Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! Starfinder Society announced by Paizo, Modiphia Magazine launched by Modiphius, Saving Throw puts on a live streamed gaming Spring Formal, Alternity is reborn, International Tabletop Day promos announced, and a lot more!
Paizo announced the launch of Starfinder Society at Gen Con this year with three scenarios, a pre-generated character special event, and one quest pack (with monthly scenarios to follow after). The official name of the organized play program for the Starfinder roleplaying game will be “Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild”. While this will be separate from Pathfinder Society, current members will be able to keep their membership number just as with the Adventure Card Guild. If you can’t make it to Gen Con’s Sagamore Ballroom, the official launch time is Thursday, August 17 at 8:00 AM Pacific Time for official events worldwide. For full information about what’s staying the same and what’s changing with Starfinder Society, see the announcement link above.
Modiphius Entertainment officially launched a new digital magazine, Modiphia. The first issue is available as a free download from Modiphius’s online store, and future issues will also be free of charge as well. The first issue promises exclusive new content for Star Trek, Achtung! Cthulhu, Thunderbirds, Mutant Chronicles, Conan, and new Airfix Battles unit cards. For those curious about the Star Trek living campaign specifically, this issue has the first look at the Shackleton Expanse where that campaign will take place.
Saving Throw is putting on a spring dance and we’re all invited to join them on Twitch. The special March 17 event (that is one week from Friday) kicks off at 8PM Pacific time and lasts for 24 hours straight. Saving Throw is one of the longest-running tabletop roleplaying streaming channels on Twitch with a multicamera setup and studio streaming a different game nightly. The marathon stream starts off with the season finale of Black Bag, the channel’s Call of Cthulhu game. The microlite game Roll for Shoes comes next at 12 midnight, Los Noches del Fuego (a telenovela RPG) at 3:30 AM, Betrayal at the House on the Hill at 7 AM, an all-star Paranoia game with Tom Lommel, Amy Vorpahl, Eric Reichert, and Chris Willett at 10:30 AM, Fiasco at 2 PM, and Pop Culture Jeopardy at 5:30 PM (All times Pacific Time). And, as with all Saving Throw games, the audience can influence the game with donations and points earned by watching live.
The full slate of International Tabletop Day promotional items has been announced. Unlike previous years, promotional items are only available a la carte for stores rather than as a single kit, so retailers may not have all the promotional items depending on the retailer’s choice. So if there’s a promo item you’ve got your eye on for the April 29 event, contact your local game or bookstore and let them know. Dice Tower has the full list, but the promos include expansions for Castle Panic, Biotix Microbes, Fuse, Clank!, Aeon’s End, Master of Orion, and two microlite games “Game Most Popular Game in All Mother Russia Not Really” (a running joke from Geek & Sundry’s live streams with Ivan Van Norman) and Lucha Jefe (a luchador management game). You can find your International Tabletop Day location by checking the map on the official website.
Alternity is coming back later this year from Sasquatch Game Studio and a beta test is available now from Drive Thru. The team behind the new version of the science fiction roleplaying game are veterans of the industry, Dave Noonan, Rick Baker, and Steve Schubert. EN World debuted a sneak preview last week showing two pages of the Encounter Design section of the book. Expect to see more details when the Kickstarter for Alternity launches this spring.
The BAMF Podcast announced the winners of the 2016 BAMFsies Awards last week. This was the third year of the superhero-themed roleplaying game awards. Aaron Allston’s Strike Force walked away with the Gamer’s Choice award via open poll along with the Judge’s Award from Steve Kenson. The other judge’s selections included the Template Tome and Uncanny X-Men HeroClix selected by Jacob Blackmon, Masks: A New Generation (which took second place in the Gamer’s Choice poll) and The Legends Series selected by Steve Kenson, and the Awesome Powers series selected by Steve Trustrum.
The long awaited version of Tak from Cheapass Games (inspired by and licensed from the Kingkiller Chronicles book Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss) is finally available for order in multiple forms from Tinker’s Packs. The game is one of those elegantly simple to learn yet strategically deep games that are so difficult to design from scratch, as games like Chess and Go had been modified over the centuries into their present forms. However, the team on Tak: A Beautiful Game did an amazing job creating a game with few rules but a depth that makes every game something different and challenging. Tinker’s Packs is an online store for Rothfuss’s charity, Worldbuilders, with all proceeds from sales going to charitable causes around the world.
The co-creator of Dead of Winter, Jon Gilmour, is heading the adaptation of three classic video games of the Atari era. Centipede will come first this autumn, with Asteroids and Missile Command following. The games will be published by IDW Games and will be working with a “hand-picked” team of up and coming developers to work with him on the project. No gameplay details have been announced at this time.
Before we get to the Kickstarters this week, I thought a couple of highlights were in order. @Grand_DM on Twitter posted an image of a product I didn’t even know existed: The Dungeons & Dragons Power Cycle by Coleco from 1984, based on the animated series. Also slipping through the cracks was the story of the newly discovered species of snail from central Brazil, the Gastrocopta sharae. The new species was named after Shar, the Faerun goddess of darkness and caverns. Finally, The Purple Pawn highlighted some interesting and highly amusing criminal activities, court cases, and legal filings with the Game Blotter.
