Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news. Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000AD news, new Pathfinder and Starfinder Adventure Paths, Cyberpunk's 30th anniversary (and new edition news), changes afoot at GAMA, classic Dungeons & Dragons module getting a new edition, and more!
Paizo announced new adventure paths for both Pathfinder and Starfinder. The new Adventure Path for Starfinder comes in three parts rather than the normal six and is called Against the Aeon Throne. The first adventure, due for release to mass market September 11 and available from hobby channels now, is The Reach of the Empire, the second due on September 18 is Escape from the Prison Moon, and the third is The Rune Drive Gambit due October 16, combining together to tell a story of the emerging Azlanti Star Empire. Following immediately after will be the next three-part adventure path, Signal of Screams, following the plot of an insane scientist trapped on the Shadow Plane and a mysterious signal. The Diaspora Strain comes out November 13, The Penumbra Protocol due on December 25, and Heart of Night will release on January 29.
Pathfinder will see most likely the final Adventure Path for Pathfinder 1st Edition returning to where it all started with Return of the Runelords. And yes, things are looking even worse as the first Adventure Path only dealt with one of the Runelords returning…now, the rest of them are coming back to life! The six parts of this Adventure Path are: Secrets of Roderic’s Cove due on September 11 (available in hobby channels now), It Came from Hollow Mountain due on September 19, Runeplague due on October 16, Temple of the Peacock Spirit due on November 13, The City Outside of Time due on December 25, and Rise of New Thassilon due on January 29. It is not yet confirmed if there will be another Adventure Path for first edition following this, if the next will feature split rules, or if it will be strictly for Pathfinder 2nd Edition. Either way, support for the first edition of Pathfinder isn’t quite over yet as the Pathfinder Player Companion: Plane-Hopper’s Handbook is due out on October 9, a manual to explore…well, what it says on the tin really, plane-hopping characters with new eidolon subtypes, alternative racial traits, new feats, player options, and new equipment.
The big announcement has finally come through and the walls of MegaCity One have come down with a huge flood of information on Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000AD Tabletop Adventure Game. The Kickstarter launches on Tuesday, September 25 at 5:00 PM GMT (1 PM Eastern, 10 AM Pacific) and will include at least five items: The standard Core Rulebook in PDF and hardcover, the Limited Edition hardcover, the first campaign setting-adventure Robot Wars, the Gamemaster’s Screen, and custom Judge Dredd dice. This week’s episode of Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk podcast features EN World’s own Morrus (along with cohost Peter Coffey) talking with designers Darren Peirce (who co-wrote the core rulebook) and Andy Peregrine (who wrote the Robot Wars adventure) at length. Extensive length. I’m still exhausted from editing the show. Anyway, if there are any questions you may have about the new game, that should be your first stop as the episode covers the design approach, the rules system (for those unfamiliar with EN Publishing’s WOIN System), plans for other 2000AD properties other than the iconic Dredd, stretch goals for the Kickstarter, adventuring as characters other than Judges, and plans for future settings and adventures both in MegaCity One and beyond. And there’s a very special contest this week, but you’ll have to listen to the show to find out more about that.
Goodman Games announced their second in the Original Adventures Reincarnated series, X1: The Isle of Dread. The first adventure in the eXpert line of modules for the original Dungeons & Dragons, The Isle of Dread was the first module to focus mostly on wilderness encounters and helped coin the term “hexcrawl”. Similarly to their release of Into the Borderlands which reprinted B1: Into the Unknown and B2: Keep on the Borderlands, this reprint of The Isle of Dread will feature two high-quality scans of different printings of the original module along with interviews with the creators and behind-the-scenes facts about the module along with a complete Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition conversion. There’s no price point yet for this (though Into the Borderlands had an MSRP of $49.95), but it is expected for release in November.
