Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! New D&D licensed Tiamat figure, Scion optioned for television series, Fallout 2d20 RPG available for pre-order, a collection of April Fools RPG jokes, and more!
Don’t forget, you can get all the news every week with Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk! This week, Morrus and Peter are joined by Lachlan Glasby to talk about Expedition: Incredizoology.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
Wizards of the Coast and WizKids announced a new Tiamat…can we still call them “miniatures” when they get this big? The Tiamat…let’s say figure…is 14.6” tall (37.1cm) and 16.8” long (42.8cm) with a wingspan of 28.9” (73.4cm) with a clear circular base at 200mm. WizKids specifically states that this is to-scale for play on the table and “isn’t just a statue”. The images indicate the figure will be pre-painted and assembled like their previous large figures, but this is not explicitly stated in the WizKids pre-order page. The figure is set for a September release with a retail price of $399.99.
Luke Crane has resigned his position at Kickstarter following the controversy surrounding his project, Perfect RPG. Crane previously served as the Head of Tabletop at Kickstarter before moving over to the role of Vice President Head of Community. The resignation comes at a mutual agreement with Kickstarter after The Perfect RPG crowdfunding effort was cancelled within hours of launch due to the inclusion of Adam Koebel. Koebel raised controversy last year when his live stream of Far Verona ended after the entire cast resigned in protest following Koebel roleplaying a scene of non-consensual sexual assault where the players were not warned of the content and did not agree to it in advance. After the Perfect RPG’s Kickstarter launch, several of the designers involved resigned as they were not aware of Koebel’s involvement until the project launched. Crane initially posted a statement on the project page locked to backers-only where he said “Many designers withdrew or were harassed to withdraw due to my inclusion of Adam Koebel” and removed the entire list of contributors “to reduce future harassment”. None of the designers involved in the project have reported any harassment, and several refuted the claims directly and stated they withdrew of their own volition. Crane released a statement on his resignation, stating “I wish to unequivocally apologize to you, and everyone affected, for the harm I’ve done to the community”. The statement continues, “There was no deceit, deception or bad faith in any of my actions around the project” but then states “I should have disclosed the participant list to all contributors beforehand”. The full statement from Crane is available as a public post on the project page. Kickstarter released a statement to Polygon:
Onyx Path announced a development deal with Jenkins and Tate Entertainment for a television series based on Scion. The television show will be a live-action adventure series set in the United Kingdom featuring “brand new heroic and well loved characters” from the game. While Onyx Path publishes other former White Wolf material such as World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness under license from the current owner, Paradox Interactive, the Scion rights were purchased by Onyx Path in 2012 and now wholly owned by OPP. No details have been released about casting, plot, length, or network.
Modiphius announced pre-orders for Fallout: The Post-Nuclear Tabletop Roleplaying Game using the 2d20 System. This is the second roleplaying game in the Fallout universe from Modiphius, though the first was an expansion to the miniature skirmish game Fallout: Wasteland Warfare rather than a fully independent roleplaying game. The core rulebook will be 400 pages available in a standard edition for £38 (US$52.38). Along with the core rules, the game will also launch with a Gamemaster Toolkit featuring a map of the Boston Commonwealth from Fallout 4 along with tokens, character sheets, reference handouts, and a gamemaster booklet for £25 (US$34.46) and a set of custom dice for £16 (US$22.06). There are also four different bundles of the launch products with price breaks, including two that include a Limited Edition alternate cover. The entire launch line-up is expected to ship this summer.
