Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! E3 brings big news for several tabletop RPGs tuned video games, Stargate getting a new RPG, Free RPG Day this weekend, and more!
E3 brought us updates on several video games licensed from tabletop roleplaying games. The one that’s gotten the least attention is Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory from Bigben Games, who released a new gameplay trailer featuring your Troubleshooter Instructor Daff-Y-DUK (voiced by Matt Mercer) describing the combat system of the world of Alpha Complex and Friend Computer.
[video=youtube;0Wz75SQ_FPM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wz75SQ_FPM[/video]
While we only got a new cinematic trailer and release date for Cyberpunk 2077 which featured Keanu Reeves as the legendary rocker Johnny Silverhand, the game from CD Projekt Red managed to stir up controversy yet again. Even after three separate incidents over 2018 with controversial social media posts from the official Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account and the CD Projekt Red-owned storefront Good Old Games, the game managed to draw more controversy over transphobic content with an in-game advertisement. The artist, Kasia Redesiuk, states that the ad (which features a provocatively dressed trans woman with a comically large…bulge…with the tagline “Mix It Up – 16 Flavours You’d Love to Mix”) is a commentary on corporations exploiting and demeaning everyone. However, this follows a repeated trend of transphobic content coming from CDPR and Cyberpunk.
This was followed by even more controversy as Rock Paper Shotgun posted a summary of the E3 gameplay demo from the booth. Two gangs are presented in the demo, the predominantly black The Animals who are addicted to a substance called “Juice” and the Haitian Voodoo Boys. The depiction of these two gangs has caused considerable backlash against the game, with RPS reporting “At one point V, the player character, mockingly says ‘and who are dem’ in response to [Haitian fixer] Placide’s pronunciation” and “He also tells us the Voodoo Boys are going to turn on us the moment we’ve done their dirty work – and is immediately proved right. The violent black thugs betrayed us, as the corporate white man said they would.”
CD Projekt Red’s Quest Director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz responded to questions about the racial representation in the game: “Obviously we’re paying a lot of attention to representing different groups respectfully. You know, there’s always a risk. Of course we have it in the back of our heads that we need to be careful about this. We are contacting different consultants to learn about specific groups, and our company has a variety of people with different beliefs.”
[video=youtube;Tbs2QfD9S4Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbs2QfD9S4Q[/video]
Finally, Baldur’s Gate III had a presentation as part of the PC Gaming Show with Mike Mearls making his first public appearance since February. No new information was presented beyond what was included in the original announcement, though in the video Mearls states that Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus is a prequel to the Baldur’s Gate III video game for some reason, even though the video game is based on the tabletop RPG and that Descent Into Avernus will be out long before Baldur’s Gate III.
A new Stargate roleplaying game comes out next year at Gen Con 2020 from tabletop company Wyvern Gaming. The game will be based on the D&D 5e OGL and allow progression from levels 1 to 20 set in the Stargate universe. The press release mentioned the “Stargate franchise”several times, but the only show officially confirmed in the press release is Stargate SG-1. Whether or not we’ll see Stargate Atlantis or Stargate Universe may depend on the success of the original launch. Wyvern Gaming is best known for its tabletop board games, though many of them have a strong narrative focus such as the time travel card game Sojourn: A Journey Through Time. This is the first Stargate roleplaying game since the original D20 System version from AEG in 2003-2004.
Free RPG Day is this Saturday, June 15! The annual event at local gaming stores around the world features free products from a number of companies. This year’s offerings include a quickstart for Dungeon Crawl Classics, “We Be Heroes” for Pathfinder with goblin protagonists, a Starfinder adventure, a storybook for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Starfinder dice from Q-Workshop, the quickstart for The Witcher, a quickstart for Outbreak Undead 2nd Edition, an adventure for the retro-80s adventure game Kids on Bikes, the quickstart for Modern AGE, and almost a dozen more products from various companies. Make sure to check the store locator on the website to find out which retailers near you are participating, and check with the store as each has different policies for how you get your free products.
FunkoPop have announced a partnership with Games Workshop for Warhammer 40,000 figures. The Primaris Inquisitor Funko Pop vinyl figure is the first in a DIY line of unpainted Pops. Because even when you’re buying Warhammer 40,000 Funko Pops, you still have to paint the blasted things yourself! Seriously guys, not even the Starter Set comes pre-painted? Anyway... The figure will be available starting this summer exclusively in Games Workshop and Warhammer stores.
The Humble Science Fiction Bundle features more than $300 worth of DRM-free ebooks from a wide array of authors in sci-fi, fantasy, urban fantasy, and horror. And if you know your game designers, you’ll see a few familiar names among the authors. The novels and anthologies include top name genre authors working today including Neil Gaiman, Charlaine Harris, Kelley Armstrong, Martha Wells, L. A. Banks, Anne Rice, Tad Williams, Ari Marmell, Cory Doctorow, Stephen King, Usula K LeQuin, Elizabeth Moon, Elizabeth Bear, Jeff Salyards, and a lot more. The top-tier bundle features twenty books for just $15 and runs until Wednesday, June 19. And if you’re looking to get into streaming, there’s still two weeks left on the Streaming 2019 bundle with a year’s license for XSplit and a lot more software and licenses to help you create a professional looking stream with ease.
