Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! Big news from D&D Direct, new Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves merchandise announced, To Save a Kingdom coming soon from EN Publishing, Twilight Imperium RPG shipping now, 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 talk about what makes a roleplaying game original.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
Wizards of the Coast held their D&D Direct 2023 Showcase on Tuesday covering the company’s plans for the future. The big news for tabletop RPG players is the first look at the new virtual tabletop featuring “pre-alpha gameplay footage”. The new VTT uses Unreal Engine 5 which, based on the screenshots, intends to use the realistic models capable within the engine to recreate a tabletop experience. Characters are represented by static miniatures that look like highly-detailed versions of the type you’d get from WizKids or HeroForge, while the terrain looks like the sort of assets you’d see in any Unreal-powered video game. The DM will have control over the world with the ability to set weather and lighting effects, and there will also be some animated effects for spells and other abilities. Dice rolls are also recreated in 3D with actual dice rolling across the screen showing the roll before auto-calculating the final result. No release date has been set, but a playtest is expected in late 2023.
Wizards of the Coast also released their roadmap for the rest of the year for Dungeons & Dragons. First came the reveal of new artwork for the previously announced Bigby Presents: The Glory of the Giants and Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk due in Q3 2023. The Glory of the Giants will be a sourcebook similar to Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons expanding on the lore and monster options for giants. Phandelver and Below will be a full adventure set in the town of Phandalin from the original 5e Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set adventure Lost Mines of Phandelver and involve the black obelisks that have appeared in multiple Forgotten Realms set adventures throughout 5e starting with Out of the Abyss.
On the way in Q4 2024 is a sourcebook exploring the chaos that is the Deck of Many Things with a book going into the story behind the item. But the big one is, of course, Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse. This book will detail Sigil, the City of Doors, with an art reveal for the power behind Sigil, the Lady of Pain herself. This book will also set the stage for the return of Vecna, who will play big into a world-shattering event in 2024 leading to the release of OneD&D. Huh, Vecna gets involved in the Sigil which causes world-shattering events leading to an edition change. Where have I heard that before? Also teased for 2025 will be a storyline featuring the Red Wizards of Thay (finally expanding 5e’s version of Forgotten Realms out of the Sword Coast), a return of the League of Malevolence introduced in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and the greatest villain in D&D history: Venger!
The largest news outside the tabletop space from D&D Direct is the new collaboration with Microsoft, Minecraft Dungeons & Dragons. The experience will merge elements of D&D gameplay and the lore of the Forgotten Realms with Minecraft. The DLC will feature voiceovers, dynamic music based on what’s going on, and an exploration-focused (but not open-world) story that will take about 10 hours to play through. Several of the gameplay aspects of Minecraft have been replaced by Dungeons & Dragons rules such as dice rolls to determine success and failure. Unfortunately for those who run private Minecraft servers, the assets from D&D cannot be used outside of the “box” of the DLC aside from skins for each playable class. And as is common with these licensing deals, it goes both ways as D&D Beyond now has a free supplement Monstrous Compendium Volume Three: Minecraft Creatures featuring 5e stats for iconic Minecraft monsters like creepers, endermen, and more.
Now for a quick summary of the rest of the tidbits of information that came from the event. The final book in The Way of the Drow Trilogy from R. A. Salvatore, Lolth’s Warrior, is scheduled for release on August 15. Cryptic released a trailer for the new event in the Neverwinter MMO Menzoberranzan which is available now with a special D&D Direct VIP Pack available until April 4. Joe Manganiello spoked again about his spec script for a Dragonlance film (which despite reporting that repeats every 6-12 months has not moved forward beyond the script stage) before speaking about the Dungeons & Dragons documentary with Jon Petersen set for release in 2024. Finally, D&D Direct ran down the new merchandise available as a tie-in for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves including the new Magic: The Gathering Secret Stash expansion featuring characters from the film. And fans of the cult classic television series Freaks and Geeks might like this short video showing the D&D group from the film still playing the game (Freaks and Geeks star John Francis Daley also co-wrote and co-directed Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves).
On Wednesday after the event, Hasbro Pulse posted pre-orders for several new products based on the film. First up is the board game Dungeons & Dragons: Bedlam in Neverwinter, a cooperative “escape room” game where each player takes on a unique character created by choosing a class, race, and starting weapon to explore a dynamic board and solve a mystery. The game is available now with a retail price of $33.99. The Golden Archive series of action figures is also expanding as Bleeding Cool finally has the action figures of the rest of the film’s party with the reveal of the paladin Xenk and the human form of the druid Doric (previously Doric’s figure was only seen in the version of her in owlbear form). Both of these figures are due for release this spring with a retail price of $24.99. We also have a new figure for Xanathar available in August with a retail price of $49.99 along with a displacer beast for $39.99 and a brown owlbear for $44.99 (which is separate from the snowy owlbear Doric wildshapes into) both due in October.
