RPG News for Thursday, 17 January, 2013

[h=3]Dungeons & Dragons News[/h]

• WoTC Back on RPGNow? Now this is wonderful news if it's true! DiceMonkey, a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DTRPG, says: "This morning, I began receiving alerts to me email that Wizards of the Coast was putting materials up on RPGNow. I’m a featured reviewer for the site, I’m told when there are new products up. Going to the site, it looks like they’re not there, so I think WotC is still getting their ducks in a row. Until then, here’s their company’s page on RPGNow. By the time you check it out, there may actually be some items up. It looks like some 1e, 2e and some 4e stuff. Hopefully some 3e stuff as well." I really hope this is true, because I can't wait to grab some WotC PDFs! UPDATE -- I've had independent confirmation of this from a bunch of people, who say they've got confirmation of a whole bunch of WotC products from 1E through to 4E. Also, there's dndclassics.com (which now no longer loads, but tracks back to DTRPG/RPGNow; there's a screenshot going round on Facebook. I can't post it here with my phone, but I was able to tweet it).
• The Old DM and the Sea by Chris Perkins -- "Being interviewed for a D&D documentary got me thinking: If you want to be a better DM, run an adventure designed for an earlier edition of the game."
• In this week's D&D Next[URL="http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/blog/2013/01/16/dd_next_qa:_advantage_dice_rolls,_ranged_fighters__popular_paragon_paths"][/URL] Q&A, Rodney tackles advantage rolls, parry for ranged fighters & popular paragon paths.

[h=3]Pathfinder RPG News[/h]

• Paizo artist Jesper Ejsing explains his process for a Pathfinder cover, including various prototype sketches.
• Chapter Two of Richard Lee Byers' In Red Rune Canyon is up now on the Paizo blog.

[h=3]Roleplaying Games News[/h]

• The Castles & Crusades Codex Celtarum Kickstarter has just over two weeks to go, and just passed its primary goal of $4000. It's a big bunch of monsters, spells and powers for C&C games.
• Wondering what's in the box in the Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space RPG boxed set? Wonder no more, because Cubicle 7 is here to show you!
• Gnome Stew's Patrick Benson has decided to stop writing for the site, and is asking what five final articles he should write?
• Kobold Press has an installment of Your Whispering Homunculus which delves into making deals with demons and devils. It also has a chart, which could be like a random table/generator (see how I tied that in to the Kickstarter stretch goal I announce below?)
• Shelly Baur is resigning as Kobold Press' customer service contact and shipping coordinator (though she will still be Finance Manager).
• There are some changes to AEG's Legend of the Five Rings Organized Play. Organizers and Store Owners now can sign up their stores and they will be enrolled to receive OP Kits at the start of each month, every month.
• The Spider God's Bride for Legend has just been released on PDF. "Ten blood-red sword and sorcery adventures, inspired by the pulp era tales of Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith."

[h=3]Community News[/h]

• EN World columnist Kamikaze Midget's Fear of the Dark: The Mythopoetry of Goblins talks about psychology exploited by goblins!
• Living Dice posted an article about some of the ideas that D&D just won't let go in "Ten Dumb Things D&D Won’t Change" (thanks to Chris for the scoop!)
• Roleplayer's Chronicle talks about guns in games in this primer.
• Savage Mojo has an article on prepping for convention games.
• The Supply Uncertainty Principle is a little trick useable in any RPG.

[h=3]The Rebuilding EN World Kickstarter Continues[/h] The first full day of the Rebuilding EN World Kickstarter was surprising, gratifying, and humbling all at the same time. So far we've raised just over £4000! And during that time, various bonus rewards and stretch goals were announced.

• When we hit £3000, the stretch goal of Wild Spellcraft for the Pathfinder RPG was achieved. This automatically goes to those who pledge the £25 PDF reward level or higher (the reward level that already had the exclusive new version of Tournaments, Fairs, & Taverns, and Admiral o' the High Seas, our naval sourcebook).
• Two wonderful publishers also donated PDFs to the cause, making that £25 reward level really attractive! It's now worth well over £100 with the addition of two pirate-themed PDFs from Raging Swan Press, and a large sandbox village adventure for Castles & Crusades (along with the quick-start rules) from Troll Lord Games!
• This means the £25 PDF reward level now has 15 PDFS in it! Two of which are new and exclusive - the Pathfinder versions of Tournaments, Fairs, & Taverns and Wild Spellcraft.

I'm looking forward to announcing more exciting stuff in the near future! But right now, we have a stretch goal to reach for. The O.G.R.E. system (Online Generic Randomizer Engine) is something you need to see to appreciate. Its usefulness can't be exaggerated; it's a crowd-sourced, ever-growing library of interrelated random generators. It's a "generator generator". Creating and sharing random tables and generators of ever-increasing complexity is easy! Honestly, you could create a generator to detail an entire town, and it could call upon already existing tables and generators that others had made before you - descriptions, names, stats, anything you can think of. The utility of this system is really hard to convey, but once you see it you get it! The core functionality is locked in - we made that goal yesterday! However, there is additional, advanced functionality which can make it ten times more powerful. Rather than take up even more of this page, I've explained it on the Kickstarter page itself, so please take a look. I can't stress enough just how useful this system is; a random generator for anything! So, the stretch goal for that is £6000. If we make £6000, O.G.R.E. becomes ten times more powerful! That's pretty good bang for the buck! Also thank you to some publishing friends who have backed the Kickstarter with both money and with kind words -- Monte Cook said "EN World is a good cause"; Green Ronin's Chris Pramas said "EN World has been a great center of gaming community many years. I had to back Rebuilding EN World on Kickstarter"; Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens said "Glad to help EN World get back up on its feet!"; and Ryan Dancey said "The ENWorld community is an asset to the whole hobby. Helping them get back up on their feet is just the Right Thing To Do. Back this Kickstarter." The well-wishes from these and others is extremely gratifying - thank you! On another note -- I'm trying to get hold of a dice manufacturer to help me provide an extra reward for the Kickstarter. I've contacted a couple, but I'm stuggling to get replies; if you work for a dice company, please get in touch, as I really need to arrange this in record time! Ideally, I'm looking to make and ship individual custom EN World d20s (in the blue/green pattern of our logo). [h=3]Other News[/h]

• FFG's Star Wars Dice app has been updated.
• The rules for The City, the upcoming expansion for Talisman, are now available on on the Talisman support page. The City features a supplementary game board that fits against the main Talisman board.
• Check out this flashback to Fighting Fantasy's Deathtrap Dungeon.
• Free expansion for A Call to Arms: Star Fleet, adding 19 new ships, Escorts and Shock Damage!

 

[Count_Zero]

I checked just now, and currently the WotC page on DriveThru isn't showing any products, but it's there, for what it's worth.