This game is called MÖRK BORG. The tagline is “Rules light. Art heavy. All doom. MÖRK BORG is a roleplaying game/art book that takes you to the darker corners of a soon-dead world.” The creators describe it as “A Doom Metal Album of a Game”. They’re Swedish. Pretty sure you’ve made up your mind on this one already. They’re producing the game in both Swedish and English, but at least at the SEK 100 (about US$11) level for PDFs, you don’t have to choose as you get both. The SEK 250 (about US$26) gets you the printed rulebook, while SEK 500 (about US$53) gets the Special Edition cover version. This Kickstarter is fully funded and runs until Sunday, June 16.
Would you like a flat-pack model pirate ship with 1” square grid printed right on each deck? The Pirate’s Plundership is for you! The model ship comes packed flat for easy shipping and can be assembled easily into a 17 inch long, 5.5 inch wide, and 12 inch tall ship with a printed grid on one side and bare wood ready to paint on the other. There’s even rules included for a fast paced game using the ship and included dice. You can get the ship itself for $50, or for $60 you can add on wooden laser-cut 2D stand-up miniatures for a complete crew and a Kraken (because what’s a pirate ship without a kraken attack?) This Kickstarter is fully funded and runs until Monday, June 17.
Apex Coasters is launching a line of fantasy-themed ceramic coasters with cork backing, perfect for game night. The artwork for each coaster includes a gold dragon, an ogre, elven mage, lich, human wizard, lizardman, rogue, dwarf warrior, and…a squirrel stealing gems? The squirrel is cute as heck so I’ll let it slide. Each coaster is made of thick ceramic with a cork backing to provide maximum protection no matter what surface you’re trying to protect. You can get four coasters for $28, five for $34, six for $40, seven for $46, eight for $52, and more all the way up to sixteen coasters for $100. And yes, you can choose which coasters you want, either mixing and matching or getting one matching set. This project is fully funded and runs until Thursday, June 20.
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.com, and you can get more discussion of the week’s news on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk every week. You can follow me on Twitch where I’ve been trying to get a Jedi Consular through Level 1-50 during a Double XP week on Star Wars: The Old Republic, subscribe to Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube for videos on gaming history, RPG reviews, 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.
E3 brought us updates on several video games licensed from tabletop roleplaying games. The one that’s gotten the least attention is Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory from Bigben Games, who released a new gameplay trailer featuring your Troubleshooter Instructor Daff-Y-DUK (voiced by Matt Mercer) describing the combat system of the world of Alpha Complex and Friend Computer.
[video=youtube;0Wz75SQ_FPM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Wz75SQ_FPM[/video]
While we only got a new cinematic trailer and release date for Cyberpunk 2077 which featured Keanu Reeves as the legendary rocker Johnny Silverhand, the game from CD Projekt Red managed to stir up controversy yet again. Even after three separate incidents over 2018 with controversial social media posts from the official Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account and the CD Projekt Red-owned storefront Good Old Games, the game managed to draw more controversy over transphobic content with an in-game advertisement. The artist, Kasia Redesiuk, states that the ad (which features a provocatively dressed trans woman with a comically large…bulge…with the tagline “Mix It Up – 16 Flavours You’d Love to Mix”) is a commentary on corporations exploiting and demeaning everyone. However, this follows a repeated trend of transphobic content coming from CDPR and Cyberpunk.
This was followed by even more controversy as Rock Paper Shotgun posted a summary of the E3 gameplay demo from the booth. Two gangs are presented in the demo, the predominantly black The Animals who are addicted to a substance called “Juice” and the Haitian Voodoo Boys. The depiction of these two gangs has caused considerable backlash against the game, with RPS reporting “At one point V, the player character, mockingly says ‘and who are dem’ in response to [Haitian fixer] Placide’s pronunciation” and “He also tells us the Voodoo Boys are going to turn on us the moment we’ve done their dirty work – and is immediately proved right. The violent black thugs betrayed us, as the corporate white man said they would.”
CD Projekt Red’s Quest Director Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz responded to questions about the racial representation in the game: “Obviously we’re paying a lot of attention to representing different groups respectfully. You know, there’s always a risk. Of course we have it in the back of our heads that we need to be careful about this. We are contacting different consultants to learn about specific groups, and our company has a variety of people with different beliefs.”
[video=youtube;Tbs2QfD9S4Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbs2QfD9S4Q[/video]
Finally, Baldur’s Gate III had a presentation as part of the PC Gaming Show with Mike Mearls making his first public appearance since February. No new information was presented beyond what was included in the original announcement, though in the video Mearls states that Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus is a prequel to the Baldur’s Gate III video game for some reason, even though the video game is based on the tabletop RPG and that Descent Into Avernus will be out long before Baldur’s Gate III.
