WotC Reveal Exodus, a New Video Game from the Decelopers of Mass Effect and Neverwinter Nights

[darjr]

Y'd hope they were! They directly own the company making it.

I don't think the tea-leaf reading that this is going to be an SF TT RPG for WotC though makes much sense at this stage. It looks like it'll be Mass Effect-esque gameplay-wise, so basically a shooter with with probably classes (or something approximating them), levelling up, and really strong talk-y sections where your decisions make some impact.

Literally none of that translates direct to a TT RPG - and people have really struggled to make good TT RPGs out of Mass Effect - hell I think I got closer than most of the attempts, however cute their websites, using Cortex Prime.

Thus hopefully no-one is assuming WotC is going to make this into an TT RPG.

Also time dilation is a red flag for a TT RPG. If they haven't got regular FTL drives, most conventional/popular-audience takes on space SF (that are set beyond a single star system) are right out, and we'd be looking a product with at best likely niche success as a TT RPG. If it's just a background element, sure but they directly implied it was an ongoing story element, which is concerning.

But with less style. The visual design of Mass Effect was 10/10, with SF inspirations from the 1960s onwards blended together amazingly. Apart from vaguely Foss-esque sublight arkship seen at the beginning, all this, including the enemies, looked fairly generic futuristic SF. I'm still excited for an another SF RPG but it's a pity they don't seem to have managed to grab as distinctive a style.

I suspect they wanted the company to be able to bask in thier own light.

Hasbro doesn’t share everything WotC does.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Rewatching the main trailer, I will say I do like that they made the two humans we see look "post-ethnic"/ethnically ambiguous which is something that's obviously very plausible/likely for people in the far future and also something you often read about in SF books, but that movies/TV just don't really do (for understandable reasons perhaps but still), and which games, which have nothing prevent them, also generally don't do. So kudos for that point.

Otherwise though gosh it does look like Mass Effect: Andromeda on a slightly lower budget. Which is fine. If MEA hadn't been called Mass Effect it'd be pretty well-regarded as a sort of second-tier RPG.

Hopefully the dialogue in the game is a big step up from the dialogue in the trailer!

 

[Parmandur]

Thus hopefully no-one is assuming WotC is going to make this into an TT RPG.

I mean, no, not assuming, but WotC said they were planning to do a TTRPG tie-in previously.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean, no, not assuming, but WotC said they were planning to do a TTRPG tie-in previously.

Did they? You got a source for that?

I thought they indicated they might, then people just assumed that was a 100% confirmation, but maybe that changed later.

 

[Parmandur]

Did they? You got a source for that?

I thought they indicated they might, then people just assumed that was a 100% confirmation, but maybe that changed later.

I apologize, because I don't at ha d...and searching anything about Archetype right now is overwhelmed by tlflak from the flurry of PR stuff they just put out. They were pretty clear that they definitely wanted a tabletop element developed in-house at WotC...which, you know, rhe license terms are at least probably tolerable.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

We should remember the sci-fi suffers a serious handicap, and it gets old very poorly. The new generations miss the lack of current technology in the sci-fi titles from previous decades. Star Trek is one of the best examples to show this.

And sci-fi TTRPGs are very open to influence from other sources. And here the dark sci-fi teleserie "Black Mirror" could be too strong to be overlooked.

If WotC publishes "Exodus RPG", maybe someplayers will use that system, but to play a different franchise. And there is a serious risk to be compared with Paizo's Starfinder.

I suspect WotC wanted that new system should allow to be adapted to other type of franchises, even superheroes.

* And maybe to promote that new system, this should be published as SRD but also a "demo" in D&DB, at least to playtest and search possible weak points in the power balance of the crunch.

 

[vecna00]

The real question we need to ask ourselves is why did Matthew McConaughey joke about having experience with "time dilation" in the past?
(a) It's a reference to his work in the film Interstellar
(b) It's a reference to his well-known and prolific... recreational activities
or
(c) Yes

If it hasn't been said yet...."Alright, alright, alright!"

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I apologize, because I don't at ha d...and searching anything about Archetype right now is overwhelmed by tlflak from the flurry of PR stuff they just put out. They were pretty clear that they definitely wanted a tabletop element developed in-house at WotC...which, you know, rhe license terms are at least probably tolerable.

Hmmm. I guess we'll see the current position if/when it inevitably comes up in some interview or another.

I know for sure that in a number of other older threads discussing Archetype Entertainment developing a then-unnamed SF RPG, people always suggested "Oh WotC will make a TT RPG of it!" or even claimed that was "obviously" the plan (or even more exotic claims like that the SF RPG would use 5E or the like, which obviously were rampant speculation), but nothing from WotC confirming that could be found.

However I'm often away from the board for months at a time, so it would have been easy for that to be stated by Archetype/WotC and for me to have missed a more recent thread on it (say in the last year).

 

[vecna00]

I apologize, because I don't at ha d...and searching anything about Archetype right now is overwhelmed by tlflak from the flurry of PR stuff they just put out. They were pretty clear that they definitely wanted a tabletop element developed in-house at WotC...which, you know, rhe license terms are at least probably tolerable.

Even trying to find the original press release on their site is proving difficult.

 

[vecna00]

Ok, I've found the press around the starting of the studio, but none of them mention a table top version of the game. So it's probably just speculation that turned into assumption/hope.

Personally, I hope there is a table top version...provided it's decently fun.

Wizards of the Coast Announces Archetype Entertainment to Develop New RPG - IGN

Headed by ex-BioWare devs, the new studio is developing a story-driven, sci-fi RPG for multiple platforms.

www.ign.com

Wizards of the Coast’s new game studio is making a new sci-fi RPG with BioWare vets

Archetype Entertainment joins the D&D and Magic: The Gathering company

www.polygon.com

Wizards of the Coast’s new Archetype Entertainment studio is making a sci-fi RPG

Wizards of the Coast announced today that its new Archetype Entertainment studio in Austin, Texas is working on a multiplatform sci-fi role-playing game.

venturebeat.com