Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! Previews of Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica for D&D, rumors of a new Baldur’s Gate video game, a new D&D board game announced, and more!
The new Dungeons & Dragons setting book, Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica, is due out in just over a month, and the previews and leaks are coming fast for this first printed crossover between Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. First, Nathan Stewart held up the book during a live Twitch stream, showing the Circle of Spores subclass for the Druid. The images in the link above feature artwork and some of the text, including circle spells and special class powers like Spreading Spores and Symbiotic Entity. Greg Tito and Ari Levitch appeared on the Dragon Talk Podcast to talk more about how the Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica fits into the Magic: The Gathering lore, opening directly after the events of the Return to Ravnica expansion. They go into more detail about the different guilds and places in Ravnica and give more information about the custom Ravnica dice set, which will include the seals of all ten guilds on the tin and feature an extra oversized D10 with one seal on each side, allowing you to randomly roll a guild. More previews are on the way as well, so keep an eye on the EN World front page for more news about the Guilds, the new subclasses, new races (not counting the player race Minotaurs already confirmed by Jeremy Crawford on Twitter), and more over the coming weeks.
WizKids announced a new Dungeons & Dragons board game, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage Board Game. This new game will be part of the Adventure System games, including previous D&D Board games like Castle Ravenloft, The Legend of Drizzt, Wrath of Ashardalon, Temple of Elemental Evil, and Tomb of Annihilation. It is cross-compatible with those games while still being a stand-alone game on its own with new rules for environment, Bane and Boon cards, new Trap and Spell decks, and the ability to level up characters to Level 4 (previous games only went to Level 2). And if the game’s system isn’t appealing, it will come with more modular dungeon tiles used to create the board (though they’re of a thinner cardstock than the official Dungeon Tiles products) and a selection of miniatures (unpainted in the normal edition, but a limited Premium Edition will include pre-painted miniatures). There’s no price announced yet, but the game releases in March 2019.
While no official announcement has been made, it appears as though Baldur’s Gate 3 is currently in production, based on a tweet by Brian Fargo of inXile Entertainment. While rumors have circulated for a long time (with the tweet Fargo responding to including a link to a 2012 article speculating on a Kickstarter for Baldur’s Gate 3). However, this is the first confirmation that anyone is actively working on a new game in the award-winning series. Fargo doesn’t say who is working on the game, and while there is a chance it is inXile, that may not be likely as they’re currently supporting the just-released The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep and have announced Wasteland 3 coming out last year. However, the studio is one of the two biggest names in isometric roleplaying video games these days following Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tide of Numenera. As to the other big name…
Obsidian Entertainment is rumored to be in the final stages of negotiation for an acquisition by Microsoft. Best known for their work on sequels to other games such as Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, and Neverwinter Nights 2, the studio has more recently focused on wholly owned properties like Pillars of Eternity, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, and Tyranny, though they did do the licensed adaptation of the Pathfinder Adventures card game to PC and mobile devices as well as South Park: Stick of Truth. Microsoft responded to requests for comments from Kotaku by stating “We do not comment on rumors or speculation”, while Obsidian was at least more entertaining by responding, “Unfortunately, we don’t comment on rumors or speculation other than to say that the Rumors album by Fleetwood Mac still holds up.” What makes this most interesting for tabletop gaming fans is that Obsidian has a long history in roleplaying games and adaption tabletop mechanics, while Microsoft owns the video game rights to several tabletop properties such as Shadowrun and BattleTech/MechWarrior. And considering the close relationship between the teams at inXile and Obsidian (many were former Interplay employees), there’s also a chance they may be the team Brian Fargo referred to on Baldur’s Gate III (though that’s pure speculation).
Free League Publishing announced a merger with Järnringen, bringing together two of Sweden’s largest tabletop roleplaying publishers. Free League is best known for the roleplaying games Tales from the Loop and Mutant: Year Zero while Järnringen is the publisher of Symbaroum. The design teams of the two companies will be integrated and are already starting work together on upcoming projects including Forbidden Lands and Crusader Kings: The Board Game. The new company’s name will be “Free League Publishing”, which makes me very happy I won’t have to remember how to make that A using alt-codes. From each side of the merger:
There are no announced changes to any products announced throughout the year, though new games will be announced soon for the 2019 release schedule.
The Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000 AD Kickstarter is still going strong for another two weeks, and since it has crossed the £100,000 threshold, we get a nice present from Morrus! From EN Publishing, the roleplaying game design and publishing arm of EN World, the Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD Quickstart is available completely for free! This 29-page PDF includes a streamlined version of the WOIN rules on just a handful of pages so you can jump into the action as quickly as possible, on top of four pre-generated Judges and an adventure to clear out several floors of the long-abandoned Empire State Building. The Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000 AD Kickstarter runs until Thursday, October 25 and the game will release digitally immediately following the close of the Kickstarter with physical copies shipped out shortly thereafter. Disclosure: If it wasn’t clear above, this columnist is a paid contributor to EN World, which owns EN Publishing which is creating this product.
Wal-mart stores are launching a new “Collectibles Destination” in more than 3500 stores starting next week with a selection of collectible figurines and toys. Companies signed up to provide distribution and even exclusive toys and accessories include Funko, McFarlane Toys, and CultureFly. In addition, Lootcrate has signed up to provide exclusive themed lootcrates to stores as the sole in-store way to purchase Lootcrate boxes. The launch time for the new Collectibles Destination is October 15.
The classic Vampire: The Masquerade bundle is still up on Humble Bundle. The full bundle includes $252 worth of game books from the classic White Wolf era of the 1990s and early 2000s including exclusive Vampire: The Eternal Struggle digital cards and enough sourcebooks to run a Vampire game using the classic Revised Edition rules with multiple settings and all the options you could want. Additionally, there’s a comic bundle for the punk rock British indie comic Tank Girl, and the Make: Electronics 2018 bundle with $367 worth of books on home electronics crafts, home automation projects, and costume and prop ideas using electronics.
Warning: This Kickstarter may cause squeeing. Fiends & Foes is a set of stat cards for monsters in 5th Edition with incredibly cute chibi-style artwork. Seriously, did you ever think you’d go “Oh my god that kobold is so adorable!!”? Each deck is designed around tiers with a current total of six decks available (with more possibly unlocked via stretch goal). I just want to pinch the bugbear’s fuzzy widdle cheeks!! The cards feature chibi artwork on one side, and all the stats you need to use the monster in a game on the other, divided by challenge rating so they’re easy to sort. One deck is available for a ¥1100 pledge (about US$10), two for ¥2200 (about US$19), three for ¥3300 (about US$29), four for ¥4400 (about US$39), and all decks for ¥5500 (about US$49), with each tier also including print-and-play PDFs of the cards and miniatures. This project is fully funded and runs until Tuesday, October 16.
Oh, I guess this is a theme week with useful card decks, as the Sidequest Decks are the perfect solution for DM’s Block when the players go off the rails. This project is for three different decks: After the TPK featuring encounters after the entire party has died (from playing as ghosts to trying to escape the afterlife), Lovecraftian/Paranormal featuring encounters for modern or recent-past investigative supernatural games, and a Modern Spies and Supers deck for superhero and spy games. One side of the card is a map, while the other is the setup for the encounter with various paths to overcome the challenges. Each one is system-neutral so it works no matter what rules you decide to play with. You can get a printable PDF for $5 while a deck is an $11 pledge each (with add-ons of $11 for each additional deck), and a $55 pledge level that gets you all eleven Sidequest Decks released so far. This project is fully funded and runs until Tuesday, October 16.
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@enworldnews.comand you can get more discussion of the week’s news on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk every week. You can follow me on Twitter @Abstruse where I’m going to announce some test streams for my new layout on Twitch as I get into the spirit of things to stream Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death, subscribe to Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube featuring videos on gaming history 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.
