News Digest: Fantasy Dungeon New Release, #AprilTTRPGMaker, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Release Date, and more!
Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! Steve Jackson Games makes an April 1st announcement that turns out to be true, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Fourth Edition gets a release date, find out more about your favorite game designers through #AprilTTRPGMaker, and more!
I’m going to be honest, becoming a journalist has made me hate April Fool’s Day. While some companies have a reputation of creating fake product announcements so it’s obvious when they’re not real, such as ThinkGeek’s 4d6andMe Stat Discovery Kit, or some news sites will write something clever but obvious like EN World’s own “D&D Loot Boxes” (which was a play on video game “microtransaction loot boxes”)…not every story is as obvious. Steve Jackson Games has an interesting history as they announced “GURPS Fourth Edition” in 2003 and the first three paragraphs were actual, real product information about the in-development but unannounced real GURPS Fourth Edition…but had another paragraph about a “clicky-base character design system”.
Which made the April 1st timing for the announcement of Hall of Judgment for Dungeon Fantasy a little more difficult to discern. Following the announcement that Dungeon Fantasy’s launch was disappointing, the announcement of a conversion of the popular Lost Hall of Tyr by Douglas Cole to the system seemed like a cruel joke to many fans. But Cole himself confirmed on April 2nd that it was, in fact, real. Yes, even the bit about grappling rules. The PDF will be released on August 2018.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition will officially launch at the UK Games Expo this June. The video contains the full interview from The Beasts of War with UK Games Expo staff Richard Denning and Tony Hyams, but if you want to know the specific section, you can click this link to jump to the relevant section. The Cubicle 7 website has yet to update with an official announcement of their own at the time of writing, but the post from November 30, 2017, stated: “The release date of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Fourth Edition will be set for mid-2018, with a specific date to be set in a few months.” Well, it’s now a “few months” later, so this would appear to be the official full-release of the game. The new edition was originally planned for a 2017 release as an update of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition (as the rights to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition were still held by Fantasy Flight Games), but when prepping the digital release of 2nd Edition along with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition, it was decided to delay the release until the full overhaul into a new edition could be completed.
If you’ve ever wondered about the people behind the games you play, Kira Magrann has created an interesting challenge that many game designers are taking up: #AprilTTRPGMaker on Twitter and other social media along with a daily challenge to tell you more about them and their work. The questions are linked above and there’s already five days’ worth of responses from people like Mike Mearls, Jason Bulmahn, Amanda Hamon Kunz, Ian AA Watson, Justin Achilli, Eddy Webb, Jenell Jaquays, Nathan Dowdell, Crystal Frasier, Matt Forbeck, Keith Baker, Cam Banks, and that’s just the first handful of names that popped up on my Twitter account. It’s an interesting read whether you want to find new names in game design, find your favorite designers to follow on social media, or want to study the work habits and career paths of others to learn from for yourself.
CoolStuffInc announced a new Authentic Product Guarantee in an effort to curb board game counterfeiting. This issue of counterfeiting and board games has gotten much more attention recently as the growing market for hobbyist board and card games, especially for smaller publishers who may have difficulty keeping games in stock. From the press release from CoolStuffInc:
Aside from the economic issues of smaller publishers losing sales to counterfeiters, it is a problem for consumers as well due as many counterfeit products contain lower-quality or missing components, or issues with printing such as typographical errors, poor translations, or rules errors. In January, publisher Czech Games Edition released a guide for determining counterfeit copies of their multiple award-winning Codenames after several customer complaints and false stories of “new edition”.
The Black Library: Tales from the Worlds of Warhammer Book Bundle is still live on Humble Bundle until Wednesday, April 11. The bundle contains over $263 worth of ebooks and audiobooks in multiple formats from the Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Age of Sigmar lines and includes coupons for several Warhammer licensed video games. Also starting this week, there’s the Bizarre Books Bundle featuring $215 total worth of books from the publisher Chronicle Books that, despite the odd titles, are actually interesting and entertaining research sources. Sure, How to Swear Around the World and The Pirate Handbook: A Rogue’s Guide to Pillage, Plunder, Chaos, & Conquest seem silly, but are interesting jumping-off points for anyone interested in researched worldbuilding. This bundle benefits the Book Industry Charitable Foundation and runs until Wednesday, April 18.
Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar is a new edition of the classic 80s board game. While the game’s core gimmick hasn’t changed as it’s a roll-and-move game with marble “fireballs” as the major hazard, the game’s mechanics have been updated and tweaked with brand new option. The intent seems to be to keep the nostalgia-filtered fun of the original game while adding more player choice and interesting options, from “Souvenirs” (items that give you a benefit after you lose a turn due to a fireball to prevent the game from being a runaway) to action cards (that let you take specific actions at the risk of potentially sending more fireballs down the paths). There’s also expansions already planned, including options for more players, a shipwreck to explore, and, of course, bees. The base game is available for a $60 pledge, or you can get all the expansions for $130 (and there’s a retailer option for verified brick-and-mortar game stores for $20 each when ordering in bulk). This Kickstarter is already pushing seven figures and runs until Thursday, May 3.
