Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! D&D Community Update, PaizoCon Online schedule announced, new Fallout: Winter of Atom preview, 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 the new One D&D Playtest Packet.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
Wizards of the Coast released a new Community Update as a follow-up to the April 2023 Creator Summit. The update starts by talking about the support for schools and clubs beginning with the new Dungeons & Dragons teaching kits. This second round of kits for grades 4-6 and 6-8 are available for free for teachers and educators to integrate D&D into their lessons. There will also be a second release of the D&D Afterschool Club Kits available to reserve this summer, and D&D Beyond will offer a new Educator License level that will allow access to the character builder and a selection of rulebooks, adventures, and other products for free to qualifying organizations. Sign-ups for the new program will be available “in the next couple of months”. More information is available on the Educator Portal on the D&D Website.
The update also briefly touched on accessibility efforts for D&D Beyond, stating that the company is “currently looking into the best ways to connect with experts and key creators” in the accessibility community to improve the D&D Beyond toolset for players with disabilities. Speaking of D&D Beyond, Wizards of the Coast plans to turn the site into the “front door” for Dungeons & Dragons as a first stop for news, updates, books, toolsets, articles, and more with the eventual plan to migrate the entire D&D website into D&D Beyond.
Wizards of the Coast also touched on creator concerns about third-party marketplaces in the wake of the OGL controversy and the further integration of D&D Beyond into aspects of the game. Quoting from the website as the wording seems rather specific and this is of great concern to creators:
The update closes out by stating that Wizards of the Coast will not be attending Fan Expo Canada as previously announced, but are still attending Gen Con in August, which will also be the location of the next creator summit. There was also a brief update about the virtual tabletop, stating that the VTT is still in a pre-alpha state and that the next step is testing with a small group of players.
Keith Baker announced he is ending production on new Eberron books through his company Keith Baker Presents. KB Presents has published four titles so far under DMs Guild for the Eberron setting: Exploring Eberron, Chronicles of Eberron, Dread Metrol: Into the Mists (a crossover with Ravenloft), and Eberron Confidential. One further book from Keith Baker and his team will be released, Frontiers of Eberron: Quickstone, in the second half of 2023. The new book will be published by Visionary Production and Design, who will also take over management of the other four titles released. Baker plans to focus his efforts on his game company, Twogether Studios. The Eberron setting itself is an official Dungeons & Dragons setting owned by Wizards of the Coast and the KB Presents books have been published under the creator content program on Dungeonmasters Guild.
Almost one month ago exactly, Paizo announced a partnership with video game developer BKOM Studios to produce new Pathfinder video games. Well now we know what one of those games will be: Pathfinder Abomination Vaults, a co-op action RPG. This hack-and-slash game will allow you and up to three friends work together playing iconic Pathfinder heroes through the sprawling dungeons of Gauntlight Keep and put an end to the evil schemes of the sorceress Belcorra Haruvex. The game will use elements from the Pathfinder tabletop RPG rules and include character progression, character customization flexible enough to allow “DPS Cleric” and “Tanky Ranger” characters, and will of course be based on the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path. Oh, and no microtransactions. More information will be released in the coming weeks leading up to a Kickstarter campaign. The pre-launch page is up now and already has over 5000 followers.
One place where we’re likely to get more information is the BKOM Studios presentation at PaizoCon Online, which was just one of the panels announced as Paizo released the stream schedule for the convention. Panels will be spread across the weekend of May 26-28 available on the official Paizo Twitch channel. The event kicks off with a keynote address from publisher Erik Mona on Friday, May 26, at 10:00 AM to 12:00 Noon Pacific Time with panels running until 7 PM Pacific all day including News from Organized Play, Introduction to Foundary, Pathfinder 2e on Fantasy Grounds Unity, and more. Saturday, May 27, kicks off at 9 AM Pacific with a Pathfinder Nexus Update and Q&A covering the Pathfinder community content program and continues through the day until 6 PM featuring the panel from BKOM Studios, Ask the Paizo GMs, GMing Pathfinder on Roll20, Pathfinder Adventures, and more. Sunday, May 28, starts at 9 AM with Pathfinder and Starfinder Digitalmap Tools and continues until 4 PM with another session of Ask the Paizo GMs, Build an Adventure Workshop, a presentation from WizKids, and more. Paizo will also be running a virtual exhibition hall on Discord with more presentations from digital content guests and a second track of streaming panels from the Discord “stages”, and there will also be online games available through Warhorn.