R. Talsorian Games has a week-long celebration planned for the 30th anniversary of the original Cyberpunk roleplaying game. The week started with the announcement that Cyberpunk 2020 is available for sale again at retail prices (the excitement for the Cyberpunk 2077 video game drove up prices for used copies to over $100) along with a 48-minute long gameplay trailer for the CD Projekt Red video game. Details have also started to emerge about Cyberpunk Red, the fourth edition of the Cyberpunk game. It will be set in the 2040s and exist as a bridge between the 2020 era and the 2077 setting of the video game, with rules based on the Interlock system. The timelines of Cyberpunk v.3 and other post-2020 editions will be treated as “alternate timelines”. It should be noted that the title “Red” was chosen before the deal with CD Projekt Red and was based on it being the opposite of green, the overwhelming color of the fan-nicknamed “Dollhouse Edition” Cyberpunk v.3. So far, three updates have been posted to the R. Talsorian website, which means we still have a few more days to go in the birthday celebration.
The game retailer, manufacturer, and distributor trade association GAMA (Game Manufacturer’s Association) is undergoing some major behind the scenes changes. Except where noted, the links below go to ICv2 coverage of the events. On July 25, the organization voted to terminate Deputy Director Angela Ward, and Ward has now hired an employment attorney due to possible legal issues with her firing. On August 2, GAMA President Stephan Brissaud was expelled from Gen Con following a physical altercation with convention security as he was loading merchandise for the Iello booth (Brissaud is also COO of Iello). A police report was filed following the incident, and Brissaud released a statement on August 27. A GAMA Board of Directors meeting is scheduled for later today (Thursday, August 30) to discuss the results of their internal investigation of the incident and decide what actions to take. Meanwhile, on August 24, a GAMA press release was sent out to announce that the employment contract of GAMA Executive Director John Ward would not be renewed when it expires in February. The vote was reportedly “narrow” and a meeting has been scheduled on September 24 to address concerns and seek additional feedback. With three of the highest-level people in GAMA either fired or facing potential disciplinary action, what this means for the GAMA Trade Show and Origins Game Fair, as well as the organization itself, is anyone’s guess.
Humble Bundle is really taking care of tabletop gamers this month with three bundles of interest currently available. The Lord of the Rings RPG bundle from Cubicle 7 features the core rulebook and sourcebooks for the One Ring roleplaying game along with absolutely gorgeous maps of Rohan, Bree, Rivendale, and more. This bundle is available until Wednesday, September 5. Next is the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bundle featuring an incredible thirty-six total adventures, sourcebooks, one-shots, and map packs for Pathfinder. This bundle is available until Wednesday, September 12. There’s also the Digital Tabletop Bundle featuring $123 worth of tabletop games available on Steam including Pathfinder Adventures, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Talisman, and more. This bundle is available until Tuesday, September 11.
Even with so many ways to get into tabletop gaming design, from crowdfunding to self-publishing digital distribution to licenses for games like Dungeons & Dragons and 7th Sea to sell original content, you’d think there’d be more resources on the nuts-and-bolts of designing roleplaying games and adventures. The Create Your Own Fantasy RPG Adventure – RPG Resources Kickstarter helps fill that gap with a plethora of content to help you create your own professional products. Not just guides to creating monsters, encounters, items, puzzles, traps, and more, it also includes templates, artwork, and design elements licensed for use in your own products either as-is or modified. I’m not even going to attempt to summarize the pledge levels as there are a lot of them so you’re backing only at the level to get the items you need, whether you only want the interviews and tips from designers like James Ward, Lenard Lakofka, and Kevin Watson, or if you only want the publishing assets, or any combination. This project is fully funded and runs until Friday, September 14.
Entromancy is a cyberpunk-urban fantasy roleplaying game where a newly discovered element quickly advances technology, but also awakens magical potential and spawns new mythical species across the world. The rules system is a highly-customized D20 System version that keeps the class system but allows for more flexibility. The PDF is available for a pledge of $10, the hardcover for $30, and more backer levels to create your own NPCs and monsters to include in the final game. This project is fully funded and closes on Thursday, September 6.
