Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! More previews from Pathfinder 2nd Edition, interviews with Owen KC Stephens and Shane Ivey, several free RPG products available, Fantasy Grounds quarterly usage statistics released, and more!
Paizo released previews for several new products this week, starting with a look at the Pathfinder 2nd Edition monster creation rules from the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Gamemastery Guide. The 24-page PDF looks to be Chapter 2 of the Gamemastery Guide and features rules and guidelines on how to create your own monsters, from reskinning existing creatures to creating new ones from scratch to ensure attacks, skills, powers, weaknesses, and more balance with one another against the desired challenge. Additionally, there’s a section on building hazards covering traps, environmental hazards, and hauntings. The Gamemastery Guide is due for release in January of 2020 with a retail price of $49.99.
We also got another look at a faction due in the upcoming Lost Omens Character Guide, the Magaambya. The oldest magic school in the Inner Sea and possibly on all of Golarion. The preview gives an overview of the academy and its history along with four of the new feats available for members of the organization or natives to the region. The Lost Omens Character Guide will be available later this month with a retail price of $34.99.
Jason Bulmahn wrote an article about the new edition of Pathfinder with Meeple Monthly this past August which Paizo republished this week. The article gives information about the design and decision-making process that went into creating Pathfinder 2nd Edition and what they learned from designing 1st Edition. Finally, Paizo announced a slew of new staff members across several different departments including a new Art Director, Starfinder Lead Designer, several new developers and designers for Pathfinder and Starfinder, a new editor, and more. Check the link for full information and biographies of all the new hires.
EN World’s Egg Embry interviewed Owen KC Stephens this week about his new position as Line Developer for Green Ronin’s Fantasy AGE. The interview talks about Owen’s history in roleplaying games and with Green Ronin as well as the history of the Fantasy AGE line going back to the Dragon Age RPG based on the BioWare video game all the way into the future plans for the line. You can find more of Owen KC Stephens’s work through his company Rogue Genius Games and on his Patreon.
In honor of the one year anniversary of the passing of founder Greg Stafford, Chaosium is giving away five adventures for different game systems Stafford was involved in to give gamers a chance to see the breadth of influence he had on the industry. The adventures are:
The Lightless Beacon (Call of Cthulhu) by Leigh Carr with Lynne Hardy
The Sword of Kings (7th Sea) by John Wick
The Quest of the Red Blade (King Arthur Pendragon) by Greg Stafford
The Rattling Wind (RuneQuest) by Helena Nash - a preview chapter of our forthcoming RQG release The Pegasus Plateau
Highwall Inn (HeroQuest Glorantha) by Ian Cooper
Each of the adventures can be downloaded from the page in PDF from the link in the adventure name, and you can find out more about each game system by clicking on the system’s title. The free adventures will be available until October 31.
Fantasy Grounds released their usage statistics for the quarter. The data ranges from the fourth quarter of 2018 into the third quarter of 2019, showing a bit of shuffling between game systems. It also appears that Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition has gained more of the market share, but it’s important to note that while the 5e category increased in numbers while the other game systems have either stayed mostly steady or increased slightly. So based on these statistics, it looks as though D&D is gaining more of the market share, but it’s doing so by bringing in new players rather than taking players away from other systems. Also, for those wondering what “CoreRPG” and “MoreCore” are, they’re generic systems you can load in Fantasy Grounds if they don’t have the specific game you’re playing.
Here are some more EN World stories you may want to check out:
EN World Community Columnist Charles Dunwoody interview Arc Dream Publishing’s Shane Ivey about Delta Green, Swords & Sorceries, and more.
Mike Myler’s Mythological Figures series of NPC stats for D&D 5e features Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons.
Michael Tresca writes about the barriers to enter the tabletop roleplaying game field from healthcare concerns to the “1000 Fans Theory”.
Jim Ward talks about his time at TSR working alongside legendary video game company SSI to create the Gold Box series of licensed Dungeons & Dragons video games.
