Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! New D&D video on the 2024 rulebook update, new Star Trek Adventures release, controversy in an online BattleTech fan community, and more!
For a quick summary of the week’s news, Jessica Hancock will bring you up to speed with EN Live's This Week in TTRPG every Friday.
Don’t forget, you can keep up with all the week’s gaming news in detail with Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk. This week, Morrus, Peter, and Jessica were live at UK Games Expo recording from the convention!
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
Wizards of the Coast released a new video with Todd Kendrick speaking with Jeremy Crawford titled “What are the 2024 Fifth Edition Core Rulebooks?”. Crawford reiterates that the new books are still going to be 5th Edition, but just an update to “prepare the game for its next decade”. The new rulebooks will include all the best material from the original 2014 release with new material plus old material that has been refined. The Unearthed Arcana process is about finding what the D&D community is looking for in the game and thus started off very “experimental” to see how much change players wanted. With the upcoming release of the monk playtest, the experimental phase will come to and end and further Unearthed Arcana playtest documents will be focused on that refinement process to bring the new ideas and concepts in line with the 2014 release. One example given was the subclass progression changes as being two design experiments at once - moving subclass choice to 3rd level and standardizing the advancement across levels within a subclass. The former worked, the latter didn’t, so with further class playtests coming soon, the old subclass progressions will return but without subclasses at first or second level. Once again, Crawford reiterates the backward compatibility of the 2024 core rulebooks with all previous 5th edition products. This follows an earlier interview with Polygon where Nathan Steward, vice president of marketing, stated that the title of “One D&D” was a marketing decision and not a design decision, which fueled speculation that the 2024 core rulebook releases are a “new edition”. Crawford states in the video that the design team referred to the rulebooks by their publication dates of 2014 and 2024 internally.
Paizo announced their partnership with two Kickstarters going on right now. The first is the Ultimate Game Master Screen from Forged Gaming, a deluxe modular GM screen. The screen features rigid metal sheets sewn into a faux-leather covering that includes spaces for rules material to be inserted and changed around, storage pouches, phone and tablet holders, and a dice tower that doubles as a clasp to seal the screen closed while folded for easy transport. Paizo’s partnership with the manufacturer means that official Pathfinder and Starfinder rules packs with pre-printed rules reference cards are available as add-ons. This Kickstarter has raised almost $500,000 on a $10,000 goal with stretch goals left to unlock before it funds on Saturday, June 24. The second Kickstarter is from Dynamite Comics for Pathfinder and Starfinder graphic novels. This Kickstarter will print hardcover editions of the Dynamite Comics Pathfinder: Wake the Dead, Starfinder: Angels of the Drift, and the crossover series Pathfinder: Worldscape featuring Vampirella, Dejah Thoris, Herbert West: Reanimator, and Red Sonja. This Kickstarter is in its final days and will fund on Monday, June 12.
Origins Game Fair announced the finalists for the 2023 Origins Awards. Awards are presented in 15 total categories with two categories for tabletop roleplaying games. For the RPG Core category, the finalists are Blackbirds from Andrews McMeel Publishing, Bladerunner the Roleplaying Game from Free League Publishing, Coyote & Crow from Coyote & Crow, Teatime Adventures from Snowbright Studio, and The One Ring from Free League Publishing. In the RPG Supplements category, the finalists are Agents of Dune from Modiphius, Blade Runner Starter Box from Free League Publishing, Fallout Starter Box from Modiphius, Warhammer Fantasy: Enemy Within Volume 5 from Cubicle 7 Entertainment, and Zweihander Starter Box from Andrews McMeel Publishing. Several other RPG titles were nominated in other categories along with tabletop board games, card games, and miniature games. The Origins Award Ceremony will take place on June 24, 2023, during the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio.
