Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! Second draft of ORC License released, D&D playtest survey results, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves home video bonus features revealed, 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 discuss what makes a new edition of an RPG a new edition.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
Paizo released a revised draft of the Open RPG Creative License aka the ORC License. Most of the changes made to the license are minor and go into more detail defining terms, clarifying attribution requirements, and establishing a primary version of the ORC License (specifically addressing concerns over ambiguity and contradiction when the license is translated to other languages beyond English). Most of the changes come to the “AxE” (Answers and Explanations) section, which now includes a non-binding plain English version of the license to explain what the license does. The full license and the “AxE” FAQ are available on Paizo’s website. Paizo is requesting feedback be posted on the ORC License Discord by Monday, May 22, so the license can be finalized by the end of the month.
Results of the Unearthed Arcana playtest of the Druid and Paladin classes for One D&D are in. Wizards of the Coast posted a video to YouTube with Jeremy Crawford discussing the results. The Paladin did extremely well with all aspects of the updated class scoring at 70% or higher approval. The power with the lowest approval score was Divine Smite at 72% with the most common complaint being the ability to use the power on ranged attacks, possibly overstepping into the Cleric and Ranger class roles. The Druid feedback was less positive with respondents split on the new Wild Shape ability, with a slight majority saying they “never want this Wild Shape in print” and a slight minority saying this is their favorite version of Wild Shape. While those against the new Wild Shape approve of simplifying the ability, they seem to feel it’s too simplified with little difference between the options. A new version of the Wild Shape will appear in a future playtest document to balance the choices between “three very similar options” and “100+ stat blocks spread across multiple books”. Channel Nature went over well, but criticism of the Moon Druid subclass indicated the subclass is not as lunar-themed as expected and lacks resilience in combat. The full video is available on the official Dungeons & Dragons YouTube channel.
Amazon posted a new Dungeons & Dragons cookbook this week. The product pre-order page for Heroes' Feast Flavors of the Multiverse: An Official D&D Cookbook (Dungeons & Dragons) showed up on Amazon listing the authors as Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, Michael Witwer, and Sam Witwer. This book appears to be a sequel to the 2020 cookbook Heroes’ Feast (Dungeons & Dragons): The Official D&D Cookbook (sticking with the title theme of inserting the branding as awkwardly as possible into the title), which is the basis for a new cooking show coming to the Dungeons & Dragons Adventures streaming service coming this summer. From the product description:
The book is scheduled for a November 7, 2023, release with Amazon currently listing the price of the hardcover at $35.00 and the Kindle edition at $14.99.
Schwalb Entertainment announced they will be publishing the modern-day Viking RPG When the Wolf Comes. The game from Ian Stuart Sharpe uses the Shadow of the Demon Lord system and was originally crowdfunded back in August 2022. Following a series of delays, Sharpe has brought Robert Schwalb on board to take over publishing duties for the game. From the press release (available in full at the link above):
The 400-page core rulebook will include all the rules necessary to play this modern-day meets sci-fi alternate history RPG and will be available soon on DriveThruRPG.
News is starting to trickle in about what to expect with the home video release of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Collider interviewed directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein about the bonus features. One of the “tons” of behind-the-scenes featurettes is available on an unlisted YouTube video from Paramount’s channel discussing the portal heist scene. Other subjects of featurettes will include practical effects, CGI wireframes, stunts, costumes, weapon design, and more. The directors also confirmed there will be between eight to ten deleted scenes cut for pacing reasons, while the product page confirms extras focusing on Dungeons & Dragons lore, outtakes, character backgrounds, and more. The film is available to stream now for Paramount+ subscribers while the DVD, Blu-ray, and UHD 4K Blu-ray will be available for $19.99, $24.99, and $29.99 respectively on May 30.
Cubicle 7 announced a new edition of their alternate history fantasy/sci-fi RPG Victoriana. Set in fantasy-steampunk 1887, the game places players in a world embroiled in the conflict between Order and Entropy in the chaos of an industrial revolution fused with magic. The new edition will remain compatible with 5e but will be built on the publisher’s upcoming C7d20 System. The announcement also includes some tidbits about the system including that it will be a standalone d20 fantasy roleplay system that is an evolution of the 5e rules that will remain compatible with the previous 5e rules. The new edition of Victoriana will be on Kickstarter later this year with more details to come in the lead-up to the launch of the crowdfunding campaign.
