Rowan Kaiser
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Rowan Kaiser is a freelance writer currently living the Bay Area, who also writes for The A.V. Club, and has been published at Salon, Gamasutra, Kotaku, and more. He still occasionally finds Ultima VI Moongate maps and mantra notes when he visits his parents' house. Follow him on Twitter @rowankaiser.
Rowan Kaiser's Latest Posts
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Freedom Force: Superhero role-playing done 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. The Avengers' huge success in its first week of release may represent the pinnacle of the superhero takeover of ...
How Mass Effect 3's roleplaying roots empower the multiplayer
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 just want to see how this integrates with the single-player campaign," I thought, clicking on the multiplayer ...
Why skills are in, attributes are out in modern role-playing 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. It took four or five levels gained for me to realize something was different. I was playing the Diablo 3 open beta ...
The surprising accessibility of older RPGs
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. One major problem with loving role-playing games is that old titles can be hard to accept due to difficulty. RPGs are particularly vulnerable to this ...
The delightful smoothness of classic Japanese role-playing games
This week, Rowan Kaiser and Kat Bailey have switched roles -- with Rowan taking lead in this week's column focusing on the wonderful world of Japanese role-playing games. I was only defeated once in Suikoden. Even that was an accident – I thought it was a fight I was supposed to lose. Calling ...
What makes role-playing game combat good?
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Last week's column on changes in role-playing combat systems through history ruffled a few feathers, so I thought it would be a good idea to discuss ...
(Don't) Give me that old time RPG combat
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. The Kickstarter success of Wasteland 2 may be one of the most important developments in Western role-playing games in years. It could re-open the ...
Diablo's Descendants
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. With Diablo 3's release date set, I decided to take a look back as the series' legacy --and play some of the better Western-style action/role-playing ...
Fallout: The first modern role-playing game
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. It wasn't supposed to be Fallout. After the role-playing game genre crashed in 1995, new models for the style began to appear. Smart money would ...
The year role-playing games broke
This is a weekly column focusing on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. The most important year in western role-playing history was also its worst. The late 1980s and early 1990s were an obvious Golden Age, as RPGs were ...
