Most of the time, gaming sessions can sometimes really be enhanced by a little background music. We’re not talking about the dross on Radio 1 playing over a game of Warhammer but rather music that’s tailored to armies marching and charging across the board or role players exploring a labyrinth. Music aids the imagination and also adds an element of the cinematic to the proceedings.

Here’s some great music which Spinning Dice Games suggests you try out for either dungeon exploring or table top wargaming.

Star Wars Episode 1: Duel of Fates – John WIlliams

John WIlliams- Duel of Fates. Forget the film content but listen to John Williams’ epic Episode 1 score that can apply to both fantasy and sci-fi battles without the familiar Star Wars fanfare. What this piece has is a tremendous sense of build up and the dramatic choral sections only help make this a memorable Williams’ tune overall.

Gladiator – Hans Zimmer

A classic choice for wargamers but also not the usual dull Zimmer treatment we tend o hear in Michael Bay movies. Zimmer captures the rage and action of warfare. Essential.

Vaughan Williams: Symphony No.6 Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

If there is one track that I can definitely recommend for those epic melancholic moments in an RPG – Just imagine your character standing on a cliff top surveying a large landscape dwelling on the adventures ahead. Epic!

Mass Effect 1/2/3 – Jack Wall & Sam Hulick

Computer game soundtracks are often overlooked and mostly unfairly by music critics. In my opinion they offer some rich musical interludes for your gaming sessions. Jack Wall provides some electronica and orchestral combination to naturally make a great sci fi atmosphere for RPGs and table top wargaming.

Babylon 5 Series soundtrack – Christopher Franke

As a huge Babylon 5 fan, I’m inclined to say that Franke’s work on the show was excellent and produced one of Sci Fi’s most memorable theme tunes for me anyway. Lots of sci-fi orchestral tracks to choose from which are more often than not for raging space battles so this makes it excellent choice for a game of Warhammer 40k or a space combat strategy table top game.

Ripley’s Rescue – Aliens – James Horner

Humble beginnings for James Horner when he created an awesome theme for Battle Beyond the Stars and then soon moved onto the heights of Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, Avatar and BraveHeart. He’s the composer of choice for director, James Cameron and decent one at that.

Also try out Brave Heart – For the Love of A Princess by James Horner for those RPG quieter moments…

Honourable Mentions

Ride of the Valkyries – Die Walküre – Wagner

A cliché but classic tune that is famed for its use in Francis Ford Coppla’s Apocalypse Now! It maybe too late to disconnect the tune with the film but for added bombastic effect add a little Wagner into your Table Top-war game just for the fun of it!

The Lord of the Rings Soundtrack – Howard Shore

Shore won multiple Oscar awards for his stellar work on Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings. There’s too many tracks to name from this work that’ll will suit your gaming sessions and I’ll leave it up to you, the reader, to pick and choose your favourites. For those who haven’t heard the entire LOTR soundtrack on CD yet, well, shame on you!
If you threatened to put a fluorescent pink spray can to my miniature collection, I would pick the following as my tune of choice…

The Breaking of the Fellowship – Howard Shore

This reminds me of seeing the The Fellowship of the Ring to the end and thinking that I’ve finally seen one of the greatest films I’ve seen.

Last of the Mohicans: Top of the World – Randy Edelman

Need a rousing tune to sure up your defenses?…

Be great to get your comments and feedback…

Probably one of the most important elements when choosing a game is its rules system. However, artwork plays an equally important part in immersing the player in to the game itself. Excellent artwork helps convey characters, situations and adds to the overall enjoyment of the game. I see it much like how decent special effects nowadays in films help with a dramatic and believable action scene.

The following artists are some of the best I’ve seen. Some of you may agree or disagree and I hope that you’ll pass on your thoughts in the comments section below.

Steve Argyle (www.steveargyle.com  / Deviant Art Profile: steveargyle.deviantart.com)

An artist I admire simply for his skill in creating some seductive fantasy females. You can find his artwork in WIzard of the Coasts products such as Magic the Gathering. This talented artist already has a growing following in amongst digital artists

 Innistrad – Magic The Gathering – Steve Arygle

Larry Elmore (larryelmore.com)

A name which goes hand-in-hand with classic Dungeons and Dragons. His artwork inspired generations of fantasy artists and his paintings for D&D are incredibly iconic such as the cover of the Red Box starter set back in the early 80s. Artist Ralph Horsle recently did the updated Redbox art in 2010 which was directly inspired by Larry’s original masterpiece.

 Classic Red Box Cover Art – Larry Elmore

Check out these other D&D artists:-

Keith Parkinson  - www.keithparkinson.com/main.php

Clyde Caldwell - www.clydecaldwell.com

 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons – Clyde Caldwell

Paul Bonner (www.paulbonner.net)

Paul works exclusively in water colour and has provided art for Rackham, Games Workshop and FASA in the past. Bonner’s paintings are incredibly detailed and contain rich narrative inspired from folklore and legends. He still works for GW on a freelance basis and creates illustrations for World of Warcraft.

