Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! Cover reveal for new D&D release, new Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves trailer, new Cyberpunk RED sourcebook announced, Hasbro laying off 1000 employees, 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 and Jessica list off the most popular RPG podcasts as voted by EN World readers.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
Wizards of the Coast finally revealed the cover of Keys from the Golden Vault, the upcoming heist-based adventure anthology for Dungeons & Dragons. Well, by “revealed”, I mean “quietly updated the Wizard Play Network website for hobby store retailers with no press releases, live streams, videos, or the typical announcement-of-the-announcement style promotional blitz”. Even the Amazon pre-order page still has the placeholder art. No idea why they decided to downplay the normal pre-release press push. We do have a full description for the hardcover now:
There was plenty of fanfare for the release of the second full trailer for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. This trailer goes slightly more into the plot than the previous one with the Red Wizards of Thay more front-and-center as the primary antagonist of the film, with Hugh Grant’s character more firmly established as a turncoat minor antagonist that sells the group out at some point. We also got a better look at two of the dragons (well, technically just Themberchaud as the other dragon is revealed to be a statue animated by one of the Red Wizards) and several new spells. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is set for a worldwide theatrical release on March 31, 2023.
Wizards of the Coast also posted the survey for feedback on the OGL v1.2 document released last week. The survey features questions about opinions about the Dungeons & Dragons brand and Wizards of the Coast as a company following the new release as well as asking for specific feedback on different aspects of the proposed new license. If you plan on taking this survey, be prepared to write because there are far fewer "rate 1-10" style questions and far more requests for essays than in the typical D&D Beyond survey. The D&D Beyond Twitter account stated that they have received over 10,000 responses so far and "So far, survey responses have made it clear that this draft of OGL 1.2 hasn't hit the mark for our community." The survey is open until next Friday, February 3, with Wizards of the Coast still requesting feedback until then, while the results will influence the next post on D&D Beyond regarding changes to the OGL "on or before" February 17.
Modiphius announced the next expansion for Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, the sourcebook The Great Game: Houses of the Landsraad. This 128-page book provides comprehensive detail on the nature and politics of the Landsraad council and the complex relationships between the Houses along with rules on kanly, the art of assassination by blade or poison, new talents for CHOAM agent player characters, a guide to the Spacing Guild with more new talents for Guild Agent characters, rules for creating any of the “million worlds” that make up the Imperium, a complete system for House management, and more. The book is set for a March 2023 release with a retail price of £38.00 (US$48.12).
R. Talsorian Games announced Black Chrome: A Tech & Style Guide for Cyberpunk RED is on its way. Fans of the original Cyberpunk line will fondly remember the Chromebook series of shopping catalogues full of goodies for your character with new weapons, clothing, armor, gear, and of course chrome cybernetic implants. Black Chrome is the updated version with 168 pages of new gear, apps, cyberware, fashion and armor, general goods and gear, vehicles, weapons, and linear frames plus information on how the economy of Night City functions, where to find black markets, and the Black Chrome Lists. The book is currently at the printers ready for a release in late February/early March with a retail price of $40.00 for the hardcover and $20.00 for the PDF.
WizKids announced two new Encounter in a Box products which includes all the accessories needed to run a specific encounter: Prison Break and Wagon Ambush. Each boxed set features a double-sided gridded map tile along with a collection of pre-painted terrain and 2D stand-up miniatures to create a common encounter type. Prison Break includes 2D acrylic stand-up minis for a sheriff, three bailiffs, a prison, and a guard dog with 3D terrain for iron doors and stone walls to create a dungeon scene. Wagon Ambush includes 2D acrylic stand-up minis for a merchant and four bandits with 3D minis for a horse, two pack mules, a two-wheel cart, and two logs to block the road. Both sets are due for release in Q2 2023 with a retail price of $29.99 each.
And in industry financial news, Hasbro announced over 1000 employees will be laid off over the coming weeks. The layoffs are due to a disappointing fourth quarter in 2022 with sales down 26% in the Consumer Products division (toys and non-Wizards of the Coast games), while the Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming division sales were up 22%. Combined with a 12% decline in sales for the Entertainment division, the overall sales for the company fell 17%. The layoffs are part of a “Blueprint 2.0” initiative to focus the company on fewer, bigger brands, a larger focus on gaming and digital, and more direct-to-consumer sales. Hasbro President and Chief Operating Officer Eric Nyman will also be leaving the company after 18 years, leaving the Consumer Products division reporting directly to CEO Chris Cocks. The 1000 employee layoffs represent around 15% of the company’s total workforce.
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, follow me on Mastodon for RPG chat and general nonsense, 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.
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 and Jessica list off the most popular RPG podcasts as voted by EN World readers.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
- There’s under two weeks left in the EN Publishing Kickstarter for Gate Pass Gazette Annual 2022, collecting the entries from the official Level Up: Advanced 5e zine for last year in a single hardback volume.
- EN5ider #495 is a collection of Seasonal Spells with a dozen new spells covering every season from blizzard to heatwave.
- EN5ider #496 brings a booty of Enchanted Trinkets full of pirate-themed low-powered magic items any buccaneer would give a peg leg for.
- Episode 3 of the EN Publishing live-streamed campaign Against the Dragonlords is out playing through the original DL1: Dragons of Despair module for Dragonlance using the rules of Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition.
- Paizo announces over 1500 publishers have expressed interest in the new open gaming ORC License.
