Monolith Updates on the Batman RPG

Announced a year ago, there's new news on French publisher Monolith's upcoming BATMAN: Gotham City Chronicles RPG! These images are works-in-progress (some are in French, but the game will be available in both languages). The game will be crowdfunded a few months from now, but there's no date announced yet.

A BATMAN RPG Has Just Been Announced

Play as vigilantes, criminals or Gotham City cops in the official Batman tabletop RPG! French publisher Monolith Edition has announced Batman Gotham City Chronicles: The Role Playing Game, to be powered by the d20 System. The company already produces the boardgame of the same name, which they...

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It's Batman Day! It’s time for the Warner family to treat us to sneak peeks at projects that are currently in production—on the big and small screen—with films like The Batman, The Penguin series, Peacemaker, Gotham Police Department, and video games like Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad!

Printed media’s in on the celebration, too, with Batman The World book, which brings international artists together in commemorating the influence of Batman across the globe.

And now for our contribution: a preview of Batman Gotham City Chronicles: The Role-Playing Game (which we'll talk about today), as well as Season 3 of the board game of the same name (which we'll discuss tomorrow).

Warning: SPOILERS!

The role-playing game pays tribute to its main character: Gotham City, with its risks and challenges of varying intensity. Players can create their own characters as well as play as iconic figures:

• Dive into the city’s everyday life while confronting extraordinary situations as Gordon, Bullock, or Montoya.
• Explore the shadows of Gotham City as highly-trained and gifted humans like Nightwing, Huntress, and the Riddler.
• Confront situations that defy logic, using the varied, evolving powers of meta-humans like Black Canary, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy, or Clayface.

We’ve created several books to accompany you along this journey to Gotham City. Heroes of Gotham is an introduction to the universe, with all the rules and tips to create and bring to life the game’s characters and scenarios.

The Gotham Chronicles is a collection of a dozen turnkey scenarios that bring exciting and intense adventures to your table!

The Gotham Guide is a love story to the city! It takes you deep into the heart of its neighborhoods and secrets, a must for those who want to dig deep and gather everything they’ll need to immerse themselves in the atmosphere and make the story theirs.

You will find here some excerpts/Work in Progress for each of the books, as well as a character sheet template used for the GCPD characters. They are not all available in English, as we are still in the intensive phase of translations and proofreading.

We can’t wait to show you more. For now, we will be bringing this experience to life through crowdfunding and are hard at work acquiring all the necessary approvals from Warner (in both languages). We’re looking at a few months now, at most. By launch time, your invitation to Gotham City will be fully secured.

 

[MGibster]

I find it somewhat odd that their fiction refers to "Bruce Wayne" infiltrating the criminal underworld while disguised as Matches Malone. Infiltrating the criminal underworld isn't something Bruce does it's something Batman does. Is this how they do things in France? Also, which Robin is the best and why is it Tim Drake?

I'm interested in the game. I'll be happy to take a look at it when the Kickstarter kicks off.

 

[Samurai]

Hard pass for me. The DC Adventures RPG from Green Ronin and the DC Heroes game from Mayfair already do Gotham and it's inhabitants, along with all the other DC characters. Why would I want this game that is only focused on Gotham?

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If this project works we could see a spin-off based in Green Arrow.

My opinion is the future of the superheroes franchises will be linked with the game industry, videogames and tabletops, but here the PCs are designed with a balance between success and failure, power and vulnerability, and some characters will have to be nerfed, a part of their power level to be sacrificied in the name of the gameplay.

 

[MGibster]

Hard pass for me. The DC Adventures RPG from Green Ronin and the DC Heroes game from Mayfair already do Gotham and it's inhabitants, along with all the other DC characters. Why would I want this game that is only focused on Gotham?

I haven't thought of DC Heroes in a long, long time and I don't think I've played it since before Mr. Mom starred as Batman himself. The last edition of DC Heroes came out in the early 1990s before a significant portion of today's gaming generation was even born. You may have easy access to your copy of DC Heroes but I suspect most people playing today do not. I did like Green Ronin's Mutant and Masterminds but I never looked into their DC game. But one of the problems with their version of the game is that DC rebooted their universe with the New 52 making all their information obsolete. You may not want a game focused only on Gotham, but younger people without access to DC Heroes or wanting a version of Batman that's up-to-date with current continuity might find the game more up their alley. And who knows? Maybe the new game does a better job modeling street level super hero stories like Batman.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I find it somewhat odd that their fiction refers to "Bruce Wayne" infiltrating the criminal underworld while disguised as Matches Malone. Infiltrating the criminal underworld isn't something Bruce does it's something Batman does. Is this how they do things in France? Also, which Robin is the best and why is it Tim Drake?

I'm interested in the game. I'll be happy to take a look at it when the Kickstarter kicks off.

Matches Malone is an alter ego Bruce Wayne took on to actually insert himself as a player in the criminal underworld..."Matches" tends to show up in the more "realistic" crime tales of the Batman. It's a bit like how every time Wolverine goes to Madripoor he likes to disguise himself as a guy named Patch.....with the argument that Batman does a better job on his disguise as Matches than Logan does as Patch.

 

[Morrus]

Hard pass for me. The DC Adventures RPG from Green Ronin and the DC Heroes game from Mayfair already do Gotham and it's inhabitants, along with all the other DC characters. Why would I want this game that is only focused on Gotham?

You should always play the game, drive the car, eat the food you love, of course. But both of those games are out of print, so they’re not an option for most people.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Hard pass for me. The DC Adventures RPG from Green Ronin and the DC Heroes game from Mayfair already do Gotham and it's inhabitants, along with all the other DC characters. Why would I want this game that is only focused on Gotham?

Even Mayfair, back when it existed and owned the system rights (which are now buried in limbo) produced a Batman only version of the game.

Batman's section of the DC universe, especially these days after the last three decades of local world building, stands very nicely on its own. I was a big fan of the MEGs game system, but finding a copy today of either the Mayfair version or the Green Ronin edition is wallet-bustingly difficult and a graphically modern take on Batman is something I can get my son into easily. So this game may not be for you, but there are some compelling reasons (as should be obvious) for its existence.

 

[Marc_C]

Tempting.

 

[Jaeger]

Tempting.

Indeed.

A Gotham focused game seems tailor made for Righteous street level heroes: