News

March 14 2025

MTG: Tarkir Dragonstorm at Level Up Games

Pre-releases at all Level Up Games Locations

Tarkir: Dragonstorm is now available at all 4 Level Up Games locations

Duluth Events

Dawsonville Events

Athens Events

Johns Creek Events

Tarkir Information

Play Booster Box

Collector Booster Box

FAQ

Q.) What’s a pre-release?

A.) A casual MTG event where you build and play with cards from your event kit containing extra goodies and booster packs from the set. See more info on pre-releases here.

Q.) Why is it called a “pre-release” if LUG can sell items starting the day pre-release events are held?

A.) It’s called a pre-release as Wizards of the Coast has local game store programs which allow us to sell items BEFORE the global release date of MTG sets.

Q.) When will my orders be available for pickup in-store or arrive through shipping?

A.) Online orders will begin shipping on April 4th. In-store orders may be picked up on April 4th.

November 24 2024

Black Friday Savings Start Tomorrow at Level Up Games!

Level Up Games is bringing you Black Friday savings all week long in-store, starting 11/25 and ending at business closing hours 12/1.

Whether you’re buying a gift for a friend, getting into tabletop gaming for the first time, or you’re an experienced player, Level Up Games is here to help you find the perfect fit for Black Friday Week!

Check out our Buying Guide below to make your holiday shopping STRESS-FREE! Want more Buying Guides? Be sure to follow our social media and join our Discord to stay up to date on all things Georgia tabletop gaming!

Buying Guide

Trading Card Games
Board Games
Tabletop Roleplaying Games

TCGs

Pokémon: Elite Trainer Boxes are great gifts and pickups for any Pokémon fans! They come with packs of cards with chances for exciting cards to be hidden within, as well as useful and neat items like dice.

A great pickup will all current ETBs on sale (excluding Surging Sparks).

Want to try a refreshing new TCG or pick up a new hobby for the family? Trying Altered TCG with our discounted starter decks has never been easier!

Revolutionary advances in collection, trading, gameplay, and art await you in Altered!

For a showstopping gift or as a much-deserved treat for yourself, get Magic: The Gathering – Murders at Karlov Manor Collector Booster Boxes at low prices!

These boxes contain chances at extremely rare cards, including special serialized alternative art cards!

Board Games

Leder Games, famous in part for its award-winning Root, brings a similarly polished gameplay experience with its new release, Arcs, with less asymmetry. Easier to teach without sacrificing depth!

This delightful family game has been impressing our community since its release. It’s perfect for easy travel, families, or a light tile to start game night.

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For the board gamer who has it all, or if you need to bundle up your new collection from our sale!

Sleeves and storage solutions, like our new Spectrum Board Game Bags, are always helpful to board gamers, both new and experienced.

Tabletop Roleplaying Games

The Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook is the main rulebook for the most popular tabletop RPG, containing everything you need to make characters and start playing!

Perfect for new players, Starter Boxes typically come with a shorter version of a game’s rules, pre-made characters, dice, tools, and a pre-made adventure or two for a lower price than a main rule book.

RPGs come in all sorts of genres, gameplay mechanics, and aesthetics, so a starter box is a great way to sample the variety out there!

If you’re an experienced player or shopping for one, we recommend using our Black Friday Week Sale to pick up a new Core Book (main rule book).

We have a range of solo play RPGs like In the Ashes to scratch that RPG itch when game night gets canceled or some “me time” is in order!

We also have a HUGE variety of RPGs in stock. Just let staff know what kind of shows/books/games you or your loved one is into, and we can find a perfect fit for you!

Connect with Local Gamers!

If you’re picking up all these shiny new toys, join our Discord to see tabletop gaming events and chat with fellow hobby enthusiasts!

We would also love to answer any questions you have this holiday season in our Discord or in person at our Duluth, Dawsonville, Athens, or John’s Creek locations!

P.S.

Our Games Workshop sale is so steep that we can’t tell you what it is here! Stop by to see the huge savings in person!

October 18 2024

What to expect from MTG: Foundations

MTG: Foundations, set for release in November, is designed to serve as a common base for new and returning magic players to build their collections.

