Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! Lots of new D&D products coming over the next few weeks, a new edition of Savage Worlds, Tales from the Loop getting a sequel, and more!
Wizards of the Coast kicked off a new fiction line for Dungeons & Dragons with Harper-Collins in as big of a fashion as you can, as Timeless: A Drizzt Novel by R. A. Salvatore came out this past Tuesday. The novel features the tales of Zaknafein and Jarlaxle from centuries past, Zaknafein’s…I’ll just use the word “romance” for brevity’s sake with Matron Malice of House Do’Urden, and the birth of Drizzt following through until the present day of the Forgotten Realms. The book is available now in hardcover with a cover price of $27.99, Kindle for $14.99, and as an audiobook from Audible. A mass market paperback release is scheduled for May 28, 2019, with a cover price of $7.99.
That’s not all for new fiction. Coming from Matt Forbeck, the Dungeons & Dragons Endless Quest line has been revived with four new titles. The book series is similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure, Lone Wolf, and Fighting Fantasy series where the narrative is decided by you as you read by choosing different options every page or three. The series launched with four books, each for a different race/class combination. Into the Jungle is the dwarf cleric, Big Trouble is the elf wizard, To Catch a Thief is the halfling rogue, and Escape the Underdark is the human fighter. Each book has a full-color illustrated interior and retails for $8.99, available now.
A little further out from release is Dungeons & Dragons: Art and Arcana, an art and history book of the Dungeons & Dragons game line from inception to the present day. The book curates cover art, interior pieces, drafts, sketches, advertisements, and more in high-quality presentations with an emphasis on the history of each piece, curated by Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, Sam Witwer, and with a forward from Joe Manganiello. The 448-page book comes out on October 23 with a cover price of $50.00, and a premium boxed set version will also be available for $125.00 that includes frame-ready prints of ten classic pieces of artwork, a pamphlet-sized version of the unpublished original edition of Tomb of Horrors, and a special gold-and-black slipcase.
Oh! Right, there’s a game related to all these, isn’t there? Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is filtering out to Wizard Play Network game stores now with a mass market release on Tuesday, September 18. The book is available for a retail price of $49.95, and a certain someone from EN World has already gotten his hands on the book. While you’re waiting for the full review, the book’s disclaimer is already available. Along with the book comes a set of dice for $24.95 and two miniature sets from WizKids. As part of their Icons of the Realms line of randomized pre-painted miniatures, the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist set features four miniatures per box (one large/huge and three medium/small) with a retail price of $15.99 (though cases of eight boosters are available per “brick” for $99.99 via Amazon). A non-randomized boxed set of graveyard-themed pieces called D&D Icons of the Realms: Waterdeep: Dragon Heist: City of the Dead Premium Set available for $49.99 and features statues, coffins, sarcophaguses, and tombstones. The follow-up adventure, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, releases to mass market on November 13 with a retail price of $49.95 with a map set available for $24.95. Additionally, the gift box set for the core rulebooks (which includes all three core D&D rulebooks, the DM screen, and a black slipcover case) releases on October 30 with a retail price of $169.95.
Savage Worlds from Pinnacle Entertainment Group has a new edition on its way. While the system has received updates over the years due to its modular nature, this will be the first full new edition since the game’s Explorer’s Edition in 2007. Designer Shane Hensley states that the new edition will be 192 pages and feature new Chase rules, updates to Edges and Hindrances, Tests and Tricks, skills, and Power Modifiers based on rules from Rifts and Flash Gordon, along with the new Quick Encounters system, new Setting Rules, and other unannounced revisions and new systems. The game will have a Kickstarter launch on October 16 featuring three versions, a limited edition hardback for $39.99, a softcover edition for $29.99, and a PDF whose price has not yet been announced. PEG is also good in their crowdfunding campaigns about including many options in backer levels and add-ons for additional products, so expect a lot to get announced when the Kickstarter launches.