The new Dungeons & Dragons setting book, Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica, is due out in just over a month, and the previews and leaks are coming fast for this first printed crossover between Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons. First, Nathan Stewart held up the book during a live Twitch stream, showing the Circle of Spores subclass for the Druid. The images in the link above feature artwork and some of the text, including circle spells and special class powers like Spreading Spores and Symbiotic Entity. Greg Tito and Ari Levitch appeared on the Dragon Talk Podcast to talk more about how the Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica fits into the Magic: The Gathering lore, opening directly after the events of the Return to Ravnica expansion. They go into more detail about the different guilds and places in Ravnica and give more information about the custom Ravnica dice set, which will include the seals of all ten guilds on the tin and feature an extra oversized D10 with one seal on each side, allowing you to randomly roll a guild. More previews are on the way as well, so keep an eye on the EN World front page for more news about the Guilds, the new subclasses, new races (not counting the player race Minotaurs already confirmed by Jeremy Crawford on Twitter), and more over the coming weeks.
WizKids announced a new Dungeons & Dragons board game, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage Board Game. This new game will be part of the Adventure System games, including previous D&D Board games like Castle Ravenloft, The Legend of Drizzt, Wrath of Ashardalon, Temple of Elemental Evil, and Tomb of Annihilation. It is cross-compatible with those games while still being a stand-alone game on its own with new rules for environment, Bane and Boon cards, new Trap and Spell decks, and the ability to level up characters to Level 4 (previous games only went to Level 2). And if the game’s system isn’t appealing, it will come with more modular dungeon tiles used to create the board (though they’re of a thinner cardstock than the official Dungeon Tiles products) and a selection of miniatures (unpainted in the normal edition, but a limited Premium Edition will include pre-painted miniatures). There’s no price announced yet, but the game releases in March 2019.
While no official announcement has been made, it appears as though Baldur’s Gate 3 is currently in production, based on a tweet by Brian Fargo of inXile Entertainment. While rumors have circulated for a long time (with the tweet Fargo responding to including a link to a 2012 article speculating on a Kickstarter for Baldur’s Gate 3). However, this is the first confirmation that anyone is actively working on a new game in the award-winning series. Fargo doesn’t say who is working on the game, and while there is a chance it is inXile, that may not be likely as they’re currently supporting the just-released The Bard’s Tale IV: Barrows Deep and have announced Wasteland 3 coming out last year. However, the studio is one of the two biggest names in isometric roleplaying video games these days following Wasteland 2 and Torment: Tide of Numenera. As to the other big name…
Obsidian Entertainment is rumored to be in the final stages of negotiation for an acquisition by Microsoft. Best known for their work on sequels to other games such as Fallout: New Vegas, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, and Neverwinter Nights 2, the studio has more recently focused on wholly owned properties like Pillars of Eternity, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, and Tyranny, though they did do the licensed adaptation of the Pathfinder Adventures card game to PC and mobile devices as well as South Park: Stick of Truth. Microsoft responded to requests for comments from Kotaku by stating “We do not comment on rumors or speculation”, while Obsidian was at least more entertaining by responding, “Unfortunately, we don’t comment on rumors or speculation other than to say that the Rumors album by Fleetwood Mac still holds up.” What makes this most interesting for tabletop gaming fans is that Obsidian has a long history in roleplaying games and adaption tabletop mechanics, while Microsoft owns the video game rights to several tabletop properties such as Shadowrun and BattleTech/MechWarrior. And considering the close relationship between the teams at inXile and Obsidian (many were former Interplay employees), there’s also a chance they may be the team Brian Fargo referred to on Baldur’s Gate III (though that’s pure speculation).
Free League Publishing announced a merger with Järnringen, bringing together two of Sweden’s largest tabletop roleplaying publishers. Free League is best known for the roleplaying games Tales from the Loop and Mutant: Year Zero while Järnringen is the publisher of Symbaroum. The design teams of the two companies will be integrated and are already starting work together on upcoming projects including Forbidden Lands and Crusader Kings: The Board Game. The new company’s name will be “Free League Publishing”, which makes me very happy I won’t have to remember how to make that A using alt-codes. From each side of the merger:
"We're very happy that the merger is finally happening," says Free League co-founder Tomas Härenstam. "We have a long history with Järnringen, great respect for their work, and we share similar philosophies on game design. Together we will be stronger, better, and have a greater international reach. And we'll have even more fun at work."
