Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! New Unearthed Arcana playtest material, release delays for Dungeons & Dragons, preview of Dragonlance novel Dragons of Deceit, DriveThruRPG security breach, 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, Peter, and Jessica talk about using magic items in your games.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
Wizards of the Coast released a new Unearthed Arcana playtest document full of content for giants. Rules are included for three new subclasses, the Barbarian Path of the Giant, the Druid Circle of the Primeval, and the Wizard Runecrafter Tradition. Additionally, there are ten new feats presented in a similar style to those from the Dragonlance playtest document as they look like feat chains. The Elemental Touched feats grant an ability based on Air, Earth, Fire, or Water while further feats available at 4th and 8th level add more elements of Cloud, Stone, Fire, and Frost Giants to the mix. There is also the Rune Crafter Apprentice and Adept feats that allow the use of rune magic regardless of class. I’ll leave it to you to speculate which (if any) classic setting revival this playtest is attached to.
Wizards of the Coast also announced production delays in several announced products. Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel have been delayed from June 21 to July 19 and the Campaign Case: Terrain has been delayed from July 19 to August 16. The announcement also stated that Spelljammer: Adventures in Space set for an August 16 release the Campaign Case: Creatures scheduled for July 19 have not been affected. Digital releases including those on D&D Beyond have been similarly delayed to maintain parity of release schedules.
A preview of the upcoming Classic Dragonlance: Dragons of Deceit: Dragonlance Destinies: Volume I: A Dungeons & Dragons Novel has been released. A previously posted summary of the novel on Amazon already confirmed that time travel would be a part of the story:
The preview available from Polygon is just over 1000 words featuring the characters of Destina, Atieno, and Gregory. The book will be released in hardcover, Kindle, and Audible formats on August 2, 2022.
With the launch of the Kickstarter, we have a new look at Batman: Gotham City Chronicles, the official Batman RPG from Monolith. In case you’re wondering if the 48-page Quickstart isn’t comprehensive enough, it features not only the obligatory “What is a roleplaying game?” essay but a page titled “For Those Who Don’t Know Batman…” that doesn’t just say “Seriously?” but goes into detail on the history of the character and the primary influences for the game: Particularly the Rebirth and New 52 eras of the DC comics. The game uses the Untold Tales Modern system, which is a heavily-modified version of D20 System. The quickstart has NPC stats for Bruce Wayne, Lady Shiva, Shen Feng, and other enemies from the demo adventure and pregenerated characters for Alfred Pennyworth, Renee Montoya, Harvey Bullock, Julia Pennyworth (Alfred’s daughter and an ex-spy), Kate Kane (Batwoman), and Dick Grayson (as Nightwing, not Robin). The Kickstarter is quickly approaching membership in the Million Dollar Club and runs until Friday, June 10.
Jennell Jaquays announced that Goodman Games would be releasing an updated version of her Greek-themed The Caverns of Thracia adventure originally published by Judges Guild in 1979. The original adventure features a megadungeon ruled by a minotaur after overthrowing a cult worshiping Thanatos who still control the first level of the dungeon. It was revised for 3.5 in 2004 for White Wolf’s Sword & Sorcery line by James Collura. Jaquays stated on Twitter that she is “affiliated” with Goodman Games in the Reincarnation productions of both Caverns of Thracia and the update of Dark Tower currently on Kickstarter, but that the conversions to 5e and Dungeon Crawl Classics are being handled by “some really competent designers”. Jaquays is also currently working on a ground-up reboot of the Central Casting character history creation system for fantasy characters.
OneBookShelf, the company behind DriveThruRPG, suffered a security breach this past weekend. First off: No customer data was affected or accessed during the breach and the issue has been patched. But on the afternoon of May 20, someone gained access to the site and was able to change the prices of several products and set many titles to free. The site was temporarily shut down while the security breach was repaired. Over the weekend, publishers could not update titles until May 23 when a patch was applied to fix the security issue. OneBookShelf is currently checking purchase information to determine which publishers were affected by having their titles set to a lower price to make restitution.