- Paiso also announced that the ORC will always be available from now on. Err, sorry, that’s “Orc” as in the Pathfinder ancestry and Starfinder species referring to the legality of the Pathfinder/Starfinder Society organized play.
- Dawn Dalton reviews the new Hero Point Deck reference cards for Pathfinder Second Edition.
- And Dawn also covers the announcement from Paizo and Owl Cat Games that the Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous video game crossed past one million sales.
- Rob Wieland looks at the starter set for Blade Runner The Roleplaying Game from Free League.
- Egg Embry concludes his look back at the cyberpunk RPG releases from 2022 with a look at the media tie-in products and crowdfunding campaigns.
- M. T. Black continues his journey through RPG periodicals past with Dragon Reflections #63 covering the July 1982 issue of Dragon.
- Michael Tresca talks about the 2022 proxy fight that went on behind the scenes at Hasbro that attempted to split Wizards of the Coast off as its own company.
- Mike Myler has another ENterplanetary DimENsions with the planet Luria, an embodiment of law and order.
- 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 RPG Bundles, Freebies, and Sales News.
Wizards of the Coast finally revealed the cover of Keys from the Golden Vault, the upcoming heist-based adventure anthology for Dungeons & Dragons. Well, by “revealed”, I mean “quietly updated the Wizard Play Network website for hobby store retailers with no press releases, live streams, videos, or the typical announcement-of-the-announcement style promotional blitz”. Even the Amazon pre-order page still has the placeholder art. No idea why they decided to downplay the normal pre-release press push. We do have a full description for the hardcover now:
The 208-page book is set for release on February 21, 2023, with a retail price of $49.95.
There was plenty of fanfare for the release of the second full trailer for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. This trailer goes slightly more into the plot than the previous one with the Red Wizards of Thay more front-and-center as the primary antagonist of the film, with Hugh Grant’s character more firmly established as a turncoat minor antagonist that sells the group out at some point. We also got a better look at two of the dragons (well, technically just Themberchaud as the other dragon is revealed to be a statue animated by one of the Red Wizards) and several new spells. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is set for a worldwide theatrical release on March 31, 2023.
Wizards of the Coast also posted the survey for feedback on the OGL v1.2 document released last week. The survey features questions about opinions about the Dungeons & Dragons brand and Wizards of the Coast as a company following the new release as well as asking for specific feedback on different aspects of the proposed new license. If you plan on taking this survey, be prepared to write because there are far fewer "rate 1-10" style questions and far more requests for essays than in the typical D&D Beyond survey. The D&D Beyond Twitter account stated that they have received over 10,000 responses so far and "So far, survey responses have made it clear that this draft of OGL 1.2 hasn't hit the mark for our community." The survey is open until next Friday, February 3, with Wizards of the Coast still requesting feedback until then, while the results will influence the next post on D&D Beyond regarding changes to the OGL "on or before" February 17.
Modiphius announced the next expansion for Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, the sourcebook The Great Game: Houses of the Landsraad. This 128-page book provides comprehensive detail on the nature and politics of the Landsraad council and the complex relationships between the Houses along with rules on kanly, the art of assassination by blade or poison, new talents for CHOAM agent player characters, a guide to the Spacing Guild with more new talents for Guild Agent characters, rules for creating any of the “million worlds” that make up the Imperium, a complete system for House management, and more. The book is set for a March 2023 release with a retail price of £38.00 (US$48.12).
R. Talsorian Games announced Black Chrome: A Tech & Style Guide for Cyberpunk RED is on its way. Fans of the original Cyberpunk line will fondly remember the Chromebook series of shopping catalogues full of goodies for your character with new weapons, clothing, armor, gear, and of course chrome cybernetic implants. Black Chrome is the updated version with 168 pages of new gear, apps, cyberware, fashion and armor, general goods and gear, vehicles, weapons, and linear frames plus information on how the economy of Night City functions, where to find black markets, and the Black Chrome Lists. The book is currently at the printers ready for a release in late February/early March with a retail price of $40.00 for the hardcover and $20.00 for the PDF.
WizKids announced two new Encounter in a Box products which includes all the accessories needed to run a specific encounter: Prison Break and Wagon Ambush. Each boxed set features a double-sided gridded map tile along with a collection of pre-painted terrain and 2D stand-up miniatures to create a common encounter type. Prison Break includes 2D acrylic stand-up minis for a sheriff, three bailiffs, a prison, and a guard dog with 3D terrain for iron doors and stone walls to create a dungeon scene. Wagon Ambush includes 2D acrylic stand-up minis for a merchant and four bandits with 3D minis for a horse, two pack mules, a two-wheel cart, and two logs to block the road. Both sets are due for release in Q2 2023 with a retail price of $29.99 each.
And in industry financial news, Hasbro announced over 1000 employees will be laid off over the coming weeks. The layoffs are due to a disappointing fourth quarter in 2022 with sales down 26% in the Consumer Products division (toys and non-Wizards of the Coast games), while the Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming division sales were up 22%. Combined with a 12% decline in sales for the Entertainment division, the overall sales for the company fell 17%. The layoffs are part of a “Blueprint 2.0” initiative to focus the company on fewer, bigger brands, a larger focus on gaming and digital, and more direct-to-consumer sales. Hasbro President and Chief Operating Officer Eric Nyman will also be leaving the company after 18 years, leaving the Consumer Products division reporting directly to CEO Chris Cocks. The 1000 employee layoffs represent around 15% of the company’s total workforce.
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, follow me on Mastodon for RPG chat and general nonsense, 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.