Speaking of computer roleplaying games, this week’s Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk Episode #69 (nice) features guests Shane Stacks and Matt Barton talking about their book, Dungeons & Desktops, about the history of roleplaying computer games.
This week’s Crowdfunding News by Egg Embry features all the tabletop RPG and related crowdfunding projects ending soon.
EN5ider #295 features a mini-adventure for four to six players of 5th to 9th level sending the party to a mysterious desert that has appeared suddenly out of nowhere.
Mainstream publisher Andrews McMeel Universal entered into a deal to create mobile-friendly PDFs for DriveThruRPG. From the press release: “Designed with both Android and Apple users in mind and optimized for older and newer devices, Phone PDF maintains mobile swipe functionality and includes useful features like global navigation, a history tool, interactive index and hyperlinked content throughout.” The first release of this new line is the core rulebook for Zweihander Grim & Perilous and is available free until 11:59 PM Central Time on Thursday, October 11 both in the new mobile format and the traditional desktop PDF. Daniel D. Fox, designer of Zweihander, is also the Executive Content Director for Games for Andres McMeel Publishing. Future releases in the new format from Grim & Perilous will follow later this year.
NECA, through its acquisition of Loot Crate and rebranding into The Loot Company, has launched a new crowdfunding platform, Loot Launcher. The platform is focused on premium figures and product bundles from NECA and their subsidiaries, Kidrobot and WizKids. There are currently six projects on the site, including a board game subscription bundle providing early access to two board games and Dungeon Master’s Crate featuring over $60 worth of pre-painted miniatures and terrain. All six of the inaugural projects close on November 17.
A group of YouTubers systematically tested the video site’s algorithm to determine what words would get a video demonetized and made some startling discoveries. The testing was done by uploading two identical videos with the same title and description, only including the tested word to see if the algorithm demonetized the video. While the article from Vox focuses on the amount of LGBTQ+ related words (which seems to be a result of YouTube blocking anything sexual and interpreting queer content as inherently sexual), there are many words on the list of concern to those who do gaming-related content on YouTube. The full list is available in this Google Doc (though be warned, the list is not remotely safe for work due to multiple curse words, sex act descriptions, and racial slurs), but some words that may come up in creating RPG-related content for YouTube include: buried, cemetery, cheat, coffin (but not casket), committed, crime, dead, death, die (and variations), dozens, employees, enhanced, extreme, fatal, feet, graphic, hairy, healing, incidents, killed, link, murderer, oaks, odd, par, pod, request, restaurants, risky, sadly, shut, strictly, tablets, terrace, thick, and, of course, “youtube algorithm”. There are also three US states listed as well, Delaware, Maryland, and North Carolina. So if you’ve ever uploaded a vlog or gameplay video and used any of those words in the description, wondering why your otherwise inoffensive video was instantly demonetized, this is the most likely explanation.
Humble Bundle has several bundles great for aspiring game creators, YouTubers, live streamers, or just those who play RPGs online. The RPG Maker Returns bundle features not just the software to create your own 16-bit inspired roleplaying games and visual novels, but also includes hundreds of assets perfect to use as icons on your virtual tabletops. Some of the licenses will even allow you to use them in commercial applications outside video games like Twitch emotes or art assets for books. This bundle runs until October 29. A similar bundle is also available, the Make Your Card Game Bundle which is ostensibly meant to create trading card inspired video games but the assets and their licenses work well for virtual tabletops or traditional tabletop game design. This bundle is available until October 23. Of course, if you actually want to create your own video game, the Unity 2019 Bundle features tutorial courses, asset packs, scripting tools, and more to give you a head start on your big game. This bundle is available until October 15. Finally, if you want to create your own assets, the Painter: Create With Confidence bundle features almost a thousand dollars worth of art creation software including Painter 2019, Pinnacle Studio 23 Ultimate, Paint Shop Pro 2020 Ultimate, and several brush packs and filters. This bundle is available until October 16.
