Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! New Dungeons & Dragons adventure book announced, update on the Dungeons & Dragons movie, Stephen Colbert teaming with Critical Role for charity, first playtest for EN Publishing’s Voidrunner’s Codex, and more!
For a quick summary of the week’s news, Jessica Hancock will bring you up to speed with This Week in TTRPG.
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 Peter are joined by Jessica Hancock to talk about the Rule of Cool vs. Rules as Written.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
Wizards of the Coast teased something with a post of an image of crystals, and it didn’t take long before the news broke of Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, a new adventure anthology book for Dungeons & Dragons. This new 224-page hardcover will contain thirteen new short, stand-alone adventures for parties ranging from 1st level to 14th level tied to the Radiant Citadel, a magical city on the ethereal plane carved from the fossil of an unknown giant monster. While the words “Spelljammer” or “Planescape” aren’t mentioned, the adventure description does mention the multiverse in a tantalizing way:
Chris Pine is currently doing a press tour for the film All the Old Knives, but that hasn’t stopped curious interviewers from asking about the Dungeons & Dragons live-action film. During a live stream interview with Collider, Pine (Star Trek, Wonder Woman) was asked what he could tease people about the movie.
Dungeons & Dragons stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Regé-Jean Page with Hugh Grant as the villain and is currently scheduled for theatrical release on March 3, 2023.
Two more announcements from Critical Role this week. First, the publishing arm of the company Darrington Press announced Syndicult, a new roleplaying game. This new game written by Matt Mercer focuses on a modern-day fantasy setting where crime syndicates “vie for magical power in a world of artifacts, mysteries, and crime”. No release date is available yet and the only preview we have is a single comic book style panel, available in the link above.
Critical Role is also teaming once again with Stephen Colbert for a charity Dungeons & Dragons event going one-on-one with DM Matt Mercer benefitting Red Nose Day. The pre-recorded video will premiere April 28 at 7 PM Pacific (10 PM Eastern, 3 AM BST) and your donations will affect the game. There are four polls open until April 1 that will choose Stephen’s starting gear, a spell he can cast regardless of class, his familiar, and the thing that he must recover. This marks the second time the two have come together for charity following their prior Red Nose Day charity event in 2019. Proceeds from the fundraiser benefit Red Nose Day, the American branch of the UK charity Comic Relief.
The first public playtest for EN Publishing’s Voidrunner’s Codex is now available: the Psion class. While the rules are cross-compatible with the fantasy Level Up: Advanced 5e, the setting of Voidrunner’s Codex is straightforward science fiction with no magic. But that doesn’t mean that a being with the focused mental willpower can make use of their gifts to influence the physical world with their mind. The 28-page playtest document includes the full class all the way to 20th level and three Psion Archetype subclasses: Augur with powers focused on precognition and divination-like abilities, Mindshear focused on telepathic and mind-altering powers, and Warstorm who devote their psionic abilities into physical objects and energy. The playtest survey is open now for feedback in preparation for the Voidrunner’s Codex crowdfunding campaign later this year.
Chris and Rita Birch of Modiphius launched the charity RollVsEvil this week to raise money for humanitarian aid efforts. The event kicks off tonight, March 25, with a live stream event at 8 PM Eastern (5 PM Pacific, 1 AM BST), and the fundraising continues this Saturday, March 26. From the RollVsEvil website:
Participating companies include Mantic Games, Steve Jackson Games, Gama, Cubicle 7, Roll 20, UK Games Expo, Steamforged Games, R Talsorian Games, Chaosium, Titan Forge, Q-Workshop, Paizo, Mythic Games, Magpie Games, Green Ronin, Para Bellum, and more. At the time of writing, the JustGiving fundraising page has already raised almost £10,000 in the lead-up to the official launch.
Kickstarter CEO Aziz Hasan announced that he is stepping down from the position effective April 4, citing “personal reflection”. Hasan led the company through extensive growth, but also through multiple controversies including accusations of attempting to block the formation of the first labor union in the tech industry, the resignation of the Vice President Head of Community Luke Crane following a highly controversial Kickstarter project, and the ongoing controversy surrounding the company’s move to blockchain technology. Chief Operating Officer Sean Leow will take over the role of Interim CEO as the board chooses a new head for the company.
Modiphius released two new short Star Trek Adventures products this week. The first is the Star Trek Adventures: Discovery S1 Crew Pack featuring character sheets for the first season roster of the USS Discovery including Captain Gabriel Lorca, Commander Saru, Lieutenant Paul Stamets, Lieutenant Commander Hugh Culber, Michael Burnham, Lieutenant Ash Tyler, Cadet Sylvia Tilly, Emperor Philippa Georgiou, and L’Rell plus player rules for Kelpiens and statistics for the USS Discovery. The 22-page PDF is available for $4.99.