Free League will be holding an official Alien RPG tournament at UK Games Expo. The 18+ Masters Tournament will be held in multiple rounds with the first round happening on Saturday starting with six tables of players playing the same scenario. At the end of the game, the players will vote for who they believe is the best player, with one player from each table will head to the second round held the same day. This final round will be held at an undisclosed location at the convention and feature a never-before-seen scenario GMed by Fiona Howat (host of What Am I Rolling and The DM’s Book Club). Finalists will receive a set of specialist Alien dice, while the winner of the final table will receive a collection of Alien merchandise along with a collection of Alien RPG books. Registration for the event is currently open on the UK Games Expo website for £5.00 with 23 of the 30 spots still available at the time of writing.
Steve Jackson Games released their annual Report to the Stakeholders for 2022. The company is privately owned (as they put it, “Steve Jackson Games has one stockholder: Steve”) so does not need to release a public shareholder report, but still provides an annual update on the company for those who have a stake in the status of the company such as employees, distributors, retailers, freelancers, and fans. The company reported $4.7 million in gross income with strong cash flow for the year and did not show a profit for tax purposes (“we dumped some slow-moving inventory and showed a small loss”). The full report gives more detail into the company’s successes (direct sales, Munchkin Presents Batman, several strong Kickstarters), failures (“There were no dramatic failures for us this year…Just a slow year.”), and mehs (slow progress on the Warehouse 23/Shopify migration, Knightmare Chess reprint) plus discussions of the state of the industry from the point of view of the company and goals for 2023.
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 discuss what makes a new edition of an RPG a new edition.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
- EN Publishing streamed the monthly update this week with news for Level Up: Advanced 5e, the What’s OLD is NEW Starter Set, two new board games (?!), plans for UK Games Expo, and more!
- Details about one of those new board games from EN Publishing have been revealed, the starship skirmish game Space Fight!
- EN5ider #515 is an adventure for a 10th-level party “Gul-Badur’s Scales” sending the group to retrieve the missing sacred scales of an ancient gold dragon so the new head priest can be ordinated.
- Dawn Dalton rounds up this week’s Paizo news including Pathfinder Society Year 5 and what to expect from PaizoCon.
- Rob Wieland reviewed the updated Delta Green introductory adventure Convergence.
- Charles Dunwoody spoke with Ben Milton to talk about the OSR game Knave RPG: Second Edition currently on Kickstarter.
- Egg Embry interviewed Andrew Cawood of Cawood Publishing about the 5e monster book Monsters of the Dungeon: Brave the Darkness on Kickstarter now.
- Michael Tresca’s new RPG Evolution looks at the classes that players aren’t meant to play (because they’re designed for NPCs only).
- Mike Myler’s new ENterplanetary DimENsions is a plane full of sentient magic items and animated objects, Objectio.
- 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.
Paizo released a revised draft of the Open RPG Creative License aka the ORC License. Most of the changes made to the license are minor and go into more detail defining terms, clarifying attribution requirements, and establishing a primary version of the ORC License (specifically addressing concerns over ambiguity and contradiction when the license is translated to other languages beyond English). Most of the changes come to the “AxE” (Answers and Explanations) section, which now includes a non-binding plain English version of the license to explain what the license does. The full license and the “AxE” FAQ are available on Paizo’s website. Paizo is requesting feedback be posted on the ORC License Discord by Monday, May 22, so the license can be finalized by the end of the month.
Results of the Unearthed Arcana playtest of the Druid and Paladin classes for One D&D are in. Wizards of the Coast posted a video to YouTube with Jeremy Crawford discussing the results. The Paladin did extremely well with all aspects of the updated class scoring at 70% or higher approval. The power with the lowest approval score was Divine Smite at 72% with the most common complaint being the ability to use the power on ranged attacks, possibly overstepping into the Cleric and Ranger class roles. The Druid feedback was less positive with respondents split on the new Wild Shape ability, with a slight majority saying they “never want this Wild Shape in print” and a slight minority saying this is their favorite version of Wild Shape. While those against the new Wild Shape approve of simplifying the ability, they seem to feel it’s too simplified with little difference between the options. A new version of the Wild Shape will appear in a future playtest document to balance the choices between “three very similar options” and “100+ stat blocks spread across multiple books”. Channel Nature went over well, but criticism of the Moon Druid subclass indicated the subclass is not as lunar-themed as expected and lacks resilience in combat. The full video is available on the official Dungeons & Dragons YouTube channel.
