This book is an overview of the ongoing revolution in tabletop gaming design and culture, which exploded to unprecedented levels of vitality in the 21st century, leading to new ways of creating, marketing, and experiencing a game. Designers have become superstars, publishers have improved quality control, and the community of players is expanding. Most importantly, new and old players have started engaging with the games in a more meaningful way. The book explores the reasons for these changes. It describes how games have begun to keep players engaged until the end. It analyzes the ways in which traditional mechanics have been reimagined to give them more variety and complexity, and reviews the unprecedented mechanics found and perfected. Very interesting is the exploration of how games have performed novel tasks such as reducing conflict, fostering cooperation, creating aesthetic experiences, and telling stories. The book is aimed at scholars, dedicated and aspiring fans, and game designers who want to expand their toolbox with the most up-to-date innovations in the profession.

Despite the growing number of books designed to radically reconsider the educational value of video games as powerful learning tools, there are very few practical guidelines conveniently available for prospective history and social studies teachers who actually want to use these teaching and learning tools in their classes. As the games and learning field continues to grow in importance, Gaming the Past provides social studies teachers and teacher educators help in implementing this unique and engaging new pedagogy. This book focuses on specific examples to help social studies educators effectively use computer simulation games to teach critical thinking and historical analysis. Chapters cover the core parts of conceiving, planning, designing, and implementing simulation based lessons. Additional topics covered include: Talking to colleagues, administrators, parents, and students about the theoretical and practical educational value of using historical simulation games. Selecting simulation games that are aligned to curricular goals Determining hardware and software requirements, purchasing software, and preparing a learning environment incorporating simulations Planning lessons and implementing instructional strategies Identifying and avoiding common pitfalls Developing activities and assessments for use with simulation games that facilitate the interpretation and creation of established and new media Also included are sample unit and lesson plans and worksheets as well as suggestions for further reading. The book ends with brief profiles of the majority of historical simulation games currently available from commercial vendors and freely on the Internet.

Command the galaxy's cutting-edge technologies so sophisticated that they rival magic itself! Outfit yourself with the latest and greatest new weapons, armor, and other gear, from high-power explosives to alien relics that surpass conventional science. Or incorporate technologies directly into yourself, whether you're installing advanced cybernetic augmentations or playing Starfinder's newest class: the nanocyte, whose body hosts an army of robotic nanites that obey her commands! Outrace the speediest threats by customizing your own space-age vehicles, and overcome even the toughest foes by piloting powerful battle robots using the all-new mech combat system! Seize the future with additional options for every class and articles exploring every aspect of science-fantasy tech from advertising and music to virtual intelligences and security systems. Join in the Starfinder Tech Revolution!

For thousands of years, people have been planning attacks, captures, chases, and conquests - on a variety of different boards designed for an astonishing diversity of games. Today the compelling mix of strategy, skill, and chance is as strong as ever; new board games are invented almost daily,while the perennial favourites continue to attract new devotees and reveal new possibilities. The Oxford History of Board Games investigates the principles of board games throughout the ages and across the world, exploring the fascinating similarities and differences that give each its unique appeal, and drawing out the significance of game-playing as a central part of human experience - asvital to a culture as its music, dance, and tales. Beautifully illustrated and with diagrams to show the finer points of the games, this is a fascinating and accessible guide to a richly rewarding subject. In his trade-mark accessible, entertaining style, David Parlett looks at the different families of games: games based on configuration or connection, races or chases, wars or hunts, capture or blockade. He focuses mainly on traditional games, the folk entertainments that have grown up organicallythrough the centuries, and which exhibit endless local variations, although he discusses also the commercial products that have tried, with varying degrees of success, to match their astonishing popularity. This is not primarily a how-to book, although the rules and strategies of certain games are discussed in detail, neither does it offer sure-fire tips for success, although with a fuller understanding of a game the reader will undoubtedly become a better-informed, if not better, player. Rather, itis an affectionate and authoritative survey of one of the most familiar parts of our cultural history, which has until now been inexplicably neglected.

FLAMES OF FREEDOM is an American Gothic horror tabletop role-playing game, based on the award-winning ZWEIHÄNDER RPG. It is the dawn of the American Revolutionary War of 1776. A tangled web of conspiracy spans North America. It does not matter what your creed, color, culture, faith or gender is—all stand together in the war for survival. Every Rebel patriot holds Thomas Paine’s Common Sense aloft as they take up arms against the British Empire. The city of Boston is occupied by the Red Coats, surrounded by Rebel militias. But as the revolution has begun, something far more mysterious stirs. Agents of the occult entreat both the Continental Army and British Empire. Freemasons conspire in the City of Brotherly Love. Maryland is in the throes of a witch hunt by the Knights Templar. Amid the chaos, other grim fairy tales have emerged. Ghouls have been tunneling beneath Boston. There are sightings of witches in the Great Dismal Swamp. Indigenous sachem speak of devils who walk among the living. The Leeds Devil haunts the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. And worse still, a shadowy collective called “The Mandoag” seeks to consume all, Loyalists and Rebels alike. In this game, most people have either chosen to deny the supernatural or rationalize it away. A rare few accept it for what it is to act. You are among those heroes and destined for greatness… or death. This alternative history game includes most of what you need to play: a player’s handbook, a game master’s guide, a bestiary, and an introductory adventure set in Boston. All that’s left are a few friends, pencils and a handful of dice. FLAMES OF FREEDOM is an American Gothic horror tabletop role-playing game, based on the award-winning ZWEIHÄNDER RPG.​

Outwit evil organizations. Expose the truth. Rescue their families. Save the world. This is the Revolution.