Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week's gaming news! A detailed look at the FFG reprint of West End Games's Star Wars, John Carter of Mars gets a QuickStart while its Kickstarter is still live, Clue getting a new movie, Cool Mini or Not goofs, and more!
I’m not sure if you can call it a “first look” at a thirty year old reprint, but Fantasy Flight Games gave us a peek at their anniversary edition of the original D6-based West End Games Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. The two-book set will include the 1987 core rulebook as well as The Star Wars Sourcebook in a slipcover case using the original text with modern printing methods. The preview linked above is meant for new players who are unfamiliar with the original game and includes previews of several player characters including a Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, and Alien Student of the Force. The two-book set will be released late this Spring with a retail price of $59.99 and is now available for pre-order.
I already featured John Carter of Mars from Modiphius in my Kickstarter section previously, but this week, they released a Quick Start for the new rules system. The rules themselves take up fifteen pages of the 27-page PDF available on Drive Thru with the adventure itself taking up five pages and the remaining five dedicated to character sheets (plus the cover and a page for credits and table of contents). The characters included with the Quick Start are the ones you’d want to see, Dejah Thoris, John Carter, Tars Tarkas, Kantos Kan, and Sola. This is a great opportunity to test-drive this more narrative-focused version of the 2D20 system before jumping in on the Kickstarter, which is already funded and runs until Sunday, February 11. The game itself has an estimated release date of July 2018 for Kickstarter backers with a normal retail release coming fulfillment.
Cult comedy favorite Clue is getting a remake courtesy of Ryan Reynolds and his Maximum Effort Productions. Except, not exactly. See, the rights to the original Clue (which is the answer to the question “Has there ever been a really good movie based on a game?”) are still held by Universal Studios. However, the movie rights to the game itself reverted to Hasbro after their failed multipicture deal with Universal and the box office flop of Battleship. This film, whose rights are currently with 20th Century Fox (and will follow to Disney when and if the acquisition is complete), will be based on the board game Clue/Cluedo and not the original film. Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Deadpool, Zombieland, GI Joe: Retaliation) are attached and Ryan Reynolds will produce and star, but no further casting announcements have been made, nor has a director been named.
GAMA (Game Manufacturer’s Association, the trade group for tabletop game retailers) announced on Friday that they are seeking a provider for background checks mandated by Wizards of the Coast. Rather than contesting the new policy, GAMA is working to find options for game stores who, to remain part of the Wizard Play Network, must now perform background checks on all employees and volunteer Judges at events. From the announcement, "We are committed to providing you with the tools you need to successfully perform best practices within your business and secure the safety of your staff and customers." Wizards of the Coast has yet to clarify the exact requirements of their background checks, which were added to the terms and conditions for the Wizard Play Network on January 12 to go into effect February 9.
Two big hiring announcements came from the industry this week. First, Kate Welch joined the Dungeons & Dragons design team. While probably best known for her media work with the Acquisitions Incorporated C-Team live streams, Welch has an extensive resume in game design in the video game industry working on titles such as Guild Wars 2, Tacoma, the upcoming Crucible, and more. Also, Ulisses North America (the distribution arm of German game company Ulisses Spiel) hired Ian Starcher as its new Director of Business Development. Starcher has worked for Peterson Games in the board game space as well as many years with Chaosium. This hiring comes as Ulisses looks to make a big move into the American market with the forthcoming TORG, Fading Suns, and Warhammer 40K: Wrath and Glory.
Cool Mini or Not announced a March 30 retail release date for the anticipated Rising Sun board game according to the BoardGameGeek Twitter account. The miniature board game from designer Eric Lang is a spiritual successor to Blood Rage, focusing on Japanese mythology and had a successful Kickstarter last year with fulfillment for backers starting this past December. The game is also available for pre-order through outlets such as Amazon. But someone noticed something interesting during the Kickstarter. One of the monsters featured in the game, along with the Nure-Onna, Sunakake Baba, and Jikiniki, was the “Kotahi”. Which only existed on the Wikipedia page for legendary creatures from Japan, defined as “a Manawa Bradford, a spirit monkey that is very hairy and gets engulfed in rage”. It turns out that someone from New Zealand played a prank on a friend, adding the entry long before Rising Sun’s announcement to the Wikipedia page with a description mocking his friend, Kotahi-Manawa Bradford, and his frequent anger management issues while gaming. The Kotahi is still in the game with the art listed above, but it’s unknown at this time if the Wikivandalism was left in as a reference to the joke or if Cool Mini or Not didn’t find out about the prank until after production was underway.
