Author: Alfred Bonnabel

Husband, Father, Gamer, Techie. Co-founder of Double Tome Studios. Architect of The Alfred Effect, The Sega Genesis Challenge, and The Tabletop RPG Sampler. He/Him.

Cypher System RPG Part 1 – Setup

Posted on September 5, 2021September 5, 2021 by Alfred Bonnabel

Background The Cypher System RPG by Monte Cook Games is based on the core gameplay mechanics established in Numenera and The Strange. The Cypher System rulebook provides a generic roleplaying system that can be adapted to a wide range of genres including science fiction, fantasy, horror, modern, and superheroes. The second edition rulebook was released in 2019 and is supported by a number of genre and campaign books such as The Stars Are Fire and Predation. I have a weak spot for generic rule systems and I’ve always wanted to try out Numenera and the Cypher System RPG. One of the elements

Star Wars RPG Part 4 – Campaign Wrap-up

Posted on August 8, 2021August 8, 2021 by Alfred Bonnabel

Infiltrate Shantipole Our third session of in this Star Wars RPG mini-campaign saw us working our way through the final pieces of the “Strike Force Shantipole” scenario. This was a daunting task given that the Imperial forces had quickly overtaken the base and the team had few resources to work with. The Elder Minion’s mission was to infiltrate the captured base at Shantipole and to either recover or destroy the B-wing prototypes along with the rest of the data on them. Commander Akbar and Suskafoo the Verpine were on hand and the team had a full schematic of the base

Dark City Games New Official YouTube Channel

Posted on August 6, 2021 by Alfred Bonnabel

One of my favorite publishers, Dark City Games, has recently setup an official YouTube channel and I couldn’t be more thrilled. DCG founder George Dew provides the voiceover and takes us through a series of bite-sized videos that are perfect for a quick playthrough on your phone or pc. Kicking off the content offering is a playlist of tutorials walking through the Legends of the Ancient World ruleset. This is perfect for first time players and will be a great resource for a quick watch as you prep your party of characters for an adventure. In addition to the tutorials,

Star Wars RPG Part 3 – Mid-Campaign Recap

Posted on July 30, 2021August 8, 2021 by Alfred Bonnabel

The Adventure Continues Our second session picked up with the group arriving at Commander Akbar’s command post in a spectacular fashion (i.e. crashing their freighter in the landing bay) and getting a lay of the land. Along the way the group had their first encounter with the Verpine species and befriended one of their engineers, Suskafoo. The group also earned the enmity of Akbar’s second in command, a Quarren named Salin Glek.

D&D, FoundryVTT, and Dungeon Crawl Classics – Week in Review 05/23/2021

Posted on May 24, 2021 by Alfred Bonnabel

Welcome to The Alfred Effect Week in Review for the week ending May 23, 2021. Blog News The Spring semester has wrapped up and today marks the first day of the Summer term. I’ve got a fairly full plate this summer with two classes each for both the first and second Summer terms. I took some time to update my Solo Roleplaying Game Resources page with a section on random generators. I’ve Double Tome Studios I’ve been struggling a bit lately to nail down what rule set, if any, to base some of our upcoming projects around. Each has pros

The Fantasy Trip – Gaming with Minions

Posted on April 23, 2021April 28, 2021 by Alfred Bonnabel

Happy days! The Hexagram #6, Adventures 2, and Old-School Monsters Kickstarter by Steve Jackson Games is in fulfillment and my copies arrived via FedEx earlier this week. I had a blast digging into the box of goodies and flipping through the new content. From what I’ve seen so far, the finished product continues to maintain the high level of quality that the SJG team has put in to each prior TFT release.

Dark City Games New Release – Village of the Dead

Posted on April 21, 2021 by Alfred Bonnabel

Incredibly excited to see the next release from Dark City Games Legends of the Ancient World series of modules: Village of the Dead, coming 4/22/2021. As you know, I’m a big fan of Dark City Games and their Legends of the Ancient World rule set and accompanying scenarios. These have been a big hit around the house and I’m incredibly excited to see a new release coming our way.

Virtual Cons, FoundryVTT, and 5e – Week in Review 04/17/2021

Posted on April 17, 2021April 17, 2021 by Alfred Bonnabel

Welcome to The Alfred Effect Week in Review for the week ending April 17, 2021. Blog News It’s been a crazy 6 months or so since I was last posting regularly. The world has been going through plenty of ups and downs both personally and generally. It has all been a bit overwhelming and I largely stepped back from online activities last fall to focus on priorities. While things are still a bit bumpy, it is at least trending upward and I’m ready to start easing back into things with this site. All has not been doom and gloom. I

Legends of the Ancient World RPG Free Downloads

Posted on January 31, 2021 by Alfred Bonnabel

Dark City Games just uploaded a ton of free downloadable content to their site over the past few days and I’m loving it. A total of eight sets of player/npc/monster game pieces and five sets of tiles have been uploaded so far and I hope to see more to come soon. I’m especially enjoying the tiles as I feel like you can never have too many full-color tiles ready to build an encounter. One of my favorite things about the adventures from Dark City Games are the bundled map and tokens. The DCG games introduce a diverse variety of foes

Legends of the Ancient World RPG and Dark City Games

Posted on January 18, 2021 by Alfred Bonnabel

When it comes to solo roleplaying games, Legends of the Ancient World (LAW) tops my list. It is a rules light system that captures the fundamentals of The Fantasy Trip while streamlining some of the more complex combat options. This pairs nicely with the fun programmed adventures offered by Dark City Games and makes for an enjoyable solo or group play experience. This month has seen the release of a brand new fantasy adventure for LAW titled “Uprising” by the amazing Bret Winters. I have enjoyed many of Bret’s previous adventures and the content shared to his blog, “Swords Under