Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news. Personnel shake-ups at Paizo, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay finds a new home, the Spiel des Jahres nominees are out, and a lot more!
Paizo’s Editor-in-Chief, F. Wesley Schneider, has stepped down from the position and left Paizo. Schneider joined the company in 2003, so he’s been around almost since the beginning. In a long blog post, Schneider said goodbye to his co-workers at Paizo on May 18, who then returned the favor the next day. There has yet to be an announcement where Schneider is moving to next. Due to this departure, there’s been a reshuffling at Paizo. Adam Daigle has taken over the role of Managing Developer at Paizo, while Amanda Hamon Kunz has become the new Development Coordinator.
This week saw the announcements for this year’s Spiel des Jahres nominees. For those who don’t speak German or don’t trust their browser’s translate function, Dice Tower has a nice English language article available as well. As always, there are three nominees for each category from Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year), Kinderspiel des Jahres (Children’s/Family Game of the Year), and Kennerspiel des Jahres (Enthusiast Game of the Year).
For Spiel des Jahres, the nominees are Kingdomino from designer Bruno Cathala and publisher Pegasus Spiele, Maze Magic from designer Kasper Lapp and publisher Sit Down!, and Race to El Dorado from designer Reiner Knizia and publisher Ravensburger. For Kinderspiel des Jahres, the nominees are Captain Silver from designers Wolfgang Dirscherl and Manfred Reindl and publisher Queen Games, ICECOOL from designer Brian Gomez and publisher Amigo, and The Mysterious Forest from designer Carlo A. Rossi and publisher Iello. For Kennerspiel des Jahres, the nominees are Exit: The Game from designers Inka Brand and Markus Brand and publisher Kosmos, Raiders of the North Sea from designer Shem Phillips and publisher Schwerkraft-Verlag, and Terraforming Mars from designer Jacon Fryxellus and publisher Schwerkraft-Verlag.
Cubicle 7 announced via their Facebook page that they have secured the license for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The company will release new edition coming out this year that will “take its direction from the first and second edition”. In the press release, Cubicle 7 CEO Dominic McDowall said, “Like so many gamers I grew up on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It's an iconic setting and I'm thrilled to be working on this new edition of the game. Our team have a huge breadth of experience with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and I’m excited to be able to bring the Cubicle 7 approach to the Old World. We’ll be revealing more of our plans in the coming months, so subscribe to our newsletter and keep an eye on our website!”
Modiphius released the Conan the Thief sourcebook for their Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of roleplaying game. This new supplement features a focus on thievery, cutpursing, robbery, and all the other roguish acts of a dishonest sort including new archetypes, talents, equipment, a heist generator, rules for joining guilds, renown rules for your exploits, and a number of NPCs based on characters from the original stories. This title is available in PDF for $12.99.
Cool Mini or Not has made a couple of moves. First, it has ended its distribution agreement with French publisher Ankama Products. The last game released under the deal will be Gang Rush: Breakout available on June 23. Other games such as the Krosmaster series will be available so long as the current stock last, but will not be reprinted. Ankama Products stated that they will announce another distribution partner soon. Cool Mini or Not took over American distribution from Ankama’s titles last year, previously having worked with Japanime Games.
In addition, Cool Mini or Not announced yesterday that they will adopt new distribution policies including a Minimum Advertised Pricing Policy (MAP Policy). If you don’t know, a MAP Policy states that those selling products cannot go below a minimum price when advertising discounts (though typically through advertised sales only, like emails or flyers). Retailers can still sell for as low of a price as they choose, they just cannot advertise below the minimum listed in the policy. The specifics of Cool Mini or Not’s new MAP Policy are unknown as the website listed in the press release for the policy of https://cmon.com/mapp and the list of prices at https://cmon.com/mapp-prices are not currently online at time of writing. However, both will go into effect on June 1st and apply to all games manufactured directly by Cool Mini or Not, but not to their third-party games where they act only as distributor. Cool Mini or Not has also updated their list of distributors, as games will only be available to retailers through the distributors Alliance Games Distributors, ACD Distribution, and Peachstate Hobby Distribution.
Saving Throw is a Twitch and YouTube channel focusing on tabletop roleplaying games and, boy, do they produce a lot of content on their channel. They have at least one live stream six days a week using a very slick multi-camera setup including games like Dungeons & Dragons, Deadlands, Phoenix Dawn, Shadowrun, Star Wars (Fantasy Flight), Call of Cthulhu, and a whole lot more. There’s also quite a few names you may recognize involved in their shows such as Tom Lommel (aka Bill Cavalier the Dungeon Bastard), Amy Vorpahl, Havana Mahoney, and Blythe Kala. Different reward levels on their Patreon add XP to your Twitch account, letting you affect the game by giving benefits or hindrances to the players, and other benefits like adding NPCs to the game, special backer-only chatrooms, and the ability to help develop the campaign setting for their upcoming Dark Sun inspired show. They’re also partnered on Twitch, so you can subscribe there as well.