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’ve been kicking the tires of my new video card trying to see what games I can stream on my Twitch channel (even though the games I want to stream most are Dragon Age: Origins and Fallout: New Vegas), 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.
Paizo announced new adventure paths for both Pathfinder and Starfinder. The new Adventure Path for Starfinder comes in three parts rather than the normal six and is called Against the Aeon Throne. The first adventure, due for release to mass market September 11 and available from hobby channels now, is The Reach of the Empire, the second due on September 18 is Escape from the Prison Moon, and the third is The Rune Drive Gambit due October 16, combining together to tell a story of the emerging Azlanti Star Empire. Following immediately after will be the next three-part adventure path, Signal of Screams, following the plot of an insane scientist trapped on the Shadow Plane and a mysterious signal. The Diaspora Strain comes out November 13, The Penumbra Protocol due on December 25, and Heart of Night will release on January 29.
Pathfinder will see most likely the final Adventure Path for Pathfinder 1st Edition returning to where it all started with Return of the Runelords. And yes, things are looking even worse as the first Adventure Path only dealt with one of the Runelords returning…now, the rest of them are coming back to life! The six parts of this Adventure Path are: Secrets of Roderic’s Cove due on September 11 (available in hobby channels now), It Came from Hollow Mountain due on September 19, Runeplague due on October 16, Temple of the Peacock Spirit due on November 13, The City Outside of Time due on December 25, and Rise of New Thassilon due on January 29. It is not yet confirmed if there will be another Adventure Path for first edition following this, if the next will feature split rules, or if it will be strictly for Pathfinder 2nd Edition. Either way, support for the first edition of Pathfinder isn’t quite over yet as the Pathfinder Player Companion: Plane-Hopper’s Handbook is due out on October 9, a manual to explore…well, what it says on the tin really, plane-hopping characters with new eidolon subtypes, alternative racial traits, new feats, player options, and new equipment.
The big announcement has finally come through and the walls of MegaCity One have come down with a huge flood of information on Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000AD Tabletop Adventure Game. The Kickstarter launches on Tuesday, September 25 at 5:00 PM GMT (1 PM Eastern, 10 AM Pacific) and will include at least five items: The standard Core Rulebook in PDF and hardcover, the Limited Edition hardcover, the first campaign setting-adventure Robot Wars, the Gamemaster’s Screen, and custom Judge Dredd dice. This week’s episode of Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk podcast features EN World’s own Morrus (along with cohost Peter Coffey) talking with designers Darren Peirce (who co-wrote the core rulebook) and Andy Peregrine (who wrote the Robot Wars adventure) at length. Extensive length. I’m still exhausted from editing the show. Anyway, if there are any questions you may have about the new game, that should be your first stop as the episode covers the design approach, the rules system (for those unfamiliar with EN Publishing’s WOIN System), plans for other 2000AD properties other than the iconic Dredd, stretch goals for the Kickstarter, adventuring as characters other than Judges, and plans for future settings and adventures both in MegaCity One and beyond. And there’s a very special contest this week, but you’ll have to listen to the show to find out more about that.
Goodman Games announced their second in the Original Adventures Reincarnated series, X1: The Isle of Dread. The first adventure in the eXpert line of modules for the original Dungeons & Dragons, The Isle of Dread was the first module to focus mostly on wilderness encounters and helped coin the term “hexcrawl”. Similarly to their release of Into the Borderlands which reprinted B1: Into the Unknown and B2: Keep on the Borderlands, this reprint of The Isle of Dread will feature two high-quality scans of different printings of the original module along with interviews with the creators and behind-the-scenes facts about the module along with a complete Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition conversion. There’s no price point yet for this (though Into the Borderlands had an MSRP of $49.95), but it is expected for release in November.