Today is Jamie Chambers’s birthday, so I’m going to share his Patreon again! Because it’s also my birthday and I feel like it. Jamie’s worked on games such as Dragonlance, Metamorphosis Alpha, Serenity Roleplaying Game, Demon Hunters, and more. His Patreon is filled with a mix of posts from the history of roleplaying games to game design theory to sample adventures and rough drafts to microgames to fiction and more. He’s only got two backer levels, one for $1 that gets you access to his Patron-only posts and a $5 level that gets further access to more exclusive content.
Masque of the Red Death is a social deduction game from IDW for four to seven players based on the short story from Edgar Allen Poe. Each player takes on the role of one of the nobles at the story’s party with the Red Death appearing at midnight, spending the rest of the night stalking and killing the nobles one by one. To win, you have to not only be the most popular noble at the party through your socialization and control of the party’s rumormongering, but you also have to survive the night. The game is available for a $60 pledge and a retailer bundle is available with six copies for $180 for game retailers. This is one you have to hurry on as it ends tomorrow, Friday, January 26 at 7:00 PM Central time.
The Widow’s Tear is a Lovecraftian-inspired setting and adventure for Starfinder from Gun Metal Games. The 160-page book will feature an entirely new star system with new ships, technology, alien races, magic items, psionic powers, armor, weapons, and monsters. The setting not only folds the Lovecraft Mythos into the Starfinder system, it even creates its own new Elder Gods and the creatures and cults that serve them. The setting is designed to be “plug-and-play” so you can drop it into any existing Starfinder campaign. The PDF is available for a $10 pledge, a $15 pledge adds on the PDF adventure To Save a World, a $30 pledge adds a print copy of the setting book, and $40 gets you print and PDF copies of both the setting and adventure. This Kickstarter is fully funded and runs until Wednesday, January 31.
Nemesis is a science fiction/horror board game (this seems to be a theme recently) from Awaken Realms for up to five players with multiple playstyles including solo, semi-cooperative, and fully cooperative. If you want to know what style of sci-fi/horror this game is, all you have to do is look at the artwork. I’m going to be honest, the designs here are so close to the designs from Alien that they’ll probably be changed before the set’s released. The game features a modular board representing the ship with 25 unpainted miniatures (plus stretch goal unlocks) for the five-member crew and the various forms of the attacking aliens. The game is available for a £70 (about US$100) pledge and you can add on the first expansion to the game for a £100 (about US$143) pledge. This Kickstarter is already in the seven figure range and still has more stretch goals to unlock before it ends on Wednesday, February 7.
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 I’ll be trying to subtly hint that it’s my birthday to get attention and fail miserably at being subtle, follow Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube featuring videos on gaming history and Let’s Plays, 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, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, and/or DriveThru may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
I’m not sure if you can call it a “first look” at a thirty year old reprint, but Fantasy Flight Games gave us a peek at their anniversary edition of the original D6-based West End Games Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game. The two-book set will include the 1987 core rulebook as well as The Star Wars Sourcebook in a slipcover case using the original text with modern printing methods. The preview linked above is meant for new players who are unfamiliar with the original game and includes previews of several player characters including a Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, and Alien Student of the Force. The two-book set will be released late this Spring with a retail price of $59.99 and is now available for pre-order.
I already featured John Carter of Mars from Modiphius in my Kickstarter section previously, but this week, they released a Quick Start for the new rules system. The rules themselves take up fifteen pages of the 27-page PDF available on Drive Thru with the adventure itself taking up five pages and the remaining five dedicated to character sheets (plus the cover and a page for credits and table of contents). The characters included with the Quick Start are the ones you’d want to see, Dejah Thoris, John Carter, Tars Tarkas, Kantos Kan, and Sola. This is a great opportunity to test-drive this more narrative-focused version of the 2D20 system before jumping in on the Kickstarter, which is already funded and runs until Sunday, February 11. The game itself has an estimated release date of July 2018 for Kickstarter backers with a normal retail release coming fulfillment.
Cult comedy favorite Clue is getting a remake courtesy of Ryan Reynolds and his Maximum Effort Productions. Except, not exactly. See, the rights to the original Clue (which is the answer to the question “Has there ever been a really good movie based on a game?”) are still held by Universal Studios. However, the movie rights to the game itself reverted to Hasbro after their failed multipicture deal with Universal and the box office flop of Battleship. This film, whose rights are currently with 20th Century Fox (and will follow to Disney when and if the acquisition is complete), will be based on the board game Clue/Cluedo and not the original film. Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (Deadpool, Zombieland, GI Joe: Retaliation) are attached and Ryan Reynolds will produce and star, but no further casting announcements have been made, nor has a director been named.
GAMA (Game Manufacturer’s Association, the trade group for tabletop game retailers) announced on Friday that they are seeking a provider for background checks mandated by Wizards of the Coast. Rather than contesting the new policy, GAMA is working to find options for game stores who, to remain part of the Wizard Play Network, must now perform background checks on all employees and volunteer Judges at events. From the announcement, "We are committed to providing you with the tools you need to successfully perform best practices within your business and secure the safety of your staff and customers." Wizards of the Coast has yet to clarify the exact requirements of their background checks, which were added to the terms and conditions for the Wizard Play Network on January 12 to go into effect February 9.