There’s been a trend recently for companies to make board games out of their popular roleplaying game lines. How would you like to see a roleplaying game based on a popular board game line? Uprising: The Dystopian Universe from Evil Hat is a FATE Core-based game from Brian Engard and Anna Meade set in the cyberpunk universe made popular by the games The Resistance, One Night Revolution, Coup, and Coup: Rebellion G54. And yes, the themes of paranoia, betrayal, and deceit from the board games are up-front in this game. The over 300 page PDF is available for a $20 pledge and the hardcover physical copy is available for $39, or you can pledge the minimum of $1 to get immediate access to the current draft of the Uprising rules to see if you want to increase the pledge for the full version. This Kickstarter still has a few announced stretch goals (and more as-yet-unannounced ones) left to unlock before it funds on Wednesday, May 2.
Dreamscarred Press is ready to blow your mind (yeah, I’m ashamed of myself for that one, but I had to get it out of my head) with the Psionics Guide for Starfinder. The Starfinder-compatible sourcebook features eleven new player races, four new classes, new feats, new archetypes, new equipment, and full rules for bringing psionics into the Starfinder game. The PDF with the new rules is available for $10, you can add on the Bestiary for more psionic creatures and foes for $15, or you can get the printed hardcover for $50 and a limited deluxe print edition for $100. This Kickstarter is fully funded and runs until Thursday, April 19.
That’s all from me for this week! Find more gaming crowdfunding news by following our Kickstarter news tag, and don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you more gaming news content. If you have any news to submit, email us at news@enworldnews.com. I may be live streaming on my Twitch channel to test out a few things, and you can follow me on Twitter @Abstruse where I’ll make an announcement when/if I do, 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.
Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! Steve Jackson Games makes an April 1st announcement that turns out to be true, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Fourth Edition gets a release date, find out more about your favorite game designers through #AprilTTRPGMaker, and more!
I’m going to be honest, becoming a journalist has made me hate April Fool’s Day. While some companies have a reputation of creating fake product announcements so it’s obvious when they’re not real, such as ThinkGeek’s 4d6andMe Stat Discovery Kit, or some news sites will write something clever but obvious like EN World’s own “D&D Loot Boxes” (which was a play on video game “microtransaction loot boxes”)…not every story is as obvious. Steve Jackson Games has an interesting history as they announced “GURPS Fourth Edition” in 2003 and the first three paragraphs were actual, real product information about the in-development but unannounced real GURPS Fourth Edition…but had another paragraph about a “clicky-base character design system”.
Which made the April 1st timing for the announcement of Hall of Judgment for Dungeon Fantasy a little more difficult to discern. Following the announcement that Dungeon Fantasy’s launch was disappointing, the announcement of a conversion of the popular Lost Hall of Tyr by Douglas Cole to the system seemed like a cruel joke to many fans. But Cole himself confirmed on April 2nd that it was, in fact, real. Yes, even the bit about grappling rules. The PDF will be released on August 2018.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition will officially launch at the UK Games Expo this June. The video contains the full interview from The Beasts of War with UK Games Expo staff Richard Denning and Tony Hyams, but if you want to know the specific section, you can click this link to jump to the relevant section. The Cubicle 7 website has yet to update with an official announcement of their own at the time of writing, but the post from November 30, 2017, stated: “The release date of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Fourth Edition will be set for mid-2018, with a specific date to be set in a few months.” Well, it’s now a “few months” later, so this would appear to be the official full-release of the game. The new edition was originally planned for a 2017 release as an update of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition (as the rights to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition were still held by Fantasy Flight Games), but when prepping the digital release of 2nd Edition along with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 1st Edition, it was decided to delay the release until the full overhaul into a new edition could be completed.
If you’ve ever wondered about the people behind the games you play, Kira Magrann has created an interesting challenge that many game designers are taking up: #AprilTTRPGMaker on Twitter and other social media along with a daily challenge to tell you more about them and their work. The questions are linked above and there’s already five days’ worth of responses from people like Mike Mearls, Jason Bulmahn, Amanda Hamon Kunz, Ian AA Watson, Justin Achilli, Eddy Webb, Jenell Jaquays, Nathan Dowdell, Crystal Frasier, Matt Forbeck, Keith Baker, Cam Banks, and that’s just the first handful of names that popped up on my Twitter account. It’s an interesting read whether you want to find new names in game design, find your favorite designers to follow on social media, or want to study the work habits and career paths of others to learn from for yourself.