Also out this week is a pay-what-you-want Star Trek Adventures Briefs 5: Starbase Adventures. This 16-page PDF features ten detailed mission briefs highlighting adventures on starbases. Designed to work either with campaigns set on starbases like Deep Space Nine or for a starship crew visiting, the mission briefs can be used as one-off adventures or used to create a full campaign. This product is designed for the Next Generation era but can be easily adapted for other time periods in Star Trek.
Cubicle 7 has partnered with Humble Bundle for the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Soulbound Bundle featuring a total of 24 books with everything you need to get started with Soulbound. This bundle benefits Children’s Health Ireland and runs until Thursday, April 14. If you want to fill out your library of Pathfinder First Edition books, Humble and Paizo have a bundle of 40 titles for just $35 including a full collection of character option books in digital format plus a hardcover of the Inner Sea World Guide. This bundle benefits the National Coalition Against Censorship and runs until Saturday, April 2. We’ve also got a bundle of original Traveller books with over 40 digital books for the classic sci-fi RPG. This bundle benefits the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society and runs until Thursday, April 7.
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.
For a quick summary of the week’s news, Jessica Hancock will bring you up to speed with This Week in TTRPG.
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 Peter are joined by Jessica Hancock to talk about the Rule of Cool vs. Rules as Written.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
- EN5ider #445 is a Dangerous Scenario ready to challenge a party of 4th to 6th level with the lethal abattoir of Artyom “Fleshtaker” Lench full of traps and dangers.
- The newest episode of Not DnD with Jessica Hancock features the They Came From Beyond the Grave from Onyx Path with guest Matthew Dawkins.
- Renegade Game Studios is now accepting pre-orders for My Little Pony Roleplaying Game using the in-house Essence20 system.
- Rob Wieland reviews the “Robin Hood vs Dracula” Forged in the Dark game Brinkwood: The Blood of Tyrants.
- Andrew Peregrine returns to his series on integrating religion into your campaigns with a look at the role of priests and clerics in your game world.
- Michael Tresca tackles the difficult topic to sort of what makes a show “Dungeons & Dragons” whether or not it is Dungeons & Dragons.
- M.T. Black continues his look through RPG periodicals of the past with Dragon Reflections 54 covering the October 1981 issue of Dragon.
- Mike Myler’s newest Mythological Figures is the great doctor, scientist, and eventual vampire hunter Professor Abraham Van Helsing.
- Sean Hillman is back with another DM’s Guild Roundup covering the biggest new releases from March 2022.
- Don’t miss out on the newest RPG crowdfunding projects ending soon with Egg Embry’s RPG Crowdfunding News and keep up with all the new print RPG releases with Charles Dunwoody’s RPG Print News.
Wizards of the Coast teased something with a post of an image of crystals, and it didn’t take long before the news broke of Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel, a new adventure anthology book for Dungeons & Dragons. This new 224-page hardcover will contain thirteen new short, stand-alone adventures for parties ranging from 1st level to 14th level tied to the Radiant Citadel, a magical city on the ethereal plane carved from the fossil of an unknown giant monster. While the words “Spelljammer” or “Planescape” aren’t mentioned, the adventure description does mention the multiverse in a tantalizing way:
We’ve also got a full list of the adventure titles: “Salted Legacy”, “Written in Blood”, “The Fiend of Hollow Mine”, “Wages of Vice”, “Sins of Our Elders”, “Gold for Fools and Princes”, “Trial of Destruction”, “In the Mists of Manivarsha”, “Between Tangled Roots”, “Shadow of the Sun”, “The Nightsea’s Succor”, “Buried Dynasty”, and “Orchids of the Invisible Mountain”. The credits page has also been released, and project co-lead Ajit George discusses the diversity of the creative team, making it the first official Dungeons & Dragons 5e project with an all-PoC writing team. Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel is available for pre-order with a North American release date of June 21, 2022, at a retail price of $49.95.
Chris Pine is currently doing a press tour for the film All the Old Knives, but that hasn’t stopped curious interviewers from asking about the Dungeons & Dragons live-action film. During a live stream interview with Collider, Pine (Star Trek, Wonder Woman) was asked what he could tease people about the movie.
Dungeons & Dragons stars Chris Pine, Michelle Rodriguez, Justice Smith, Sophia Lillis, and Regé-Jean Page with Hugh Grant as the villain and is currently scheduled for theatrical release on March 3, 2023.