Paul Bonner

Mario Wibisono ( www.mariowibisono.com Deviant ART Profile: raynkazuya.deviantart.com)

Oriental flavour to the proceedings with Mario’s exquisite fantasy art for AEGs Legend of the Five Rings CCG and RPGs. His digital artwork offers a dynamic realism which is quite unlike most artists in the industry I know of.

Honourable Mentions

Franz Frazeta (frankfrazetta.net)

The Grandfather of Fantasy Art and not necessarily table top games artwork . His excellent reputation for me comes from his work on Conan which supplied the template for most artists when approaching fantasy artists. Again, ‘pin up’ style women with equally buffed up strong men were the staple. Frazeta’s work portrayed the brutally and romanticism needed to bring Robert E Howard’s Conan world alive. Frazeta died in 2010 but left a huge legacy of work for future artists to admire.

Introducing kids to anything hobby is difficult as it is what with peer pressure at school and a general feeling that rules can be a little bit complex for younger kids. I tried introducing my young daughter to Dungeons and Dragons a while back and I’ve had some degree of success. By success I mean how my daughter can role play a character and also interact with surroundings presented on a map and NPCs (Non-player Characters). Well, you may well think that this pretty much folly. However, I think something like Dungeons and Dragons can be a powerful teaching aid (maths, writing and decision making) and be incredibly fun for parent and child at the same time.

A game meant for a child 12 and upwards is quite daunting for a six year old so it’s obviously best to condense the rules somewhat. Through the attempts I made I whittled it down to D20, D6, D8 and D10 rolls. Simplicity is the key and I structured the dice rolling to two which are Success rolls and then Damage/effect rolls. For example, a player rolls D8 to score 4 or higher to achieve a hit. The player then rolls a D6 to score damage on the enemy. The good thing about a Lite game is that rules can be made up to fit situations and I usually do, however, I remain consistent throughout. I recently introduced a simple character sheet to help me with dice rolling consistency and it is attached here.

When DM-ing, we obviously don’t introduce dark threat into the story, especially for younger kids. Always keep proceedings light and fun. You don’t really need zombies lurking in every corner with flesh sliding from their rotten corpses! My daughter chose to play a Fairy character and I modified the rules to include things like Fairy Dust magic which turns enemies to stone or a frog! One of the made up scenarios I improvised was that a grumpy castle keeper had the keys to an important door and a potion of invisibility was left lying around. The objective was to sneak in a steal the key by using the potion. It was a fun situation that had the right amount of excitement to make the game enjoyable. You can throw in classic dare-devil rescue missions as well! Or perhaps just switch the action to a market place and have your players buy items with their gold.

Involving my daughter in the story telling process is also necessary. Role playing is essentially about the imagination as it’s always been said and I think RPGs stimulates that in kids. Allow your child to create maps with you. Ask them why things need to be where and obviously get them involved in the development of the story. You don’t have to use ready-made dungeon tiles either; sometimes cracking out the pens and colour crayons to draw playing maps can be really fun. Creating their own character and how they appear is also a key part to get your child in to the adventure. Get them to paint miniatures to move around your maps and it doesn’t matter if the paint job is no good as this just introduces your child into another aspect of the hobby which is equally fun. It always helps to grab yourself a few decent miniatures for the game as well – some standard dungeon bad guys will do.

The best advice is to keep proceedings fun as possible. Don’t be long winded or repetitive. Keep adventures relatively short (about 30mins). Overall, RPGs gets my vote for fitting in that all important family time.

Spinning Dice Games sells a wide range of RPG gaming systems here

Please post your thoughts and advice below…

More Computer Game Crossovers

Increasingly computer games have had a bigger influence on ‘offline’ gaming. 2011 saw big releases like ‘Gears of War’ for instance making the transition to baord games and HeroClix. What other big IPs can we see making the leap? Well, I’d really like to see much more done in the worlds of Elder Scroll series. Skyrim is a massive gaming hit (Previous versions have done equally well) and in my opinion needs to see much more coverage in card games, board games and traditional role playing.

Sci-fi mega hit: Mass Effect most definitely needs the offline treatment. Someone? Anyone? Makers Bioware were gracious enough to give Dragon Age brand to Role playing game publisher Green Ronin: which they called: Dragon Age: Dark Fantasy Role Playing (greenronin.com/dragon_age/). So why not Mass Effect? The mystery continues but I reckon there would be something in 2012 for Mass Effect fans.

Dust Warfare a Hit

The strategy board game, Dust Tactics has been going strength to strength. However, 2012 sees the release of Dust Warfare. This is a new take on the game which frees it from the grided board of Tactics and allows its whole raft of its cool miniatures to be played freely on the table top!

One of the biggest attractions of the game is commanding large attack walkers in your armies. It is unclear how the rules of the game will evolve but expect flowing game play to say the least. Rumours suggest that each player has commend points to spend during each turn. These points must be spent wisely to gain the upper hand on your opponent. Further pints can be spent on each unit and obviously for attack.

One final comment, with Veteran games designer, Andy Chambers involved we expect great things.

Star Wars Gaming to go from strength to strength

With Lucas releasing the film saga in 3D, the merchandise tie-ins are soon to follow. Episode 1 3D gets its cinematic airing in February but it’s the classic trilogy that the SDG staff are waiting for.