Tabletop roleplaying game Thirsty Sword Lesbians won the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Game Writing. Other nominees include the tabletop roleplaying games Coyote & Crow, Granma’s Hand, and Wanderhome as well as the video game (which is heavily inspired by TTRPGs) Wildermyth. The Nebula Awards from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America recognizes the best works in science fiction or fantasy since 1966 and added the Game Writing category in 2018. Not only is this the first Nebula Award win for a tabletop roleplaying game, but the only previous TTRPG nominee in the category was also the Fate Accessibility Toolkit in 2019. A rules expansion, Advanced Lovers & Lesbians, was released earlier this week.
Steamforged Games announced release dates for the corrected version of Dark Souls: The Roleplaying Game. A new PDF will be available by the end of June with all customers who purchased through the Steamforged website or via retail outlets participating in the Bits and Mortar program receiving new PDFs automatically. Also, US Customers who purchased a physical copy of the book from Steamforged or from “third-party retailers” will have a copy sent to them automatically this October. Those who have purchased a copy from “one of our valued retail partners” should return the book to the retailer. The announcement doesn’t explain the difference between third-party retailers and retail partners, however. Also, while the statement says replacements will be sent out automatically, there is also an online form to process the replacement.
It does seem that Steamforged plans to move ahead with more releases for the license as you can now pre-order miniatures for Dark Souls: The Roleplaying Game. Wave One will come with six different sets of unpainted plastic miniatures, some with original sculpts and some repurposed from the Steamforged Dark Souls board game, each with their own card with 5e stats. The sets will include the Unkindled Heroes Set 1 ($24.95) and Set 2 ($29.95) with four and six unique miniatures respectively, The Silver & The Dead ($24.95) with two sets of two miniatures, Silver Knight Greatbowmen ($24.95) with four identical minis, Hollow Crossbowmen ($24.95) with four identical minis, and the Guardian Dragon ($49.95) with one Huge-scale mini with a 110mm base. No release date has been set but the minis are expected sometime later this year.
Speaking of miniatures, a slew of D&D miniatures and toys were announced this week. The first is from WizKids and is a deluxe foot-tall sculpture of Vecna. The pre-painted figure features the one-handed one-eyed lich in all his skeletal glory complete with the Book of Vile Darkness shoved inside his ribcage. No release date has been announced, but the figure will retail for $249.95. There are two more premium figures on the way from WizKids as well, the unpainted Adult Black Dragon miniature for $89.95 and the Beholder Collector’s Box featuring a trio of beholders with different paint schemes for $49.99, both scheduled for an October 2022 release.
Meanwhile, NECA announced updates on the Dungeons & Dragons action figures for Grimsword and Warduke. The seven-inch action figures will come with a collection of accessories, including multiple weapons, a shield, and swappable hands with different poses. The figures are expected in retail this year (pre-order sites list dates ranging from May 2022 to Q3 2022) with a retail price of $42.99 each. Finally, if you thought the one thing that the Queen of Evil Dragonkind Tiamat needed was a big hug, you’ve now got your chance (without the risk of being eaten simultaneously by five different heads) with the Tiamat Plus from Kidrobot. The sixteen-inch cuddly toy features bendable heads and wings that can be posed and made with premium plush materials. The stuffie will have a retail price of $42.99 and is expected Winter 2022.
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, Peter, and Jessica talk about using magic items in your games.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
- EN Publishing has a new Quickstarter for Sickness and Health: New Diseases for Your 5e Games with 16 new magical and mundane diseases, new rules including how to make your own, and two new adventures.
- EN5ider #455 has a dozen new divine spells in Spells of the Holy Mission to flesh out the spell lists of clerics and other divine casters.
- Egg Embry interviewed PJ Coffey about Homebrew and Hacking: Crafting Personalised Feats on Kickstarter now for 5e and Level Up: Advanced 5e.
