Welcome back to our weekly look at tabletop roleplaying game, and accessories, crowdfunding roundup! This week see's a 5th edition adventure geared for young new DMs, a 5th Edition NPC book to help swell the ranks on your battlefields or city guard, some haunting tunes to play whilst playing your favourite horror games, enamel pins of our favorite (or worst) dice, and the return of Trinity. If you have anything you’d like us to cover, or questions about anything we talk about, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment or contact me directly.
Trinity Continuum: Aeon RPG by Richard Thomas
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 1st March 2018; 17:04 UTC)
Trinity Continuum: Aeon is 2018’s first ‘revival’ Kickstarter aiming to bring back an old RPG in a new edition. Many people will remember the original White Wolf Trinity, Aberrant, and Adventure RPGs that were released using the original Storyteller system as well as d20 books a few years later. I, personally, have some great memories of Adventure and still have WW’s first Aeon Trinity RPG release before they had to rebrand it (and resticker remaining stock) to Trinity due to a copyright clash (or something) with the Aeon Flux cartoon.
Onyx Path’s campaign is not only bringing back a new edition of the game but they have given it a new system and revised the setting from the ground up. The Trinity Continuum is a vast timeline of adventure, speckled with dramatic points across the past, present, and future, where heroes - or villains - arise. While each setting supplement will explore part of the Trinity Continuum timeline, these points in time aren't dots in a straight line - this isn't a long-form metaplot to be simply read aloud. Instead, they're points of quantum probabilities. Anything can happen, so it's up to you and your cast to make it happen!
The Trinity Continuum will grow as the timeline is explored, with possible setting supplements handling everything from ancient greek battalions to far-future psychic corporations, or two-fisted pulp daredevils to quantum-powered meta-humans of tomorrow.
The Trinity Continuum Core rules are the foundation for interacting with the Trinity Continuum setting. Using the Storypath System, the Trinity Continuum Core rules provide a contemporary baseline, allowing you to explore modern scenarios in various genres. Present day scenarios involving dedicated investigators, audacious con artists, underground do-gooders, and intrepid explorers can all work within the structure provided. The Trinity Continuum Core book will be 7-inch by 10-inch hardcover book, approximately 200+ pages, with full-color interiors.
Trinity Continuum: Æon will be the first non-contemporary setting explored on the Trinity Continuum timeline. Set in the year 2123, Trinity Continuum: Æon depicts a future Earth, still in the process of recovery from a devastating war and starting to expand into space. Nations that avoided the brunt of the destruction have transformed into leading political forces, while other regions are either home to struggling survivors in the ruins of their former countries, or living under a fascist regime intent on restoring order at any cost. Bio-engineering technology mixes with psionic orders creating new power structures, while alien contact has been made with mixed results. The Trinity Continuum: Æon setting allows for a variety of play styles, from cyberpunk-like corporate espionage and intrigue to post-apocalyptic survival stories, to space exploration. The Trinity Continuum: Æon setting book will be 7-inch by 10-inch hardcover book, approximately 300+ pages, with full-color interiors.
The Storypath System is Onyx Path's rules set designed specifically to allow the sort of rules scaling necessary to seamlessly enable players to play ordinary people as well as characters with psi powers, and everything in between.
The basics of the Storypath System should be familiar to anyone who played a previous edition of Trinity, as it is a 10-sided dicepool system, where in order to resolve an action you basically roll a number of dice equal to the character's Attribute + Skill and must roll an 8 or better a certain number of times in order to succeed in the action.
That is the very basic resolution system, but we expand on that to further enhance how your gaming group can build their stories. Failing to hit your number of successes, or having more successes than your required amount, are built-in options in the rules.
The Hidden Halls of Hazakor by Insane Angel Studios
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 22nd February 2018; 00:00 UTC)
I really like the idea behind The Hidden Halls of Hazakor and am surprised not more adventures have been written specifically to help new, or young, Dungeon Masters/Game Masters/Storytellers, etc.
Written for 5th Edition, The Hidden Halls of Hazakor, is a fully illustrated 64+ page starter adventure that specifically focuses on young, beginning, DMs of ages 12 and up. It’s written in “a friendly and straightforward fashion, it demonstrates some of the ways a good fantasy RPG adventure can be put together, and talks about some of the tricks and knowledge that all good DMs learn through the experience of running games – but which aren’t always instinctive for a young player sitting in the DM’s chair for the first time.”
This adventure builds on the rules and information presented in the D&D core rulebooks and the D&D Starter Set, and on the first-time DM's experience of having previously been a player in the game. A beginning DM running the adventure will learn to think about the ways in which the story can go in different directions based on what the characters do — and how to not be scared when it does. They’ll practice bringing NPCs to life by way of interesting quirks, to help the players engage with and remember them. They’ll get tips on running fun combat sessions, building from an initial slate of simple, single-foe encounters to more complex fights. And they’ll learn to use humor as a tool to make the game interesting and memorable, especially for other younger players.