Deadly Premonition is coming to tabletop from the first-time board game designers at Rising Star Games. Based on the open world survival horror game (also known as Red Seeds Profile in some markets), this 2-4 player board game where you investigate different characters to try to track down a killer – who may be one of the other players. And of course, just like the video game, there are supernatural elements at play as well. You can pick up a copy of the game for a $30 pledge, which also includes a Steam key for the Deadly Premonition: Director’s Cut video game. This project is fully funded and runs until Thursday, June 8.
I never really thought I’s day this, but Cthulhu is sooo cute in dice bag form! I just wanna pinch his little tentacles as he eats my face off and devours my soul! The bag itself is eight inches/20 centimeters tall and (with wingspan) ten and a half inches/26 centimeters wide capable of holding up to 100 dice. The materials listed on the Kickstarter are “plush or microfiber, polyfill stuffing, evil”. The bag itself is of the same style of modern high-quality dice bags and made for holding weight without feeling flimsy or like the seams are an issue while providing some cushioning to help protect dice from drops or being thrown at unruly players. Be warned, this project is based out of New Zealand so be aware of potential shipping issues from overseas. A single dice bag is available for a NZ$45 (about US$31) pledge, or you can get a double-sized bag for NZ$95 (about US$65) capable of holding up to 250 dice. Also, be sure to check the pledge levels because this creator is on the ball, making sure to limit each pledge level to prevent more orders than the hand-crafted process can keep up with. This project is fully funded and runs until Tuesday, May 30.
The Book of Exalted Darkness: Evil Adventures for 5e is a sourcebook from Mike Myler bringing darkness, sin, and evil to your player’s games. I’m going to be completely honest with you and tell you this isn’t my jam personally. I like my players to be the “good guys”, or at least slightly moral mercenaries. But there are many people out there who enjoy adding evil elements to their games, and this is a great place to start. The book includes a new Sanctity and Sin Points mechanic for characters to track how far-gone they’ve become, evil backgrounds, three new classes, new archetypes for existing classes, new feats, and a lot more. On top of that, the book presents the “decopunk” campaign setting of Inaequa, blending technology with fantasy in a Rocketeer/Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow style retro-future. There’s still early bird backer levels of $18 for the PDF and $28 to add on an at-cost print version, but you’d better hurry because the prices go up to $20/$30 once those slots are gone. This project is already halfway to its funding goal after just a couple of days live and has until Saturday, June 17 to reach its $5000 funding goal.
That’s all from me for this week! Find more gaming crowdfunding news at the EN World RPG Kickstarter News 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 you can get me talking a LOT about Star Wars tomorrow for the 40th anniversary, 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’s Editor-in-Chief, F. Wesley Schneider, has stepped down from the position and left Paizo. Schneider joined the company in 2003, so he’s been around almost since the beginning. In a long blog post, Schneider said goodbye to his co-workers at Paizo on May 18, who then returned the favor the next day. There has yet to be an announcement where Schneider is moving to next. Due to this departure, there’s been a reshuffling at Paizo. Adam Daigle has taken over the role of Managing Developer at Paizo, while Amanda Hamon Kunz has become the new Development Coordinator.
This week saw the announcements for this year’s Spiel des Jahres nominees. For those who don’t speak German or don’t trust their browser’s translate function, Dice Tower has a nice English language article available as well. As always, there are three nominees for each category from Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year), Kinderspiel des Jahres (Children’s/Family Game of the Year), and Kennerspiel des Jahres (Enthusiast Game of the Year).
For Spiel des Jahres, the nominees are Kingdomino from designer Bruno Cathala and publisher Pegasus Spiele, Maze Magic from designer Kasper Lapp and publisher Sit Down!, and Race to El Dorado from designer Reiner Knizia and publisher Ravensburger. For Kinderspiel des Jahres, the nominees are Captain Silver from designers Wolfgang Dirscherl and Manfred Reindl and publisher Queen Games, ICECOOL from designer Brian Gomez and publisher Amigo, and The Mysterious Forest from designer Carlo A. Rossi and publisher Iello. For Kennerspiel des Jahres, the nominees are Exit: The Game from designers Inka Brand and Markus Brand and publisher Kosmos, Raiders of the North Sea from designer Shem Phillips and publisher Schwerkraft-Verlag, and Terraforming Mars from designer Jacon Fryxellus and publisher Schwerkraft-Verlag.
Cubicle 7 announced via their Facebook page that they have secured the license for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The company will release new edition coming out this year that will “take its direction from the first and second edition”. In the press release, Cubicle 7 CEO Dominic McDowall said, “Like so many gamers I grew up on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It's an iconic setting and I'm thrilled to be working on this new edition of the game. Our team have a huge breadth of experience with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, and I’m excited to be able to bring the Cubicle 7 approach to the Old World. We’ll be revealing more of our plans in the coming months, so subscribe to our newsletter and keep an eye on our website!”
Modiphius released the Conan the Thief sourcebook for their Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of roleplaying game. This new supplement features a focus on thievery, cutpursing, robbery, and all the other roguish acts of a dishonest sort including new archetypes, talents, equipment, a heist generator, rules for joining guilds, renown rules for your exploits, and a number of NPCs based on characters from the original stories. This title is available in PDF for $12.99.
