Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! Paizo’s website down for an extended period, a preview of Legend of the Five Rings, lots of Steve Jackson Games news, and more!
Last week, Paizo posted the first updated rules for the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Playtest…and a few days later, the website has been mostly down with announcements posted via social media on August 16, 20, and 21. While the page has come back a few times, at the time of writing, the website is only a placeholder image above with links to the Pathfinder Reference Document, Pathfinder 2nd Edition playtest material, and the playtest surveys for players, game masters, and the open survey. The most recent update on August 21 from Twitter indicates that the site is being “updated for functionality” with a solution in place “later this week”. Even with the site down, Paizo is still making use of other avenues of communicating with fans, including their Twitter account, Facebook page, and Twitch channel.
Speaking of Paizo, the launch event dates have been confirmed for Munchkin Starfinder from Steve Jackson Games under license from Paizo. The events on September 21, 22, and 23 will be the first chance for audiences to pick up Munchkin Starfinder and the first expansion, Munchkin Starfinder 2: Far Out in stores. You can pick up promotional cards, bookmarks, and other items along with a chance to win the Munchkin Starfinder 2: Far Out expansion. The link above has the full list of locations, which includes game stores in twenty-nine states in the United States and three provinces in Canada. This isn’t the only promotion for the Munchkin series recently, as an announcement from Steve Jackson Games proclaims that Super Munchkin is officially part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to a product placement in the third episode of the second season of Marvel’s Luke Cage on Netflix (though note the freeze-framed scene in the announcement is from a rather violent scene so be warned).
Speaking of Steve Jackson Games, they may be on the tail end of their Kickstarter for The Fantasy Trip (which ends this Friday at 5PM Central), but they’ve shown they have plans for the game beyond a single one-off crowdfunding effort with an announcement of a limited open publishing license for The Fantasy Trip starting in 2019. From the announcement:
Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD Roleplaying Game hasn’t had very many teases recently other than a cover image reveal (above) and teaser for the GM screen. But new information is finally starting to trickle out! While no official release date has been announced, it has been reported on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk that the book is completely finished and has been approved by Rebellion, the rights holders of 2000AD and of Judge Dredd. Not only that, but a Kickstarter is on the horizon very soon! If you want to be notified when the Kickstarter launches, you can sign up for notifications on the game’s website or like the Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000AD RPG Facebook page. (Disclosure: Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD Roleplaying Game is published by EN Publishing, the publishing arm of EN World.)
Fantasy Flight Games released the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Beginner Box which is available for purchase now. The box includes player and gamemaster books, custom dice, tokens, maps, and character folios giving a streamlined, introductory version of the Genesys System-based roleplaying game. Additionally, four free PDFs were also released to flesh out the boxed set with folios for the Clans Crab, Scorpion, and Unicorn plus a follow-up adventure to the one included with the set. The full core rulebook is currently in the printing phase and will be in stores soon, but Fantasy Flight decided to tease just a bit more with a look at the skill system and description of how checks will work in the system as well as an overview of the character creation process. The Beginner Box has a retail price of $44.95, while upcoming core rulebook will be available for $49.95, custom dice for $12.95, and a gamemaster’s kit for $19.95.
A couple of quick stories of interest that don’t have a lot of information to talk about. First, video game company Square Enix announced they’re dipping a toe into tabletop gaming with Tomb Raider Legends: The Board Game due for release in the first quarter of 2019. It will be a four-player game with a circular board with randomized maps for exploring.
A board game for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog on Kickstarter in anticipation of the web film’s tenth anniversary managed to raise more than four times its funding goal before it was cancelled. Because the company, Lucky Troll Games, didn’t live up to their name in attempting to launch the crowdfunding effort before getting the license for the show. As with all cancelled Kickstarters, the backers for the project were never billed for their pledges and no money from backers was lost.
The showrunner for Netflix’s reboot She-Ra and the Princess of Power announced in an interview that she used her experience with Dungeons & Dragons to help create the new show. In fact, several of the show’s characters are “stolen” from her D&D games, specifically her tiefling warlock who apparently had a knack for getting herself in bad situations due to impulsiveness. The show will premiere on Netflix on November 16.
