Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! New OneD&D playtest, remaster of Pathfinder 2nd Edition announced, Green Ronin publishing Into the Motherlands and Valiant Universe RPGs, and more!
For a quick summary of the week’s news, Jessica Hancock will bring you up to speed with EN Live's This Week in TTRPG every Friday.
Don’t forget, you can keep up with all the week’s gaming news in detail with Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk. This week, Morrus, Peter, and Jessica talk about EN Publishing’s Kickstarter for the Level Up adventure path To Save a Kingdom.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
The newest Unearthed Arcana playtest document for One D&D is now available. The 50-page document includes the full classes of Barbarian, Fighter, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard with one subclass each. There are a lot of changes for the classes so I won’t go over them all, but I do want to talk about the new Mastery property. Each weapon now has a Mastery Property that allows an option if your character has Weapon Mastery for that weapon. How do you get that? All characters can choose this as a feat starting at 4th level, which gives access to a single weapon. You can change the weapon choice following a Long Rest and doing some weapons drills. Barbarians and Fighters both gain Weapon Mastery as a first-level class feature. Barbarians choose two weapons to gain Weapon Mastery with while Fighters choose three with this number increasing as the character gains levels. As with the feat, the weapons can be changed following a Long Rest. There are also many changes to the weapons table with damage dice and weapon properties being changed around a bit, the Net being moved to the Adventuring Gear section as it does not deal damage, and the Musket and Pistol being added to the Martial Weapons category in the Player’s Handbook rather than showing up in the Dungeonmasters Guide (with a note that DMs determines which weapons are available in the setting).
For more information, Jeremy Crawford previewed the playtest packet on YouTube or you can join in the discussions here on EN World. The playtest document is available to download now from D&D Beyond, and the survey for feedback starts on May 17.
Paizo announced that Pathfinder 2nd Edition will receive new “remastered” core rulebooks. This is not a new edition of the game, but based on statements is closer to a reprint with errata added and a few minor revisions mostly focused on changes to or removal of content that requires use of the Open Gaming License as part of the system’s move to the Open RPG Creative License. Paizo stated that the removed options are still part of the Pathfinder 2nd Edition rules and will remain fully compatible with the rules, but will no longer be included in future Pathfinder releases. The core rulebook line is also being reorganized with the four core rulebooks changing titles. The Core Rulebook will become Player Core, the Gamemastery Guide will be GM Core, the Bestiary changes to Monster Core, and the Advance Player’s Guide will be Player Core 2. The information presented in the books will also be reorganized, so some material previously available in one book will now be published in another. The first look at the new book will come at PaizoCon held from May 26-29, but we do know that there will be two Special Editions of all four books available (one with the sketch artwork of Wayne Reynolds previewed yesterday and one with the traditional faux-leather cover) and new softcover Pocket Editions will come out around three months after the hardcover release.
Green Ronin had two big announcements this week. First, the company is taking over publishing duties for the Afrofuturist RPG Into the Motherlands. After raising more than $360,000 on Kickstarter, Into the Motherlands hit a bump in the road on the way to release after Andrews McMeel Publishing suddenly withdrew from the tabletop roleplaying game market earlier this year. Writing and design work will still be handled by CypherCo with Green Ronin just handling publishing and distribution to assist in getting the book into the hands of Kickstarter backers first and onto store shelves after. More information is expected in the coming months.
In addition, Green Ronin announced a licensing deal with the comic book company Valiant Entertainment to create Valiant Adventures Roleplaying Game. The Valiant Universe of superhero comics was originally created by former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter and comic artist Bob Layton in 1989. The Valiant Adventures Roleplaying Game will be unrelated to the previous adaptation by Catalyst Game Labs released in 2014 and will instead be an all-new stand-alone system using the rules from Mutants & Masterminds. The first two books will be Valiant Adventures Hero’s Handbook core rulebook and Worlds of Valiant campaign setting book set for release in 2024.
Free League has opened pre-orders for the new Alien RPG expansion book Building Better Worlds. This complete campaign module will have all the tools needed to run a full open-world campaign as an explorer or colonist in the Alien universe. The book includes new gear and spaceships, an extrasolar species catalogue, framework and backstory for frontier campaigns, expanded character creation for explorers and colonists, six adventures that can be played in any order, guidelines for creating your own frontier setting, background and lore information about the history of space colonization, and more. This looks to be another sourcebook that will be great for fans of the Alien franchise regardless if they’re players of the Alien RPG game. The hardcover is available for preorder (with instant access to the PDF) for 428.00kr (US$41.47, £33.25) for a scheduled release this October.
