RPG Print News – Kobold Press, EN Publishing, and More

Ptolus is back and it is still huge. Many more D&D products are also out for monsters, monster building advice, new spells, dragons, the world of Midgard, and conditions tracked by rings used with miniatures. Battlelords has new adventures and for fans of Star Trek, Boldly Go! offers a new RPG to allow exploring the galaxy. And a Traveller adventure is available again.

Note: RPG Print News covers new RPG releases and some classics and sales available from online retailers. It does not cover products that are only available to customers through kickstarter, directly from a publisher website, or as print on demand.

Ptolus: Monte Cook's City by the Spire | A Player's Guide to Ptolus by Monte Cook Games

• SYSTEM: Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PRODUCT TYPE: massive hardcover setting/softcover supplement
• RETAIL PRICE: $149.99/$17.99
• DESCRIPTION: Ptolus is 672 pages plus a packet with a poster map and dozens of handouts. Plus another 300 pages of downloadable content. The city is built on mysteries, secrets, and dark histories that lies forever in the shadow of an impossibly tall spire, an enigma and a reminder of evil long past. Below the city`s streets a seemingly endless network of ancient dungeons draws adventurers from all corners of the Empire. If that isn’t enough for you, A Player’s Guide to Ptolus takes you into the City by the Spire, introducing its districts, organizations, and history, along with its people and their customs and traditions. It is also a guide to character creation. It introduces the species and cultures unique to the setting, offers character background ideas, and discusses the roles of various classes and types within Ptolus society. It is system-neutral. A free PDF version is available at Monte Cook Games.

Midgard Worldbook | Deep Magic (Pocket Edition) | Kobold Guide to Monsters | Tome of Beasts 2 (Pocket Edition) by Kobold Press

• SYSTEM: Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PRODUCT TYPE: 460-page hardcover setting book/356-page digest sized softcover/ softcover monster advice/digest sized monster advice book
• RETAIL PRICE: $49.99/$24.99/$19.99/$29.99
• DESCRIPTION: The Midgard Worldbook describes a world embroiled in an age of war. The roads to the shadow realm are open again, the fey have returned to claim their ancient tribute, the giants prepare for Ragnarök, and the goblins grow restless. In the Crossroads, the shadow of the vampire princes falls across the land and the World Serpent is stirring. Includes: detailed description of Midgard’s empires, cities, and kingdoms; characters like Baba Yaga, the lords of the Dragon Empire, the honest folk of Zobeck, various elven holdouts of Dornig, and the vampire lords of Morgau; and full lore on the pantheons of the Northlands, Crossroads, Elves, and others. For the GM only are rituals and ambitions of the Dark Gods, forbidden lore of blood magic, void magic, and various dooms and items. Also includes revised and expanded lore for the planes, history, calendars, and conflicts of the world. Deep Magic contains over 700 spells, the Beer domain among others, and new info on familiars. I now want to make a cleric of Leinenkugel, god of beers, named Bud. And I’m thirsty. The Kobold Guide to Monsters contains essays by RPG veterans Monte Cook, Wolfgang Baur, Mike Mason, and more on how to improve monsters including how to: put their environment and resources to best use, employ common-sense motivations to guide their behavior and choices, develop realistic alternatives to just fighting and dying, and develop sensory-filled descriptions. Tome of Beasts II includes over 400 new monsters including magma octopuses and wraith bears.

Here There Be Dragons by EN Publishing

• SYSTEM: Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PRODUCT TYPE: 28-page softcover book of unique dragons
• RETAIL PRICE: $28.95
• DESCRIPTION: Covers five unique dragons ranging from CR 9 to a mighty CR 27 detailed over several pages, with its own description, backstory, illustration, and game statistics. Also includes additional draconic rules and player options. Dragons include Syndrathrax the Soul Hoarder, Bezkusmet the Unscaled, Glamdrellyxxana the Gold, Teyladin the Reclaimer, and The Librarian of Orban Tur.

LYNX RPG Condition Rings by Nord Games

• SYSTEM: Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• PRODUCT TYPE: 96 condition rings
• RETAIL PRICE: $39.99
• DESCRIPTION: 96 conditions rings to track 24 different conditions. Tracks the most frequently used spell & ability effects. Works with any brand and type of miniatures. With an inside dimension of 1 inch, they fit exactly over the base of standard 25mm miniatures. For larger size figures simply hang the rings on the miniatures.