Finally, Wizards of the Coast will release a new Magic: The Gathering starter set called the Spellslinger Starting Kit. Each set will contain two sixty-card pre-constructed decks and two countdown life counter dice. It will also pre-stack the decks for a demonstration game explained via special instructions to teach new players how to play step-by-step using their own decks. The full card lists for the Black-Green and Red-White decks (what, no love for Blue?) are available on the Wizards of the Coast website linked above. The kit is will be available for a retail price of $14.95 starting on October 5.
If you’ve ever thought about adventuring in the worlds of Middle Earth, now is an amazing time to start with the Lord of the Rings RPG Book Bundle on Humble Bundle from Cubicle 7. The $1 level gets you PDF copies of the core rulebook for The One Ring Roleplaying Game along with a map of Middle Earth and the Journeys & Maps sourcebook along with a 30% off coupon at Cubicle 7’s store. The $8 level adds five additional sourcebooks plus a map of Bree, including In the Heart of the Wild, The Loremaster’s Screen and Lake-town, Tales from Wilderland, Bree, and The Adventurer’s Companion. Finally, the $15 level will get you the sourcebooks Oaths of the Riddermark, Ruins of the North, Erebor The Lonely Mountain, Horse-Lords of Rohan, Rivendell, and The Darkening of Mirkwood plus maps of Erebor, Rohan, Rivendell, and more. This bundle benefits the charity Water Aid and runs until Wednesday, September 5.
Nights of Payne Town is a new story arc for the neo-noir fantasy tabletop roleplaying game City of Mist (“Think mobsters with the power of Greek gods, a corrupt politician enchanting citizens with his magic pipe music, and a biker gang called the Winged Monkeys working for an unsavory smuggler, a modern-day Wicked Witch of the West” from the game’s Kickstarter page). The arc is an adventure path of ten individual cases that link together in order to tell a single overarching story of a new crime wave that leaves the police helpless as a magical arms race breaks out in the city. The adventure book is available in PDF for $20, the hardcover for $42, and there are multiple pledge levels (plus a few early bird specials left) for premium versions or to pick up the core rules and existing sourcebooks for City of Mist. This Kickstarter is well over five times its funding goal and will end on Friday, August 31.
The OSR publisher Dark Naga Adventures has run several Kickstarters that included a module collection as a stretch goal for the Haunting of Hastur physical print run and just hasn’t been able to get enough funding to hit that stretch goal. So now, they’re Kickstarting it directly, putting all five parts of the module series on Kickstarter. This is a project specifically for old-school fans as the five modules (The Lost Temple of Forgotten Evil, The Buried Zikurat, The City of Talos, Confronting Hastur, and Carcosa) are being printed in the old-school style, with wraparound detached covers with maps on the inside and saddle-stitched booklets for each adventure. There’s also only one pledge level: $100 for all five. Kevin Watson is also clear that these will eventually be collected into a hardcover with both OSR and 5e rules included, but this is just for the fans who want that traditional 70s/80s feel. This project is almost 90% of the way to its funding goal and has until Sunday, September 2 to make it.
That’s all from me for this week! 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.comand you can get more discussion of the week’s news on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk every week. You can follow me on Twitter @Abstruse where I’ll be talking about my new video card capable of gorgeous 1440p ultra-setting gameplay, which I’ll be using to play a decade-old game on Twitch like Dragon Age: Origins, follow Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube featuring videos on gaming history and gaming 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.
Last week, Paizo posted the first updated rules for the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Playtest…and a few days later, the website has been mostly down with announcements posted via social media on August 16, 20, and 21. While the page has come back a few times, at the time of writing, the website is only a placeholder image above with links to the Pathfinder Reference Document, Pathfinder 2nd Edition playtest material, and the playtest surveys for players, game masters, and the open survey. The most recent update on August 21 from Twitter indicates that the site is being “updated for functionality” with a solution in place “later this week”. Even with the site down, Paizo is still making use of other avenues of communicating with fans, including their Twitter account, Facebook page, and Twitch channel.