Freeport: The City of Adventures is coming to the Shadow of the Demon Lord roleplaying game! Freeport is a massive campaign setting focusing on a pirate city on the edge of the world, while Shadow of the Demon Lord is a horror-fantasy roleplaying game from industry veteran Robert Schwalb set in the final days of a dying world. I’m not going to lie, this was a match made in heaven. Or hell. I’m not entirely sure which would be better considering the source materials involved here. A $10 pledge gets you the PDF version of the Freeport Companion, a $30 pledge adds in all unlocked PDF stretch goals, $50 adds a print copy, and there are way more add-ons than I could even attempt to list from Shadow of the Demon Lord rules to Campaign Coins themed to SotDL’s version of Freeport. This campaign is fully funded and runs until Saturday, March 18.
The Strange is getting the boxed set treatment by Monte Cook games, with some great reward levels for those already invested in the game or for those brand new to the world of The Strange. You can find out a lot more in my EN World interview with Bruce Cordell, but for a quick version, The Strange is a world where every piece of fiction is true in some alternate dimension with the players shifting among these different Recursions to defend the Earth from the threats they contain or simply just to raid them for their wonders. A $20 pledge gets you the empty box if you already own print versions of The Strange, $120 gets you the boxed set itself with all the books and stretch goals, and $160 gets you the Library of Impossible Things, which includes the boxed set and every single PDF released so far for The Strange. This project is fully funded and runs until Friday, March 17.
The system goes online August 4, 1997. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 AM, Eastern Time, August 29. Judgement Day. Space Goat Productions gives you the chance to play out the events that formed this future in The Terminator, an asymmetrical board game where one player takes on the role of Skynet and the other two to four players are the Resistance struggling to survive the machine uprising. The game features two gameboards, one representing 2029 and one for 1984, with events on one board affecting the other in real-time as the timeline realigns thanks to time travel interference. The game is available for a $60 pledge, an $80 limited edition version, and other pledge levels including other Space Goat games such as Evil Dead 2. This project is fully funded and runs until Thursday, March 16.
That’s all from me for this week! Find more gaming news at the EN World News Network website, and don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you even more gaming news content. If you have any news to submit, email us at news@enworldnews.com. You can follow me on Twitter @Abstruse where I whine about being sick and/or injuring myself doing mundane household tasks, or you can listen to the archives of the Gamer’s Tavern podcast. Until next time, may all your hits be crits! Note: Links to Amazon and/or DriveThru may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
Paizo announced the launch of Starfinder Society at Gen Con this year with three scenarios, a pre-generated character special event, and one quest pack (with monthly scenarios to follow after). The official name of the organized play program for the Starfinder roleplaying game will be “Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild”. While this will be separate from Pathfinder Society, current members will be able to keep their membership number just as with the Adventure Card Guild. If you can’t make it to Gen Con’s Sagamore Ballroom, the official launch time is Thursday, August 17 at 8:00 AM Pacific Time for official events worldwide. For full information about what’s staying the same and what’s changing with Starfinder Society, see the announcement link above.
Modiphius Entertainment officially launched a new digital magazine, Modiphia. The first issue is available as a free download from Modiphius’s online store, and future issues will also be free of charge as well. The first issue promises exclusive new content for Star Trek, Achtung! Cthulhu, Thunderbirds, Mutant Chronicles, Conan, and new Airfix Battles unit cards. For those curious about the Star Trek living campaign specifically, this issue has the first look at the Shackleton Expanse where that campaign will take place.
Saving Throw is putting on a spring dance and we’re all invited to join them on Twitch. The special March 17 event (that is one week from Friday) kicks off at 8PM Pacific time and lasts for 24 hours straight. Saving Throw is one of the longest-running tabletop roleplaying streaming channels on Twitch with a multicamera setup and studio streaming a different game nightly. The marathon stream starts off with the season finale of Black Bag, the channel’s Call of Cthulhu game. The microlite game Roll for Shoes comes next at 12 midnight, Los Noches del Fuego (a telenovela RPG) at 3:30 AM, Betrayal at the House on the Hill at 7 AM, an all-star Paranoia game with Tom Lommel, Amy Vorpahl, Eric Reichert, and Chris Willett at 10:30 AM, Fiasco at 2 PM, and Pop Culture Jeopardy at 5:30 PM (All times Pacific Time). And, as with all Saving Throw games, the audience can influence the game with donations and points earned by watching live.
The full slate of International Tabletop Day promotional items has been announced. Unlike previous years, promotional items are only available a la carte for stores rather than as a single kit, so retailers may not have all the promotional items depending on the retailer’s choice. So if there’s a promo item you’ve got your eye on for the April 29 event, contact your local game or bookstore and let them know. Dice Tower has the full list, but the promos include expansions for Castle Panic, Biotix Microbes, Fuse, Clank!, Aeon’s End, Master of Orion, and two microlite games “Game Most Popular Game in All Mother Russia Not Really” (a running joke from Geek & Sundry’s live streams with Ivan Van Norman) and Lucha Jefe (a luchador management game). You can find your International Tabletop Day location by checking the map on the official website.
