LOST CITADEL 5E RPG Coming From Green Ronin

The Lost Citadel is a shared world horror setting. Launched in 2012, it was based on an idea of Jaym Gates, CA Suleiman and Ari Marmell, and features various branches - music, stories, art, and, now, a tabletop roleplaying game. Green Ronin will be producing the game, which will be a D&D 5th Edition game, and is slated for Winter 2018. The dark fantasy setting is based in Zileksa, "a land ravaged by death and undeath, where all that’s left of civilization has gathered behind the walls of the last remaining city of the living." Green Ronin is, of course, known for the tabletop RPGs Mutants & Masterminds, A Song of Ice and Fire, Blue Rose, Dragon Age, and for producing the 5E adventure Out of the Abyss for WotC. [Edit - I accidentally missed one of the creators from the paragraph above; apologies to Jaym Gates!]

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Here's the full announcement:

SEATTLE, WA (01/24/17): Green Ronin Publishing announced today that it has signed a licensing agreement to release a tabletop roleplaying game sourcebook based on The Lost Citadel, a transmedia shared world. The dark fantasy RPG will draw players into the setting of Zileksa, a land ravaged by death and undeath, where all that’s left of civilization has gathered behind the walls of the last remaining city of the living. The announcement was made by Chris Pramas, president of Green Ronin, and C.A. Suleiman, editor of The Lost Citadel.

“We are eager to bring a new dark fantasy setting to roleplayers and to offer Fifth Edition gamers a world they haven’t seen before,” said Green Ronin President Chris Pramas, “Lost Citadel is a perfect follow up to our work on Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay and Dragon Age.”

“I came to know The Lost Citadel as a backer of the fiction anthology,” added Green Ronin General Manager Nicole Lindroos. “As soon as I saw it I recognized the potential inherent in the setting. I couldn’t be more pleased not only to bring Lost Citadel to roleplaying, but to have C.A. Suleiman himself on board as developer.”

“Since the Lost Citadel project went live, people have been asking about when it would come to gaming, and I’m excited to tell them that the moment has arrived,” said Suleiman. “As both a dark fantasy setting and a concept that’s expressly inclusive of women, I can’t think of a better fit for The Lost Citadel than Green Ronin, publisher of A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying and the Blue Rose roleplaying game. If their track record is any indicator, this could be the start of something big.”

Work is now underway on the first book, Lost Citadel Roleplaying, which introduces the setting and establishes its core rules and themes. It is scheduled for release in Winter 2018. All books in the series will use the Fifth Edition rules, but plans are in the works to offer fans of other popular RPG systems the means to play Lost Citadel games using those systems, too.

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[Charles Rampant]

Interesting to see that the OGL-explosion this time around appears much more focused on providing new settings than on providing new crunch. Presumably the DMsGuild has covered the market for crunch expansion? Or maybe it is just that the industry learned from last time, and is keen to do products that they can use for multiple game lines, and which isn't going to be invalidated by a new WotC book.

 

[darjr]

https://greenronin.com/blog/2017/01...nin-to-publish-lost-citadel-roleplaying-game/

 

[wedgeski]

Interesting to see that the OGL-explosion this time around appears much more focused on providing new settings than on providing new crunch. Presumably the DMsGuild has covered the market for crunch expansion? Or maybe it is just that the industry learned from last time, and is keen to do products that they can use for multiple game lines, and which isn't going to be invalidated by a new WotC book.

Yes! As someone not really interested in new mechanics, I'm cool with this.

 

[Morrus]

Interesting to see that the OGL-explosion this time around appears much more focused on providing new settings than on providing new crunch. Presumably the DMsGuild has covered the market for crunch expansion? Or maybe it is just that the industry learned from last time, and is keen to do products that they can use for multiple game lines, and which isn't going to be invalidated by a new WotC book.

I don't think that's it. The DMsG, of course, doesn't allow new settings, so any setting material has to be OGL by definition.

OGL stuff as a whole hasn't really exploded - there are a few bits, but DMsG pretty much dominates the third part market. There's this, Middle Earth from C7, Midgard from Kobold, ZEITGEIST coming soon from ENP, I think there's a Scarred Lands setting for 5E, and a handful of others, but there really isn't a lot of it.

I hope to see lots more though!