EN Publishing’s new adventure path To Save a Kingdom for 5e and Level Up: Advanced 5e is coming to Kickstarter soon. What is To Save a Kingdom? It’s a trilogy of linked adventures to create a full adventure path that takes characters from 3rd to 13th level with To Slay a Dragon, To Stake a Vampire, and To Smite a Fiend. The adventure is designed to pick up after the starter adventure of your choice (especially the Level Up adventure Memories of Holdenshire) and make an epic adventure for your characters. For more information about the main villains of each of the adventures, EN Publishing has introductions to the dragon Cirothe, the vampire Nemirtvi, and the reclusive wizard Kalle Sirkesalo. Sign up on Kickstarter to be notified when the project goes live next week.
Edge Studio announced that, after a series of delays, the game Embers of the Imperium is on its way. The Genesys System roleplaying game is based on the 4x board game Twilight Imperium and lets you play as Keleres, special agents empowered by the Galactic Council to seek out and destroy threats so big they threaten the entire galaxy. Not only will you face challenges from threats like swarms of murderous machines, remnants of long-dead star empires, or monsters from other dimensions, but you’ll also face the horrors of the internal politics of governments more concerned about their squabbles with neighboring star systems than the existential dangers ready to wipe them out. The core rulebook is currently shipping to retailers in Europe and in transit to North America with a PDF coming soon to DriveThruRPG once the physical copies make it to store shelves.
Riftweaver announced the upcoming crowdfunding campaign for their “digital first” RPG Fablecraft. The app will recreate the tabletop gaming experience using a unique rules system and full integration of video, audio, and text chat. The game itself is set in the fantasy world of Mythas with players taking on the role of Mages each with a different set of powers based on homeland, class, and fighting style. The free-to-play app will be available on Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS and will include a starter adventure along with a library of art assets, battlemaps, and music with free and premium paid content. Fablecraft will also have a built-in marketplace that will allow artists to sell work directly to players. The Kickstarter campaign for the app and game is scheduled to launch on May 9.
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, Peter, and Jessica talk about what makes a roleplaying game original.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
- EN5ider #506 is Memento Masteries, special traits that characters can learn based on their previous exploits turning their previous exploits into an advantage.
- Charles Dunwoody reviews the retro-modern fantasy RPG at the heart of the newest million-dollar Kickstarter, Shadowdark.
- Rob Wieland looks at the surreal conspiracy horror Public Access with the characters investigating an old UHF television network from their childhood.
- Egg Embry interviewed Mattias Johnsson Haake and Joe LeFavi about Free League’s The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game.
- Beth Rimmels reviewed the graphic novel prequel Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: The Feast of the Moon.
- Charles Dunwoody spoke with Dave Scott of Evil Genius Games about Everyday Arcana, the urban fantasy expansion for the d20 Modern reboot Everyday Heroes.
- 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 held their D&D Direct 2023 Showcase on Tuesday covering the company’s plans for the future. The big news for tabletop RPG players is the first look at the new virtual tabletop featuring “pre-alpha gameplay footage”. The new VTT uses Unreal Engine 5 which, based on the screenshots, intends to use the realistic models capable within the engine to recreate a tabletop experience. Characters are represented by static miniatures that look like highly-detailed versions of the type you’d get from WizKids or HeroForge, while the terrain looks like the sort of assets you’d see in any Unreal-powered video game. The DM will have control over the world with the ability to set weather and lighting effects, and there will also be some animated effects for spells and other abilities. Dice rolls are also recreated in 3D with actual dice rolling across the screen showing the roll before auto-calculating the final result. No release date has been set, but a playtest is expected in late 2023.
Wizards of the Coast also released their roadmap for the rest of the year for Dungeons & Dragons. First came the reveal of new artwork for the previously announced Bigby Presents: The Glory of the Giants and Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk due in Q3 2023. The Glory of the Giants will be a sourcebook similar to Fizban’s Treasury of Dragons expanding on the lore and monster options for giants. Phandelver and Below will be a full adventure set in the town of Phandalin from the original 5e Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set adventure Lost Mines of Phandelver and involve the black obelisks that have appeared in multiple Forgotten Realms set adventures throughout 5e starting with Out of the Abyss.
On the way in Q4 2024 is a sourcebook exploring the chaos that is the Deck of Many Things with a book going into the story behind the item. But the big one is, of course, Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse. This book will detail Sigil, the City of Doors, with an art reveal for the power behind Sigil, the Lady of Pain herself. This book will also set the stage for the return of Vecna, who will play big into a world-shattering event in 2024 leading to the release of OneD&D. Huh, Vecna gets involved in the Sigil which causes world-shattering events leading to an edition change. Where have I heard that before? Also teased for 2025 will be a storyline featuring the Red Wizards of Thay (finally expanding 5e’s version of Forgotten Realms out of the Sword Coast), a return of the League of Malevolence introduced in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and the greatest villain in D&D history: Venger!