- Egg also spoke with Chris O'Neill from 9th Level Games about Return to the Dark Tower - Roleplay in the Four Kingdoms.
- Paizo announced several new releases for Pathfinder 2nd Edition and Starfinder including setting books, stand-alone adventures, adventure paths, and a year-long meta event for Starfinder.
- Beth Rimmels searched the internet for reviews of Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep to find a consensus on the crossover D&D adventure.
- Rob Wieland reviewed the new expansion for Thirsty Sword Lesbians, the advanced rules system Advanced Lovers & Lesbians.
- Echohawk is back with an epic list of all of the monsters of the Spelljammer setting…and this is only part one!
- Michael Tresca continues his series on RPG reviews with the other side, how an independent or self-published RPG creator can get reviews of their new products.
- 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 released a new Unearthed Arcana playtest document full of content for giants. Rules are included for three new subclasses, the Barbarian Path of the Giant, the Druid Circle of the Primeval, and the Wizard Runecrafter Tradition. Additionally, there are ten new feats presented in a similar style to those from the Dragonlance playtest document as they look like feat chains. The Elemental Touched feats grant an ability based on Air, Earth, Fire, or Water while further feats available at 4th and 8th level add more elements of Cloud, Stone, Fire, and Frost Giants to the mix. There is also the Rune Crafter Apprentice and Adept feats that allow the use of rune magic regardless of class. I’ll leave it to you to speculate which (if any) classic setting revival this playtest is attached to.
Wizards of the Coast also announced production delays in several announced products. Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel have been delayed from June 21 to July 19 and the Campaign Case: Terrain has been delayed from July 19 to August 16. The announcement also stated that Spelljammer: Adventures in Space set for an August 16 release the Campaign Case: Creatures scheduled for July 19 have not been affected. Digital releases including those on D&D Beyond have been similarly delayed to maintain parity of release schedules.
A preview of the upcoming Classic Dragonlance: Dragons of Deceit: Dragonlance Destinies: Volume I: A Dungeons & Dragons Novel has been released. A previously posted summary of the novel on Amazon already confirmed that time travel would be a part of the story:
The preview available from Polygon is just over 1000 words featuring the characters of Destina, Atieno, and Gregory. The book will be released in hardcover, Kindle, and Audible formats on August 2, 2022.
With the launch of the Kickstarter, we have a new look at Batman: Gotham City Chronicles, the official Batman RPG from Monolith. In case you’re wondering if the 48-page Quickstart isn’t comprehensive enough, it features not only the obligatory “What is a roleplaying game?” essay but a page titled “For Those Who Don’t Know Batman…” that doesn’t just say “Seriously?” but goes into detail on the history of the character and the primary influences for the game: Particularly the Rebirth and New 52 eras of the DC comics. The game uses the Untold Tales Modern system, which is a heavily-modified version of D20 System. The quickstart has NPC stats for Bruce Wayne, Lady Shiva, Shen Feng, and other enemies from the demo adventure and pregenerated characters for Alfred Pennyworth, Renee Montoya, Harvey Bullock, Julia Pennyworth (Alfred’s daughter and an ex-spy), Kate Kane (Batwoman), and Dick Grayson (as Nightwing, not Robin). The Kickstarter is quickly approaching membership in the Million Dollar Club and runs until Friday, June 10.
Jennell Jaquays announced that Goodman Games would be releasing an updated version of her Greek-themed The Caverns of Thracia adventure originally published by Judges Guild in 1979. The original adventure features a megadungeon ruled by a minotaur after overthrowing a cult worshiping Thanatos who still control the first level of the dungeon. It was revised for 3.5 in 2004 for White Wolf’s Sword & Sorcery line by James Collura. Jaquays stated on Twitter that she is “affiliated” with Goodman Games in the Reincarnation productions of both Caverns of Thracia and the update of Dark Tower currently on Kickstarter, but that the conversions to 5e and Dungeon Crawl Classics are being handled by “some really competent designers”. Jaquays is also currently working on a ground-up reboot of the Central Casting character history creation system for fantasy characters.
