Is it too early to revisit D&D 4th Edition?
My feelings toward D&D 4th Edition are mixed. When I first read the rules back in 2008 I immediately fell in love. I really liked 4E’s powers, the evocative artwork, the new core...
April 9, 2025
Stargazer
Michael Wolf is a German games designer and enthusiast best known for his English language role-playing games blog, Stargazer's World, and for creating the free rules-light medieval fantasy adventure game Warrior, Rogue & Mage. He has also worked as an English translator on the German-language Dungeonslayers role-playing game and was part of its editorial team.
In addition to his work on Warrior, Rogue & Mage and Dungeonslayers, he has created several self-published games and also performed layout services and published other independent role-playing games such as A Wanderer's Romance, Badass, and the Wyrm System derivative Resolute, Adventurer & Genius, all released through his imprint Stargazer Games.
Professionally, he works as a video technician and information technologies specialist. Stargazer's World was started by Michael in August 2008.
Is Dungeons & Dragons doomed?
This seems to be an absurd notion. Why should the most influential and highly successful roleplaying game which is at the height of its popularity be doomed? The reason has – at least...
April 4, 2025
Social Media killed the Blogging Star
A couple of days ago I got an email from FeedSpot. It’s founder informed me that our blog has been selected by their panellists as one of the Top 90 RPG Blogs on...
April 3, 2025
Three OSR TTRPG recommendations (and a bonus one)
I have a soft spot for the Old School Renaissance. Even though I never played original D&D or owned one of the Basic D&D boxes I have some quasi-nostalgic feelings toward this era...
April 3, 2025
Kickstarter: White Box Cyclopedia
James M. Spahn is currently raising money on Kickstarter for White Box: Cyclopedia, which could easily be THE definitive book if you are into fantasy roleplaying inspired by the original D&D (also known...
January 16, 2025
Hunting White Whales
Happy new year and welcome back to Stargazer’s World. I finally found some time to blog again, so lo and behold my first post of 2025! It has been a longtime tradition to...
January 12, 2025
Excited about Pathfinder 2nd Edition
I never thought I would be excited about Pathfinder 2nd Edition all of a sudden. As you know, I usually prefer rules-light games. I even found D&D 5th Edition overwhelming from time of...
November 28, 2024
What’s new with the Stargazer?
Stargazer’s World, while it is focused mostly on tabletop roleplaying games, has also always been my personal blog which I have used to share brief glimpses into my personal life, mostly when it...
July 24, 2024
Heroes of Adventure
While browsing on itch.io I recently stumbled upon Heroes of Adventure, a free, rules-light, OSR-adjacent tabletop roleplaying game released under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Like D&D it comes in three core rulebooks,...
June 6, 2024
New Player Advice: Try To Learn The Rules
Last time in the series I wrote about the “Matt Mercer” effect and the misconception that every TTRPG session has to look like an episode of “Critical Role”. Today I want to share...
April 24, 2024
Kickstarter: Dimday Red TTRPG – Nodus Zine 02
A couple of days ago Spiros Drakatos reached out to me and let me know about Dimday Red, his post-apocalyptical TTRPG and the Kickstarter he’s currently running to finance a zine to expand...
February 10, 2024
TV Series Which Could Make Great TTRPG Campaigns
Turning existing movie, book or TV show franchises into tabletop roleplaying campaigns isn’t always a great idea. In many cases the world depicted in these kinds of media exist only to facilitate one...
February 6, 2024
What’s holding Open Legend back?
A while back I bought a used hardcover copy of Open Legend. According to its subtitle it’s an open-source RPG which is right up my alley. I basically bought it on a whim....
February 5, 2024
New Player Advice: Curb Your Expectations!
So you have watched a season of Critical Role (or another high profile Actual Play series by professional actors/voice actors) and now your are interested in joining a tabletop roleplaying game? Great! But...
February 2, 2024
Ask The Readers: Option Paralysis
For years I have been dealing with a rather severe case of option or rather decision paralysis. As you probably know I own way too many roleplaying games. I love reading new games...
February 1, 2024
Of Harassment In The Dungeons & Dragons Community And Other Unpleasant Things
Today I stumbled upon an article by Jeff Rients in which he writes about a rather lengthy Medium post by Dr. Clio Belle Weisman, a psychotherapist and social research scientist. She did a...
January 31, 2024
Venezuela?!
While checking my blog’s stats, I noticed that the vast majority of readers in the last few days came from Venezuela, of all places. Don’t get me wrong, I feel quite honored that...
January 31, 2024