If you’re thinking about building your first deck, or you recently got into the hobby during Bloomburrow and Duskmourn’s release, the cards and products in Foundations have been carefully curated to be excellent tools to expand on those first few packs or commander decks you picked up.

What exactly does that mean?

This means that card types and colors will be presented in clear and distinct ways. Some MTG sets will bend, break, or experiment with players’ expectations so that certain themes or new game mechanics can excite players.

The MTG colors you either already know and love or are coming to know will operate in a very ” first-principles” way. These colors are Blue, Red, Green, Black, and White. Most cards fall under one or more color identities and act accordingly. MTG: Foundations is the perfect set to crack open a few packs and discover how these colors interact in a game, what they typically do, and what players they are trying to appeal to.

For example, expect Green identity cards in Foundations to do the things Green is famous for: BIG monsters, making extra mana – also known as “ramping”- to be able to play those monsters, and powering up their creatures’ stats.

That isn’t to say there won’t be complex and exciting strategies in Foundations—far from it—but these strategies and game pieces will lend themselves to the deep DNA that makes the game’s color ecosystem tick.

Sound Interesting? Here’s how to start playing with MTG Foundations

Here’s the breakdown of what items MTG: Foundations is bringing, starting with the two items explicitly designed for the brand-new or newer MTG player.

Beginner Box: A guided tutorial for one or two players that boosts your collection

$29.99

If you’ve seen some YouTube clips and are interested in MTG or have a buddy begging you to come to Friday Night Magic but haven’t pulled the trigger yet, the Beginner Box is for you! Its two key items are a pair of guided tutorial game decks and 10 Jumpstart packs.

20 card tutorial game decks (Cats and Vampires) come with a step-by-step guide booklet to walk you through your first five turns.

Once players have a basic understanding of the game, they can jump into their first pack openings! Jumpstart packs are simple. They are predetermined-themed sets opened in pairs and shuffled together to make a deck. Ten packs mean five deck experiences for each player to create, pilot, and add to their collections!

Starter Collection:+350 cards and 3 play booster packs that immediately boost your deckbuilding tools and let you explore MTG’s history. Perfect for altering your store-bought or pre-release deck.

$59.99

The Starter Collection is the perfect boost for the MTG player who has played a few Commander games with their Bloomburrow or Duskmourn pre-assembled decks (those decks you bought in-store that were ready out-of-the-box) and wants to add some customization and personal flair to them or jump into the standard format after playing at pre-release.

Each copy comes with +350 cards from MTG’s past. This breadth of choice lets you discover what art, mechanics, and themes inspire you to create new decks!

There are also 3 MTG: Foundations Play Boosters to add to the excitement, tokens cards, and more inside!

MTG: Foundations Play Booster Boxes: Exciting packs that may contain rare and foiled cards - can be used to draft, play sealed, or add to your collection for other formats.

$139.99

Play boosters are the definitive way to discover a new MTG set. Crack some packs to see what you get, add to your collection, and get inspired by your pulls. Great for new and returning MTG players to boost their collection with chances at foil and higher rarity cards.

Play Booster contents:
14 Magic: The Gathering cards
6–9 Commons
4–5 Uncommons
1–4 Rares or mythic rares
1 Card of any rarity is a traditional foil

MTG: Foundations Collector Booster Box: This is for those wanting maximum collectability - booster packs with chances for the juiciest rare cards cranked to the max!

$229.99

Collector Boosters offer the highest chances for the most sought-after foils, rares, and special treatment cards. You can open fracture foil Japan Showcase cards, mana foils, and extended-art cards in Foundations Collector Boosters. These boxes are great for those wanting to fully bling out their decks or as a jaw-dropping gift to the planeswalker in your life!

Collector Booster contents:
15 Magic: The Gathering cards
12–13 Traditional foil cards
Includes 5 cards of rarity rare or higher and 4 uncommons, 5 commons, and 1 land
Fracture foil Japan Showcase card in < 1% of boosters

Now Let's Play!

If I’ve done my job, you now understand what to expect from MTG: Foundations. If you’d like to swing by our Level Up Games locations to join in on the fun, I’ll leave you with a few events you can check out.