Steamforged Games acquired the rights to the roleplaying board game Alter Quest. The game originally published by Blacklist Games raised more the $620,000 on Kickstarter in 2019 as a “spiritual successor” to the popular board game HeroQuest. Unlike the original, Altar Quest is a fully cooperative game with no need for a player in the gamemaster role thanks to the game’s Modular Deck System. The randomized system creates a unique map, enemies, quests, bosses, and even story events for each playthrough with rules for standalone games as well as linked campaign play. Like its inspiration, the box set for Alter Quest is packed with 3D terrain and miniatures to populate the modular map. While the Kickstarter was fulfilled, a retail version of the game never materialized under Blacklist Games. Steamforged will be taking over development, production, and distribution for the game and all future releases.
The release of Fallout: Winter of Atom comes ever closer and Modiphius has another preview of what to expect from the campaign. This newest preview focuses on a new mutated creature that puts even the terrifying Deathclaws to shame: The Gigapede. The giant monster is controlled by the Children of Atom and used as a weapon during the faction’s war against the Commonwealth. Impervious to most weapons, this huge beast can attack multiple targets in melee or with a caustic radioactive spittle attack at range, but even worse is capable of burrowing up to two zones in a single turn before emerging for massive damage. But don’t worry too much as the PCs will have access to better weapons from the American Heritage Museum west of Boston with new arms and armor. Fallout: Winter of Atom will be available for pre-order in May with a scheduled release for July.
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 the new One D&D Playtest Packet.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
- EN5ider #512 is a new Monstrous Menagerie is a trio of trees with variants of the Treant including the ashen pine, hagedoorn, and weant.
- EN5ider #513 is an Enchanted Trinkets full of low-powered magic items all themed around bringing out your creativity and artistic expression.
- The newest episode of Not DnD features Rob Heinsoo from Pelgrane Press discussing 13th Age 2nd Edition.
- Wizards of the Coast announced a new charity D&D product raising money for ExtraLife, the Misplaced MonsterS: Volume One with monsters illustrated by children.
- We’re collecting the announced changes so far coming to the remastered version of Pathfinder 2nd Edition from Paizo.
- You can also get a closer look at the new limited sketch covers featuring artwork from Wayne Reynolds for the remastered Pathfinder core rulebooks.
- Rob Wieland reviewed the new Cubicle 7 RPG set in the Warhammer 40K universe, Imperium Maledictum.
- Brandon Chappell spoke with Ben Ayres-Kerr, Production Design Manager for OneBookShelf, to discuss the upcoming redesign of DriveThruRPG.
- Chaosium released a set of themed character sheets and other record sheets for the generic RPG Basic Roleplaying (so no more repurposing Call of Cthulhu sheets for other genres!)
- Michael Tresca continues his examination of the use of algorithmic “AI” generation in RPGs by examining the costs of using the “free” services.
- Michael Tresca also looks at the growing trend of multiverses and the history of the term and concept in fiction and gaming.
- Mike Myler’s newest ENterplanetary DimENsions is the famed Forge of Legends, Valhal, a realm of trials and challenges.
- 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.
Wizards of the Coast released a new Community Update as a follow-up to the April 2023 Creator Summit. The update starts by talking about the support for schools and clubs beginning with the new Dungeons & Dragons teaching kits. This second round of kits for grades 4-6 and 6-8 are available for free for teachers and educators to integrate D&D into their lessons. There will also be a second release of the D&D Afterschool Club Kits available to reserve this summer, and D&D Beyond will offer a new Educator License level that will allow access to the character builder and a selection of rulebooks, adventures, and other products for free to qualifying organizations. Sign-ups for the new program will be available “in the next couple of months”. More information is available on the Educator Portal on the D&D Website.
The update also briefly touched on accessibility efforts for D&D Beyond, stating that the company is “currently looking into the best ways to connect with experts and key creators” in the accessibility community to improve the D&D Beyond toolset for players with disabilities. Speaking of D&D Beyond, Wizards of the Coast plans to turn the site into the “front door” for Dungeons & Dragons as a first stop for news, updates, books, toolsets, articles, and more with the eventual plan to migrate the entire D&D website into D&D Beyond.
