Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news. Avatar: The Last Airbender RPG announced, The Dragon Prince RPG going into open playtest, an amazing designer grant program for Quest, and more!
Don’t forget, you can get all the news every week with Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk! This week, Morrus and Peter are joined by Paul Hughes to talk about monster stats in Dungeons & Dragons.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week…
Magpie Games announced a license to create a tabletop roleplaying game based on the animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra. The show Avatar: The Last Airbender premiered on Nickelodeon in the United States and ran for three seasons from 2005 to 2008 with its spinoff The Legend of Korra running from 2012 to 2014. The series takes place in a world where some people have the ability to manipulate or “bend” one of the four classical elements of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. One person in each generation is the Avatar, someone capable of bending all four elements who is tasked with maintaining balance between the elements and with guarding the Spirit Realm. The roleplaying game is scheduled for release in February 2022 with two sourcebooks already scheduled, the first for Republic City in August 2022 and the second covering the Spirit World in February 2023.
So the head writer of Avatar: The Last Airbender was Aaron Ehasz who, along with Uncharted 3 director Justin Richmond, created an animated series for Netflix called The Dragon Prince, which Fandom announced last year they were turning into a tabletop RPG. Well that RPG, the Cortex-powered Tales of Xadia, is now in the playtesting stage and will have an open playtest starting soon. The game will be set between Season 3 and Season 4 of the television series with events from the upcoming Season 4 playing out in adventures and organized play (the release of Season 4 has been delayed, but the show has been renewed by Netflix through to Season 7). Signing up for the newsletter from the Tales of Xadia website grants immediate access to an introductory adventure and a rules primer with the full playtest rules available on February 9.
Speaking of surveys, there are a lot of them around right now. The survey for the most recent Unearthed Arcana with the three new “Gothic Lineage” options for Dungeons & Dragons is now open. This survey asks about both the three new lineages (dhampir, hexblood, and reborn) and the new changes to how D&D handles race/lineage. This survey will be open for “about two weeks”.
Paizo also has a survey ending soon for the Pathfinder 2e playtest of guns and gears, which covers the new classes gunslinger and inventor. These surveys close today, Friday, February 5, so if you have thoughts on the new version of the gunslinger or the new inventor class, you don’t have much time left.
Finally, EN Publishing’s Level Up 5e has two surveys open now for the two different versions of the warlord class. The surveys are separate for the different versions of the class, so it’s more about your thoughts on each version rather than a comparison between the two versions. And if you have any other thoughts about the playtests released so far for Level Up, all the surveys are still open going all the way back to September’s Origins Overview.
Paizo released a preview of Planets of Peril, the new pre-painted miniatures for Starfinder Battles from WizKids. The line includes 32 pre-painted miniatures sold in random 3-figure boosters for $14.99 each with a mix of figures leaning heavily to alien creatures. What’s most interesting, though, is the Docking Bay Premium Set of pre-painted terrain for $59.99. It’s rare to find pre-painted science fiction terrain and this is a great place to start with exactly what you’d want from a starship docking bay. Two large crates, two medium crates, four cylindrical containers, a metal bench, and a transport vehicle with a separate attachable payload trailer. Starfinder Battles: Planets of Peril will be available this March.
Itch.io and Ordalea Publishing have a charity bundle benefiting relief efforts for the recent Croatian earthquakes. A 6.4 magnitude earthquake was the strongest of a series over 120 earthquakes that struck Croatia over a period of just two weeks in December, leaving many homeless and large areas without running water or electricity. The bundle features 39 items regularly priced at over $275 available for just $25 with all money going to The SolidarnaHR Foundation. The bundle features a wide variety of independent roleplaying game producers spanning science fiction, fantasy, horror, adventure, Asian fantasy, contemporary, and more including rules, adventures, and resources. This bundle is available until February 22.