-If you want to try a sealed event, where you build a deck using a few card packs from MTG: Foundations, sign up for our MTG: Foundations Pre-Release events. This is your first chance to play with a new MTG set. The first day of these events is also the day LUG locations may sell a new set:

Duluth: November 8th – 10th

Dawsonville: November 8th – 9th

Athens: November 8th – 9th

Johns Creek: November 8th & 10th

-If you want to check out our weekly MTG events at our locations, head to our Discord and see our “Weekly Events” channel to pick a day to meet our community.

You can see exactly what is waiting for you in MTG: Foundations on MTG’s Card Image Gallery.

And welcome to our MTG community!

October 16 2024

Infinity Comes to Level Up Games – Met Nic: Infinity Paragon

Level Up Games Duluth is now carrying the Sci-Fi skirmish miniatures game Infinity! Keep reading to see why this game is unique, meet our passionate Infinity community leader, and how you can jump into the covert battlefields of the future!

Nic is the man to talk to when asking our community any Infinity-related questions. He is the “Paragon” of the game (community leader). You can catch him at any Infinity events or reach out to our Level Up Games Discord’s Infinity channel. Here’s what he has to say about this title and his journey with it:

Hey there, I’m Nic! I’ve been in Atlanta for three years and have been playing war games on and off since 2014. I picked up Infinity with 3rd edition and have been playing it ever since.

My favorite thing about Infinity is its extremely cinematic and engaging gameplay. It’s always your turn, thanks to infinity’s Automatic Reaction Order (ARO) mechanic; even when it’s not your turn, you can react to your opponent’s choices.

Its low model count is also a huge draw as you can really focus on painting a few models rather than giant armies. That also means it’s very easy to pickup Infinity even if you play other miniature games.

Additionally, the world of Infinity has unique factions with their own themes while still having universally understood rules. From space werewolves to techno-samurai to motorbike knight priests — there’s a little something to everyone! Additionally, the new rules releasing in November means that learning the game is easier than ever across factions thanks to shared keywords and equipment.

Level Up Games Duluth is currently stocked with several different starter options for Infinity (transfers to other locations are ok!) The various Action Packs serve as the core of building any army with Reinforcements Boxes, Booster Packs, and Support Packs available to customize your forces further.

All models available in-store will be eligible when the newest edition of Infinity releases in November. Learning the rules of the current edition will serve you well if you just can’t wait to dive into this title as doing so will give you a great footing when learning the new edition. Demos are available — just reach out in our Discord!

Speaking of demos, we have an official demo event on December 9th and our first N5 League kicking off on November 25th on our Eventbrite!

If you want to jump into Infinity with the release of N5 (the new edition), we have pre-orders open for Infinity N5 – Operation: Sand Trap, a two-player starter box containing 14 miniatures, a booklet with background, a set of narrative missions, cardboard scenery, dice—everything you need to start collecting Infinity for $154.99! Just ask our in-store staff the next time you visit!

October 7 2024

Community Leader Highlight – Bryce: RPG Paragon

H! I’m Bryce. I’ve been a gamer for 15-plus years now. Got into it young as a kid and then played a lot of board games with my parents, but then what really got me was 15 years ago started playing Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition. Got in with 4th edition. Really loved it, played that game religiously forever. I played 5th edition and then started to just branch out.

I’m a teacher and in education by trade. So teaching is huge to me and getting more people into the hobby is what I love to do. And there’s something for everyone in tabletop gaming!

I started as a roleplaying game guy, I’ve jumped into now being a miniature game guy, and still a board game guy when I can, but mostly RPGs and miniatures are my focus. I do events for Cyberpunk: Combat Zone for miniature games, and I also run RPGs alongside Wayne in Athens.

Our big goal is to run 3 RPG games a month that tend to be indie games. It’s what we’ve had the most success doing more than anything else.

For example, Monster of the Week is my favorite RPG of all time, and I run it all the time in Athens. The other game that I’m really into right now is Fabula Ultima.

Copy of Copy of Atl gamefest giveaway winner

Dungeons and Dragons is great, but it’s just one small section of what’s out there. There’s sci-fi RPGs. There’s horror RPGs. There’s even ones about running a bed and breakfast for fantasy animals!