OneBookShelf, the company behind DriveThruRPG, suffered a security breach this past weekend. First off: No customer data was affected or accessed during the breach and the issue has been patched. But on the afternoon of May 20, someone gained access to the site and was able to change the prices of several products and set many titles to free. The site was temporarily shut down while the security breach was repaired. Over the weekend, publishers could not update titles until May 23 when a patch was applied to fix the security issue. OneBookShelf is currently checking purchase information to determine which publishers were affected by having their titles set to a lower price to make restitution.
Tabletop roleplaying game Thirsty Sword Lesbians won the 2022 Nebula Award for Best Game Writing. Other nominees include the tabletop roleplaying games Coyote & Crow, Granma’s Hand, and Wanderhome as well as the video game (which is heavily inspired by TTRPGs) Wildermyth. The Nebula Awards from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America recognizes the best works in science fiction or fantasy since 1966 and added the Game Writing category in 2018. Not only is this the first Nebula Award win for a tabletop roleplaying game, but the only previous TTRPG nominee in the category was also the Fate Accessibility Toolkit in 2019. A rules expansion, Advanced Lovers & Lesbians, was released earlier this week.
Steamforged Games announced release dates for the corrected version of Dark Souls: The Roleplaying Game. A new PDF will be available by the end of June with all customers who purchased through the Steamforged website or via retail outlets participating in the Bits and Mortar program receiving new PDFs automatically. Also, US Customers who purchased a physical copy of the book from Steamforged or from “third-party retailers” will have a copy sent to them automatically this October. Those who have purchased a copy from “one of our valued retail partners” should return the book to the retailer. The announcement doesn’t explain the difference between third-party retailers and retail partners, however. Also, while the statement says replacements will be sent out automatically, there is also an online form to process the replacement.
It does seem that Steamforged plans to move ahead with more releases for the license as you can now pre-order miniatures for Dark Souls: The Roleplaying Game. Wave One will come with six different sets of unpainted plastic miniatures, some with original sculpts and some repurposed from the Steamforged Dark Souls board game, each with their own card with 5e stats. The sets will include the Unkindled Heroes Set 1 ($24.95) and Set 2 ($29.95) with four and six unique miniatures respectively, The Silver & The Dead ($24.95) with two sets of two miniatures, Silver Knight Greatbowmen ($24.95) with four identical minis, Hollow Crossbowmen ($24.95) with four identical minis, and the Guardian Dragon ($49.95) with one Huge-scale mini with a 110mm base. No release date has been set but the minis are expected sometime later this year.
Speaking of miniatures, a slew of D&D miniatures and toys were announced this week. The first is from WizKids and is a deluxe foot-tall sculpture of Vecna. The pre-painted figure features the one-handed one-eyed lich in all his skeletal glory complete with the Book of Vile Darkness shoved inside his ribcage. No release date has been announced, but the figure will retail for $249.95. There are two more premium figures on the way from WizKids as well, the unpainted Adult Black Dragon miniature for $89.95 and the Beholder Collector’s Box featuring a trio of beholders with different paint schemes for $49.99, both scheduled for an October 2022 release.
Meanwhile, NECA announced updates on the Dungeons & Dragons action figures for Grimsword and Warduke. The seven-inch action figures will come with a collection of accessories, including multiple weapons, a shield, and swappable hands with different poses. The figures are expected in retail this year (pre-order sites list dates ranging from May 2022 to Q3 2022) with a retail price of $42.99 each. Finally, if you thought the one thing that the Queen of Evil Dragonkind Tiamat needed was a big hug, you’ve now got your chance (without the risk of being eaten simultaneously by five different heads) with the Tiamat Plus from Kidrobot. The sixteen-inch cuddly toy features bendable heads and wings that can be posed and made with premium plush materials. The stuffie will have a retail price of $42.99 and is expected Winter 2022.
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.