The ENnie Award-winning Tales from the Loop roleplaying game is getting a sequel, Things from the Flood. Also based on the artwork of Simon Stalenhag, the new game functions both as a stand-alone game and that’s cross-compatible with the Tales from the Loop system. The trick is that as Loop was based on the 1980s, Flood is based on the 1990s and focuses on teenager-aged characters (meaning you can create brand-new characters or “age-up” your characters between games). The older characters also mean a big change in the game – death. Yeah, sorry, your characters can die now rather than just be injured, as growing up means bigger stakes. Plus the artwork from Things from the Flood is a bit more...squidgy, to use the technical term. Things from the Flood will have a Kickstarter launching on September 18.
A few interesting board games are on their way to store shelves. Remember the monster cereals with marshmallows that came out every Halloween? Monster Crunch! The Breakfast Battle Game is a Target exclusive card game available now, pitting Count Chocula, Frankenberry, Boo-Berry, Fruit Brute, and Yummy Mummy against one another to see who can be first to get enough milk to finish their spooktacular part of this complete breakfast. In more interesting licensed game combinations, USAopoly has released images of CODENAMES: Harry Potter. Yes, the 2016 Spiel des Jahres winner has been combined with the Harry Potter, featuring images from the Warner Bros. films with missions themed around locations from the wizarding world. Finally, Renegade Games announced a new Ghostbusters card game based on the original 1984 film (though unlike the previous game, this one features stylized artwork of the characters that resemble their actor counterparts more than the Real Ghostbusters cartoon). The game will be available for a retail price of $20.00 and releases sometime this fall.
Humble Bundle is really wanting to make my wallet hurt tempting me with all the bundles they’ve been releasing. The RPG Book Bundle: Pathfinder 2018 features three tiers of Pathfinder compatible PDF books with $1, $8, and $15 levels that include adventure paths, one-shot adventures, sourcebooks, campaign settings, and more with the entire bundle worth $398. Then there’s the Digital Tabletop Bundle with tabletop-based video games for Steam and Android including Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Ticket to Ride, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Talisman, Carcassonne, and more. And on top of that, there’s the Unity Bundle that features over $1500 worth of content! Not just video games like Torment: Tides of Numenera, Wastelands 2, and Oxenfree but asset packs for Unity for scripting systems, character models, landscape generators, an MMORPG engine, music and sound effects collections, an FPS engine, and more along with a tutorial course to teach you how to use all these to create your own game. The Pathfinder RPG bundle runes until Tuesday, September 11, and benefits the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, the Digital Tabletop bundle runs until Wednesday, September 12 and benefits WaterAid, and the Unity Bundle runes until Tuesday, September 18, and benefits Girls Who Code.
If there’s one thing I’ve never heard any tabletop gamer say, it’s “I think I have enough dice, I don’t need anymore.” Q-Workshop knows this and is here to tempt you with their Top Shelf Dice. The dice sets are of the typical intricate style you can expect from Q-Workshop with incredible inlaid details. This set features designs themed around the Wizard, Dragon Slayer, retro Arcade, Halloween Pumpkin, and Bloodsucker. You can get one set of your choice (standard 7-dice sets) for $13, three for $33, five for $49, or ten for $89. This project is fully funded and unlocking more color options via stretch goals until Thursday, September 13.
What would happen if Bill and Ted got together with Tenacious D in Italy and designed a tabletop roleplaying game? Rockopolis from Minos Games, “The first ----ing Rock’n Play game” per the tagline. No, this isn’t a “rock-inspired” game or something that transports your band to a fantastical realm. This is set in the “real world” and it’s all about the music, pitting your band against rivals as you compose your rock anthems and ballads and plan your show. The core rulebook is available in both English and Italian (your choice) with the PDF available for a €12 pledge (about US$14) and the hardcover for €38 (about US$44). This project is fully funded and runs until Sunday, September 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’ve been speculating about Star Trek technology implications again, follow me on Twitch to watch sporadic live streams, 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.