The largest news outside the tabletop space from D&D Direct is the new collaboration with Microsoft, Minecraft Dungeons & Dragons. The experience will merge elements of D&D gameplay and the lore of the Forgotten Realms with Minecraft. The DLC will feature voiceovers, dynamic music based on what’s going on, and an exploration-focused (but not open-world) story that will take about 10 hours to play through. Several of the gameplay aspects of Minecraft have been replaced by Dungeons & Dragons rules such as dice rolls to determine success and failure. Unfortunately for those who run private Minecraft servers, the assets from D&D cannot be used outside of the “box” of the DLC aside from skins for each playable class. And as is common with these licensing deals, it goes both ways as D&D Beyond now has a free supplement Monstrous Compendium Volume Three: Minecraft Creatures featuring 5e stats for iconic Minecraft monsters like creepers, endermen, and more.
Now for a quick summary of the rest of the tidbits of information that came from the event. The final book in The Way of the Drow Trilogy from R. A. Salvatore, Lolth’s Warrior, is scheduled for release on August 15. Cryptic released a trailer for the new event in the Neverwinter MMO Menzoberranzan which is available now with a special D&D Direct VIP Pack available until April 4. Joe Manganiello spoked again about his spec script for a Dragonlance film (which despite reporting that repeats every 6-12 months has not moved forward beyond the script stage) before speaking about the Dungeons & Dragons documentary with Jon Petersen set for release in 2024. Finally, D&D Direct ran down the new merchandise available as a tie-in for Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves including the new Magic: The Gathering Secret Stash expansion featuring characters from the film. And fans of the cult classic television series Freaks and Geeks might like this short video showing the D&D group from the film still playing the game (Freaks and Geeks star John Francis Daley also co-wrote and co-directed Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves).
On Wednesday after the event, Hasbro Pulse posted pre-orders for several new products based on the film. First up is the board game Dungeons & Dragons: Bedlam in Neverwinter, a cooperative “escape room” game where each player takes on a unique character created by choosing a class, race, and starting weapon to explore a dynamic board and solve a mystery. The game is available now with a retail price of $33.99. The Golden Archive series of action figures is also expanding as Bleeding Cool finally has the action figures of the rest of the film’s party with the reveal of the paladin Xenk and the human form of the druid Doric (previously Doric’s figure was only seen in the version of her in owlbear form). Both of these figures are due for release this spring with a retail price of $24.99. We also have a new figure for Xanathar available in August with a retail price of $49.99 along with a displacer beast for $39.99 and a brown owlbear for $44.99 (which is separate from the snowy owlbear Doric wildshapes into) both due in October.
EN Publishing’s new adventure path To Save a Kingdom for 5e and Level Up: Advanced 5e is coming to Kickstarter soon. What is To Save a Kingdom? It’s a trilogy of linked adventures to create a full adventure path that takes characters from 3rd to 13th level with To Slay a Dragon, To Stake a Vampire, and To Smite a Fiend. The adventure is designed to pick up after the starter adventure of your choice (especially the Level Up adventure Memories of Holdenshire) and make an epic adventure for your characters. For more information about the main villains of each of the adventures, EN Publishing has introductions to the dragon Cirothe, the vampire Nemirtvi, and the reclusive wizard Kalle Sirkesalo. Sign up on Kickstarter to be notified when the project goes live next week.
Edge Studio announced that, after a series of delays, the game Embers of the Imperium is on its way. The Genesys System roleplaying game is based on the 4x board game Twilight Imperium and lets you play as Keleres, special agents empowered by the Galactic Council to seek out and destroy threats so big they threaten the entire galaxy. Not only will you face challenges from threats like swarms of murderous machines, remnants of long-dead star empires, or monsters from other dimensions, but you’ll also face the horrors of the internal politics of governments more concerned about their squabbles with neighboring star systems than the existential dangers ready to wipe them out. The core rulebook is currently shipping to retailers in Europe and in transit to North America with a PDF coming soon to DriveThruRPG once the physical copies make it to store shelves.
Riftweaver announced the upcoming crowdfunding campaign for their “digital first” RPG Fablecraft. The app will recreate the tabletop gaming experience using a unique rules system and full integration of video, audio, and text chat. The game itself is set in the fantasy world of Mythas with players taking on the role of Mages each with a different set of powers based on homeland, class, and fighting style. The free-to-play app will be available on Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS and will include a starter adventure along with a library of art assets, battlemaps, and music with free and premium paid content. Fablecraft will also have a built-in marketplace that will allow artists to sell work directly to players. The Kickstarter campaign for the app and game is scheduled to launch on May 9.
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.
