The
Shadow and Bone Netflix series is so close we can almost touch Ben Barnes’ scruffy 5 o’clock shadow he’s been effortlessly maintaining.
With a rich fantasy world that author Leigh Bardugo has styled ‘Tsarpunk’, the Shadow and Bone series is full of engaging characters, elemental magic, and, of course, a hell of a lot of darkness. As Netflix adapts the first five books of the Grishaverse into a show, we’ve only gotten hints about what the content’s going to be like, and where it will differ or align with the books. We know the (approximate) cast, the episode titles, and… that’s about it.
A group of friends lean in; it’s the final battle, the end of an epic campaign, years in the making. The only thing that stands between them and the ultimate triumph of good over evil is the roll of a single die…
Well, that’s how
Dungeons and Dragons does it, anyway. But genre games are as varied as genre fiction, and most don’t require the time or monetary investment that a thick, rules-heavy D&D campaign often asks for. The stories told around the table (or over Zoom!) with your adventuring party can rival the great works of fiction, and have been oft-cited as sources of inspiration. But with the advent of experimental lyric games, journaling prompts, and new systems for mechanics including using tarot cards, betting structures, or even a Jenga tower genre tabletop games have never been more diverse or more exciting.