With Game of Thrones coming out on HBO, Bob Gallo and I decided to take a look at some of the games that have been made about the series. Most of them have a focus on politics, which is fitting given the nature of the books, but Battles of Westeros is focused completely on war. Fans of the series will love the focus on specific characters from the series, but even those who haven’t read the books or seen the TV show will find a lot to like in one of the best tactical war-games in the historical/fantasy genre.

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I love games that tell a story; this is probably why I am currently participating in three (3) separate roleplaying campaigns and GMing two of them.

But good stories can be found in other games as well; my favorite board game of the moment is almost certainly Battlestar Galactica, a social “who’s the traitor?” game based on the reimagined series that does a fantastic job of marrying mechanics and theme. (The hook: One of you is actually a Cylon, but the mechanics of gameplay make it extremely difficult to know who even if they’re right in front of you.)

Imagine my delight when I stumbled across a new game entirely focused on narrative and storytelling; imagine my further delight that said game is hip-deep in the world and works of H.P. Lovecraft; lastly, imagine my now-unbounded delight to discover that the game is actually really good, independent of and perhaps in spite of the high expectations I already held for it. I am speaking of Mansions of Madness, a team-based Lovecraft investigation game from Fantasy Flight. It’s awesome.

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