A new Stargate roleplaying game comes out next year at Gen Con 2020 from tabletop company Wyvern Gaming. The game will be based on the D&D 5e OGL and allow progression from levels 1 to 20 set in the Stargate universe. The press release mentioned the “Stargate franchise”several times, but the only show officially confirmed in the press release is Stargate SG-1. Whether or not we’ll see Stargate Atlantis or Stargate Universe may depend on the success of the original launch. Wyvern Gaming is best known for its tabletop board games, though many of them have a strong narrative focus such as the time travel card game Sojourn: A Journey Through Time. This is the first Stargate roleplaying game since the original D20 System version from AEG in 2003-2004.
Free RPG Day is this Saturday, June 15! The annual event at local gaming stores around the world features free products from a number of companies. This year’s offerings include a quickstart for Dungeon Crawl Classics, “We Be Heroes” for Pathfinder with goblin protagonists, a Starfinder adventure, a storybook for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Starfinder dice from Q-Workshop, the quickstart for The Witcher, a quickstart for Outbreak Undead 2nd Edition, an adventure for the retro-80s adventure game Kids on Bikes, the quickstart for Modern AGE, and almost a dozen more products from various companies. Make sure to check the store locator on the website to find out which retailers near you are participating, and check with the store as each has different policies for how you get your free products.
FunkoPop have announced a partnership with Games Workshop for Warhammer 40,000 figures. The Primaris Inquisitor Funko Pop vinyl figure is the first in a DIY line of unpainted Pops. Because even when you’re buying Warhammer 40,000 Funko Pops, you still have to paint the blasted things yourself! Seriously guys, not even the Starter Set comes pre-painted? Anyway... The figure will be available starting this summer exclusively in Games Workshop and Warhammer stores.
The Humble Science Fiction Bundle features more than $300 worth of DRM-free ebooks from a wide array of authors in sci-fi, fantasy, urban fantasy, and horror. And if you know your game designers, you’ll see a few familiar names among the authors. The novels and anthologies include top name genre authors working today including Neil Gaiman, Charlaine Harris, Kelley Armstrong, Martha Wells, L. A. Banks, Anne Rice, Tad Williams, Ari Marmell, Cory Doctorow, Stephen King, Usula K LeQuin, Elizabeth Moon, Elizabeth Bear, Jeff Salyards, and a lot more. The top-tier bundle features twenty books for just $15 and runs until Wednesday, June 19. And if you’re looking to get into streaming, there’s still two weeks left on the Streaming 2019 bundle with a year’s license for XSplit and a lot more software and licenses to help you create a professional looking stream with ease.
This game is called MÖRK BORG. The tagline is “Rules light. Art heavy. All doom. MÖRK BORG is a roleplaying game/art book that takes you to the darker corners of a soon-dead world.” The creators describe it as “A Doom Metal Album of a Game”. They’re Swedish. Pretty sure you’ve made up your mind on this one already. They’re producing the game in both Swedish and English, but at least at the SEK 100 (about US$11) level for PDFs, you don’t have to choose as you get both. The SEK 250 (about US$26) gets you the printed rulebook, while SEK 500 (about US$53) gets the Special Edition cover version. This Kickstarter is fully funded and runs until Sunday, June 16.
Would you like a flat-pack model pirate ship with 1” square grid printed right on each deck? The Pirate’s Plundership is for you! The model ship comes packed flat for easy shipping and can be assembled easily into a 17 inch long, 5.5 inch wide, and 12 inch tall ship with a printed grid on one side and bare wood ready to paint on the other. There’s even rules included for a fast paced game using the ship and included dice. You can get the ship itself for $50, or for $60 you can add on wooden laser-cut 2D stand-up miniatures for a complete crew and a Kraken (because what’s a pirate ship without a kraken attack?) This Kickstarter is fully funded and runs until Monday, June 17.
Apex Coasters is launching a line of fantasy-themed ceramic coasters with cork backing, perfect for game night. The artwork for each coaster includes a gold dragon, an ogre, elven mage, lich, human wizard, lizardman, rogue, dwarf warrior, and…a squirrel stealing gems? The squirrel is cute as heck so I’ll let it slide. Each coaster is made of thick ceramic with a cork backing to provide maximum protection no matter what surface you’re trying to protect. You can get four coasters for $28, five for $34, six for $40, seven for $46, eight for $52, and more all the way up to sixteen coasters for $100. And yes, you can choose which coasters you want, either mixing and matching or getting one matching set. This project is fully funded and runs until Thursday, June 20.
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.com, and you can get more discussion of the week’s news on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk every week. You can follow me on Twitch where I’ve been trying to get a Jedi Consular through Level 1-50 during a Double XP week on Star Wars: The Old Republic, subscribe to Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube for videos on gaming history, RPG reviews, 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.