Two big hiring announcements came from the industry this week. First, Kate Welch joined the Dungeons & Dragons design team. While probably best known for her media work with the Acquisitions Incorporated C-Team live streams, Welch has an extensive resume in game design in the video game industry working on titles such as Guild Wars 2, Tacoma, the upcoming Crucible, and more. Also, Ulisses North America (the distribution arm of German game company Ulisses Spiel) hired Ian Starcher as its new Director of Business Development. Starcher has worked for Peterson Games in the board game space as well as many years with Chaosium. This hiring comes as Ulisses looks to make a big move into the American market with the forthcoming TORG, Fading Suns, and Warhammer 40K: Wrath and Glory.
Cool Mini or Not announced a March 30 retail release date for the anticipated Rising Sun board game according to the BoardGameGeek Twitter account. The miniature board game from designer Eric Lang is a spiritual successor to Blood Rage, focusing on Japanese mythology and had a successful Kickstarter last year with fulfillment for backers starting this past December. The game is also available for pre-order through outlets such as Amazon. But someone noticed something interesting during the Kickstarter. One of the monsters featured in the game, along with the Nure-Onna, Sunakake Baba, and Jikiniki, was the “Kotahi”. Which only existed on the Wikipedia page for legendary creatures from Japan, defined as “a Manawa Bradford, a spirit monkey that is very hairy and gets engulfed in rage”. It turns out that someone from New Zealand played a prank on a friend, adding the entry long before Rising Sun’s announcement to the Wikipedia page with a description mocking his friend, Kotahi-Manawa Bradford, and his frequent anger management issues while gaming. The Kotahi is still in the game with the art listed above, but it’s unknown at this time if the Wikivandalism was left in as a reference to the joke or if Cool Mini or Not didn’t find out about the prank until after production was underway.
Today is Jamie Chambers’s birthday, so I’m going to share his Patreon again! Because it’s also my birthday and I feel like it. Jamie’s worked on games such as Dragonlance, Metamorphosis Alpha, Serenity Roleplaying Game, Demon Hunters, and more. His Patreon is filled with a mix of posts from the history of roleplaying games to game design theory to sample adventures and rough drafts to microgames to fiction and more. He’s only got two backer levels, one for $1 that gets you access to his Patron-only posts and a $5 level that gets further access to more exclusive content.
Masque of the Red Death is a social deduction game from IDW for four to seven players based on the short story from Edgar Allen Poe. Each player takes on the role of one of the nobles at the story’s party with the Red Death appearing at midnight, spending the rest of the night stalking and killing the nobles one by one. To win, you have to not only be the most popular noble at the party through your socialization and control of the party’s rumormongering, but you also have to survive the night. The game is available for a $60 pledge and a retailer bundle is available with six copies for $180 for game retailers. This is one you have to hurry on as it ends tomorrow, Friday, January 26 at 7:00 PM Central time.
The Widow’s Tear is a Lovecraftian-inspired setting and adventure for Starfinder from Gun Metal Games. The 160-page book will feature an entirely new star system with new ships, technology, alien races, magic items, psionic powers, armor, weapons, and monsters. The setting not only folds the Lovecraft Mythos into the Starfinder system, it even creates its own new Elder Gods and the creatures and cults that serve them. The setting is designed to be “plug-and-play” so you can drop it into any existing Starfinder campaign. The PDF is available for a $10 pledge, a $15 pledge adds on the PDF adventure To Save a World, a $30 pledge adds a print copy of the setting book, and $40 gets you print and PDF copies of both the setting and adventure. This Kickstarter is fully funded and runs until Wednesday, January 31.
Nemesis is a science fiction/horror board game (this seems to be a theme recently) from Awaken Realms for up to five players with multiple playstyles including solo, semi-cooperative, and fully cooperative. If you want to know what style of sci-fi/horror this game is, all you have to do is look at the artwork. I’m going to be honest, the designs here are so close to the designs from Alien that they’ll probably be changed before the set’s released. The game features a modular board representing the ship with 25 unpainted miniatures (plus stretch goal unlocks) for the five-member crew and the various forms of the attacking aliens. The game is available for a £70 (about US$100) pledge and you can add on the first expansion to the game for a £100 (about US$143) pledge. This Kickstarter is already in the seven figure range and still has more stretch goals to unlock before it ends on Wednesday, February 7.
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 I’ll be trying to subtly hint that it’s my birthday to get attention and fail miserably at being subtle, follow Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube featuring videos on gaming history and Let’s Plays, 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, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, and/or DriveThru may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
