Hello everyone, Darryl here with this week’s gaming news! Level Up has new digital tools, Monty Python and Cowboy Bebop on Kickstarter, new adventures for ALIEN RPG and Star Trek Adventures, Ray Winninger leaves Wizards of the Coast, 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 talk about licensed RPGs from a publisher’s perspective.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
EN Publishing released two big updates to the Level Up: Advanced 5e digital tools website with a character builder and a dungeon generator. The character creator is a simple web interface that allows you to create a first level character for Level Up with a PDF character sheet at the end. The Dungeon Generator uses the NODES system from the Dungeon Delver’s Guide to produce a complete dungeon of various types including ruins, mines, caverns, temples, sewers, and more. You not only get a full map but a description of each room and encounter in the dungeon. You even get treasure and monster stats from the A5E SRD for a full exploration adventure scaled for any level from 1 to 20. Both tools are currently in beta with more fine-tuning and new features coming in the future.
Ray Winninger has stepped down from Wizards of the Coast as Executive Producer of Dungeons & Dragons. The official confirmation follows speculation since the October 4 announcement that Dan Rawson was taking on the newly created role of Senior Vice President of Dungeons & Dragons. Winninger confirmed the rumors that he departed Wizards of the Coast with the following statement made via Twitter:
Two big licensed properties landed on Kickstarter this week. The first is Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment ProgrammeA Roleplaying Game No It Isn’t, the officially licensed Monty Python RPG whose title is a boon to all column writers who have to meet a word count minimum. The game uses a custom rules-lite system to replicate the creation of a medieval period drama for television using a system that changes difficulty based on how serious or silly your actions will be. The PDF is available for $25 while the standard hardcover is $65 and a deluxe “Public School” edition (note: public school in the UK is equivalent to a US private school) for $95. The Kickstarter has already blown past the $1 million mark and runs until Friday, November 18.
The other large licensed project on Kickstarter is Cowboy Bebop – The Roleplaying Game from Mana Project Studio. Based on the science fiction pulp anime series by the same name, Cowboy Bebop places players in the role of interplanetary bounty hunters known as “cowboys” seeking to bring in the worst criminals in the solar system alive for their reward. The custom d6 dice pool system uses risk points to influence the game themed around the pulp and jazz influences of the series. Players get Rhythm to spend to use special abilities or work together as a team more effectively, while the gamemaster (called the Big Shot after the anime’s in-universe bounty hunter informational TV show) gets Shocks to make things more difficult and worsen the crew’s problems. The PDF is available for a €19 (about US$19, £17) while the hardcover is €49 (about US$48 or £43) with various bundle options that include themed custom dice, GM screens, risk chips, and more. This project is fully funded and runs until Wednesday, November 16.
Paizo announced changes coming soon to their pricing structure for PDFs. Previously, Paizo digital products were priced based on a percentage of the MSRP of the physical edition. That system is being standardized to a set cost based on the category of the product. A full table is included in the link above, but examples are that Pathfinder/Starfinder rulebooks will increase from $14.99/$9.99 (respectively) to $19.99, adventure paths will increase from $17.99 to $19.99, standalone adventures will increase from the $15.99-17.99 range to a set $19.99. Not all products are going up though, as Flip-Maps (currently $10.49+), Flip Tiles (currently $13.99-24.99), Map Folios (currently $13.99+), and pawns (currently $13.99-17.99) will all decrease in price to $9.99, while Battle Cards for both Pathfinder and Starfinder will go from $41.99 to $19.99 and Spell Cards for each line down from $20.99-24.99 to $14.99. These prices will go into effect on October 26 for all new releases and on November 1 for all back catalogue products.
Modiphius released a Native Soil, a new Missions adventure for Star Trek Adventures. The crew is sent to the planet Avalon to assist an archeological team investigating the planet’s original civilization, which was wiped out thousands of years ago by a radiation burst and eventually repopulated. However, the team has found members of that culture held in stasis and now they want their planet back. While the Prime Directive prevents the Federation from deciding for them, the ship’s crew is placed in the role of mediators of the conflict between Avalon’s new colony and its original inhabitants. This 22-page adventure is set in the Next Generation era for a Starfleet crew but has advice for adapting the mission for other eras and crews. The PDF is available now for $4.99.
Free League Publishing put out a new adventure for the ALIEN Roleplaying Game titled Heart of Darkness. The adventure works as a stand-alone cinematic scenario or as a conclusion ot the trilogy that includes Chariot of the Gods and Destroyer of Worlds. From the product description:
The 76-page PDF includes the scenario book, a double-sided map of the Erebos space station, seven pre-generated characters, custom cards for secret messages and personal agendas, and player maps and other handouts. The adventure is available now for $17.99 and can be played with either the ALIEN RPG core rulebook or the ALIEN RPG Starter Set.
