Monte Recommends

A lot of things have popped up lately that have made me think, "You know, I should mention that on the site." So here, all cobbled together, is a bunch of stuff that I recommend. It's a strange miscellany, except that it's all I stuff I think you might want to check out.

Mage Knight Dungeons. WizKids has just come out with a new variant for their Mage Knight game called Dungeons. Mage Knight is a fantasy miniatures game that uses plastic minis on little dials that keep track of the figure's stats. I've always thought Mage Knight was an interesting and cheap way to get some painted miniatures (the quality of the figures started out pretty low but these days it's not bad at all). Now, however, they sell sets with little doors, chests, and dungeon bits. A pretty cool game accessory, and not too terribly expensive.

Scrollworks. I have a soft spot in my heart for 'zines, and I always will. I don't mean magazines -- for those of you unsure what a "zine" is -- I mean those little labors of love that people put out on topics that they love. It's self-publishing at its most honest. For most, the need to put out a 'zine has been taken up by the ease of putting up a website. I always wanted to do a 'zine, and I know that my website has clearly taken up that position in my mind. But people still put them out.

As 'zines go, gaming was always an arena with a lot of them. I just recently got a few complimentary copies of a 'zine called Scrollworks. It's pretty cool. For about the price of one of those long and thin adventures from AEG or Fantasy Flight, you can get an interesting collection of articles. A few variant rules. An NPC or two. An interesting location. A very short scenario. It's pretty cool. I recommend it.

Dwarven Forge. If don't mind a little expense, however, and you want a cool game aid, check out Dwarven Forge's Master Maze stuff. Lots of little painted corridors, walls, floors, pillars, doors, stairs, fountains... even little chests, pots, barrels, chairs, tables and more. And if you're really interested in figures but not in painting, they even sell painted figures -- and they're not bad. (You can also get prepainted figs from New Wave and from Holistic Games.)

24. This is a show on Fox. It's on Tuesdays, and they replay it on Fridays. Every episode is run in real-time -- each one is really just one hour of one really amazing day. After 24 episodes, they'll have shown one day. It's an interesting gimmick -- and it's more than that, because it forces the writers to do some really interesting things. The show has lots of divergent plot lines now, but it appears that by the end they all will become one. I like it -- it breaks from the standard "one-hour drama" formula. And it has a kick-ass website.

Alias. No, not the TV show (I've never seen it). The comic book by Brian Michael Bendis. It's a Marvel comic, and it's set in the Marvel Universe, but it's not a super hero comic. The main character is a private eye and she does indeed have "powers," but that's not what it's about. It's just interesting stories -- stories that could only take place in a world full of super heroes. The first story arc involved a strange whodunit and the accidental revelation of a super hero's secret identity -- or was it an accident at all? And if you like that, and you're not already reading it, check out Bendis' comic called Powers. It's also about non-super heroes living in a super hero world. This time, the two main characters are cops. It's really well written. Bendis is a little like the comic book version of David Mamet (great dialog, interesting characters, a few weird plot twists here and there). He's not quite as good as Mamet, but he's close.

Midnight Syndicate. This is a group that produces creepy instrumental music perfect for gaming -- particularly Call of Cthulhu or a spooky evening of D&D. I like these albums a lot.

Brom. You probably don't need me to tell you this, but this guy's art owns. I have all his art books and frequently pull one out during my games and say to the players, "You see this." Much to their dismay.

Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor. Okay, I only just loaded this onto my machine, but I'm already impressed. And it uses 3rd Edition rules. That was my big gripe with Baldur's Gate -- it was neat, but by the time the game came out we were already playtesting 3rd Edition, and it seemed like a step backward to me (sorry, BG fans). I've only recently finished up Diablo II (okay, almost) and had a lot of fun with it. I'm also a Roller Coaster Tycoon fan, and I still mean to get back to my pyramid building in Pharaoh sometime soon (I know, more advanced empire-building games have come out since this one, but I was so close to finishing it...). I wish I had more time for computer games.

So those are the things I've been meaning to put in a good word for. Not because these people pay me or anything, but because I think they're cool. I'd rather be the kind of guy who talks about what's cool all the time rather than what's not -- despite what the section of my website devoted to Rants would make you believe.