Over on Game On Tabletop (a crowdfunding site specifically for tabletop games), Mike Myler has Vast Kaviya, a very Conan/Kull inspired pre-Iron Age setting for D&D 5th Edition. The setting takes place in an incredibly large world several times larger than Earth with a harsh environment ruled by feuding warlords. The setting features new races, classes, class archetypes, monsters, NPCs, equipment, magic rules, and other alternate rules ready to play or implement in your own setting. The PDF is available for a $10 pledge, the softcover for $25, and the hardcover for $30. This project runs until Sunday, November 3. Disclosure: Mike Myler is a columnist and editor for EN World and EN Publishing.
Yo dawg, I heard you like dice so we made a die to hold your dice so you can use a really dated meme that no one but the column’s author will find amusing probably. Anyway, the 2019 RPG D&D D20 Dice Storage Case is a wooden D20-shaped case that can hold a full pound of dice. Made of Baltic Birch, the cases come in two sizes – a medium 3.75 inches wide and a large 5.25 inches wide - and the lid secured by neodymium magnets. You can purchase it pre-assembled for $35 for the medium or $50 for the large, or purchase kits of pre-cut wood to allow you to stain or paint it before assembly and put the numbers in whatever order you wish for $25 for medium and $40 for large. This campaign is fully-funded and runs until Thursday, October 17.
#RecognizeKSRU: 10 Workers Unite is a one-shot roleplaying game about the importance of organized labor and unions with the tagline “A Roleplaying Game About Solidarity”. In this rules-lite and story-driven game, one player takes on the role of The Company who creates the details about the work, its environment, and its purpose for being while the other players take on the roles of The Workers who define their unique skills and what drives them to the breaking point. Games play out over 10 scenes in sort of a reverse version of Ten Candles as the workers gather power to organize and present their grievances to the company. In case it isn’t obvious, this Kickstarter from ENnie nominated designer Christopher Grey is all about the attempts of Kickstarter workers to form a union, which currently has a petition on Coworker.org to show support for recognizing the union following a majority of workers submitting their request via a “card count” petition to organize. You can get the unedited PDF draft version for just $1, the final PDF for $5, and a physical “zine” version of the game for $10. This Kickstarter is fully funded and runs until Thursday, October 17.
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@enworldnews.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 where I’ll be streaming different games all weekend, 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.
Paizo released previews for several new products this week, starting with a look at the Pathfinder 2nd Edition monster creation rules from the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Gamemastery Guide. The 24-page PDF looks to be Chapter 2 of the Gamemastery Guide and features rules and guidelines on how to create your own monsters, from reskinning existing creatures to creating new ones from scratch to ensure attacks, skills, powers, weaknesses, and more balance with one another against the desired challenge. Additionally, there’s a section on building hazards covering traps, environmental hazards, and hauntings. The Gamemastery Guide is due for release in January of 2020 with a retail price of $49.99.
We also got another look at a faction due in the upcoming Lost Omens Character Guide, the Magaambya. The oldest magic school in the Inner Sea and possibly on all of Golarion. The preview gives an overview of the academy and its history along with four of the new feats available for members of the organization or natives to the region. The Lost Omens Character Guide will be available later this month with a retail price of $34.99.
Jason Bulmahn wrote an article about the new edition of Pathfinder with Meeple Monthly this past August which Paizo republished this week. The article gives information about the design and decision-making process that went into creating Pathfinder 2nd Edition and what they learned from designing 1st Edition. Finally, Paizo announced a slew of new staff members across several different departments including a new Art Director, Starfinder Lead Designer, several new developers and designers for Pathfinder and Starfinder, a new editor, and more. Check the link for full information and biographies of all the new hires.
EN World’s Egg Embry interviewed Owen KC Stephens this week about his new position as Line Developer for Green Ronin’s Fantasy AGE. The interview talks about Owen’s history in roleplaying games and with Green Ronin as well as the history of the Fantasy AGE line going back to the Dragon Age RPG based on the BioWare video game all the way into the future plans for the line. You can find more of Owen KC Stephens’s work through his company Rogue Genius Games and on his Patreon.