Battle Lords of the 23rd Century - Charlie Foxtrot by 23rd Century Productions

• SYSTEM: Battlelords of the 23rd Century
• PRODUCT TYPE: hardcover adventures
• RETAIL PRICE: $40.00
• DESCRIPTION: A Charlie Foxtrot is a clusterfiasco but not using the word fiasco. Includes five one-shot, scenarios complete with pre-generated characters. Each scenario is set at a different level of character experience. The scenarios range from corporate espionage, to military actions against the Arachnids, to mercenary work, to run-ins with the Atlanteans, and all the way up to flat out piracy. In between several of the scenarios are short fiction pieces that help set the tone, as well as providing deeper insights into the Battlelords universe. Situations in the adventure may go from bad to worse and embrace the dark humor of the game.

Boldly Go! by GeoffQuest

• SYSTEM: unique system
• PRODUCT TYPE: softcover core rulebook
• RETAIL PRICE: $30.00
• DESCRIPTION: PCs are officers in Space Fleet, the military and exploration force of the Stellar Alliance. Players design and take command of their own starship, filled to the brim with advanced technology and crewed by NPC shipmates that the players create. Characters travel the stars, meeting new species, solving ancient mysteries, and experiencing all the horrors and wonders the galaxy has to offer. Includes: seven Alliance species, such as a war-like and indomitable human, a rational and calculating synthoid, or a hierarchical and betentacled krakenoid and eight occupations aboard ship such as security officer, engineer, and captain. Uses the Traits System. Avoid injury by tearing your uniform and having it take the brunt of the damage. PCs test their wits against the paranoid spymasters of the Xukunian Union or cross swords with the cybernetically augmented space dragoons of the Vatizaran Empire.

The Last Train Out of Rakken-Goll by Mongoose Publishing

• SYSTEM: Traveller
• PRODUCT TYPE: softcover adventure
• RETAIL PRICE: $14.99
• DESCRIPTION: Available again. An invitation from Sir Willard Vorstaten leads the Travellers to Rakken-Goll, a dying cattle town in the middle of nowhere. Fire, flood and feuding threaten to wipe out the town's economy and perhaps destroy it. Sir Willard has the authority to act and he is eager to do right, but he is inexperienced and indecisive. Now he needs allies who can help him stop the last train out of Rakken-Goll.

 

[imagineGod]

It's an opinion.

Blue Rose has three systems out there and the 5E version has been available on DriveThruRPG for months. It would be ludicrous to expect Blue Rose 5E to have a gigantic Kickstarter campaign to print a version of the game that the faithful are either are already playing with another system or snagged off DriveThruRPG months ago to check out the changes.

I guess this is your first acquaintance with Oz fandom, which is huge, insular, sort of quiet and largely made up of folks GenX and older, many of them with disposable income, especially when you factor in the large number of LGBT fans.

Ever since Wizard of Oz went public domain, there have been years of edgy "Oz but dark" takes that fans have rolled their eyes at (search for Oz on Comixology and you'll find a ton of them). This is the first traditional take on Oz in the RPG space I'm aware of since Dragon magazine announced a big Oz article that never materialized in the 1980s.

There's a lot of pent-up demand for Oz 5E and no real pent-up demand for Blue Rose 5E, which still successfully funded its campaign.

Are you just throwing darts at a board to decide where this theory goes? YouTube has nothing to do with anything else you're talking about.

I get that you don't care about Oz and find its success surprising, but that's a you problem, not a Double Critical or Green Ronin problem, and certainly not a 5E problem.

You want successful 5E Kickstarters? Here's a bunch, which took me less than 30 seconds to find:

• Heliana's Guide To Monster Hunting: A DnD 5e Supplement: $1.2 million
• Asian Monsters: $44k
• Wanderer's Guide to Merchants & Magic: $81k
• THEORYCRAFT: D&D 5e CAMPAIGN & ADVENTURE JOURNAL: $4k
• Crypt of the Devil Lich for DCC RPG and 5th Edition: $128k
• Monsters of the Wilderness for 5th Edition: 55k

All of these are more than 100% funded. Some of them are more than 4,000% funded.

Goodman Games doesn't have some sort of big YouTube presence. (I think the most they do is throw up their largely unedited GaryCon panels in lieu of writing up the actual things they announced, for reasons.) TheoryCraft, which has made more than 600% of its goal, is just a guy with a nice product.

A product with a lot of demand will get a lot of pledges, if it looks good and it's well advertised. (The Oz 5E books are being advertised on both Facebook and YouTube I know, having seen the ads in both places.) But even a product that doesn't hit some magical ImagineGod rating for what constitutes a "success" are successfully funding their projects, which is the entire point of Kickstarter.

And you just showed that my facts stand. For a company with years of experience in the RPG space, all the way from the older d20 OGL that spawned True20 because of the revolutionary Blue Rose RPG, it is very poor form for Green Ronin to scrape through with less than $40,000.

