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What gives role-playing games their longevity?
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Ask an RPG fan...
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How Torchlight 2 gets character progression so right
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Here's the...
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How RPGs colonized some of 2012's best games
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. 2012 may not be...
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Kickstarting (and not Greenlighting) traditional RPGs
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. The rise of...
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The future of the Western role-playing game
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Here in...
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Struggling with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim one year later
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. This week Rowan...
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How Morrowind and KOTOR defined modern RPGs
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. In the early...
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Waiter, waiter! There's an RPG in my FPS!
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. It would be...
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2012: the year in RPGs
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. What a fun, odd...
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For the love of leveling
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. I gained one...
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Publish those numbers! Why RPGs must be transparent about their mechanics
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. The debate...
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When sports and role-playing games collide
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. I'm in a tense...
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Alpha Protocol is the new Deus Ex
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Alpha Protocol...
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Fantasy strategy-RPGs and the limits of 'RPG elements'
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. In theory,...
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Revisiting Reckoning: How Kingdoms of Amalur got the single-player MMORPG right
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Recently, I...
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Mass Effect 3's 'Citadel' DLC demonstrates the franchise's messy, wonderful soul
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. One of the...
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Rome 2 looks to continue building Total War's empire
Showing off a strategy game like Total War: Rome 2 at a convention can't be easy. With only so much time to show off to the awaiting journalists, games have to rely on spectacle. Yet the greatness of...
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Remembering the life and legend of LucasArts
LucasArts has become one with the Force. The venerable studio and publisher was shuttered by owner Disney yesterday, halting production on its games, including Star Wars 1313. Though the amount of...
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Grandia: How a forgotten JRPG solved the problem of repetitive combat
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which primarily focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. This...
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Two new indie RPGs tackle the genre's history, but only one succeeds
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. If there's one...
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Total War: Arena's ongoing quest to reshape competitive strategy
Creative Assembly has a good thing going with its Total War franchise. For seven games now, it's been remarkable successful at combining real-time tactics and turn-based strategy, making money and...
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Mars: War Logs brings the resistance back to RPGs
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. I probably...
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Why Defiance's 'fun now, depth later' is great for MMORPGs
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. I had my World...
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Building a better role-playing game story
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Getting story...
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Might and Magic 10: Legacy review: One square at a time
The recent resurrection of the retro-style role-playing game is exciting for many reasons, particularly an increased variety of different, new games. But trying to create new "old-school" games has...
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