The Biggest RPG Story of the Year?

Green Ronin's Chris Pramas has offered some cryptic clues as to a product slated for Gen Con this year. "Our goal is to release Fantasy AGE in May. Then at the end of July we will release the game’s first setting book. This is our big GenCon release and part of something super exciting … that I can’t talk about yet. This will be the focus of our GenCon presence this year and perhaps the biggest RPG story of the year. Watch for an announcement in a few months." What could it be?

I mentioned Green Ronin's plans for 2015 a few days ago, including their whole product range. Fantasy AGE is the core rulebook of the system that drives Green Ronin's current Dragon Age roleplaying game. "This will be strictly a rule book with no attached setting. The core of the game will be well-familiar to Dragon Age fans but there are some differences, the biggest of which is the magic system. That of Dragon Age was meant to emulate how magic works in Thedas, so I am modifying it heavily for Fantasy AGE."

Is Steve Kenson writing it? Pramas says "Nothing we can talk about right now unfortunately, but stay tuned for some exciting announcements over the coming months. What has Steve Kenson been working on the last five months? Find out in April!" Steve Kenson is, of course, best known for superhero RPGs including Mutants & Masterminds and his own ICONS system.

So, a setting book for a fantasy RPG by Steve Kenson which might be the biggest RPG story of the year? I'm curious! What do you think it might be?

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Not sure how many of you are familiar with Wil Wheaton's show on youtube called TableTop, but as part of the kickstarter for the 3rd season there was a stretch goal for an RPG show. On Wil's most recent podcast he spoke about working on said show and that there would be adventures and a world book released for an existing RPG. Since before he has played the Dragon Age RPG on Tabletop, I am beginning to suspect that the Green Ronin's big announcement is that they will be releasing the RPG Show's setting and adventures for the AGE system.

Yep, that's the third or fourth time this has been posted in this thread.

If that's what it ends up being, I imagine a lot of people will be very disappointed/underwhelmed. The phrase "the biggest RPG story of the year" conjures up much grander thoughts.

Honestly, if this is true, I think it would be the biggest RPG story of the year. Tabletop has tremendous reach... and, really, this is a niche hobby.

Anyway, whatever it turns out to be I hope it is a big success. GR has been putting out great products for 15 years and deserve further success.

 

[RandomCitizenX]

I missed the speculation leading back in to Tabletop. On his podcast Wil was talking about how he was designing the setting, but there were RPG people working on it with him and taking his ideas to translate into mechanics/adventures and such. He didn't want to talk about any more details because a PR team was involved. He did refer to it as an indie RPG, so not sure how that affects the idea of it being AGE and therefore the announcement.

Given Tabletops popularity and ability to push sales on boardgames, this would definitely be a huge story. It would basically be the Penny Arcade play videos turned up to 11, especially since Wil has gotten some fairly famous people on Tabletop. Depending on who he gets sitting on the opposite side of his GM's screen, this could be very big indeed for Green Ronin and the AGE system

 

[ArcaneSpringboard]

Here's a blog post he wrote on it.

http://wilwheaton.net/2014/11/tabletops-rpg-show/

"We’re in preproduction right now. I’ve designed the fundamental pillars of the world, met with some writers and game designers to get the ball rolling on the actual world building and campaign writing, and I’ve written an outline for the campaign itself."



I was really hoping for WotC licensing out the games, but I think this fits all the criteria, the timeline is right from pre-production to release, and what system they're using will be a BFD as far as RPG news goes.

 

[TarionzCousin]

Wil Wheaton's game fits the criteria, in my humble opinion. Tabletop does have more cachet than the WotC game videos. Also, Chris Pramas ran a session of Dragon Age for Wil and his friends.

I think the mystery is solved, Scooby.

 

[Morrus]

Wil Wheaton's game fits the criteria, in my humble opinion. Tabletop does have more cachet than the WotC game videos. Also, Chris Pramas ran a session of Dragon Age for Wil and his friends.

I think the mystery is solved, Scooby.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I think that's what it is.

 

[RandomCitizenX]

I know that they have licensed a couple of settings in the past (Dragonlance and Ravenloft Specifically), but for this edition I don't see them working out that sort of arrangement again. This is especially true with the way they are valuing the IP itself over the game.