Monte Cook has never had such a low success bar for his Kickstarters, neither Cypher nor 5e, even for Numenera Boxset by the many fans who already probably purchased Numenera.

You also wrongly made an assumption about my backing of Adventures in Oz. Do not do that. It makes you look foolish when you are wrong.

The facts stand, less than $50,000 for a company with the years of experience of Green Ronin is not a victory for their bottom line. I never said it was a failed Kickstarter. That is a strawman, straight out of Oz. See what I did there. ;-)

 

[J.Quondam]

The facts stand, less than $50,000 for a company with the years of experience of Green Ronin is not a victory for their bottom line.

But how do you know about Green Ronin's financial situation, or what constitutes a "victory for their bottom line"? Do you work in their accounting department?
Seriously, I'm just curious where your expert insight on this very specific matter comes from.

 

[imagineGod]

But how do you know about Green Ronin's financial situation, or what constitutes a "victory for their bottom line"? Do you work in their accounting department?
Seriously, I'm just curious where your expert insight on this very specific matter comes from.

Simply comparing the years of experience in the industry of Green Ronin's Chris Pramas vs Monte Cook (whose 5e Kickstarter beat $500,000 easy, and every other one also raked in 6 figures).

Then contrast those two well known brands, decades in the RPG business vs the newbie Double Critical.

Monte Cook's 5e tilt is doing great on Kickstarter, while Green Ronin's 5e not so much.

And I never said Green Ronin is not profitable. That is another strawman straight ftom Oz.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And you just showed that my facts stand. For a company with years of experience in the RPG space, all the way from the older d20 OGL that spawned True20 because of the revolutionary Blue Rose RPG, it is very poor form for Green Ronin to scrape through with less than $40,000.

You are the only person who views this stuff like a scoreboard.

 

[imagineGod]

You are the only person who views this stuff like a scoreboard.

I just stated the facts of the decades some creators have in the industry and their Kickstarter takings. Same way you did here when you listed Legendary Games, whose products, by the way I enjoy, and they have seen doing those for Pathfinder, Starfinder and 5e.

I did not start this quoting, battle. You did.

 

[J.Quondam]

And I never said Green Ronin is not profitable. That is another strawman straight ftom Oz.

Unclever strawman quips notwithstanding, I never said you said Green Ronin wasn't profitable. I merely quoted you verbatim: "not a victory for their bottom line" are your words, not mine. (And I'm assuming the answer to the question you avoided is that you do not have any actual expertise, nor specific insight into Green Ronin's actual business, correct?)

It's fine that you "just stated the facts", but those facts alone do not shine any special light on what makes a particular kickstarter successful or not. Ultimately, that is for the creators and the supporters to decide.

 

[imagineGod]

Unclever strawman quips notwithstanding, I never said you said Green Ronin wasn't profitable. I merely quoted you verbatim: "not a victory for their bottom line" are your words, not mine. (And I'm assuming the answer to the question you avoided is that you do not have any actual expertise, nor specific insight into Green Ronin's actual business, correct?)

It's fine that you "just stated the facts", but those facts alone do not shine any special light on what makes a particular kickstarter successful or not. Ultimately, that is for the creators and the supporters to decide.

Exactly, in what you just quoted, where did you see the words "financial loss"? The is yet another strawman you are dragging from Oz. Three so far that have no bearing on my statement of Green Ronin's takings on the Blue Rose 5e Kickstarter.

I stated simple facts, that Green Ronin is a brand with decades of experience with Chris Pramas at the helm.

5e is the world's most popular game. Roll20 and icv2 statistics show that. Nobody says other RPGs are failures, just that 5e is dominant. I did sane comparing Blue Rose 5e against some others, including Oz that launched days after Blue Rose ended.

Many smaller fresh brands are able to generate more on Kickstarter with 5e than what Blue Rose 5e made.

It is simply a fact that with the experience of Chris Pramas in the industry and the success of 5e, what Blue Rose 5e generated is not in the same ballpark to what Monte Cook got for Arcana of the Ancients 5e.This is because Monte Cook and Chris Pramas are compatible veteran peers of the older d20 OGL ftom 3rd Edition D&D.

And, yes, I was one of the first on this board to tell everyone that Adventures in Oz was on Kickstarter. Right on the heels of Blue Rose 5e Kickstarter and doing so much better from a new brand Double Critical.

This whole debate would have ended several comments back, if you did not revive it with quote upon quote, then I respond to you quoting me.

I did not quote you when I presented the facts of the Blue Rose 5e money pledged.