Alternity is coming back later this year from Sasquatch Game Studio and a beta test is available now from Drive Thru. The team behind the new version of the science fiction roleplaying game are veterans of the industry, Dave Noonan, Rick Baker, and Steve Schubert. EN World debuted a sneak preview last week showing two pages of the Encounter Design section of the book. Expect to see more details when the Kickstarter for Alternity launches this spring.
The BAMF Podcast announced the winners of the 2016 BAMFsies Awards last week. This was the third year of the superhero-themed roleplaying game awards. Aaron Allston’s Strike Force walked away with the Gamer’s Choice award via open poll along with the Judge’s Award from Steve Kenson. The other judge’s selections included the Template Tome and Uncanny X-Men HeroClix selected by Jacob Blackmon, Masks: A New Generation (which took second place in the Gamer’s Choice poll) and The Legends Series selected by Steve Kenson, and the Awesome Powers series selected by Steve Trustrum.
The long awaited version of Tak from Cheapass Games (inspired by and licensed from the Kingkiller Chronicles book Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss) is finally available for order in multiple forms from Tinker’s Packs. The game is one of those elegantly simple to learn yet strategically deep games that are so difficult to design from scratch, as games like Chess and Go had been modified over the centuries into their present forms. However, the team on Tak: A Beautiful Game did an amazing job creating a game with few rules but a depth that makes every game something different and challenging. Tinker’s Packs is an online store for Rothfuss’s charity, Worldbuilders, with all proceeds from sales going to charitable causes around the world.
The co-creator of Dead of Winter, Jon Gilmour, is heading the adaptation of three classic video games of the Atari era. Centipede will come first this autumn, with Asteroids and Missile Command following. The games will be published by IDW Games and will be working with a “hand-picked” team of up and coming developers to work with him on the project. No gameplay details have been announced at this time.
Before we get to the Kickstarters this week, I thought a couple of highlights were in order. @Grand_DM on Twitter posted an image of a product I didn’t even know existed: The Dungeons & Dragons Power Cycle by Coleco from 1984, based on the animated series. Also slipping through the cracks was the story of the newly discovered species of snail from central Brazil, the Gastrocopta sharae. The new species was named after Shar, the Faerun goddess of darkness and caverns. Finally, The Purple Pawn highlighted some interesting and highly amusing criminal activities, court cases, and legal filings with the Game Blotter.
Freeport: The City of Adventures is coming to the Shadow of the Demon Lord roleplaying game! Freeport is a massive campaign setting focusing on a pirate city on the edge of the world, while Shadow of the Demon Lord is a horror-fantasy roleplaying game from industry veteran Robert Schwalb set in the final days of a dying world. I’m not going to lie, this was a match made in heaven. Or hell. I’m not entirely sure which would be better considering the source materials involved here. A $10 pledge gets you the PDF version of the Freeport Companion, a $30 pledge adds in all unlocked PDF stretch goals, $50 adds a print copy, and there are way more add-ons than I could even attempt to list from Shadow of the Demon Lord rules to Campaign Coins themed to SotDL’s version of Freeport. This campaign is fully funded and runs until Saturday, March 18.
The Strange is getting the boxed set treatment by Monte Cook games, with some great reward levels for those already invested in the game or for those brand new to the world of The Strange. You can find out a lot more in my EN World interview with Bruce Cordell, but for a quick version, The Strange is a world where every piece of fiction is true in some alternate dimension with the players shifting among these different Recursions to defend the Earth from the threats they contain or simply just to raid them for their wonders. A $20 pledge gets you the empty box if you already own print versions of The Strange, $120 gets you the boxed set itself with all the books and stretch goals, and $160 gets you the Library of Impossible Things, which includes the boxed set and every single PDF released so far for The Strange. This project is fully funded and runs until Friday, March 17.
The system goes online August 4, 1997. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 AM, Eastern Time, August 29. Judgement Day. Space Goat Productions gives you the chance to play out the events that formed this future in The Terminator, an asymmetrical board game where one player takes on the role of Skynet and the other two to four players are the Resistance struggling to survive the machine uprising. The game features two gameboards, one representing 2029 and one for 1984, with events on one board affecting the other in real-time as the timeline realigns thanks to time travel interference. The game is available for a $60 pledge, an $80 limited edition version, and other pledge levels including other Space Goat games such as Evil Dead 2. This project is fully funded and runs until Thursday, March 16.
That’s all from me for this week! Find more gaming news at the EN World News Network website, and don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you even more gaming news content. If you have any news to submit, email us at news@enworldnews.com. You can follow me on Twitter @Abstruse where I whine about being sick and/or injuring myself doing mundane household tasks, or you can listen to the archives of the Gamer’s Tavern podcast. Until next time, may all your hits be crits! Note: Links to Amazon and/or DriveThru may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