Modiphius released more information about the Lower Decks Campaign Guide for Star Trek Adventures. The preview includes the full table of contents for the book. Chapter One presents the state of the galaxy in the post-Voyager pre-Picard setting. Chapter Two is about Starfleet Support Operations and discusses the sort of duties that the support level Starfleet officers perform. Chapter Three is about the lower decks themselves and what life is like working below the command staff level. Chapter Four offers new Science and Technology. Chapter Five gives new Lifepath options for character creation and new equipment for players. Chapter Six is GM advice for running a Lower Decks campaign along with mission briefs to get you started. Chapter Seven features new starships, starbases, shuttles, and other vessels. Chapter Eight focuses on Allies and Adversaries with Lower Decks era information about the Federation, Starfleet, the Klingon Empire, the Pakleds, and other NPCs and aliens. Chapter Nine features a four-adventure mini-campaign. Star Trek Adventures Star Trek: Lower Decks Campaign Guide is available for pre-order now for £45.00 (currently $57.64 in the US store) for the hardcover release in August 2023 with the PDF version available immediately.
Free League Publishing released Coriolis: Wake of the Icons, the third and final chapter of the Mercy of the Icons campaign. “In dreams and visions, something calls out into the dark space o the Third Horizon - a new presence or something old?” The book includes extensive information including events which threaten the Third Horizon, the three-part adventure that spark a war, a metagame where ethe GM and players can play out fleet movements of the war, and an extensive appendix with over twenty ship types. The PDF is available for $19.99 from DriveThruRPG while the hardcover is available from Free League store for 398.00 kr (£29.33, US$36.82) with the PDF included.
The release of the BattleTech Pride Anthology 2023 was the catalyst for a house-cleaning of the BattleTech fan subreddit r/BattleTech this weekend. The BattleTech subreddit was originally founded 15 years ago for fans to post rules discussions, paint photos, lore debates, and other fandom posts of BattleTech content. On Friday, users of the subreddit attempted to post links to the free fiction anthology featuring LGBTQ+ fiction set in the BattleTech world including a forward from prolific BattleTech authors Bryan Young and Michael A. Stackpole with contributions from some Catalyst Game Labs freelancers. However, links to the anthology were deleted by moderators claiming the posts violated the rules against “real-world politics” per a now-deleted post (link to an archive). Several users reported being banned for questioning the moderation decision, and it sparked an online backlash against the subreddit. The resulting discussions revealed accusations that the moderation team of the subreddit had a standing policy to remove any LGBTQ+ content from the subreddit, including the popular online pastime of BattleTech fans of posting Pride and Trans color scheme painted miniatures. This censorship of queer content on the subreddit went unnoticed as the posts were deleted from the subreddit with no record of them, but a fiction anthology from published BattleTech authors was too big to be overlooked.
Catalyst Game Labs responded by creating an alternate subreddit, r/OfficialBattleTech, with rule number one listed as “BattleTech is for Everybody”, echoing a popular BattleTech community rallying cry in support of inclusivity. Meanwhile, the fan subreddit r/BattleTech went private for most of Saturday before opening briefly with a statement from one of the moderators offering a “compromise”: LGBTQ+ posts would be allowed, but only for products with direct support from Catalyst Game Labs. This compromise was not well received by the community. Shortly after this “compromise” was offered, the original founder of the r/BattleTech subreddit caught wind of the controversy. The founder of the subreddit had moved on from BattleTech fandom into other interests, but remained with ultimate control over the subreddit. The entire moderation team that had previously censored LGBTQ+ content was removed, and the founder made a post in support of the “BattleTech is for everybody” ethos. During an AMA with Catalyst Game Labs Community Manager Rem Alternis and BattleTech Line Developer Ray, they stated plans to merge the two subreddits together with the original r/BattleTech remaining a fan community with a new moderation staff and community rules decided in consultation with Catalyst, but with CGL having no direct control over the subreddit. Coverage of the incident made it to several mainstream gaming outlets including Dicebreaker, PC Gamer, and Polygon.
That’s all from me for this week! Don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you more gaming news content. 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.
For a quick summary of the week’s news, Jessica Hancock will bring you up to speed with EN Live's This Week in TTRPG every Friday.
Don’t forget, you can keep up with all the week’s gaming news in detail with Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk. This week, Morrus, Peter, and Jessica were live at UK Games Expo recording from the convention!
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
- EN5ider #518 is a new entry in the Monstrous Menagerie with a trio of masked, mysterious bandits who care more about their secret identities than their lives.
- Rob Wieland reviews the cute kid-friendly pocket-sized storytelling game about goblins, Adorablins.