Edge Studio released more information about the upcoming Twilight Imperium: Embers of the Imperium roleplaying game. The game is set for release in North America this week according to an update from Edge Studio that includes a preview of what you’ll find in the rulebook. Other recent previews include a look at the setting and factions of the Twilight Imperium world and a look at the new character creation options for the system. Fans of the game who have ideas for their own content will be pleased to know that the game will launch with support for the Genesys Foundary. Guidelines for using Twilight Imperium for the Genesys System’s creator content program are already available and creators can post their content as soon as they get their hands on the book. The game is based off the massive 4X board game from Asmodee sister company Fantasy Flight Games set in a sci-fi universe where players take on the roles of Keleres, special agents empowered by the Galactic Council to seek out and destroy threats so big they put the entire galaxy at risk. The hardcover has been available in some areas of Europe for several weeks with the hardcover arriving in North America this week and a PDF release coming shortly.
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@enpublishingrpg.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 to get notifications when I go live, follow me on Mastodon for RPG chat and general nonsense, 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.
For a quick summary of the week’s news, Jessica Hancock will bring you up to speed with EN Live's This Week in TTRPG every Friday.
Don’t forget, you can keep up with all the week’s gaming news in detail with Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk. This week, Morrus, Peter, and Jessica talk about EN Publishing’s Kickstarter for the Level Up adventure path To Save a Kingdom.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
- It’s the final week of EN Publishing’s Kickstarter for the To Save a Kingdom Adventure Path for 5e and Level Up: Advanced 5e, and we have a new sneak peek at the hardcover.
- EN5ider #511 is a new puzzle, “Interplanar Delicatessen”, that you can insert into your multiverse adventures that challenges the party with haute cuisine.
- Dawn Dalton covers all the big Paizo news from the week from organized play to new comics to a new adventure path and more.
- Modiphius announced a new sci-fi roleplaying game Dreams and Machines set for release at Gen Con this year.
- A new officially licensed art book, Lore & Legends: A Visual Celebration of the Fifth Edition of the World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game, is set for release this October from the creators of Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History.
- Rob Weiland reviewed Hard City, the hardboiled noir mystery RPG from Ospray Publishing.
- Rob also looked at the new Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Soulbound sourcebook Champions of Destruction.
- Charles Dunwoody interviewed Ferruccio Argento from Dicetale Games about the Kickstarter for their dark heroic fantasy RPG Blood and Doom.
- Mike Myler talks about the charity fundraiser bundle for the medical bills of prolific and beloved game designer Owen K.C. Stephens.
- Over 1200 players in Provo, Utah, broke the world record by playing together in the World’s Largest Game of Dungeons & Dragons.
- M.T. Black continues his retrospective of RPG periodicals past with Dragon Reflections #65 covering the September 1982 issue of Dragon.
- Michael Tresca talks more about using algorithmic generation services to create monsters.
- Don’t miss out on the newest RPG crowdfunding projects ending soon with Egg Embry’s RPG Crowdfunding News.
- Keep up with all the new print RPG releases with Charles Dunwoody’s RPG Print News.
- Find the big TTRPG sales, bundles, and charity fundraisers with the RPG Bundles, Freebies, and Sales News.
The newest Unearthed Arcana playtest document for One D&D is now available. The 50-page document includes the full classes of Barbarian, Fighter, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Wizard with one subclass each. There are a lot of changes for the classes so I won’t go over them all, but I do want to talk about the new Mastery property. Each weapon now has a Mastery Property that allows an option if your character has Weapon Mastery for that weapon. How do you get that? All characters can choose this as a feat starting at 4th level, which gives access to a single weapon. You can change the weapon choice following a Long Rest and doing some weapons drills. Barbarians and Fighters both gain Weapon Mastery as a first-level class feature. Barbarians choose two weapons to gain Weapon Mastery with while Fighters choose three with this number increasing as the character gains levels. As with the feat, the weapons can be changed following a Long Rest. There are also many changes to the weapons table with damage dice and weapon properties being changed around a bit, the Net being moved to the Adventuring Gear section as it does not deal damage, and the Musket and Pistol being added to the Martial Weapons category in the Player’s Handbook rather than showing up in the Dungeonmasters Guide (with a note that DMs determines which weapons are available in the setting).