Two more announcements from Critical Role this week. First, the publishing arm of the company Darrington Press announced Syndicult, a new roleplaying game. This new game written by Matt Mercer focuses on a modern-day fantasy setting where crime syndicates “vie for magical power in a world of artifacts, mysteries, and crime”. No release date is available yet and the only preview we have is a single comic book style panel, available in the link above.
Critical Role is also teaming once again with Stephen Colbert for a charity Dungeons & Dragons event going one-on-one with DM Matt Mercer benefitting Red Nose Day. The pre-recorded video will premiere April 28 at 7 PM Pacific (10 PM Eastern, 3 AM BST) and your donations will affect the game. There are four polls open until April 1 that will choose Stephen’s starting gear, a spell he can cast regardless of class, his familiar, and the thing that he must recover. This marks the second time the two have come together for charity following their prior Red Nose Day charity event in 2019. Proceeds from the fundraiser benefit Red Nose Day, the American branch of the UK charity Comic Relief.
The first public playtest for EN Publishing’s Voidrunner’s Codex is now available: the Psion class. While the rules are cross-compatible with the fantasy Level Up: Advanced 5e, the setting of Voidrunner’s Codex is straightforward science fiction with no magic. But that doesn’t mean that a being with the focused mental willpower can make use of their gifts to influence the physical world with their mind. The 28-page playtest document includes the full class all the way to 20th level and three Psion Archetype subclasses: Augur with powers focused on precognition and divination-like abilities, Mindshear focused on telepathic and mind-altering powers, and Warstorm who devote their psionic abilities into physical objects and energy. The playtest survey is open now for feedback in preparation for the Voidrunner’s Codex crowdfunding campaign later this year.
Chris and Rita Birch of Modiphius launched the charity RollVsEvil this week to raise money for humanitarian aid efforts. The event kicks off tonight, March 25, with a live stream event at 8 PM Eastern (5 PM Pacific, 1 AM BST), and the fundraising continues this Saturday, March 26. From the RollVsEvil website:
Participating companies include Mantic Games, Steve Jackson Games, Gama, Cubicle 7, Roll 20, UK Games Expo, Steamforged Games, R Talsorian Games, Chaosium, Titan Forge, Q-Workshop, Paizo, Mythic Games, Magpie Games, Green Ronin, Para Bellum, and more. At the time of writing, the JustGiving fundraising page has already raised almost £10,000 in the lead-up to the official launch.
Kickstarter CEO Aziz Hasan announced that he is stepping down from the position effective April 4, citing “personal reflection”. Hasan led the company through extensive growth, but also through multiple controversies including accusations of attempting to block the formation of the first labor union in the tech industry, the resignation of the Vice President Head of Community Luke Crane following a highly controversial Kickstarter project, and the ongoing controversy surrounding the company’s move to blockchain technology. Chief Operating Officer Sean Leow will take over the role of Interim CEO as the board chooses a new head for the company.
Modiphius released two new short Star Trek Adventures products this week. The first is the Star Trek Adventures: Discovery S1 Crew Pack featuring character sheets for the first season roster of the USS Discovery including Captain Gabriel Lorca, Commander Saru, Lieutenant Paul Stamets, Lieutenant Commander Hugh Culber, Michael Burnham, Lieutenant Ash Tyler, Cadet Sylvia Tilly, Emperor Philippa Georgiou, and L’Rell plus player rules for Kelpiens and statistics for the USS Discovery. The 22-page PDF is available for $4.99.
Also out this week is a pay-what-you-want Star Trek Adventures Briefs 5: Starbase Adventures. This 16-page PDF features ten detailed mission briefs highlighting adventures on starbases. Designed to work either with campaigns set on starbases like Deep Space Nine or for a starship crew visiting, the mission briefs can be used as one-off adventures or used to create a full campaign. This product is designed for the Next Generation era but can be easily adapted for other time periods in Star Trek.
Cubicle 7 has partnered with Humble Bundle for the Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Soulbound Bundle featuring a total of 24 books with everything you need to get started with Soulbound. This bundle benefits Children’s Health Ireland and runs until Thursday, April 14. If you want to fill out your library of Pathfinder First Edition books, Humble and Paizo have a bundle of 40 titles for just $35 including a full collection of character option books in digital format plus a hardcover of the Inner Sea World Guide. This bundle benefits the National Coalition Against Censorship and runs until Saturday, April 2. We’ve also got a bundle of original Traveller books with over 40 digital books for the classic sci-fi RPG. This bundle benefits the Navy-Marine Corps Relief Society and runs until Thursday, April 7.
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.