The classic Star Wars franchise comes back to the card game format with Fantasy Flight’s 2012 offering: Star Wars: The Card Game. This living card game features a whole wealth of card options for this co-operative game where the Rebellion must defeat the dark forces of the Empire.

Also on the horizon is a space combat strategy game which promises to capture the fast paced action of Star Wars space dog fights. Personally, I want to play the Tie Fighter squadrons in this set myself but this game is bound to be a sure fire hit. Expansion could be plentiful for this game and we expect a series this year to include Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon and dreaded Star Destroyers.

The Hobbit will rock

You’ve most likely seen the Trailer for the new Hobbit film to be released in December 2012. Expect a plethora of new stuff to come out from CCGs, Board games and other merchandise. Games Workshop are looking to re-energise its Lord of the Rings offering and it should release a table-top strategy game before the film’s release. The Lord of the Rings films released from 2001 to 2003 will most likely have new life breathed through them so new products should be launched including Lego sets and more from WizKids Heroclix range which is already out there.

Lord of the Rings HeroClix Campaign Starter is sold here

Warhammer 40k 6^th Edition released

Another big release for Games Workshop the cards?  Rumblings of the next edition of 40k have been gathering throughout 2011 and it is cited that GW will indeed release the next iteration of 40k doing the Summer.

The supposed 6th Edition box set have had intenet buzz talking of a match up between the Chaos Space Marines and the noble Eldar forces.  The rumour mill has been churning for potential rule changes including turn phase changes to make the action more ‘real-time’ for instance. I’m not going to speculate too much but it’s bound to be a high point for 40k fans!

No official announcement yet but with all the buzz I’d expect it to happen sooner rather than later.

I have a particular fascination with mid Eighties era games in general. To put everything into context, the Eighties pretty much where most gamers experienced something of a renaissance for board games and role playing games. It was basically a new place to tap into the imagination for genre writers and also for new companies to emerge from the shadows, most notably being Games Workshop.

Games Workshop dipped its fingers into a number of franchises during 80′s and Judge Dredd was one of the mightiest iconic characters around at the time. Dredd’s influence still can be seen in the stoic and authoritarian Space Marines of Warhammer 40k in my opinion.

In 1985, GW produced the first Role Playing game box set for Dredd and I was hooked from then onwards with all things RPG and board gaming.  I had already been reading the 2000AD comic books avidly at the young age of 11 and probably even buying some of the classic citadel miniatures at the time (and painting them very badly). On the box set itself I was immediately drawn in by the artwork cover with the gold foil ’ Judge Dredd’ badge emblazoned on the top of the box. Dredd is depicted astride on his Law Master bike shooting at an unseen assailant – how cool was that! Even now, it has to be one of my top 10 box art covers of all time.

Opening the box revealed all the usual items needed to start the game. I was very impressed with the clearly set out rule books splashed with some storyline images from 2000AD. Rule mechanics (written by Marc Gascoigne and Rick Priestley) at the time were a mystery for me but here was a role playing game where you could name and create your own Judge to walk the beat on the streets of Mega City One! As with all role playing games, your actions are determined by the standard RPG dice set. You are equipped with everything a Judge needs including his (or her) personal Law Giver (Gun) and Law master vehicle to chase the bad guys.  There even an option to create a Judge from the PSI Division to exploit telepathic powers. Your role as a Judge is to play enforcer and executioner to the dangerous criminals that roam the city. Judges could dispense the law according to the guides in Player’s Handbook and score experience points for all Perps (short for Perpetrators) captured dead or alive. Games masters could also work in some of Dredd’s most notorious of foes such as The Angel Gang and even the nasty Dark Judges. All the stats were provided for these characters.  Players essentially have to work as a team to secure situations and experience points are lost for any downed Judge. The packed box set included, Character sheets, colour floor maps to play the adventure scenario, dice and cut out paper figures.

There were only ever three supplements that were released for Judge Dredd RPG. The first being, Judgement Day; secondly, Slaughter Margin and lastly the PSI Companion book.  There was also a board game called Block Mania which was also released a year later.

Judge Dredd  lives on in an updated version of the role playing game which is released by Mongoose Publishing. There’s also a Miniatures battle game which is also published by Mongoose. The rules for this can be freely downloaded here.  There’s also the buzz that Dredd is going to make something of a cinematic comeback in 2012. The film, starring ‘Star (lens flares!) Trek’ and ‘Red ‘ actor; Karl Urban, is being touted as a revival to the Dredd we all love. This comes off the back of a rather dismal attempt by Stallone to make a success of the character in the mid 90s. Although I admit, I kind of liked some parts of that film but I’m hoping to like the new film a whole lot more. I’ve heard it’s something of a prequel origins story.

Below: Karl Urban in Costume for Judge Dredd 2012

The Judge Dredd Role Playing Game box set I hold a special place for. I regularly take the box from the shelf and leisurely flick through the manual pages from time to time. Every gamer I’m sure has one of these games in their collection and I personally say that Dredd is the law around here!

You can buy the new  Judge Dredd: The Role Playing Game here