It’s super fun to show people they have so many opportunities to play a game about anything with RPGs! And that is kind of what Friday Night Frights is. This Friday we’re actually gonna have a Mystic Punks session run by its creator alongside a Delta Green game run by a great local community member, Rob.

So, if you have any interest in talking about an RPG, chat with me in the shop or ask Level Up staff to get you in contact with me on the Discord. I guarantee you I’ve either played it or know someone who has played it!

October 2 2024

Terrain at Level Up Games Duluth – Immersive, Quicker, & Cleaner

When you walk into a game store excited to get in a game of Warhammer or an RPG, the last thing you want to deal with in your limited free time is busted up and mismatched terrain that is scattered about.

It’s happened to us all:

“Oh dang, I can’t find any more fantasy pieces, so… I guess I’ll use this Cyberpunk piece… with graffiti art…in my Lord of the Rings game…”

“Oh, this tree is missing half its branches, but I don’t have time to look for something else.”

We have heard these kinds of stories from our customers and event organizers here at our Duluth location. Of course, with hundreds of players enjoying the space, accidents are bound to happen. Pieces get forgotten, messy, and damaged.

After looking around for a solution, we settled on a new terrain system that other stores have used to fix these problems for our customers. Starting Oct. 7th, Duluth’s miniature table terrain will be fully shifted to an easy checkout system to improve your play experience.

How Does it Work?

1.) Pay your $15 deposit

2.) Get your box(es)

3.) Play

4.) Return your terrain

5.) Get your money back to the original payment method or put it towards store credit if you prefer

Easy as that!

Players will head to our checkout desk and select a box (or boxes if the terrain set is multiple boxes) with staff. Each terrain kit will be color-coded to match the pieces found inside (a colored sticker will be on the bottom of the terrain pieces).

A $15 deposit gets you your terrain, and that $15 WILL BE RETURNED to you if all pieces of terrain are accounted for in the condition you check them out in. Normal wear-and-tear is OK, including scratches from model movement. The purpose of this system is to reduce the amount of terrain that has become “unusable” or broken.

The $15 deposit can be used towards a purchase you make during your visit or returned to you in its original payment form – cash or card.

The Old System - Mixed Pieces and Mess Taking Up Space

New System: Matching Terrain with No Side Clutter

Each Piece is Color-Coded With Boxes

New System: Easily Tell what Boxes Go Together with Color-Coding

Why Are We Implementing this?

We all enjoy the immersive experience good terrain can add to our games. Broken pieces and mismatched terrain can take you out of your experience.

Also, much of our terrain has been handmade or donated by our community members, who spend large chunks of their free time ensuring organized play and events can happen here at LUG. It is only right that their items are left intact with us.

Secondly, having terrain organized and out of the way will allow our event runners to easily work with clean tables and set out game-specific pieces efficiently. Less stress on them is always a plus!

Thirdly, this new system will allow for more table space, as mismatched terrain will no longer take up valuable space where players can place tokens, dice trays, etc.

Lastly, players can start playing quicker, as an entire table of matching terrain can be picked from. You will not have to hunt down “proper”-sized pieces, let alone an entire table of terrain. There will also be general terrain sets as well as more specialized ones.

FAQ:

Q: Can I still bring my own terrain?

A: You are welcome to bring your own terrain or buy terrain kits at LUG. We ask you to take it home when you are done so it doesn’t get mixed in with our own.

Q: So terrain isn’t free anymore?

A: Terrain payments are simply deposits. They are “free” in the sense that you get 100% of your money back in credit or back to your original payment as long as the terrain is intact when you return it.

Q: Is this system being used at other LUG locations?

A: It is not.

Q: Are mats tied to terrain boxes?

A: Many of our terrain kits can be used on multiple mats. Players may select any avaiable mats to best fit their game.

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September 12 2024

Community Leader Highlight – Walter: RPG Paragon

An integral part of Level Up Games is fostering a community of tabletop gamers where everyone feels welcomed into our space and our hobbies.

A huge piece of that are the fantastic community leaders, or Paragons, across our stores. They are passionate locals who champion their hobbies by running special events for both brand-new players and veterans looking for a new game store to call home.

Walter is one of our amazing role-playing game Paragons who would love for you to grab a seat at his upcoming events!