Cool Mini or Not has made a couple of moves. First, it has ended its distribution agreement with French publisher Ankama Products. The last game released under the deal will be Gang Rush: Breakout available on June 23. Other games such as the Krosmaster series will be available so long as the current stock last, but will not be reprinted. Ankama Products stated that they will announce another distribution partner soon. Cool Mini or Not took over American distribution from Ankama’s titles last year, previously having worked with Japanime Games.
In addition, Cool Mini or Not announced yesterday that they will adopt new distribution policies including a Minimum Advertised Pricing Policy (MAP Policy). If you don’t know, a MAP Policy states that those selling products cannot go below a minimum price when advertising discounts (though typically through advertised sales only, like emails or flyers). Retailers can still sell for as low of a price as they choose, they just cannot advertise below the minimum listed in the policy. The specifics of Cool Mini or Not’s new MAP Policy are unknown as the website listed in the press release for the policy of https://cmon.com/mapp and the list of prices at https://cmon.com/mapp-prices are not currently online at time of writing. However, both will go into effect on June 1st and apply to all games manufactured directly by Cool Mini or Not, but not to their third-party games where they act only as distributor. Cool Mini or Not has also updated their list of distributors, as games will only be available to retailers through the distributors Alliance Games Distributors, ACD Distribution, and Peachstate Hobby Distribution.
Saving Throw is a Twitch and YouTube channel focusing on tabletop roleplaying games and, boy, do they produce a lot of content on their channel. They have at least one live stream six days a week using a very slick multi-camera setup including games like Dungeons & Dragons, Deadlands, Phoenix Dawn, Shadowrun, Star Wars (Fantasy Flight), Call of Cthulhu, and a whole lot more. There’s also quite a few names you may recognize involved in their shows such as Tom Lommel (aka Bill Cavalier the Dungeon Bastard), Amy Vorpahl, Havana Mahoney, and Blythe Kala. Different reward levels on their Patreon add XP to your Twitch account, letting you affect the game by giving benefits or hindrances to the players, and other benefits like adding NPCs to the game, special backer-only chatrooms, and the ability to help develop the campaign setting for their upcoming Dark Sun inspired show. They’re also partnered on Twitch, so you can subscribe there as well.
Deadly Premonition is coming to tabletop from the first-time board game designers at Rising Star Games. Based on the open world survival horror game (also known as Red Seeds Profile in some markets), this 2-4 player board game where you investigate different characters to try to track down a killer – who may be one of the other players. And of course, just like the video game, there are supernatural elements at play as well. You can pick up a copy of the game for a $30 pledge, which also includes a Steam key for the Deadly Premonition: Director’s Cut video game. This project is fully funded and runs until Thursday, June 8.
I never really thought I’s day this, but Cthulhu is sooo cute in dice bag form! I just wanna pinch his little tentacles as he eats my face off and devours my soul! The bag itself is eight inches/20 centimeters tall and (with wingspan) ten and a half inches/26 centimeters wide capable of holding up to 100 dice. The materials listed on the Kickstarter are “plush or microfiber, polyfill stuffing, evil”. The bag itself is of the same style of modern high-quality dice bags and made for holding weight without feeling flimsy or like the seams are an issue while providing some cushioning to help protect dice from drops or being thrown at unruly players. Be warned, this project is based out of New Zealand so be aware of potential shipping issues from overseas. A single dice bag is available for a NZ$45 (about US$31) pledge, or you can get a double-sized bag for NZ$95 (about US$65) capable of holding up to 250 dice. Also, be sure to check the pledge levels because this creator is on the ball, making sure to limit each pledge level to prevent more orders than the hand-crafted process can keep up with. This project is fully funded and runs until Tuesday, May 30.
The Book of Exalted Darkness: Evil Adventures for 5e is a sourcebook from Mike Myler bringing darkness, sin, and evil to your player’s games. I’m going to be completely honest with you and tell you this isn’t my jam personally. I like my players to be the “good guys”, or at least slightly moral mercenaries. But there are many people out there who enjoy adding evil elements to their games, and this is a great place to start. The book includes a new Sanctity and Sin Points mechanic for characters to track how far-gone they’ve become, evil backgrounds, three new classes, new archetypes for existing classes, new feats, and a lot more. On top of that, the book presents the “decopunk” campaign setting of Inaequa, blending technology with fantasy in a Rocketeer/Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow style retro-future. There’s still early bird backer levels of $18 for the PDF and $28 to add on an at-cost print version, but you’d better hurry because the prices go up to $20/$30 once those slots are gone. This project is already halfway to its funding goal after just a couple of days live and has until Saturday, June 17 to reach its $5000 funding goal.
That’s all from me for this week! Find more gaming crowdfunding news at the EN World RPG Kickstarter News 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 you can get me talking a LOT about Star Wars tomorrow for the 40th anniversary, 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.
). Definitely had a great for day and excited about starting to crack into stretch goals and sending over that first new art order!