In the vein of many classic starter scenarios, the adventure features a fully detailed local keep, where the characters meet and learn of the legendary lost ruins in the nearby wilderness. Those ruins then present a classic dungeon crawl in nine parts, featuring fifty different areas to explore, fun physical puzzles and daunting traps, a host of classic monstrous foes — including not one but two dragons — and other challenges that will bring the characters to 5th level… assuming they survive the threats of Hazakor’s lost halls.
This isn’t a stripped down or simplified adventure scenario, and there’s no reason why experienced players and veteran DMs won’t also have a good time running it. But The Hidden Halls of Hazakor has been designed and written with young DMs firmly in mind — helping them break down the processes of running an effective RPG session, creating a fun and dynamic world in the dungeon, and sharing that world and its stories as only roleplaying games can.
Ultimate NPCs: Warfare for 5th Edition by Nord Games
(Campaign Ends : Saturday 17th February 2018; 05:00 UTC)
Nord Games published Ultimate NPCs: Skullduggery back in 2016 and have returned to the series, featuring a collection of 30 fully fleshed-out characters for your 5th edition campaigns, with Ultimate NPCs: Warfare. Warfare gives you a range of characters “from high command to the cook’s tent”, each with a backstory and statistics so they can be used as NPCs or player characters.
How many times have you been put on the spot in the middle of a game and needed to generate one or more highly detailed and well thought-out NPCs? How many times have you spent valuable time pre-game building a fantastic NPC from scratch, only to have the players pass by the tavern they were located in? How many times have you been a player wanting to join a party but didn't have any good ideas for a character build? How many times have you been running a game and had a player want to join but just didn't know how to create a character and level them up to be comparable with the rest of the party?!
Ultimate NPCs solves all of these issues as well as a great deal more! The book is packed with exciting, versatile and dynamic character builds that can be used in a myriad of different ways in 5th Edition format.
The book has 30 uniquely designed characters at levels 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20. This gives maximum versatility for minimal cost and shelf space. Some of the characters are ones that we, the designers, have run in our campaigns for years, some are NPCs we've used to challenge or aid our players, and others are brand new builds.
This 200+ page book is being further augmented through a variety of stretch goals that have already been unlocked. Including 12 unique Guilds that have connections to some to the characters featured in Warfare and a section featuring generic NPCs to help populate your ranks of Militia, Soldiers, Guards, Mercenaries, Knights and Warmages. There will no doubt be a number of more stretch goals unlocked by the time the campaign comes to an end in just over two weeks time.
Reference Card Decks, featuring the characters from the book, are also available to purchase as one of the add-on’s available.
Cthulhu Soundscapes: Sounds of Madness Vol One & Two by Oliver McNeil
(Campaign Ends : Wednesday 21st February 2018; 13:54 UTC)
Each of the two volumes of Cthulhu Soundscapes supplies over eight hours of atmospheric “soundscapes and music designed to use with Cthulhu and other horror, roleplaying, board, live games, or just make your life seem like a horror movie!”
Sounds of Madness Volume 1 features twenty tracks with titles such as Mountain of Madness, Train Ride to Sarnath, Hotel of Hell and the Cliffs of Innsmouth, plus 10 bonus horror sound fx .
Sounds of Madness Volume 2 features an additional 20 tracks, such as The Dreams in the Witch House, Old Bugs, Under the Pyramids, What the Moon Brings and The Alchemist.
Through the Deep One pledge level (£45) you not only get both volumes of the Sounds of Madness but also five more 25 minute soundscapes (including Songs of the Cthulhu and Streets of the Dunwich) as well as The Deep One, which is described as “a narrated hypnotic dream journey induction.”
Samples of a few of the tracks are available to listen to on the campaign page.
Lady Luck Smile on Me Enamel Pin by Lilly Higgs
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 22ns February 2018; 20:22 UTC)
Pins have always been a popular accessory, and we’ve seen a few ‘gamer pin’ campaigns on Kickstarter, including a couple running now. The Lady Luck D20 Enamel Pin comes in two colours (Pink and White or Black and White) with the gamers favourite/nemesis d20 taking the starring role. The d20 has “Lady Luck” above it and “Smile On Me” below it, hopefully empowering the wearing with some good dice rolling…
**********
If you like what we do here at EN World (the Forums, Columns, News, ENnies, etc) and would like to help support us to bring you MORE please consider supporting our Patreon. Even a single dollar helps Thanks!