The rules-lite RPG Quest announced a project targeting new writers with an opportunity to get published. Designers can apply for a grant worth a total of $1000 toward creating an adventure for Quest. Recipients receive $750 up-front with the remaining $250 paid on publication of their adventure and will receive a minimum of three hours of free editing support and consultation from staff, templates and outlines for use, and other assistance to creators. What really makes this stand out from other “contest” style publication talent searches? Publisher The Adventure Guild says, and I’m quoting this directly:
Applications for this rare opportunity (seriously, I can’t remember another contest like this where applicants keep all rights whether or not their proposals are accepted) open in March and the number of recipients will depend on the performance of the upcoming Kickstarter for Quest adventures Bon Appétit! and In Good Company.
Humble is ramping up again with their tabletop-related offerings as the 5th Edition Dungeon Extravaganza is still going on. The bundle features a collection of thirty 5e products from adventures to sourcebooks to settings available in three packed pricing tiers. This bundle is available until Wednesday, February 17, and benefits the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society. Humble and the Black Library have brought back their multilingual bundles, this time featuring a collection of eighteen novels from Warhammer: Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000 available in English, French, and German. This bundle benefits EveryLibrary Institute and runs until Wednesday, February 24. Finally, there’s the brand new bundle from Asmodee Digital featuring video game recreations of some of Asmodee’s biggest tabletop games. The bundle includes Pandemic, Small World, Love Letter, Ticket to Ride, Splendor, A Game of Thrones: The Board Game, The Lord of the Rings Adventure Card Game, Terraforming Mars, and more plus expansions. This bundle benefits St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and runs until Thursday, February 18.
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 where I’ll be streaming this Sunday starting Yakuza: Like a Dragon, 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.
Don’t forget, you can get all the news every week with Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk! This week, Morrus and Peter are joined by Paul Hughes to talk about monster stats in Dungeons & Dragons.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week…
- EN Publishing announced their next Kickstarter project, One-Page Adventures, a collection of 25 adventures for 5e that take up just a single page each.
- There’s also an update covering all the material that EN Publishing has released to date for Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000 AD including Judge Dredd expansions, the bounty hunter Strontium Dog, and the mercenaries of Rogue Trooper.
- EN Publishing also has two openings for Publishing Administrators for part-time remote work based in the United Kingdom with applications open until Monday, February 8.
- A staffing shake-up happened at D&D Beyond as four members of the team have left the company, three of them in one day.
- Beth Rimmels has a review of Beadle & Grimm’s Silver Edition of Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden.
- Owlcat Studios released a new trailer in anticipation of the beta launch for the video game Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous earlier this week.
- Michael Tresca reviewed yet another recipe from Heroes’ Feast Cookbook for Dungeons & Dragons, this time the holiday feast inspired turkey leg, stuffing, and gravy.
- Historian Jon Peterson has another blog entry expanding on the history of tabletop RPGs and the concept of “immersion” in games.
- Charles Dunwoody looks at the seafaring rogues we call pirates and what motivated them to loot and plunder.
- Mike Myler’s newest Mythological Figure gives us a 5e version of Ahmed Muhiddin Piri, also known as Piri Reis, one of history’s greatest cartographers.
- Don’t forget to keep up with all the RPG crowdfunding projects ending soon with Egg Embry’s RPG Crowdfunding News and don’t miss any new print releases with Charles Dunwoody’s RPG Print News.
Magpie Games announced a license to create a tabletop roleplaying game based on the animated television series Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra. The show Avatar: The Last Airbender premiered on Nickelodeon in the United States and ran for three seasons from 2005 to 2008 with its spinoff The Legend of Korra running from 2012 to 2014. The series takes place in a world where some people have the ability to manipulate or “bend” one of the four classical elements of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. One person in each generation is the Avatar, someone capable of bending all four elements who is tasked with maintaining balance between the elements and with guarding the Spirit Realm. The roleplaying game is scheduled for release in February 2022 with two sourcebooks already scheduled, the first for Republic City in August 2022 and the second covering the Spirit World in February 2023.
So the head writer of Avatar: The Last Airbender was Aaron Ehasz who, along with Uncharted 3 director Justin Richmond, created an animated series for Netflix called The Dragon Prince, which Fandom announced last year they were turning into a tabletop RPG. Well that RPG, the Cortex-powered Tales of Xadia, is now in the playtesting stage and will have an open playtest starting soon. The game will be set between Season 3 and Season 4 of the television series with events from the upcoming Season 4 playing out in adventures and organized play (the release of Season 4 has been delayed, but the show has been renewed by Netflix through to Season 7). Signing up for the newsletter from the Tales of Xadia website grants immediate access to an introductory adventure and a rules primer with the full playtest rules available on February 9.