Wizards of the Coast also touched on creator concerns about third-party marketplaces in the wake of the OGL controversy and the further integration of D&D Beyond into aspects of the game. Quoting from the website as the wording seems rather specific and this is of great concern to creators:
The update closes out by stating that Wizards of the Coast will not be attending Fan Expo Canada as previously announced, but are still attending Gen Con in August, which will also be the location of the next creator summit. There was also a brief update about the virtual tabletop, stating that the VTT is still in a pre-alpha state and that the next step is testing with a small group of players.
Keith Baker announced he is ending production on new Eberron books through his company Keith Baker Presents. KB Presents has published four titles so far under DMs Guild for the Eberron setting: Exploring Eberron, Chronicles of Eberron, Dread Metrol: Into the Mists (a crossover with Ravenloft), and Eberron Confidential. One further book from Keith Baker and his team will be released, Frontiers of Eberron: Quickstone, in the second half of 2023. The new book will be published by Visionary Production and Design, who will also take over management of the other four titles released. Baker plans to focus his efforts on his game company, Twogether Studios. The Eberron setting itself is an official Dungeons & Dragons setting owned by Wizards of the Coast and the KB Presents books have been published under the creator content program on Dungeonmasters Guild.
Almost one month ago exactly, Paizo announced a partnership with video game developer BKOM Studios to produce new Pathfinder video games. Well now we know what one of those games will be: Pathfinder Abomination Vaults, a co-op action RPG. This hack-and-slash game will allow you and up to three friends work together playing iconic Pathfinder heroes through the sprawling dungeons of Gauntlight Keep and put an end to the evil schemes of the sorceress Belcorra Haruvex. The game will use elements from the Pathfinder tabletop RPG rules and include character progression, character customization flexible enough to allow “DPS Cleric” and “Tanky Ranger” characters, and will of course be based on the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path. Oh, and no microtransactions. More information will be released in the coming weeks leading up to a Kickstarter campaign. The pre-launch page is up now and already has over 5000 followers.
One place where we’re likely to get more information is the BKOM Studios presentation at PaizoCon Online, which was just one of the panels announced as Paizo released the stream schedule for the convention. Panels will be spread across the weekend of May 26-28 available on the official Paizo Twitch channel. The event kicks off with a keynote address from publisher Erik Mona on Friday, May 26, at 10:00 AM to 12:00 Noon Pacific Time with panels running until 7 PM Pacific all day including News from Organized Play, Introduction to Foundary, Pathfinder 2e on Fantasy Grounds Unity, and more. Saturday, May 27, kicks off at 9 AM Pacific with a Pathfinder Nexus Update and Q&A covering the Pathfinder community content program and continues through the day until 6 PM featuring the panel from BKOM Studios, Ask the Paizo GMs, GMing Pathfinder on Roll20, Pathfinder Adventures, and more. Sunday, May 28, starts at 9 AM with Pathfinder and Starfinder Digitalmap Tools and continues until 4 PM with another session of Ask the Paizo GMs, Build an Adventure Workshop, a presentation from WizKids, and more. Paizo will also be running a virtual exhibition hall on Discord with more presentations from digital content guests and a second track of streaming panels from the Discord “stages”, and there will also be online games available through Warhorn.
Steamforged Games acquired the rights to the roleplaying board game Alter Quest. The game originally published by Blacklist Games raised more the $620,000 on Kickstarter in 2019 as a “spiritual successor” to the popular board game HeroQuest. Unlike the original, Altar Quest is a fully cooperative game with no need for a player in the gamemaster role thanks to the game’s Modular Deck System. The randomized system creates a unique map, enemies, quests, bosses, and even story events for each playthrough with rules for standalone games as well as linked campaign play. Like its inspiration, the box set for Alter Quest is packed with 3D terrain and miniatures to populate the modular map. While the Kickstarter was fulfilled, a retail version of the game never materialized under Blacklist Games. Steamforged will be taking over development, production, and distribution for the game and all future releases.
The release of Fallout: Winter of Atom comes ever closer and Modiphius has another preview of what to expect from the campaign. This newest preview focuses on a new mutated creature that puts even the terrifying Deathclaws to shame: The Gigapede. The giant monster is controlled by the Children of Atom and used as a weapon during the faction’s war against the Commonwealth. Impervious to most weapons, this huge beast can attack multiple targets in melee or with a caustic radioactive spittle attack at range, but even worse is capable of burrowing up to two zones in a single turn before emerging for massive damage. But don’t worry too much as the PCs will have access to better weapons from the American Heritage Museum west of Boston with new arms and armor. Fallout: Winter of Atom will be available for pre-order in May with a scheduled release for July.
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.