For more information, Jeremy Crawford previewed the playtest packet on YouTube or you can join in the discussions here on EN World. The playtest document is available to download now from D&D Beyond, and the survey for feedback starts on May 17.
Paizo announced that Pathfinder 2nd Edition will receive new “remastered” core rulebooks. This is not a new edition of the game, but based on statements is closer to a reprint with errata added and a few minor revisions mostly focused on changes to or removal of content that requires use of the Open Gaming License as part of the system’s move to the Open RPG Creative License. Paizo stated that the removed options are still part of the Pathfinder 2nd Edition rules and will remain fully compatible with the rules, but will no longer be included in future Pathfinder releases. The core rulebook line is also being reorganized with the four core rulebooks changing titles. The Core Rulebook will become Player Core, the Gamemastery Guide will be GM Core, the Bestiary changes to Monster Core, and the Advance Player’s Guide will be Player Core 2. The information presented in the books will also be reorganized, so some material previously available in one book will now be published in another. The first look at the new book will come at PaizoCon held from May 26-29, but we do know that there will be two Special Editions of all four books available (one with the sketch artwork of Wayne Reynolds previewed yesterday and one with the traditional faux-leather cover) and new softcover Pocket Editions will come out around three months after the hardcover release.
Green Ronin had two big announcements this week. First, the company is taking over publishing duties for the Afrofuturist RPG Into the Motherlands. After raising more than $360,000 on Kickstarter, Into the Motherlands hit a bump in the road on the way to release after Andrews McMeel Publishing suddenly withdrew from the tabletop roleplaying game market earlier this year. Writing and design work will still be handled by CypherCo with Green Ronin just handling publishing and distribution to assist in getting the book into the hands of Kickstarter backers first and onto store shelves after. More information is expected in the coming months.
In addition, Green Ronin announced a licensing deal with the comic book company Valiant Entertainment to create Valiant Adventures Roleplaying Game. The Valiant Universe of superhero comics was originally created by former Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter and comic artist Bob Layton in 1989. The Valiant Adventures Roleplaying Game will be unrelated to the previous adaptation by Catalyst Game Labs released in 2014 and will instead be an all-new stand-alone system using the rules from Mutants & Masterminds. The first two books will be Valiant Adventures Hero’s Handbook core rulebook and Worlds of Valiant campaign setting book set for release in 2024.
Free League has opened pre-orders for the new Alien RPG expansion book Building Better Worlds. This complete campaign module will have all the tools needed to run a full open-world campaign as an explorer or colonist in the Alien universe. The book includes new gear and spaceships, an extrasolar species catalogue, framework and backstory for frontier campaigns, expanded character creation for explorers and colonists, six adventures that can be played in any order, guidelines for creating your own frontier setting, background and lore information about the history of space colonization, and more. This looks to be another sourcebook that will be great for fans of the Alien franchise regardless if they’re players of the Alien RPG game. The hardcover is available for preorder (with instant access to the PDF) for 428.00kr (US$41.47, £33.25) for a scheduled release this October.
Edge Studio released more information about the upcoming Twilight Imperium: Embers of the Imperium roleplaying game. The game is set for release in North America this week according to an update from Edge Studio that includes a preview of what you’ll find in the rulebook. Other recent previews include a look at the setting and factions of the Twilight Imperium world and a look at the new character creation options for the system. Fans of the game who have ideas for their own content will be pleased to know that the game will launch with support for the Genesys Foundary. Guidelines for using Twilight Imperium for the Genesys System’s creator content program are already available and creators can post their content as soon as they get their hands on the book. The game is based off the massive 4X board game from Asmodee sister company Fantasy Flight Games set in a sci-fi universe where players take on the roles of Keleres, special agents empowered by the Galactic Council to seek out and destroy threats so big they put the entire galaxy at risk. The hardcover has been available in some areas of Europe for several weeks with the hardcover arriving in North America this week and a PDF release coming shortly.
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@enpublishingrpg.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 to get notifications when I go live, follow me on Mastodon for RPG chat and general nonsense, 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.