Wizards of the Coast suspended artist Jason Felix following accusations of plagiarism from the work of fan artist Kitt Lapeña. The card in question was a reprint of Crux of Fate for the Strixhaven expansion, reprinted as part of the Mystical Archive series which reprints classic cards with new highly-stylized artwork. Lapeña found out after a comment on her Deviant Art page, where she posted her image in 2016. Comparing the works, the design of the head, neck, arms, and hands match the original fan art exactly – including the repetition of an error in the original art (the dragon Nicol Bolas is presented in artwork previously as having three fingers on his hands while Lapeña’s fan art and Felix’s card design show hands with five fingers). Wizards of the Coast released the following statement:
Yesterday was April Fools Day, the day when companies make me very unhappy by releasing very realistic-looking products and announcements that are just jokes and typically leave me to sort out which ones are accurate and which are not (an ability of mine that is directly proportionate to the amount of coffee I’ve had). However, they do tend to be entertaining after the fact. Here’s a collection of some of the April Fools Day pranks from the tabletop roleplaying industry (or at least the ones I stumbled upon – feel free to share your favorites in the comments):
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@enpublishingrpg.com, and you can get more discussion of the week’s news on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk every week. You can follow me on Twitch to get notifications when I go live, subscribe to Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube for videos on gaming history, RPG reviews, 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.
Don’t forget, you can get all the news every week with Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk! This week, Morrus and Peter are joined by Lachlan Glasby to talk about Expedition: Incredizoology.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
- EN5ider #384 features the first part of an adventure series for four 7th level characters called To Stake a Vampire, the sequel to the To Slay a Dragon adventures.
- EN Publishing posted two new playtest documents for Level Up 5e, the first 10 levels of the updated Warlock class, and the new take on the paladin class, The Herald.
- Egg Embry interviewed Mark Rapson, Managing Director of Nightfall Games to talk about The Terminator RPG.
- Charles Dunwoody interviewed Derik Dunning about his 5e book British Raj: A Masque of the Red Death Guide to British India.
- Coyote & Crow is the newest member of the elusive $1 Million Tabletop RPG Club after their Kickstarter campaign funded with $1,073,233 from 16,267 backers.
- Rob Wieland reviewed Against the Darkmaster, an OSR-style revamping of the Rolemaster rules system.
- Michael Tresca interviewed Jack Berkenstock Jr. of The Bodhana Group and their use of roleplaying games in a therapy setting.
- Michael Tresca also continued his review of the dishes from Heroes’ Feast: The Official D&D Cookbook with Dragon Salmon.
- The newest Mythological Figures gives us 5e stats for the “Stagecoah” Mary Fields, the first Black woman to work for the United States Postal Service (back when the job required a shotgun and the ability to use it).
- Don’t miss out on any of the crowdfunding projects ending soon with Egg Embry’s RPG Crowdfunding News, and keep up with all the new releases in print with Charles Dunwoody’s RPG Print News.
Wizards of the Coast and WizKids announced a new Tiamat…can we still call them “miniatures” when they get this big? The Tiamat…let’s say figure…is 14.6” tall (37.1cm) and 16.8” long (42.8cm) with a wingspan of 28.9” (73.4cm) with a clear circular base at 200mm. WizKids specifically states that this is to-scale for play on the table and “isn’t just a statue”. The images indicate the figure will be pre-painted and assembled like their previous large figures, but this is not explicitly stated in the WizKids pre-order page. The figure is set for a September release with a retail price of $399.99.
Luke Crane has resigned his position at Kickstarter following the controversy surrounding his project, Perfect RPG. Crane previously served as the Head of Tabletop at Kickstarter before moving over to the role of Vice President Head of Community. The resignation comes at a mutual agreement with Kickstarter after The Perfect RPG crowdfunding effort was cancelled within hours of launch due to the inclusion of Adam Koebel. Koebel raised controversy last year when his live stream of Far Verona ended after the entire cast resigned in protest following Koebel roleplaying a scene of non-consensual sexual assault where the players were not warned of the content and did not agree to it in advance. After the Perfect RPG’s Kickstarter launch, several of the designers involved resigned as they were not aware of Koebel’s involvement until the project launched. Crane initially posted a statement on the project page locked to backers-only where he said “Many designers withdrew or were harassed to withdraw due to my inclusion of Adam Koebel” and removed the entire list of contributors “to reduce future harassment”. None of the designers involved in the project have reported any harassment, and several refuted the claims directly and stated they withdrew of their own volition. Crane released a statement on his resignation, stating “I wish to unequivocally apologize to you, and everyone affected, for the harm I’ve done to the community”. The statement continues, “There was no deceit, deception or bad faith in any of my actions around the project” but then states “I should have disclosed the participant list to all contributors beforehand”. The full statement from Crane is available as a public post on the project page. Kickstarter released a statement to Polygon:
Onyx Path announced a development deal with Jenkins and Tate Entertainment for a television series based on Scion. The television show will be a live-action adventure series set in the United Kingdom featuring “brand new heroic and well loved characters” from the game. While Onyx Path publishes other former White Wolf material such as World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness under license from the current owner, Paradox Interactive, the Scion rights were purchased by Onyx Path in 2012 and now wholly owned by OPP. No details have been released about casting, plot, length, or network.