"There are many benefits of this merger," say's Järnringen co-founder Mattias Johnsson Haake. "But of course, the idea of working on Mutant and Coriolis again is especially appealing. Coriolis was created by us, and is in a way like a child we never got to see grow up. Mutant also has a special place in our hearts."
"There are many benefits of this merger," say's Järnringen co-founder Mattias Johnsson Haake. "But of course, the idea of working on Mutant and Coriolis again is especially appealing. Coriolis was created by us, and is in a way like a child we never got to see grow up. Mutant also has a special place in our hearts."
There are no announced changes to any products announced throughout the year, though new games will be announced soon for the 2019 release schedule.
The Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000 AD Kickstarter is still going strong for another two weeks, and since it has crossed the £100,000 threshold, we get a nice present from Morrus! From EN Publishing, the roleplaying game design and publishing arm of EN World, the Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD Quickstart is available completely for free! This 29-page PDF includes a streamlined version of the WOIN rules on just a handful of pages so you can jump into the action as quickly as possible, on top of four pre-generated Judges and an adventure to clear out several floors of the long-abandoned Empire State Building. The Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000 AD Kickstarter runs until Thursday, October 25 and the game will release digitally immediately following the close of the Kickstarter with physical copies shipped out shortly thereafter. Disclosure: If it wasn’t clear above, this columnist is a paid contributor to EN World, which owns EN Publishing which is creating this product.
Wal-mart stores are launching a new “Collectibles Destination” in more than 3500 stores starting next week with a selection of collectible figurines and toys. Companies signed up to provide distribution and even exclusive toys and accessories include Funko, McFarlane Toys, and CultureFly. In addition, Lootcrate has signed up to provide exclusive themed lootcrates to stores as the sole in-store way to purchase Lootcrate boxes. The launch time for the new Collectibles Destination is October 15.
The classic Vampire: The Masquerade bundle is still up on Humble Bundle. The full bundle includes $252 worth of game books from the classic White Wolf era of the 1990s and early 2000s including exclusive Vampire: The Eternal Struggle digital cards and enough sourcebooks to run a Vampire game using the classic Revised Edition rules with multiple settings and all the options you could want. Additionally, there’s a comic bundle for the punk rock British indie comic Tank Girl, and the Make: Electronics 2018 bundle with $367 worth of books on home electronics crafts, home automation projects, and costume and prop ideas using electronics.
Warning: This Kickstarter may cause squeeing. Fiends & Foes is a set of stat cards for monsters in 5th Edition with incredibly cute chibi-style artwork. Seriously, did you ever think you’d go “Oh my god that kobold is so adorable!!”? Each deck is designed around tiers with a current total of six decks available (with more possibly unlocked via stretch goal). I just want to pinch the bugbear’s fuzzy widdle cheeks!! The cards feature chibi artwork on one side, and all the stats you need to use the monster in a game on the other, divided by challenge rating so they’re easy to sort. One deck is available for a ¥1100 pledge (about US$10), two for ¥2200 (about US$19), three for ¥3300 (about US$29), four for ¥4400 (about US$39), and all decks for ¥5500 (about US$49), with each tier also including print-and-play PDFs of the cards and miniatures. This project is fully funded and runs until Tuesday, October 16.
Oh, I guess this is a theme week with useful card decks, as the Sidequest Decks are the perfect solution for DM’s Block when the players go off the rails. This project is for three different decks: After the TPK featuring encounters after the entire party has died (from playing as ghosts to trying to escape the afterlife), Lovecraftian/Paranormal featuring encounters for modern or recent-past investigative supernatural games, and a Modern Spies and Supers deck for superhero and spy games. One side of the card is a map, while the other is the setup for the encounter with various paths to overcome the challenges. Each one is system-neutral so it works no matter what rules you decide to play with. You can get a printable PDF for $5 while a deck is an $11 pledge each (with add-ons of $11 for each additional deck), and a $55 pledge level that gets you all eleven Sidequest Decks released so far. This project is fully funded and runs until Tuesday, October 16.
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@enworldnews.comand you can get more discussion of the week’s news on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk every week. You can follow me on Twitter @Abstruse where I’m going to announce some test streams for my new layout on Twitch as I get into the spirit of things to stream Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death, subscribe to Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube featuring videos on gaming history 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.