- Charles Dunwoody interviewed Kobayashi about Black Sword Hack - Ultimate Chaos Edition currently on Kickstarter.
- Designer Andrew J. Young took on the challenge of squeezing as many RPGs onto a single page as possible and made it to 10 with the The Most Tabletop Games per Square Centimeter collection.
- Lewis Pulsipher’s newest Worlds of Design looks at goal-oriented play and how it factors into game design.
- M.T. Black continues his odyssey through gaming periodicals past with Dragon Reflections #67 covering the November 1982 issue of Dragon.
- Don’t miss out on the newest RPG crowdfunding projects ending soon with Egg Embry’s RPG Crowdfunding News.
- Keep up with all the new print RPG releases with Charles Dunwoody’s RPG Print News.
- Find the big TTRPG sales, bundles, and charity fundraisers with the Freebies, Sales, and Charity Bundles News.
Wizards of the Coast released a new video with Todd Kendrick speaking with Jeremy Crawford titled “What are the 2024 Fifth Edition Core Rulebooks?”. Crawford reiterates that the new books are still going to be 5th Edition, but just an update to “prepare the game for its next decade”. The new rulebooks will include all the best material from the original 2014 release with new material plus old material that has been refined. The Unearthed Arcana process is about finding what the D&D community is looking for in the game and thus started off very “experimental” to see how much change players wanted. With the upcoming release of the monk playtest, the experimental phase will come to and end and further Unearthed Arcana playtest documents will be focused on that refinement process to bring the new ideas and concepts in line with the 2014 release. One example given was the subclass progression changes as being two design experiments at once - moving subclass choice to 3rd level and standardizing the advancement across levels within a subclass. The former worked, the latter didn’t, so with further class playtests coming soon, the old subclass progressions will return but without subclasses at first or second level. Once again, Crawford reiterates the backward compatibility of the 2024 core rulebooks with all previous 5th edition products. This follows an earlier interview with Polygon where Nathan Steward, vice president of marketing, stated that the title of “One D&D” was a marketing decision and not a design decision, which fueled speculation that the 2024 core rulebook releases are a “new edition”. Crawford states in the video that the design team referred to the rulebooks by their publication dates of 2014 and 2024 internally.
Paizo announced their partnership with two Kickstarters going on right now. The first is the Ultimate Game Master Screen from Forged Gaming, a deluxe modular GM screen. The screen features rigid metal sheets sewn into a faux-leather covering that includes spaces for rules material to be inserted and changed around, storage pouches, phone and tablet holders, and a dice tower that doubles as a clasp to seal the screen closed while folded for easy transport. Paizo’s partnership with the manufacturer means that official Pathfinder and Starfinder rules packs with pre-printed rules reference cards are available as add-ons. This Kickstarter has raised almost $500,000 on a $10,000 goal with stretch goals left to unlock before it funds on Saturday, June 24. The second Kickstarter is from Dynamite Comics for Pathfinder and Starfinder graphic novels. This Kickstarter will print hardcover editions of the Dynamite Comics Pathfinder: Wake the Dead, Starfinder: Angels of the Drift, and the crossover series Pathfinder: Worldscape featuring Vampirella, Dejah Thoris, Herbert West: Reanimator, and Red Sonja. This Kickstarter is in its final days and will fund on Monday, June 12.
Origins Game Fair announced the finalists for the 2023 Origins Awards. Awards are presented in 15 total categories with two categories for tabletop roleplaying games. For the RPG Core category, the finalists are Blackbirds from Andrews McMeel Publishing, Bladerunner the Roleplaying Game from Free League Publishing, Coyote & Crow from Coyote & Crow, Teatime Adventures from Snowbright Studio, and The One Ring from Free League Publishing. In the RPG Supplements category, the finalists are Agents of Dune from Modiphius, Blade Runner Starter Box from Free League Publishing, Fallout Starter Box from Modiphius, Warhammer Fantasy: Enemy Within Volume 5 from Cubicle 7 Entertainment, and Zweihander Starter Box from Andrews McMeel Publishing. Several other RPG titles were nominated in other categories along with tabletop board games, card games, and miniature games. The Origins Award Ceremony will take place on June 24, 2023, during the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio.