Wizards of the Coast kicked off a new fiction line for Dungeons & Dragons with Harper-Collins in as big of a fashion as you can, as Timeless: A Drizzt Novel by R. A. Salvatore came out this past Tuesday. The novel features the tales of Zaknafein and Jarlaxle from centuries past, Zaknafein’s…I’ll just use the word “romance” for brevity’s sake with Matron Malice of House Do’Urden, and the birth of Drizzt following through until the present day of the Forgotten Realms. The book is available now in hardcover with a cover price of $27.99, Kindle for $14.99, and as an audiobook from Audible. A mass market paperback release is scheduled for May 28, 2019, with a cover price of $7.99.
That’s not all for new fiction. Coming from Matt Forbeck, the Dungeons & Dragons Endless Quest line has been revived with four new titles. The book series is similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure, Lone Wolf, and Fighting Fantasy series where the narrative is decided by you as you read by choosing different options every page or three. The series launched with four books, each for a different race/class combination. Into the Jungle is the dwarf cleric, Big Trouble is the elf wizard, To Catch a Thief is the halfling rogue, and Escape the Underdark is the human fighter. Each book has a full-color illustrated interior and retails for $8.99, available now.
A little further out from release is Dungeons & Dragons: Art and Arcana, an art and history book of the Dungeons & Dragons game line from inception to the present day. The book curates cover art, interior pieces, drafts, sketches, advertisements, and more in high-quality presentations with an emphasis on the history of each piece, curated by Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, Sam Witwer, and with a forward from Joe Manganiello. The 448-page book comes out on October 23 with a cover price of $50.00, and a premium boxed set version will also be available for $125.00 that includes frame-ready prints of ten classic pieces of artwork, a pamphlet-sized version of the unpublished original edition of Tomb of Horrors, and a special gold-and-black slipcase.
Oh! Right, there’s a game related to all these, isn’t there? Waterdeep: Dragon Heist is filtering out to Wizard Play Network game stores now with a mass market release on Tuesday, September 18. The book is available for a retail price of $49.95, and a certain someone from EN World has already gotten his hands on the book. While you’re waiting for the full review, the book’s disclaimer is already available. Along with the book comes a set of dice for $24.95 and two miniature sets from WizKids. As part of their Icons of the Realms line of randomized pre-painted miniatures, the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist set features four miniatures per box (one large/huge and three medium/small) with a retail price of $15.99 (though cases of eight boosters are available per “brick” for $99.99 via Amazon). A non-randomized boxed set of graveyard-themed pieces called D&D Icons of the Realms: Waterdeep: Dragon Heist: City of the Dead Premium Set available for $49.99 and features statues, coffins, sarcophaguses, and tombstones. The follow-up adventure, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage, releases to mass market on November 13 with a retail price of $49.95 with a map set available for $24.95. Additionally, the gift box set for the core rulebooks (which includes all three core D&D rulebooks, the DM screen, and a black slipcover case) releases on October 30 with a retail price of $169.95.
Savage Worlds from Pinnacle Entertainment Group has a new edition on its way. While the system has received updates over the years due to its modular nature, this will be the first full new edition since the game’s Explorer’s Edition in 2007. Designer Shane Hensley states that the new edition will be 192 pages and feature new Chase rules, updates to Edges and Hindrances, Tests and Tricks, skills, and Power Modifiers based on rules from Rifts and Flash Gordon, along with the new Quick Encounters system, new Setting Rules, and other unannounced revisions and new systems. The game will have a Kickstarter launch on October 16 featuring three versions, a limited edition hardback for $39.99, a softcover edition for $29.99, and a PDF whose price has not yet been announced. PEG is also good in their crowdfunding campaigns about including many options in backer levels and add-ons for additional products, so expect a lot to get announced when the Kickstarter launches.