Speaking of Paizo, the launch event dates have been confirmed for Munchkin Starfinder from Steve Jackson Games under license from Paizo. The events on September 21, 22, and 23 will be the first chance for audiences to pick up Munchkin Starfinder and the first expansion, Munchkin Starfinder 2: Far Out in stores. You can pick up promotional cards, bookmarks, and other items along with a chance to win the Munchkin Starfinder 2: Far Out expansion. The link above has the full list of locations, which includes game stores in twenty-nine states in the United States and three provinces in Canada. This isn’t the only promotion for the Munchkin series recently, as an announcement from Steve Jackson Games proclaims that Super Munchkin is officially part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to a product placement in the third episode of the second season of Marvel’s Luke Cage on Netflix (though note the freeze-framed scene in the announcement is from a rather violent scene so be warned).
Speaking of Steve Jackson Games, they may be on the tail end of their Kickstarter for The Fantasy Trip (which ends this Friday at 5PM Central), but they’ve shown they have plans for the game beyond a single one-off crowdfunding effort with an announcement of a limited open publishing license for The Fantasy Trip starting in 2019. From the announcement:
In 2019, the world of Cidri, the official setting for Steve Jackson's The Fantasy Trip roleplaying game, expands – everyone is invited to contribute adventures (solo and game-mastered), area writeup and history, monsters, characters, treasure, and more to the game.
In celebration and support of the return of The Fantasy Trip, Steve Jackson Games will release a limited publishing agreement for the game in 2019. Under the terms of the license, writers and illustrators will be able to create original PDFs for sale on Warehouse 23, the Steve Jackson Games web store, and earn royalties for the sale of those works. PDFs offered for sale under this agreement will have the right to use the world of Cidri and the TFT game mechanics, all under an official "Compatible with The Fantasy Trip" logo.
The limited publishing license will provide fans of The Fantasy Trip with more support than Steve Jackson Games alone can manage, as well as offering creators an opportunity to showcase their talents and transform their ideas into official PDFs.
Please watch thefantasytrip.game for more information on the upcoming TFT Limited Publishing Agreement.
In celebration and support of the return of The Fantasy Trip, Steve Jackson Games will release a limited publishing agreement for the game in 2019. Under the terms of the license, writers and illustrators will be able to create original PDFs for sale on Warehouse 23, the Steve Jackson Games web store, and earn royalties for the sale of those works. PDFs offered for sale under this agreement will have the right to use the world of Cidri and the TFT game mechanics, all under an official "Compatible with The Fantasy Trip" logo.
The limited publishing license will provide fans of The Fantasy Trip with more support than Steve Jackson Games alone can manage, as well as offering creators an opportunity to showcase their talents and transform their ideas into official PDFs.
Please watch thefantasytrip.game for more information on the upcoming TFT Limited Publishing Agreement.
Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD Roleplaying Game hasn’t had very many teases recently other than a cover image reveal (above) and teaser for the GM screen. But new information is finally starting to trickle out! While no official release date has been announced, it has been reported on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk that the book is completely finished and has been approved by Rebellion, the rights holders of 2000AD and of Judge Dredd. Not only that, but a Kickstarter is on the horizon very soon! If you want to be notified when the Kickstarter launches, you can sign up for notifications on the game’s website or like the Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000AD RPG Facebook page. (Disclosure: Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000AD Roleplaying Game is published by EN Publishing, the publishing arm of EN World.)
Fantasy Flight Games released the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Beginner Box which is available for purchase now. The box includes player and gamemaster books, custom dice, tokens, maps, and character folios giving a streamlined, introductory version of the Genesys System-based roleplaying game. Additionally, four free PDFs were also released to flesh out the boxed set with folios for the Clans Crab, Scorpion, and Unicorn plus a follow-up adventure to the one included with the set. The full core rulebook is currently in the printing phase and will be in stores soon, but Fantasy Flight decided to tease just a bit more with a look at the skill system and description of how checks will work in the system as well as an overview of the character creation process. The Beginner Box has a retail price of $44.95, while upcoming core rulebook will be available for $49.95, custom dice for $12.95, and a gamemaster’s kit for $19.95.
A couple of quick stories of interest that don’t have a lot of information to talk about. First, video game company Square Enix announced they’re dipping a toe into tabletop gaming with Tomb Raider Legends: The Board Game due for release in the first quarter of 2019. It will be a four-player game with a circular board with randomized maps for exploring.
A board game for Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog on Kickstarter in anticipation of the web film’s tenth anniversary managed to raise more than four times its funding goal before it was cancelled. Because the company, Lucky Troll Games, didn’t live up to their name in attempting to launch the crowdfunding effort before getting the license for the show. As with all cancelled Kickstarters, the backers for the project were never billed for their pledges and no money from backers was lost.
The showrunner for Netflix’s reboot She-Ra and the Princess of Power announced in an interview that she used her experience with Dungeons & Dragons to help create the new show. In fact, several of the show’s characters are “stolen” from her D&D games, specifically her tiefling warlock who apparently had a knack for getting herself in bad situations due to impulsiveness. The show will premiere on Netflix on November 16.
Finally, Wizards of the Coast will release a new Magic: The Gathering starter set called the Spellslinger Starting Kit. Each set will contain two sixty-card pre-constructed decks and two countdown life counter dice. It will also pre-stack the decks for a demonstration game explained via special instructions to teach new players how to play step-by-step using their own decks. The full card lists for the Black-Green and Red-White decks (what, no love for Blue?) are available on the Wizards of the Coast website linked above. The kit is will be available for a retail price of $14.95 starting on October 5.
If you’ve ever thought about adventuring in the worlds of Middle Earth, now is an amazing time to start with the Lord of the Rings RPG Book Bundle on Humble Bundle from Cubicle 7. The $1 level gets you PDF copies of the core rulebook for The One Ring Roleplaying Game along with a map of Middle Earth and the Journeys & Maps sourcebook along with a 30% off coupon at Cubicle 7’s store. The $8 level adds five additional sourcebooks plus a map of Bree, including In the Heart of the Wild, The Loremaster’s Screen and Lake-town, Tales from Wilderland, Bree, and The Adventurer’s Companion. Finally, the $15 level will get you the sourcebooks Oaths of the Riddermark, Ruins of the North, Erebor The Lonely Mountain, Horse-Lords of Rohan, Rivendell, and The Darkening of Mirkwood plus maps of Erebor, Rohan, Rivendell, and more. This bundle benefits the charity Water Aid and runs until Wednesday, September 5.
Nights of Payne Town is a new story arc for the neo-noir fantasy tabletop roleplaying game City of Mist (“Think mobsters with the power of Greek gods, a corrupt politician enchanting citizens with his magic pipe music, and a biker gang called the Winged Monkeys working for an unsavory smuggler, a modern-day Wicked Witch of the West” from the game’s Kickstarter page). The arc is an adventure path of ten individual cases that link together in order to tell a single overarching story of a new crime wave that leaves the police helpless as a magical arms race breaks out in the city. The adventure book is available in PDF for $20, the hardcover for $42, and there are multiple pledge levels (plus a few early bird specials left) for premium versions or to pick up the core rules and existing sourcebooks for City of Mist. This Kickstarter is well over five times its funding goal and will end on Friday, August 31.
The OSR publisher Dark Naga Adventures has run several Kickstarters that included a module collection as a stretch goal for the Haunting of Hastur physical print run and just hasn’t been able to get enough funding to hit that stretch goal. So now, they’re Kickstarting it directly, putting all five parts of the module series on Kickstarter. This is a project specifically for old-school fans as the five modules (The Lost Temple of Forgotten Evil, The Buried Zikurat, The City of Talos, Confronting Hastur, and Carcosa) are being printed in the old-school style, with wraparound detached covers with maps on the inside and saddle-stitched booklets for each adventure. There’s also only one pledge level: $100 for all five. Kevin Watson is also clear that these will eventually be collected into a hardcover with both OSR and 5e rules included, but this is just for the fans who want that traditional 70s/80s feel. This project is almost 90% of the way to its funding goal and has until Sunday, September 2 to make it.
That’s all from me for this week! 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.comand you can get more discussion of the week’s news on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk every week. You can follow me on Twitter @Abstruse where I’ll be talking about my new video card capable of gorgeous 1440p ultra-setting gameplay, which I’ll be using to play a decade-old game on Twitch like Dragon Age: Origins, follow Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube featuring videos on gaming history and gaming 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.