Speaking of surveys, there are a lot of them around right now. The survey for the most recent Unearthed Arcana with the three new “Gothic Lineage” options for Dungeons & Dragons is now open. This survey asks about both the three new lineages (dhampir, hexblood, and reborn) and the new changes to how D&D handles race/lineage. This survey will be open for “about two weeks”.
Paizo also has a survey ending soon for the Pathfinder 2e playtest of guns and gears, which covers the new classes gunslinger and inventor. These surveys close today, Friday, February 5, so if you have thoughts on the new version of the gunslinger or the new inventor class, you don’t have much time left.
Finally, EN Publishing’s Level Up 5e has two surveys open now for the two different versions of the warlord class. The surveys are separate for the different versions of the class, so it’s more about your thoughts on each version rather than a comparison between the two versions. And if you have any other thoughts about the playtests released so far for Level Up, all the surveys are still open going all the way back to September’s Origins Overview.
Paizo released a preview of Planets of Peril, the new pre-painted miniatures for Starfinder Battles from WizKids. The line includes 32 pre-painted miniatures sold in random 3-figure boosters for $14.99 each with a mix of figures leaning heavily to alien creatures. What’s most interesting, though, is the Docking Bay Premium Set of pre-painted terrain for $59.99. It’s rare to find pre-painted science fiction terrain and this is a great place to start with exactly what you’d want from a starship docking bay. Two large crates, two medium crates, four cylindrical containers, a metal bench, and a transport vehicle with a separate attachable payload trailer. Starfinder Battles: Planets of Peril will be available this March.
Itch.io and Ordalea Publishing have a charity bundle benefiting relief efforts for the recent Croatian earthquakes. A 6.4 magnitude earthquake was the strongest of a series over 120 earthquakes that struck Croatia over a period of just two weeks in December, leaving many homeless and large areas without running water or electricity. The bundle features 39 items regularly priced at over $275 available for just $25 with all money going to The SolidarnaHR Foundation. The bundle features a wide variety of independent roleplaying game producers spanning science fiction, fantasy, horror, adventure, Asian fantasy, contemporary, and more including rules, adventures, and resources. This bundle is available until February 22.
The rules-lite RPG Quest announced a project targeting new writers with an opportunity to get published. Designers can apply for a grant worth a total of $1000 toward creating an adventure for Quest. Recipients receive $750 up-front with the remaining $250 paid on publication of their adventure and will receive a minimum of three hours of free editing support and consultation from staff, templates and outlines for use, and other assistance to creators. What really makes this stand out from other “contest” style publication talent searches? Publisher The Adventure Guild says, and I’m quoting this directly:
Applications for this rare opportunity (seriously, I can’t remember another contest like this where applicants keep all rights whether or not their proposals are accepted) open in March and the number of recipients will depend on the performance of the upcoming Kickstarter for Quest adventures Bon Appétit! and In Good Company.
Humble is ramping up again with their tabletop-related offerings as the 5th Edition Dungeon Extravaganza is still going on. The bundle features a collection of thirty 5e products from adventures to sourcebooks to settings available in three packed pricing tiers. This bundle is available until Wednesday, February 17, and benefits the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society. Humble and the Black Library have brought back their multilingual bundles, this time featuring a collection of eighteen novels from Warhammer: Age of Sigmar and Warhammer 40,000 available in English, French, and German. This bundle benefits EveryLibrary Institute and runs until Wednesday, February 24. Finally, there’s the brand new bundle from Asmodee Digital featuring video game recreations of some of Asmodee’s biggest tabletop games. The bundle includes Pandemic, Small World, Love Letter, Ticket to Ride, Splendor, A Game of Thrones: The Board Game, The Lord of the Rings Adventure Card Game, Terraforming Mars, and more plus expansions. This bundle benefits St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and runs until Thursday, February 18.
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 where I’ll be streaming this Sunday starting Yakuza: Like a Dragon, 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.