The ENnie Award-winning Tales from the Loop roleplaying game is getting a sequel, Things from the Flood. Also based on the artwork of Simon Stalenhag, the new game functions both as a stand-alone game and that’s cross-compatible with the Tales from the Loop system. The trick is that as Loop was based on the 1980s, Flood is based on the 1990s and focuses on teenager-aged characters (meaning you can create brand-new characters or “age-up” your characters between games). The older characters also mean a big change in the game – death. Yeah, sorry, your characters can die now rather than just be injured, as growing up means bigger stakes. Plus the artwork from Things from the Flood is a bit more...squidgy, to use the technical term. Things from the Flood will have a Kickstarter launching on September 18.
A few interesting board games are on their way to store shelves. Remember the monster cereals with marshmallows that came out every Halloween? Monster Crunch! The Breakfast Battle Game is a Target exclusive card game available now, pitting Count Chocula, Frankenberry, Boo-Berry, Fruit Brute, and Yummy Mummy against one another to see who can be first to get enough milk to finish their spooktacular part of this complete breakfast. In more interesting licensed game combinations, USAopoly has released images of CODENAMES: Harry Potter. Yes, the 2016 Spiel des Jahres winner has been combined with the Harry Potter, featuring images from the Warner Bros. films with missions themed around locations from the wizarding world. Finally, Renegade Games announced a new Ghostbusters card game based on the original 1984 film (though unlike the previous game, this one features stylized artwork of the characters that resemble their actor counterparts more than the Real Ghostbusters cartoon). The game will be available for a retail price of $20.00 and releases sometime this fall.
Humble Bundle is really wanting to make my wallet hurt tempting me with all the bundles they’ve been releasing. The RPG Book Bundle: Pathfinder 2018 features three tiers of Pathfinder compatible PDF books with $1, $8, and $15 levels that include adventure paths, one-shot adventures, sourcebooks, campaign settings, and more with the entire bundle worth $398. Then there’s the Digital Tabletop Bundle with tabletop-based video games for Steam and Android including Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Ticket to Ride, Sentinels of the Multiverse, Talisman, Carcassonne, and more. And on top of that, there’s the Unity Bundle that features over $1500 worth of content! Not just video games like Torment: Tides of Numenera, Wastelands 2, and Oxenfree but asset packs for Unity for scripting systems, character models, landscape generators, an MMORPG engine, music and sound effects collections, an FPS engine, and more along with a tutorial course to teach you how to use all these to create your own game. The Pathfinder RPG bundle runes until Tuesday, September 11, and benefits the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society, the Digital Tabletop bundle runs until Wednesday, September 12 and benefits WaterAid, and the Unity Bundle runes until Tuesday, September 18, and benefits Girls Who Code.
If there’s one thing I’ve never heard any tabletop gamer say, it’s “I think I have enough dice, I don’t need anymore.” Q-Workshop knows this and is here to tempt you with their Top Shelf Dice. The dice sets are of the typical intricate style you can expect from Q-Workshop with incredible inlaid details. This set features designs themed around the Wizard, Dragon Slayer, retro Arcade, Halloween Pumpkin, and Bloodsucker. You can get one set of your choice (standard 7-dice sets) for $13, three for $33, five for $49, or ten for $89. This project is fully funded and unlocking more color options via stretch goals until Thursday, September 13.
What would happen if Bill and Ted got together with Tenacious D in Italy and designed a tabletop roleplaying game? Rockopolis from Minos Games, “The first ----ing Rock’n Play game” per the tagline. No, this isn’t a “rock-inspired” game or something that transports your band to a fantastical realm. This is set in the “real world” and it’s all about the music, pitting your band against rivals as you compose your rock anthems and ballads and plan your show. The core rulebook is available in both English and Italian (your choice) with the PDF available for a €12 pledge (about US$14) and the hardcover for €38 (about US$44). This project is fully funded and runs until Sunday, September 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’ve been speculating about Star Trek technology implications again, follow me on Twitch to watch sporadic live streams, 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.