**********
If you have a forthcoming Kickstarter, or see one that excites you, please feel free to drop me an email on angus.abranson@gmail.com You can follow me on Twitter @ Angus_A or on Facebook where I often post about gaming.
Until next week, have fun and happy gaming!
Angus Abranson
Trinity Continuum: Aeon RPG by Richard Thomas
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 1st March 2018; 17:04 UTC)
Trinity Continuum: Aeon is 2018’s first ‘revival’ Kickstarter aiming to bring back an old RPG in a new edition. Many people will remember the original White Wolf Trinity, Aberrant, and Adventure RPGs that were released using the original Storyteller system as well as d20 books a few years later. I, personally, have some great memories of Adventure and still have WW’s first Aeon Trinity RPG release before they had to rebrand it (and resticker remaining stock) to Trinity due to a copyright clash (or something) with the Aeon Flux cartoon.
Onyx Path’s campaign is not only bringing back a new edition of the game but they have given it a new system and revised the setting from the ground up. The Trinity Continuum is a vast timeline of adventure, speckled with dramatic points across the past, present, and future, where heroes - or villains - arise. While each setting supplement will explore part of the Trinity Continuum timeline, these points in time aren't dots in a straight line - this isn't a long-form metaplot to be simply read aloud. Instead, they're points of quantum probabilities. Anything can happen, so it's up to you and your cast to make it happen!
The Trinity Continuum will grow as the timeline is explored, with possible setting supplements handling everything from ancient greek battalions to far-future psychic corporations, or two-fisted pulp daredevils to quantum-powered meta-humans of tomorrow.
The Trinity Continuum Core rules are the foundation for interacting with the Trinity Continuum setting. Using the Storypath System, the Trinity Continuum Core rules provide a contemporary baseline, allowing you to explore modern scenarios in various genres. Present day scenarios involving dedicated investigators, audacious con artists, underground do-gooders, and intrepid explorers can all work within the structure provided. The Trinity Continuum Core book will be 7-inch by 10-inch hardcover book, approximately 200+ pages, with full-color interiors.
Trinity Continuum: Æon will be the first non-contemporary setting explored on the Trinity Continuum timeline. Set in the year 2123, Trinity Continuum: Æon depicts a future Earth, still in the process of recovery from a devastating war and starting to expand into space. Nations that avoided the brunt of the destruction have transformed into leading political forces, while other regions are either home to struggling survivors in the ruins of their former countries, or living under a fascist regime intent on restoring order at any cost. Bio-engineering technology mixes with psionic orders creating new power structures, while alien contact has been made with mixed results. The Trinity Continuum: Æon setting allows for a variety of play styles, from cyberpunk-like corporate espionage and intrigue to post-apocalyptic survival stories, to space exploration. The Trinity Continuum: Æon setting book will be 7-inch by 10-inch hardcover book, approximately 300+ pages, with full-color interiors.
The Storypath System is Onyx Path's rules set designed specifically to allow the sort of rules scaling necessary to seamlessly enable players to play ordinary people as well as characters with psi powers, and everything in between.
The basics of the Storypath System should be familiar to anyone who played a previous edition of Trinity, as it is a 10-sided dicepool system, where in order to resolve an action you basically roll a number of dice equal to the character's Attribute + Skill and must roll an 8 or better a certain number of times in order to succeed in the action.
That is the very basic resolution system, but we expand on that to further enhance how your gaming group can build their stories. Failing to hit your number of successes, or having more successes than your required amount, are built-in options in the rules.
The Hidden Halls of Hazakor by Insane Angel Studios
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 22nd February 2018; 00:00 UTC)
I really like the idea behind The Hidden Halls of Hazakor and am surprised not more adventures have been written specifically to help new, or young, Dungeon Masters/Game Masters/Storytellers, etc.
Written for 5th Edition, The Hidden Halls of Hazakor, is a fully illustrated 64+ page starter adventure that specifically focuses on young, beginning, DMs of ages 12 and up. It’s written in “a friendly and straightforward fashion, it demonstrates some of the ways a good fantasy RPG adventure can be put together, and talks about some of the tricks and knowledge that all good DMs learn through the experience of running games – but which aren’t always instinctive for a young player sitting in the DM’s chair for the first time.”
This adventure builds on the rules and information presented in the D&D core rulebooks and the D&D Starter Set, and on the first-time DM's experience of having previously been a player in the game. A beginning DM running the adventure will learn to think about the ways in which the story can go in different directions based on what the characters do — and how to not be scared when it does. They’ll practice bringing NPCs to life by way of interesting quirks, to help the players engage with and remember them. They’ll get tips on running fun combat sessions, building from an initial slate of simple, single-foe encounters to more complex fights. And they’ll learn to use humor as a tool to make the game interesting and memorable, especially for other younger players.