Amazon posted a new Dungeons & Dragons cookbook this week. The product pre-order page for Heroes' Feast Flavors of the Multiverse: An Official D&D Cookbook (Dungeons & Dragons) showed up on Amazon listing the authors as Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, Michael Witwer, and Sam Witwer. This book appears to be a sequel to the 2020 cookbook Heroes’ Feast (Dungeons & Dragons): The Official D&D Cookbook (sticking with the title theme of inserting the branding as awkwardly as possible into the title), which is the basis for a new cooking show coming to the Dungeons & Dragons Adventures streaming service coming this summer. From the product description:
The book is scheduled for a November 7, 2023, release with Amazon currently listing the price of the hardcover at $35.00 and the Kindle edition at $14.99.
Schwalb Entertainment announced they will be publishing the modern-day Viking RPG When the Wolf Comes. The game from Ian Stuart Sharpe uses the Shadow of the Demon Lord system and was originally crowdfunded back in August 2022. Following a series of delays, Sharpe has brought Robert Schwalb on board to take over publishing duties for the game. From the press release (available in full at the link above):
The 400-page core rulebook will include all the rules necessary to play this modern-day meets sci-fi alternate history RPG and will be available soon on DriveThruRPG.
News is starting to trickle in about what to expect with the home video release of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. Collider interviewed directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein about the bonus features. One of the “tons” of behind-the-scenes featurettes is available on an unlisted YouTube video from Paramount’s channel discussing the portal heist scene. Other subjects of featurettes will include practical effects, CGI wireframes, stunts, costumes, weapon design, and more. The directors also confirmed there will be between eight to ten deleted scenes cut for pacing reasons, while the product page confirms extras focusing on Dungeons & Dragons lore, outtakes, character backgrounds, and more. The film is available to stream now for Paramount+ subscribers while the DVD, Blu-ray, and UHD 4K Blu-ray will be available for $19.99, $24.99, and $29.99 respectively on May 30.
Cubicle 7 announced a new edition of their alternate history fantasy/sci-fi RPG Victoriana. Set in fantasy-steampunk 1887, the game places players in a world embroiled in the conflict between Order and Entropy in the chaos of an industrial revolution fused with magic. The new edition will remain compatible with 5e but will be built on the publisher’s upcoming C7d20 System. The announcement also includes some tidbits about the system including that it will be a standalone d20 fantasy roleplay system that is an evolution of the 5e rules that will remain compatible with the previous 5e rules. The new edition of Victoriana will be on Kickstarter later this year with more details to come in the lead-up to the launch of the crowdfunding campaign.
Free League will be holding an official Alien RPG tournament at UK Games Expo. The 18+ Masters Tournament will be held in multiple rounds with the first round happening on Saturday starting with six tables of players playing the same scenario. At the end of the game, the players will vote for who they believe is the best player, with one player from each table will head to the second round held the same day. This final round will be held at an undisclosed location at the convention and feature a never-before-seen scenario GMed by Fiona Howat (host of What Am I Rolling and The DM’s Book Club). Finalists will receive a set of specialist Alien dice, while the winner of the final table will receive a collection of Alien merchandise along with a collection of Alien RPG books. Registration for the event is currently open on the UK Games Expo website for £5.00 with 23 of the 30 spots still available at the time of writing.
Steve Jackson Games released their annual Report to the Stakeholders for 2022. The company is privately owned (as they put it, “Steve Jackson Games has one stockholder: Steve”) so does not need to release a public shareholder report, but still provides an annual update on the company for those who have a stake in the status of the company such as employees, distributors, retailers, freelancers, and fans. The company reported $4.7 million in gross income with strong cash flow for the year and did not show a profit for tax purposes (“we dumped some slow-moving inventory and showed a small loss”). The full report gives more detail into the company’s successes (direct sales, Munchkin Presents Batman, several strong Kickstarters), failures (“There were no dramatic failures for us this year…Just a slow year.”), and mehs (slow progress on the Warehouse 23/Shopify migration, Knightmare Chess reprint) plus discussions of the state of the industry from the point of view of the company and goals for 2023.
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.
