Mason Dwyer reviews board games and books, plus the odd essay about the hobby and the shelf around it.https://masondwyer.net/en-UShttps://masondwyer.net/articles/what-lake-effect-season-does-to-my-reading-pace/https://masondwyer.net/articles/what-lake-effect-season-does-to-my-reading-pace/Erie sits on the snow belt, and every November my reading log quietly doubles, whether I planned for it or not.Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/the-rating-i-went-back-and-lowered/https://masondwyer.net/articles/the-rating-i-went-back-and-lowered/I gave Godtear a five after one great night. Four games later I quietly edited the number, and I want to explain why instead of just doing it silently.Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/debs-one-rule-about-my-drafts/https://masondwyer.net/articles/debs-one-rule-about-my-drafts/She doesn't play the games or always finish the books. She has exactly one rule for what I'm allowed to publish, and it's improved every review I've written since.Fri, 31 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/this-war-of-mine-the-board-game/https://masondwyer.net/articles/this-war-of-mine-the-board-game/A survival game that hates you on purpose, and somehow that's the whole point.Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTThis War of Mine: The Board GameMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/naomis-panopticon-comment-that-wouldnt-leave-me-alone/https://masondwyer.net/articles/naomis-panopticon-comment-that-wouldnt-leave-me-alone/A coworker's offhand line about our open floor plan sent me down a Foucault rabbit hole I still haven't fully climbed out of.Wed, 22 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/discipline-and-punish/https://masondwyer.net/articles/discipline-and-punish/Foucault ruins the way you look at every institution you've ever walked into, and I mean that as a warning and a recommendation.Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTDiscipline and PunishMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/magic-the-gathering/https://masondwyer.net/articles/magic-the-gathering/The one game on this shelf I'll never actually finish reviewing, because it's been a different game every year since 1993.Sat, 11 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTMagic: The GatheringMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/we-have-never-been-modern/https://masondwyer.net/articles/we-have-never-been-modern/Latour argues the modern/premodern split never actually happened, and takes a hundred and fifty dense pages to make a two-sentence idea land.Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTWe Have Never Been ModernMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/the-lord-of-the-rings-fate-of-the-fellowship/https://masondwyer.net/articles/the-lord-of-the-rings-fate-of-the-fellowship/Matt Leacock ports the Pandemic engine to Middle-earth, and Sauron's influence spreading like a virus is a better fit than it has any right to be.Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Lord of the Rings: Fate of the FellowshipMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/the-paper-log-instead-of-the-app/https://masondwyer.net/articles/the-paper-log-instead-of-the-app/Everyone at the table has an app for this. I have a composition notebook that's on its third volume and I'm not switching.Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/the-report-writing-voice-i-cant-turn-off/https://masondwyer.net/articles/the-report-writing-voice-i-cant-turn-off/Nine years of writing violation notices for the city has ruined my ability to write a review without a findings section forming in my head first.Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/the-gods-themselves/https://masondwyer.net/articles/the-gods-themselves/Three loosely connected stories, and the middle one, told entirely from an alien point of view, is the reason to read this at all.Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Gods ThemselvesMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/echopraxia/https://masondwyer.net/articles/echopraxia/Peter Watts writes the hardest of hard science fiction and then throws vampires and a monastery of hive-minded monks into it, on purpose.Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTEchopraxiaMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/1984/https://masondwyer.net/articles/1984/The book everyone's already had opinions about before they finish it, and it earns every one of them anyway.Sat, 11 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT1984Mason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/rising-sun/https://masondwyer.net/articles/rising-sun/CMON production values wrapped around a diplomacy game that mostly delivers on the promise, when the table actually negotiates.Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTRising SunMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/godtear/https://masondwyer.net/articles/godtear/A skirmish game that's shockingly rules-lean for how much tactical depth it packs into five rounds.Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTGodtearMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/always-coming-home/https://masondwyer.net/articles/always-coming-home/Le Guin builds an entire post-collapse anthropology of a people who don't exist, and calls it a novel almost as an afterthought.Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTAlways Coming HomeMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/summoner-wars/https://masondwyer.net/articles/summoner-wars/Chess with variable powers and a summoner instead of a king, and the dice will occasionally ruin your whole plan.Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTSummoner WarsMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/cloudspire/https://masondwyer.net/articles/cloudspire/Chip Theory's tower defense monster is stacked with depth and stacked with rules, and it never quite lets you forget the second part.Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTCloudspireMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/the-basement-humidity-problem-nobody-warned-me-about/https://masondwyer.net/articles/the-basement-humidity-problem-nobody-warned-me-about/I inspect buildings for moisture problems all day. It took a warped game board in my own basement to make me actually check my own.Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/invisible-cities/https://masondwyer.net/articles/invisible-cities/Fifty-five imaginary cities described to Kublai Khan, and somewhere in there Calvino writes the truest thing I've read about memory.Thu, 12 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTInvisible CitiesMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/marvel-champions-the-card-game/https://masondwyer.net/articles/marvel-champions-the-card-game/A living card game that finally made the hero-versus-alter-ego switch feel like a real decision instead of flavor text.Tue, 13 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTMarvel Champions: The Card GameMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/root/https://masondwyer.net/articles/root/A woodland war game that earns the asymmetry it charges you for, once somebody at the table actually learns all four rulebooks.Mon, 05 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTRootMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/outline/https://masondwyer.net/articles/outline/A narrator who mostly listens instead of talks, and a book that works as a technique before it works as a story.Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTOutlineMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/why-i-wont-rate-anything-i-havent-finished/https://masondwyer.net/articles/why-i-wont-rate-anything-i-havent-finished/A half-finished inspection doesn't get a passing grade, and I hold my reviews to the same rule even when it costs me a deadline.Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/other-minds/https://masondwyer.net/articles/other-minds/Godfrey-Smith goes looking for an alien intelligence and finds one thirty feet under the surface, no spaceship required.Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTOther MindsMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/vast-the-crystal-caverns/https://masondwyer.net/articles/vast-the-crystal-caverns/Five completely different rulebooks stapled to one board, an idea so ambitious it doesn't always land.Sat, 06 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTVast: The Crystal CavernsMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/the-inspection-i-almost-signed-off-on-too-fast/https://masondwyer.net/articles/the-inspection-i-almost-signed-off-on-too-fast/Nine years in, on a day I badly wanted to be somewhere else, I almost missed something that would have mattered a lot to the family living there.Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/the-plague/https://masondwyer.net/articles/the-plague/A quarantined city, a clinical narrator, and a novel that argues its philosophy through weather instead of speeches.Sun, 30 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTThe PlagueMason Dwyerhttps://masondwyer.net/articles/teaching-the-wednesday-table-a-game-that-died-in-round-one/https://masondwyer.net/articles/teaching-the-wednesday-table-a-game-that-died-in-round-one/I oversold Vast to five people who trusted me, and the whole table sat there watching one confused Cave player figure out a semi-automated system in real time.Tue, 25 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayMason Dwyer