The Taliban Banned Chess
Since retaking power, the Taliban has banned certain music, barred women from parks, and now outlawed chess. Authoritarians don’t just crush dissent—they criminalize joy.
Board Games
Could 'Princess Awesome' Defeat Trump's Tariffs?
Small businesses and a dozen states have filed a pair of lawsuits challenging Trump's authority to impose tariffs on board games, clothes, and lots of other things.
Game Night Just Got More Expensive
A $25 board game may soon hit the shelves with a $40 price tag because of tariffs.
Dungeons & Dragons at 50: You Can't Copyright Fun
How lax intellectual property rules created a nerd culture phenomenon
There's Nothing Free Market About the Board Game Monopoly
For an economics lesson, Nina Turner should try out Catan.
Review: A Lesson on Political Ambition From Dungeons & Dragons Movie
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is more Rob Reiner than J.R.R. Tolkien.
Is Dungeons & Dragons Eliminating 'Inherently Racist' Half-Elves, Half-Orcs?
By forcing mixed-race characters to choose one or the other, the game is arguably doing something more problematic.
Why the Tabletop Role-Playing World Is Furious About Changes to Dungeons & Dragons' Open Game License
For 20 years, D&D has offered third-party publishers an open, royalty-free license to create new works using its game. A leaked revision would end all of that.
The Best Ever Libertarian Gift Guide
Until next year's, because capitalism is always making things better.
Dungeons & Dragons Is Apparently Banned in Federal Prisons
State prisons around the country ban the roleplaying game, too, because of bizarre concerns about gang behavior and security threats.
Review: Raccoon Tycoon
Unlike in Catan, the value of your wheat, wood, iron, coal, manufactured goods, and luxuries will fluctuate depending on what has recently been bought and sold in the game's marketplace.
The Great Libertarian Gift Guide of 2021
It's time to spread cheer. Reason is here to help.
Pandemic Legacy
The board game lets gamers indulge in a little cooperative epidemiological roleplay.
The Ultimate 2020 Libertarian Gift Guide
Reason's writers and editors share their suggestions for what you should be buying your friends and family this year.
Is Everyone Wrong About NBA/China/Hong Kong Except South Park and…Ted Cruz?
Nah, the senator's still wrong about Internet free speech, argue the editors on the Reason Roundtable podcast.
Mapmaker: The Gerrymandering Game
What if politics were a strategic, underhanded, zero-sum game that was actually kind of fun?
Catholic School Pastor Thinks Harry Potter's Spells Are Real, Bans the Books
Harry Potter and the Baffling Return of Religious Panic
What Game of Thrones Can Teach Us About Political Power
In a special episode of the Reason Podcast, we drink and we know things.
Fallout 76 Will Trigger Your Existential Crisis
Unlike previous entries in the series, the new, online-only game never justifies its own existence.
The Radical Freedom of Dungeons & Dragons
Four decades after its creation, Gary Gygax's fantasy world of unbounded choice is more appealing than ever.