CoolStuffInc announced a new Authentic Product Guarantee in an effort to curb board game counterfeiting. This issue of counterfeiting and board games has gotten much more attention recently as the growing market for hobbyist board and card games, especially for smaller publishers who may have difficulty keeping games in stock. From the press release from CoolStuffInc:
“The concern regarding counterfeit products has been an ongoing conversation in the hobby gaming industry,” says Gerald Sunkin, CEO of CoolStuffInc.com. “We wanted to clearly outline and explain that this concern does not exist in our online store, nor in any of the seven Cool Stuff Games locations. We sell only genuine, authentic products obtained through authorized, official channels and we want our customers to shop with confidence.”
CoolStuffInc.com stands behind the authenticity of its products, sourced from reputable distributors or official outlets. The company offers a 100% Money Back Guarantee on all sold products as authentic, factory-sealed items from the original manufacturer.
CoolStuffInc.com stands behind the authenticity of its products, sourced from reputable distributors or official outlets. The company offers a 100% Money Back Guarantee on all sold products as authentic, factory-sealed items from the original manufacturer.
Aside from the economic issues of smaller publishers losing sales to counterfeiters, it is a problem for consumers as well due as many counterfeit products contain lower-quality or missing components, or issues with printing such as typographical errors, poor translations, or rules errors. In January, publisher Czech Games Edition released a guide for determining counterfeit copies of their multiple award-winning Codenames after several customer complaints and false stories of “new edition”.
The Black Library: Tales from the Worlds of Warhammer Book Bundle is still live on Humble Bundle until Wednesday, April 11. The bundle contains over $263 worth of ebooks and audiobooks in multiple formats from the Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer Age of Sigmar lines and includes coupons for several Warhammer licensed video games. Also starting this week, there’s the Bizarre Books Bundle featuring $215 total worth of books from the publisher Chronicle Books that, despite the odd titles, are actually interesting and entertaining research sources. Sure, How to Swear Around the World and The Pirate Handbook: A Rogue’s Guide to Pillage, Plunder, Chaos, & Conquest seem silly, but are interesting jumping-off points for anyone interested in researched worldbuilding. This bundle benefits the Book Industry Charitable Foundation and runs until Wednesday, April 18.
Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar is a new edition of the classic 80s board game. While the game’s core gimmick hasn’t changed as it’s a roll-and-move game with marble “fireballs” as the major hazard, the game’s mechanics have been updated and tweaked with brand new option. The intent seems to be to keep the nostalgia-filtered fun of the original game while adding more player choice and interesting options, from “Souvenirs” (items that give you a benefit after you lose a turn due to a fireball to prevent the game from being a runaway) to action cards (that let you take specific actions at the risk of potentially sending more fireballs down the paths). There’s also expansions already planned, including options for more players, a shipwreck to explore, and, of course, bees. The base game is available for a $60 pledge, or you can get all the expansions for $130 (and there’s a retailer option for verified brick-and-mortar game stores for $20 each when ordering in bulk). This Kickstarter is already pushing seven figures and runs until Thursday, May 3.
There’s been a trend recently for companies to make board games out of their popular roleplaying game lines. How would you like to see a roleplaying game based on a popular board game line? Uprising: The Dystopian Universe from Evil Hat is a FATE Core-based game from Brian Engard and Anna Meade set in the cyberpunk universe made popular by the games The Resistance, One Night Revolution, Coup, and Coup: Rebellion G54. And yes, the themes of paranoia, betrayal, and deceit from the board games are up-front in this game. The over 300 page PDF is available for a $20 pledge and the hardcover physical copy is available for $39, or you can pledge the minimum of $1 to get immediate access to the current draft of the Uprising rules to see if you want to increase the pledge for the full version. This Kickstarter still has a few announced stretch goals (and more as-yet-unannounced ones) left to unlock before it funds on Wednesday, May 2.
Dreamscarred Press is ready to blow your mind (yeah, I’m ashamed of myself for that one, but I had to get it out of my head) with the Psionics Guide for Starfinder. The Starfinder-compatible sourcebook features eleven new player races, four new classes, new feats, new archetypes, new equipment, and full rules for bringing psionics into the Starfinder game. The PDF with the new rules is available for $10, you can add on the Bestiary for more psionic creatures and foes for $15, or you can get the printed hardcover for $50 and a limited deluxe print edition for $100. This Kickstarter is fully funded and runs until Thursday, April 19.
That’s all from me for this week! Find more gaming crowdfunding news by following our Kickstarter news tag, and don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you more gaming news content. If you have any news to submit, email us at news@enworldnews.com. I may be live streaming on my Twitch channel to test out a few things, and you can follow me on Twitter @Abstruse where I’ll make an announcement when/if I do, 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.