In the vein of many classic starter scenarios, the adventure features a fully detailed local keep, where the characters meet and learn of the legendary lost ruins in the nearby wilderness. Those ruins then present a classic dungeon crawl in nine parts, featuring fifty different areas to explore, fun physical puzzles and daunting traps, a host of classic monstrous foes — including not one but two dragons — and other challenges that will bring the characters to 5th level… assuming they survive the threats of Hazakor’s lost halls.
This isn’t a stripped down or simplified adventure scenario, and there’s no reason why experienced players and veteran DMs won’t also have a good time running it. But The Hidden Halls of Hazakor has been designed and written with young DMs firmly in mind — helping them break down the processes of running an effective RPG session, creating a fun and dynamic world in the dungeon, and sharing that world and its stories as only roleplaying games can.
Ultimate NPCs: Warfare for 5th Edition by Nord Games
(Campaign Ends : Saturday 17th February 2018; 05:00 UTC)
Nord Games published Ultimate NPCs: Skullduggery back in 2016 and have returned to the series, featuring a collection of 30 fully fleshed-out characters for your 5th edition campaigns, with Ultimate NPCs: Warfare. Warfare gives you a range of characters “from high command to the cook’s tent”, each with a backstory and statistics so they can be used as NPCs or player characters.
How many times have you been put on the spot in the middle of a game and needed to generate one or more highly detailed and well thought-out NPCs? How many times have you spent valuable time pre-game building a fantastic NPC from scratch, only to have the players pass by the tavern they were located in? How many times have you been a player wanting to join a party but didn't have any good ideas for a character build? How many times have you been running a game and had a player want to join but just didn't know how to create a character and level them up to be comparable with the rest of the party?!
Ultimate NPCs solves all of these issues as well as a great deal more! The book is packed with exciting, versatile and dynamic character builds that can be used in a myriad of different ways in 5th Edition format.
The book has 30 uniquely designed characters at levels 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20. This gives maximum versatility for minimal cost and shelf space. Some of the characters are ones that we, the designers, have run in our campaigns for years, some are NPCs we've used to challenge or aid our players, and others are brand new builds.
This 200+ page book is being further augmented through a variety of stretch goals that have already been unlocked. Including 12 unique Guilds that have connections to some to the characters featured in Warfare and a section featuring generic NPCs to help populate your ranks of Militia, Soldiers, Guards, Mercenaries, Knights and Warmages. There will no doubt be a number of more stretch goals unlocked by the time the campaign comes to an end in just over two weeks time.
Reference Card Decks, featuring the characters from the book, are also available to purchase as one of the add-on’s available.
Cthulhu Soundscapes: Sounds of Madness Vol One & Two by Oliver McNeil
(Campaign Ends : Wednesday 21st February 2018; 13:54 UTC)
Each of the two volumes of Cthulhu Soundscapes supplies over eight hours of atmospheric “soundscapes and music designed to use with Cthulhu and other horror, roleplaying, board, live games, or just make your life seem like a horror movie!”
Sounds of Madness Volume 1 features twenty tracks with titles such as Mountain of Madness, Train Ride to Sarnath, Hotel of Hell and the Cliffs of Innsmouth, plus 10 bonus horror sound fx .
Sounds of Madness Volume 2 features an additional 20 tracks, such as The Dreams in the Witch House, Old Bugs, Under the Pyramids, What the Moon Brings and The Alchemist.
Through the Deep One pledge level (£45) you not only get both volumes of the Sounds of Madness but also five more 25 minute soundscapes (including Songs of the Cthulhu and Streets of the Dunwich) as well as The Deep One, which is described as “a narrated hypnotic dream journey induction.”
Samples of a few of the tracks are available to listen to on the campaign page.
Lady Luck Smile on Me Enamel Pin by Lilly Higgs
(Campaign Ends : Thursday 22ns February 2018; 20:22 UTC)
Pins have always been a popular accessory, and we’ve seen a few ‘gamer pin’ campaigns on Kickstarter, including a couple running now. The Lady Luck D20 Enamel Pin comes in two colours (Pink and White or Black and White) with the gamers favourite/nemesis d20 taking the starring role. The d20 has “Lady Luck” above it and “Smile On Me” below it, hopefully empowering the wearing with some good dice rolling…
**********
If you like what we do here at EN World (the Forums, Columns, News, ENnies, etc) and would like to help support us to bring you MORE please consider supporting our Patreon. Even a single dollar helps Thanks!
**********
If you have a forthcoming Kickstarter, or see one that excites you, please feel free to drop me an email on angus.abranson@gmail.com You can follow me on Twitter @ Angus_A or on Facebook where I often post about gaming.
Until next week, have fun and happy gaming!
Angus Abranson