In honor of the one year anniversary of the passing of founder Greg Stafford, Chaosium is giving away five adventures for different game systems Stafford was involved in to give gamers a chance to see the breadth of influence he had on the industry. The adventures are:
The Lightless Beacon (Call of Cthulhu) by Leigh Carr with Lynne Hardy
The Sword of Kings (7th Sea) by John Wick
The Quest of the Red Blade (King Arthur Pendragon) by Greg Stafford
The Rattling Wind (RuneQuest) by Helena Nash - a preview chapter of our forthcoming RQG release The Pegasus Plateau
Highwall Inn (HeroQuest Glorantha) by Ian Cooper
Each of the adventures can be downloaded from the page in PDF from the link in the adventure name, and you can find out more about each game system by clicking on the system’s title. The free adventures will be available until October 31.
Fantasy Grounds released their usage statistics for the quarter. The data ranges from the fourth quarter of 2018 into the third quarter of 2019, showing a bit of shuffling between game systems. It also appears that Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition has gained more of the market share, but it’s important to note that while the 5e category increased in numbers while the other game systems have either stayed mostly steady or increased slightly. So based on these statistics, it looks as though D&D is gaining more of the market share, but it’s doing so by bringing in new players rather than taking players away from other systems. Also, for those wondering what “CoreRPG” and “MoreCore” are, they’re generic systems you can load in Fantasy Grounds if they don’t have the specific game you’re playing.
Here are some more EN World stories you may want to check out:
EN World Community Columnist Charles Dunwoody interview Arc Dream Publishing’s Shane Ivey about Delta Green, Swords & Sorceries, and more.
Mike Myler’s Mythological Figures series of NPC stats for D&D 5e features Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons.
Michael Tresca writes about the barriers to enter the tabletop roleplaying game field from healthcare concerns to the “1000 Fans Theory”.
Jim Ward talks about his time at TSR working alongside legendary video game company SSI to create the Gold Box series of licensed Dungeons & Dragons video games.
Speaking of computer roleplaying games, this week’s Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk Episode #69 (nice) features guests Shane Stacks and Matt Barton talking about their book, Dungeons & Desktops, about the history of roleplaying computer games.
This week’s Crowdfunding News by Egg Embry features all the tabletop RPG and related crowdfunding projects ending soon.
EN5ider #295 features a mini-adventure for four to six players of 5th to 9th level sending the party to a mysterious desert that has appeared suddenly out of nowhere.
Mainstream publisher Andrews McMeel Universal entered into a deal to create mobile-friendly PDFs for DriveThruRPG. From the press release: “Designed with both Android and Apple users in mind and optimized for older and newer devices, Phone PDF maintains mobile swipe functionality and includes useful features like global navigation, a history tool, interactive index and hyperlinked content throughout.” The first release of this new line is the core rulebook for Zweihander Grim & Perilous and is available free until 11:59 PM Central Time on Thursday, October 11 both in the new mobile format and the traditional desktop PDF. Daniel D. Fox, designer of Zweihander, is also the Executive Content Director for Games for Andres McMeel Publishing. Future releases in the new format from Grim & Perilous will follow later this year.
NECA, through its acquisition of Loot Crate and rebranding into The Loot Company, has launched a new crowdfunding platform, Loot Launcher. The platform is focused on premium figures and product bundles from NECA and their subsidiaries, Kidrobot and WizKids. There are currently six projects on the site, including a board game subscription bundle providing early access to two board games and Dungeon Master’s Crate featuring over $60 worth of pre-painted miniatures and terrain. All six of the inaugural projects close on November 17.
