beginning. The town's newest heroes must venture into the ruins around the lighthouse and delve the dungeon levels far beneath it to discover the evil the Gauntlight heralds. Hideous monsters, deadly traps, and mysterious ghosts all await the heroes who dare to enter the sprawling megadungeon called the Abomination Vaults! Pathfinder Second Edition’s most popular campaign yet bursts from the pages of this massive hardcover compilation, containing all three adventures in the fan-favorite Abomination Vaults Adventure Path, a dungeon-delving campaign like no other, along with support articles, rules, monsters, and more! This deluxe special edition is bound in faux leather with metallic deboss cover elements and a bound-in ribbon bookmark.

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Book SynopsisThe Starfinder Player Core is the definitive entry point for Starfinder Second Edition, with everything a player needs to learn how to play the game! Choose from 10 ancestries, six character classes, and hundreds of feats and spells to create unique characters ready to take on a ruthless galaxy awash with magic and opportunity. Starfinder Player Core brings the Starfinder RPG into its new edition and is now 100% compatible with the acclaimed Second Edition of the hit Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Along with GM Core and Alien Core, these books provide a new foundation for the future of tabletop gaming! Starfinder Player Core includes: Complete character creation rules, walking you through building a character by selecting your Ancestry, Background, and Class, with a focus on the envoy, mystic, operative, solarian, soldier, and witchwarper classes! Core ancestry options include android, barathu, human, kasatha, lashunta, pahtra, shirren, skittermander, vesk, and ysoki! A vast catalogue of options allowing you to customize your character including versatile heritages, like the undead borai and Drift-touched prismeni, skills and feats, and hundreds of spells, ensuring that the character you build represents your hero not just in story, but in rules as well! A primer on the Pact Worlds and wider galaxy, so your character can be a part of an exciting and diverse setting! Rules and tools to advance your character through play, taking them from a fresh-faced adventurer ready to take on the world to a veteran hero, wielding powerful magic that can reshape reality.

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Book SynopsisA strange message beckons six strangers to Striving, an expansive megaplex city on Aballon, the planet of Machines. There, they gather in a neon-lit cafe, surrounded by androids and robots, to meet an old friend. The bartender brings them refreshmentsand a holographic recording from their mutual acquaintance. Greetings, friends! If you're watching this, it's because I've experienced an unexpected shutdownin organic terms, I'm dead.The discovery of their friend's unexpected murder turns these strangers into a crew of unlikely investigators. To find the killer, they'll need to outrun murderous robots, outwit clever foes, and analyze perplexing cluesall while wondering if they're hunting the murderer, or if the murderer is hunting them! The streets of Striving can be an unforgiving place, and the investigators will need all their skills, resourcesand no small amount of luckto come out ahead, solve the murder, find the killer's hideout, and bring them to justice! Murder in Metal City is a deluxe introductory boxed set adventure for four 1st-level Starfinder Second Edition characters containing numerous tools to assist GMs, including player and creature tokens, an immersive poster-sized double-sided battle map, investigation handouts, item cards, NPC cards, and a GM reference sheet and investigation trackereverything required for a premium adventure experience!Murder in Metal City features: Six new pregenerated characters with player handouts, one for each class from the Starfinder Player Core. A double-sided tactical Starfinder Flip-Mat featuring key locations from the adventure. Articles about the machine planet Aballon and the megaplex city of Striving. One new playable alien ancestry: khizars, the plant-like protectors of Aballon's jungle-filled Ice Wells. An article detailing the tech faiths of the Starfinder universe, from deities like Triune and Lambatuin to the unique philosophies of the robotic anacites. Multiple pages of creature stat blocks and NPC descriptions for the combat and roleplaying encounters in the adventure.

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Book SynopsisReport for Duty! When diplomacy between nations fails and neither side backs down, war is the inevitable result. From border skirmishes to large-scale invasions, conflict comes in many formsthe perfect chance for heroes to win glory! And war has come to the world Golarion, embroiling the nations of the Inner Sea in a conflict that will forever change the Pathfinder setting!This new rulebook for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game covers all aspects of war, including two bold new character classes! Help steer the flow of battle as a cunning commander, or protect your allies from harm as an indomitable guardian. You''ll also find archetypes that allow you to raise a small battalion of undead soldiers or wield a personal siege weapon, the new larger-than-life jotunborn ancestry, an armory of magic weapons, and rules for running combat alongside troops that you command to fill out your army''s ranks. Golarion's generals need you, so heed the Battlecry!

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