Modiphius released more information about the Lower Decks Campaign Guide for Star Trek Adventures. The preview includes the full table of contents for the book. Chapter One presents the state of the galaxy in the post-Voyager pre-Picard setting. Chapter Two is about Starfleet Support Operations and discusses the sort of duties that the support level Starfleet officers perform. Chapter Three is about the lower decks themselves and what life is like working below the command staff level. Chapter Four offers new Science and Technology. Chapter Five gives new Lifepath options for character creation and new equipment for players. Chapter Six is GM advice for running a Lower Decks campaign along with mission briefs to get you started. Chapter Seven features new starships, starbases, shuttles, and other vessels. Chapter Eight focuses on Allies and Adversaries with Lower Decks era information about the Federation, Starfleet, the Klingon Empire, the Pakleds, and other NPCs and aliens. Chapter Nine features a four-adventure mini-campaign. Star Trek Adventures Star Trek: Lower Decks Campaign Guide is available for pre-order now for £45.00 (currently $57.64 in the US store) for the hardcover release in August 2023 with the PDF version available immediately.
Free League Publishing released Coriolis: Wake of the Icons, the third and final chapter of the Mercy of the Icons campaign. “In dreams and visions, something calls out into the dark space o the Third Horizon - a new presence or something old?” The book includes extensive information including events which threaten the Third Horizon, the three-part adventure that spark a war, a metagame where ethe GM and players can play out fleet movements of the war, and an extensive appendix with over twenty ship types. The PDF is available for $19.99 from DriveThruRPG while the hardcover is available from Free League store for 398.00 kr (£29.33, US$36.82) with the PDF included.
The release of the BattleTech Pride Anthology 2023 was the catalyst for a house-cleaning of the BattleTech fan subreddit r/BattleTech this weekend. The BattleTech subreddit was originally founded 15 years ago for fans to post rules discussions, paint photos, lore debates, and other fandom posts of BattleTech content. On Friday, users of the subreddit attempted to post links to the free fiction anthology featuring LGBTQ+ fiction set in the BattleTech world including a forward from prolific BattleTech authors Bryan Young and Michael A. Stackpole with contributions from some Catalyst Game Labs freelancers. However, links to the anthology were deleted by moderators claiming the posts violated the rules against “real-world politics” per a now-deleted post (link to an archive). Several users reported being banned for questioning the moderation decision, and it sparked an online backlash against the subreddit. The resulting discussions revealed accusations that the moderation team of the subreddit had a standing policy to remove any LGBTQ+ content from the subreddit, including the popular online pastime of BattleTech fans of posting Pride and Trans color scheme painted miniatures. This censorship of queer content on the subreddit went unnoticed as the posts were deleted from the subreddit with no record of them, but a fiction anthology from published BattleTech authors was too big to be overlooked.
Catalyst Game Labs responded by creating an alternate subreddit, r/OfficialBattleTech, with rule number one listed as “BattleTech is for Everybody”, echoing a popular BattleTech community rallying cry in support of inclusivity. Meanwhile, the fan subreddit r/BattleTech went private for most of Saturday before opening briefly with a statement from one of the moderators offering a “compromise”: LGBTQ+ posts would be allowed, but only for products with direct support from Catalyst Game Labs. This compromise was not well received by the community. Shortly after this “compromise” was offered, the original founder of the r/BattleTech subreddit caught wind of the controversy. The founder of the subreddit had moved on from BattleTech fandom into other interests, but remained with ultimate control over the subreddit. The entire moderation team that had previously censored LGBTQ+ content was removed, and the founder made a post in support of the “BattleTech is for everybody” ethos. During an AMA with Catalyst Game Labs Community Manager Rem Alternis and BattleTech Line Developer Ray, they stated plans to merge the two subreddits together with the original r/BattleTech remaining a fan community with a new moderation staff and community rules decided in consultation with Catalyst, but with CGL having no direct control over the subreddit. Coverage of the incident made it to several mainstream gaming outlets including Dicebreaker, PC Gamer, and Polygon.
That’s all from me for this week! Don’t forget to support our Patreon to bring you more gaming news content. 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.
2nd issue should be coming out soon. The Golarion fiction with the novels and adventure path tie in are fantastic, one of the strong points for Paizo for sure!