Here’s a little more about him and his events from the man himself! :

My name is Walter, and it’s an honor to be one of the Paragons for the Level Up Games community. I primarily run roleplaying game events at the Johns Creek location, occasionally Duluth, and soon, I’ll run my first learn to play event at Dawsonville; more on that in a moment.

You can find me as “Walter (RPG/Johns Creek)” on the LUG discord server talking about my upcoming events, introducing players to one another who are looking for groups, and talking about roleplaying games that you may have seen on the shelves in the stores, but were uncertain as to whether you wanted to try them or whether you could find a gaming group that would be interested in playing those games. It is my goal to introduce new and veteran gamers to games they may not have played before, but more importantly, that a group of mostly strangers has a delightful time playing a game with one another.

Life offers rare opportunities for us to engage in fun activities outside of job and family duties & responsibilities, but roleplayers really have it the best when it comes to those rare moments. What other avocation offers individuals the chance to engage in a social activity wherein you create a shared story and you are also the audience?

Copy of Copy of Stellar Crown pre-release (1)

I recently ran a Dungeons & Dragons learn to play session at Duluth in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of D&D and the release of the revised edition of the D&D Player’s Handbook. All of the players had a fantastic time and I’m looking forward to the next D&D 50th Anniversary event which will coincide with the release of the revised Dungeon Master’s Guide. Be on the lookout for the event sign-up on the Eventbrite app or website. It will also be announced on the Discord.

Some of the other RPGs that I regularly run include Call of Cthulhu (mystery, investigation, and cosmic horror), Pendragon (chivalry and romance during the times of King Arthur), and Runequest (sword & sorcery fantasy set in a deeply mythic world).

Other games I’ve introduced to the LUG community are Swords of the Serpentine (narrative-focused swashbuckling fantasy) and Fiasco (a game of powerful ambition and poor impulse control), and you can see that I’m interested in sharing games that are off-the-beaten path of typical high fantasy tropes. I enjoy sharing games that may be overlooked by the community.

Next week, to celebrate Talk Like A Pirate Day, I’m running two Pirate Borg events at LUG stores. On Wednesday, September 18th, I’ll be at Johns Creek for “The Sinking of C’thagn,” and on Thursday, September 19th, I’ll be at Dawsonville for “Buried in the Bahamas.”

Last year I ran a wildly successful Pirate Borg session for five players. It was a crazy journey filled with buried treasure, swashbuckling skeletons, angst about the impending end of the world, and drunken tales to amaze! Pirate Borg is based on the grimdark, death metal fantasy RPG Mörk Borg, where the premise is that the world is ending, and you all know it.

So, what extreme choices and behaviors will you make in the final days of your dying world. Understandably, the “Borg” family of games are not for every gamers’ sensibilities.

Copy of Copy of Stellar Crown pre-release

My goals as a Paragon are paramount: To build and grow the gaming community, share my love for gaming with others, and introduce you all to some fantastic games that allow you to create stories and shared experiences around the table with one another. I’ve been involved in community building for many years in various sub-cultures & hobbies, and the gaming community is my absolute favorite community to be a leader of.

I’m preparing to run more game demos the future – Symbaroum, Tales from the Loop,
CY_BORG, and others. But, I’d like to hear about what you’d like to play and the incredible tales you’re telling around your table. Feel free to reach out to me on the LUG Discord, or join my events and let’s have fun creating shared memories over the course of a few hours at a Level Up Games store. Roll the dice and good gaming to you!

Level Up Games here again. We hope you can sign up for some RPG games with Walter! Even if you can’t make it out this weekend, always be on the lookout for more fun events with our Paragons, which include sessions for Mothership, Cy_Borg, and tons of spooky RPG fun in October!

Chat with our RPG community and see details for our events on our Discord here.

August 16 2024

Every Level Up Games Location is YOUR Location: Transfers, Orders, and More

Duluth Location

Transfers

No matter which of our locations you are shopping from: Duluth, John’s Creek, Athens, or Dawsonville, know that you have the support of each and everyone of them at your fingertips!

If you can’t find something in one of our stores while you’re shopping, you can always ask our staff members to see if we have it at our other locations.