 

[Charles Rampant]

Also the Hyperlink thing, for sci-fi. I was being a bit hyperbolic - I know that this is nothing compared to 3e - but it still seems really notable that we are not seeing any effort to make 'The Giant Book of Spells' or whatever.

 

[CapnZapp]

Presumably the DMsGuild has covered the market for crunch expansion?

That's a huge assumption. As for me, I would say the exact opposite. My priorities crunchwise are:
1) official 1PP printed book crunch from WotC itself
2) semi-official 2PP printed campaign setting crunch from reputable publishing houses
and as a distant third
3) random 3PP pdf's

Why?

Because of a sense of responsibility. WotC has to stand up for the crunch they provide. So does Green Ronin, assuming their new setting achieves a modicum of success - they will need to return to the crunch they provide, and if it has flaws, face the complaints each and every time the release a new setting supplement.

Also: cost. Getting a Open Game License might not be expensive, but committing to dead paper books is. To me, this cost increases the chance of reasonable quality control - you simply can't afford shoddy print books on the scale that can be fixed easily with a PDF (just issue a new version).

Compare to the DMs Guild, where you and I can just release stuff and walk away. If I create a monster or you create a subclass, there is no follow-up in the sense that you need to eat your own dog food. Sure people can grade your product on the individual product page, but DMsG comment sections seldom lead to any in-depth analysis.

 

[Jer]

Interesting to see that the OGL-explosion this time around appears much more focused on providing new settings than on providing new crunch. Presumably the DMsGuild has covered the market for crunch expansion? Or maybe it is just that the industry learned from last time, and is keen to do products that they can use for multiple game lines, and which isn't going to be invalidated by a new WotC book.

I think it's more that in 2000 there was a pent up supply of crunch from people who saw the OGL as a way to get into the RPG publishing game. There were lots of crunchy products not necessarily because demand for crunchy products was huge but because the OGL was new, anyone who had an idea for rules crunch was able to put it out there, and the edition encouraged people to think of mechanical bits and bobs to play with. Add to that the fact that the market was untested so no one had any idea what people actually wanted and there was no brake to put on until it became very obvious that rules crunch wasn't selling at the level needed to support all of the different products being put out there. At which point it was too late to brake so we got a crash instead.

This edition's de-emphasis on crunch compared to 3e probably colors things as well. The third party crunch 3e books on my shelf tend to be monster collections and some books of spells. The monsters are pretty easy to port to 5th if I feel the need (though I find this is rare - it's usually just as good to find a creature that is close enough and reskin it), and my players just haven't had the need to go looking for more spells yet. And as far as complete rules systems go - I just don't think there was ever a huge demand for things like a completely new psionics system or a completely different magic system or whatever, especially not at the levels that these kinds of products got cranked out for 3e. A small demand, yes, but not as many variants as we got.

I suspect that what we're seeing is that the publishers have just learned that the d20 OGL well isn't as deep as everyone thought it was back in 2000. And that's fine - the d20 glut wasn't a good thing for anyone in the long term as far as I can tell.

 

[Robyo]

More fantasy settings is cool, but of course we have lots of those already. Any support for the 5e system from 3rd parties is always great. Especially since WotC is only releasing a few books a year.

Even rehashes of d20 settings like Scarred Lands is good news. I already own some of the older books and have read some mixed reviews on the reboot, but it's awesome they've got the setting back in print.

What I as a consumer want is rules and ideas for using 5e system for non-fantasy. Modern, sci-fi, and non-magical settings. I'd also like to see more published works using systems that allow for converting older books to 5e. Rules for converting monsters and spells. More optional systems too like we saw in the DMG. Maybe an Ultimate Campaign styled book for 5e or 5e Unchained. Pathfinder just needs to dual-stat their adventures and make tons of money already.

 

[GlassJaw]

What I as a consumer want is rules and ideas for using 5e system for non-fantasy. Modern, sci-fi, and non-magical settings

I'm with you on non-magical settings/rules. Because of bounded accuracy and lower reliance on magic and magic items, core 5E isn't that far removed from a low-magic system already. If you haven't yet, I do recommend checking out the 5E Middle-Earth book. While I was for a slightly different direction in some areas, it's a great start.

I think Grim Tales needs a 5E update...