R. Talsorian Games has a week-long celebration planned for the 30th anniversary of the original Cyberpunk roleplaying game. The week started with the announcement that Cyberpunk 2020 is available for sale again at retail prices (the excitement for the Cyberpunk 2077 video game drove up prices for used copies to over $100) along with a 48-minute long gameplay trailer for the CD Projekt Red video game. Details have also started to emerge about Cyberpunk Red, the fourth edition of the Cyberpunk game. It will be set in the 2040s and exist as a bridge between the 2020 era and the 2077 setting of the video game, with rules based on the Interlock system. The timelines of Cyberpunk v.3 and other post-2020 editions will be treated as “alternate timelines”. It should be noted that the title “Red” was chosen before the deal with CD Projekt Red and was based on it being the opposite of green, the overwhelming color of the fan-nicknamed “Dollhouse Edition” Cyberpunk v.3. So far, three updates have been posted to the R. Talsorian website, which means we still have a few more days to go in the birthday celebration.
The game retailer, manufacturer, and distributor trade association GAMA (Game Manufacturer’s Association) is undergoing some major behind the scenes changes. Except where noted, the links below go to ICv2 coverage of the events. On July 25, the organization voted to terminate Deputy Director Angela Ward, and Ward has now hired an employment attorney due to possible legal issues with her firing. On August 2, GAMA President Stephan Brissaud was expelled from Gen Con following a physical altercation with convention security as he was loading merchandise for the Iello booth (Brissaud is also COO of Iello). A police report was filed following the incident, and Brissaud released a statement on August 27. A GAMA Board of Directors meeting is scheduled for later today (Thursday, August 30) to discuss the results of their internal investigation of the incident and decide what actions to take. Meanwhile, on August 24, a GAMA press release was sent out to announce that the employment contract of GAMA Executive Director John Ward would not be renewed when it expires in February. The vote was reportedly “narrow” and a meeting has been scheduled on September 24 to address concerns and seek additional feedback. With three of the highest-level people in GAMA either fired or facing potential disciplinary action, what this means for the GAMA Trade Show and Origins Game Fair, as well as the organization itself, is anyone’s guess.
Humble Bundle is really taking care of tabletop gamers this month with three bundles of interest currently available. The Lord of the Rings RPG bundle from Cubicle 7 features the core rulebook and sourcebooks for the One Ring roleplaying game along with absolutely gorgeous maps of Rohan, Bree, Rivendale, and more. This bundle is available until Wednesday, September 5. Next is the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Bundle featuring an incredible thirty-six total adventures, sourcebooks, one-shots, and map packs for Pathfinder. This bundle is available until Wednesday, September 12. There’s also the Digital Tabletop Bundle featuring $123 worth of tabletop games available on Steam including Pathfinder Adventures, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Talisman, and more. This bundle is available until Tuesday, September 11.
Even with so many ways to get into tabletop gaming design, from crowdfunding to self-publishing digital distribution to licenses for games like Dungeons & Dragons and 7th Sea to sell original content, you’d think there’d be more resources on the nuts-and-bolts of designing roleplaying games and adventures. The Create Your Own Fantasy RPG Adventure – RPG Resources Kickstarter helps fill that gap with a plethora of content to help you create your own professional products. Not just guides to creating monsters, encounters, items, puzzles, traps, and more, it also includes templates, artwork, and design elements licensed for use in your own products either as-is or modified. I’m not even going to attempt to summarize the pledge levels as there are a lot of them so you’re backing only at the level to get the items you need, whether you only want the interviews and tips from designers like James Ward, Lenard Lakofka, and Kevin Watson, or if you only want the publishing assets, or any combination. This project is fully funded and runs until Friday, September 14.
Entromancy is a cyberpunk-urban fantasy roleplaying game where a newly discovered element quickly advances technology, but also awakens magical potential and spawns new mythical species across the world. The rules system is a highly-customized D20 System version that keeps the class system but allows for more flexibility. The PDF is available for a pledge of $10, the hardcover for $30, and more backer levels to create your own NPCs and monsters to include in the final game. This project is fully funded and closes on Thursday, September 6.
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’ve been kicking the tires of my new video card trying to see what games I can stream on my Twitch channel (even though the games I want to stream most are Dragon Age: Origins and Fallout: New Vegas), 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.