Modiphius announced pre-orders for Fallout: The Post-Nuclear Tabletop Roleplaying Game using the 2d20 System. This is the second roleplaying game in the Fallout universe from Modiphius, though the first was an expansion to the miniature skirmish game Fallout: Wasteland Warfare rather than a fully independent roleplaying game. The core rulebook will be 400 pages available in a standard edition for £38 (US$52.38). Along with the core rules, the game will also launch with a Gamemaster Toolkit featuring a map of the Boston Commonwealth from Fallout 4 along with tokens, character sheets, reference handouts, and a gamemaster booklet for £25 (US$34.46) and a set of custom dice for £16 (US$22.06). There are also four different bundles of the launch products with price breaks, including two that include a Limited Edition alternate cover. The entire launch line-up is expected to ship this summer.
Wizards of the Coast suspended artist Jason Felix following accusations of plagiarism from the work of fan artist Kitt Lapeña. The card in question was a reprint of Crux of Fate for the Strixhaven expansion, reprinted as part of the Mystical Archive series which reprints classic cards with new highly-stylized artwork. Lapeña found out after a comment on her Deviant Art page, where she posted her image in 2016. Comparing the works, the design of the head, neck, arms, and hands match the original fan art exactly – including the repetition of an error in the original art (the dragon Nicol Bolas is presented in artwork previously as having three fingers on his hands while Lapeña’s fan art and Felix’s card design show hands with five fingers). Wizards of the Coast released the following statement:
Yesterday was April Fools Day, the day when companies make me very unhappy by releasing very realistic-looking products and announcements that are just jokes and typically leave me to sort out which ones are accurate and which are not (an ability of mine that is directly proportionate to the amount of coffee I’ve had). However, they do tend to be entertaining after the fact. Here’s a collection of some of the April Fools Day pranks from the tabletop roleplaying industry (or at least the ones I stumbled upon – feel free to share your favorites in the comments):
- Beadle & Grimm’s announced a Platinum Boxed Set for Wing Commander titled the “Maniac Edition” (based on the film that Beatle & Grimm’s founder Matthew Lillard co-starred in and not the classic Origin Systems game the film was based on).
- Sandy Petersen of Call of Cthulhu fame released a YouTube video with the title “Was Lovecraft Racist?” Petersen appears in the video to speak a single word: Yes.
- April Kit Walsh released an image of an updated version of Thirsty Sword Lesbians titled Friendly Sword Pals with “Rules for holding hands, sharing shirts, or practicing kisses with your lifelong roommates and sword-fighting pals” (as a parody of many articles and documentaries that describe figures in obvious LGBTQ+ relationships as “close friends” or “roommates”).
- Paizo released Pathfinder 2e and Starfinder stats for several new monsters, including the Nosferotter (a Medium Undead Humanoid vampire otter with the power “Squeak of Doom”) and Dessert Drake (a giant ice cream cone dragon who can release powdered sugar as a cloud attack).
- Steve Jackson Games announced a new fragrance line that includes their first perfume, Illuminati: New World Odor. “Does that mean we crushed up dice, cards, pretzels, and veer to make a fragrance? It may. Does it still smell good? Perhaps. You ask too many questions.”
- Dwarven Forge released a trailer on their Facebook page for a new television series, The Joy of Dwarven Painting.
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@enpublishingrpg.com, and you can get more discussion of the week’s news on Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk every week. You can follow me on Twitch to get notifications when I go live, subscribe to Gamer’s Tavern on YouTube for videos on gaming history, RPG reviews, 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.