With four game stores worth of items, we probably have you covered! Our locations can pull from each other’s inventory and get you that item you need quickly. Transfers are taken between our stores Thursday nights – Friday afternoons.

Once your item arrives, you will get a call from store staff.

Orders and Holds

If you are on the hunt for a specific item, you are always welcome to ask if any location have it in stock on our social media platforms like our Discord or call (numbers are in the top right of this webpage).

In our Discord, we have a specific “product requests and arrivals” channel where you can directly message store staff about items. Use @LevelUp(whatever store you are messaging) in your message to ping them!

If the store has the item, they will hold it up to 7 days for your arrival, or longer with a deposit made in store.

And if that location doesn’t have your item, we can transfer a copy or order one in for you. You’ll get a ring when it’s ready for pickup!

Athens Location

Webstore

Some of our items are available on this website (scroll up to “online store”) for in store pickup or direct shipping to your front door. If you don’t see an item online, be sure to give us a call or shoot us a message to see if we have it in our brick-and-mortar local GA stores!

August 14 2024

Community Leader Highlight – Brad: RPG Paragon

Level Up Games is the home for Georgia’s gamers. A huge part of crafting that welcoming home for people of all sorts is finding and supporting our community leaders, known as “Paragons.” Today, take a moment to meet one of our role-playing game Paragons, Brad, who is eager to get some dice in your hands whether you are completely new to tabletop gaming or a veteran!

He has an upcoming Dreams and Machines RPG demo event on August 18th at our Duluth location, where you can say “Hi!” in person and join in on the RPG fun waiting for you at Level Up Games.

Learn more about Brad, what RPGs mean to him, and details about his event below in his own words!

Some of Brad's RPG Collection

Hello, Level Up Games community members!

My name is Brad, and I’m honored to be one of the Paragons here for the store. While I spend a lot of time in the Duluth location, I’m lucky enough to be able to travel and spend time in both the Athens and Johns Creek locations as well. I’m easy to find, both in person and on the LUG Discord server!

If you find me on Discord, you’ll see that I’m listed as “Brad (RPG/Duluth),” and that’s mostly because while I was raised on a variety of game hobbies, tabletop RPGs really stuck with me. Well, to be perfectly honest, they’re more than “stuck” to me – they’re in the marrow of my very bones. I’ve been active in the gaming community for 35 years now, and I was even lucky enough to work for companies like White Wolf and Iron Crown Enterprises at one point! That brought about a lot of burnout, though, and I had to leave the industry and return to just the gaming side of things.

And frankly, folks, I wouldn’t change it for the world.

You see, I love our community. I love all gaming communities, mind you, but I love the RPG community the most. I have never made greater and more significant friendships before than within this tremendous circle of ours. These games allow us in our deeply mundane world to enter into flights of fancy. We can be fantasy heroes, defending our towns against invading forces on dark, draconic wings. In the blink of an eye, we can then be in the dystopian future, fighting against The Man trying to keep us down, running in the shadows against the megacorporations. After that, we’ll take to the skies ourselves, superheroes in the truest sense of the word, wearing capes and masks and saving the day with honor and justice.

There’s a game for everyone, I think, and this is how I approach meeting folks as a Paragon. I believe that for every person who says that they could never play an RPG – that they’re nervous about saying the wrong thing, etc. – there’s really an amazing roleplayer hidden away inside of them. I love to talk to people about their interests, musical tastes, films they appreciate, shows they watch. Because, nine times out of ten, I can smile and say, “You know they made a game for that, right?” Helping people find their niche, their people, true and creative friends, is the highlight of my day.

As for my RPG journey to this moment, it started like many others did in the mid-80s, and that was with Dungeons & Dragons. I’ve had the luxury of playing every single edition, from the original release to the current one we know today. But I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time wandering, too – checking out other games and other companies and other styles of play.

Some of my most favorite experiences have been with diceless (gasp!) systems where we literally sat around and talked our way through a narrative. That sort of thing – talking through a narrative – is very much like how I run my games today. I focus upon the players and their characters first and foremost, because they’re at the center of the stories, after all. For me, rules matter, but so does the Rule of Cool, and if there’s a more interesting way of doing it, I’m more than willing to work with a player to get them to smile and enjoy themselves.