A group of YouTubers systematically tested the video site’s algorithm to determine what words would get a video demonetized and made some startling discoveries. The testing was done by uploading two identical videos with the same title and description, only including the tested word to see if the algorithm demonetized the video. While the article from Vox focuses on the amount of LGBTQ+ related words (which seems to be a result of YouTube blocking anything sexual and interpreting queer content as inherently sexual), there are many words on the list of concern to those who do gaming-related content on YouTube. The full list is available in this Google Doc (though be warned, the list is not remotely safe for work due to multiple curse words, sex act descriptions, and racial slurs), but some words that may come up in creating RPG-related content for YouTube include: buried, cemetery, cheat, coffin (but not casket), committed, crime, dead, death, die (and variations), dozens, employees, enhanced, extreme, fatal, feet, graphic, hairy, healing, incidents, killed, link, murderer, oaks, odd, par, pod, request, restaurants, risky, sadly, shut, strictly, tablets, terrace, thick, and, of course, “youtube algorithm”. There are also three US states listed as well, Delaware, Maryland, and North Carolina. So if you’ve ever uploaded a vlog or gameplay video and used any of those words in the description, wondering why your otherwise inoffensive video was instantly demonetized, this is the most likely explanation.
Humble Bundle has several bundles great for aspiring game creators, YouTubers, live streamers, or just those who play RPGs online. The RPG Maker Returns bundle features not just the software to create your own 16-bit inspired roleplaying games and visual novels, but also includes hundreds of assets perfect to use as icons on your virtual tabletops. Some of the licenses will even allow you to use them in commercial applications outside video games like Twitch emotes or art assets for books. This bundle runs until October 29. A similar bundle is also available, the Make Your Card Game Bundle which is ostensibly meant to create trading card inspired video games but the assets and their licenses work well for virtual tabletops or traditional tabletop game design. This bundle is available until October 23. Of course, if you actually want to create your own video game, the Unity 2019 Bundle features tutorial courses, asset packs, scripting tools, and more to give you a head start on your big game. This bundle is available until October 15. Finally, if you want to create your own assets, the Painter: Create With Confidence bundle features almost a thousand dollars worth of art creation software including Painter 2019, Pinnacle Studio 23 Ultimate, Paint Shop Pro 2020 Ultimate, and several brush packs and filters. This bundle is available until October 16.
Over on Game On Tabletop (a crowdfunding site specifically for tabletop games), Mike Myler has Vast Kaviya, a very Conan/Kull inspired pre-Iron Age setting for D&D 5th Edition. The setting takes place in an incredibly large world several times larger than Earth with a harsh environment ruled by feuding warlords. The setting features new races, classes, class archetypes, monsters, NPCs, equipment, magic rules, and other alternate rules ready to play or implement in your own setting. The PDF is available for a $10 pledge, the softcover for $25, and the hardcover for $30. This project runs until Sunday, November 3. Disclosure: Mike Myler is a columnist and editor for EN World and EN Publishing.
Yo dawg, I heard you like dice so we made a die to hold your dice so you can use a really dated meme that no one but the column’s author will find amusing probably. Anyway, the 2019 RPG D&D D20 Dice Storage Case is a wooden D20-shaped case that can hold a full pound of dice. Made of Baltic Birch, the cases come in two sizes – a medium 3.75 inches wide and a large 5.25 inches wide - and the lid secured by neodymium magnets. You can purchase it pre-assembled for $35 for the medium or $50 for the large, or purchase kits of pre-cut wood to allow you to stain or paint it before assembly and put the numbers in whatever order you wish for $25 for medium and $40 for large. This campaign is fully-funded and runs until Thursday, October 17.
#RecognizeKSRU: 10 Workers Unite is a one-shot roleplaying game about the importance of organized labor and unions with the tagline “A Roleplaying Game About Solidarity”. In this rules-lite and story-driven game, one player takes on the role of The Company who creates the details about the work, its environment, and its purpose for being while the other players take on the roles of The Workers who define their unique skills and what drives them to the breaking point. Games play out over 10 scenes in sort of a reverse version of Ten Candles as the workers gather power to organize and present their grievances to the company. In case it isn’t obvious, this Kickstarter from ENnie nominated designer Christopher Grey is all about the attempts of Kickstarter workers to form a union, which currently has a petition on Coworker.org to show support for recognizing the union following a majority of workers submitting their request via a “card count” petition to organize. You can get the unedited PDF draft version for just $1, the final PDF for $5, and a physical “zine” version of the game for $10. This Kickstarter is fully funded and runs until Thursday, October 17.
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@enworldnews.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 where I’ll be streaming different games all weekend, 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.