So… what do you say? You’ve read everything this far.

How about you come out and game with me?

I’d love to see you at the table. I’ll keep a seat ready just for you. See you soon!

As for the Dreams and Machines event:

This game came out of nowhere and entirely blindsided me with how cool it is!

Dreams and Machines is one of Modiphius’ newest hits, and its dice system (usually 2d20) is both simple and elegant and readily supports the smooth generation of a character. The concept is that humanity has taken to the stars in order to set up a new human colony, but the sudden and self-inflicted apocalypse that takes place shook them to their very core. The feel of the game is very similar to that of the very popular video game, Horizon Zero Dawn. Machines threaten human life, and in the setting, they are called Wakers. They were defeated once, at great cost, but now they are coming back again, the deadly tools of a corrupt AI.

This session in particular will feature character generation as well as a full opening scenario. Players will be able to select from a card deck representing their character decisions, and in no time, a unique person is mapped out with that very same hand! The dice rolling encourages players to help each other through their journeys, too.

In this new world, no one should venture out alone! So what do you say, hero? Do you have what it takes to team up and stop the Wakers once and for all?

dreams-and-machines-players-guide-dreams-and-machines-modiphius-entertainment-623018_1200x

Level Up Games here again, we hope you can swing in for some RPG games with Brad! Even if you can’t make it out this weekend, always be on the lookout for more fun events with our Paragons. There is always someone in the Level Up Games community who would love to share their love of gaming with you! Good gaming to ya!

Join our Discord here.

August 5 2024

Arkham Horror RPG – Pulpy Action in the Cthulhu Mythos

If you’re brand new to Lovecraftian horror, an extensive fan of the Arkham Horror board game, or well-versed in all things unknowably horrible, the new Arkham Horror: RPG will fit snugly on your game shelf!

Today, we will be going over a few key aspects of this new role-playing game that excites us and makes it stand out among the other horror-themed RPGs out there.

Firstly, and most importantly, Arkham Horror: The Role Playing Game is defined by its pulpy nature — sensational action, fast-paced narrative, and grand stories.

In this game system, you can be driven mad, die, and end your investigation a husk of a person, just like any other Cthulhu horror RPG.

However, you are NOT playing as average Joes and Janes who are not expected to survive the campaign; you are playing heroic individuals who have a chance at not only surviving but also winning against the monstrosities they face.

“I see your tentacles and spells from The Beyond, and I raise you a Winchester rifle, an incantation I just learned from this totally safe book, and good ole human determination to not die!”

These heroes will investigate and battle unknowable horrors using the game’s unique Dynamic Pool System, Skills, and “Knacks” … or die trying!

Every character has access to the same ten skills; Agility, Athletics, Wits, Presence, Intuition, Knowledge, Resolve, Melee Combat, Ranged Combat, and Lore. Characters use these skills to perform actions.

Rankings in these skills determine how easy related actions will be, but note that everyone can attempt to perform the same task no matter their associated skill rank.

ESDPSAH01EN_Character-sheet-mental-focus

Knacks are special defining features of your character that let them tackle their adventures uniquely.

For example, the Mental Focus knack shown above is a straightforward ability that lets cerebral characters show off their mental fortitude and quick wits.

The game runs off the Dynamic Pool System, a brand-new system for Arkham Horror: RPG.

Each character has a dynamic pool of dice that they can spend to acomplish actions on their adventure. Characters spend dice by removing them from their pool, sometimes rolling them, but sometimes just removing them is enough. The pulpy action of the title means pools empty quickly. Pools replenish at the start of each turn or narrative scene.

However, your dice refill rate is effected by any damages you’ve sustained!

Characters can work around this restriction and restore the size of their dice pool at any time…at the cost of a more permanent injury. A small price to pay when your mind is being melted!

Your dice pool can also become polluted by Horror Dice if a horrific encounter shakes your character. Horror dice MUST be placed in your pool as you refill it, can’t be rerolled, and add some horrific spice to rolls of 1.

If your interest is piqued, come in to grab the Arkham Horror: RPG Starter Kit, which is available now at all Level Up Games locations!

It contains everything you need to play, including plenty of dice, character sheets, a full story, physical clues + puzzles, and plenty more for $34.99!