Hasbro announced that Hasbro Games sales were down almost 23% for Q3 2022. Compared to the same quarter in 2021, tabletop revenues were down 9% due to changes in the Magic: The Gathering release schedule, while digital gaming was down 37% which was attributed by Hasbro to the release of Dungeons & Dragons Dark Alliance 3 and the end of a sales spike with the launch of Magic: The Gathering Arena Mobile. However, trends place the tabletop gaming segment (which includes Magic and Dungeons & Dragons) up 5% for the first nine months of the year and expected to reach double-digit growth by the end of the year.
And finally, we have a small update for the legal dispute between Wizards of the Coast and the company calling itself TSR LLC. A hearing took place via Zoom on Wednesday and we have the following information about it:
While it’s unclear what the hearing was about precisely, there are two likely possibilities. The first is that the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum store, part of Wizards of the Coast’s countersuit, is still listing Star Frontiers branded playing cards in violation of the agreement reached between both parties in order to delay the hearing for the preliminary injunction. The second is an ongoing campaign by Justin LaNasa and various associates of his to harass Don Semora of Wizard Tower Games, who provided evidence to Wizards of the Coast after receiving a subpoena. The purpose of the hearing will be more clear as the documents are filed over the coming weeks.
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 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 talk about licensed RPGs from a publisher’s perspective.
In case you missed it elsewhere on EN World this week:
- It’s the final week for the EN Publishing spooky 5e sourcebook Terrible Treasures & Frightful Fables with a collection of adventures, magic items, and more for your horror-themed 5e games with digital rewards sent out in time for Halloween.
- For more 5e horror from EN Publishing, EN5ider #429 is “Nightmare of Corrin’s Mound”, an adventure for 3rd-5th level where a small village suffer under a being from the Realm of Dreams brought to this plane by the Cult of Terror.
- ENWorld user Henadic Theologian collected details from a collection of interviews and articles about Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.
- Fantasy Grounds adds the Modiphius licensed RPG Star Trek Adventures to its collection of official products for the virtual tabletop.
- Wizards of the Coast is prepping gamers for the release of Dragonlance: Shadow of the Draogn Queen with a new video primer on the setting.
- Andrew Peregrine reviewed modern-day horror RPG Midnight World from Gen and Eye RPG Studios.
- Charles Dunwoody interviewed Zach Cox about the horror RPG Best Left Buried about crypt delvers, the treasures they find, and the scars they earn.
- Lewis Pulsipher’s newest Worlds of Design talks about the importance of consistency when running a game.
- Michael Tresca discusses ways of turning the downtime of a character who is knocked out of the action into a storytelling tool.
- Mike Myler’s newest ENterplanetary DimENsions is the world of Mergia where you need to be constantly on the move to survive.
- 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.
EN Publishing released two big updates to the Level Up: Advanced 5e digital tools website with a character builder and a dungeon generator. The character creator is a simple web interface that allows you to create a first level character for Level Up with a PDF character sheet at the end. The Dungeon Generator uses the NODES system from the Dungeon Delver’s Guide to produce a complete dungeon of various types including ruins, mines, caverns, temples, sewers, and more. You not only get a full map but a description of each room and encounter in the dungeon. You even get treasure and monster stats from the A5E SRD for a full exploration adventure scaled for any level from 1 to 20. Both tools are currently in beta with more fine-tuning and new features coming in the future.
Ray Winninger has stepped down from Wizards of the Coast as Executive Producer of Dungeons & Dragons. The official confirmation follows speculation since the October 4 announcement that Dan Rawson was taking on the newly created role of Senior Vice President of Dungeons & Dragons. Winninger confirmed the rumors that he departed Wizards of the Coast with the following statement made via Twitter:
Two big licensed properties landed on Kickstarter this week. The first is Monty Python’s Cocurricular Mediaeval Reenactment Programme
The other large licensed project on Kickstarter is Cowboy Bebop – The Roleplaying Game from Mana Project Studio. Based on the science fiction pulp anime series by the same name, Cowboy Bebop places players in the role of interplanetary bounty hunters known as “cowboys” seeking to bring in the worst criminals in the solar system alive for their reward. The custom d6 dice pool system uses risk points to influence the game themed around the pulp and jazz influences of the series. Players get Rhythm to spend to use special abilities or work together as a team more effectively, while the gamemaster (called the Big Shot after the anime’s in-universe bounty hunter informational TV show) gets Shocks to make things more difficult and worsen the crew’s problems. The PDF is available for a €19 (about US$19, £17) while the hardcover is €49 (about US$48 or £43) with various bundle options that include themed custom dice, GM screens, risk chips, and more. This project is fully funded and runs until Wednesday, November 16.
Paizo announced changes coming soon to their pricing structure for PDFs. Previously, Paizo digital products were priced based on a percentage of the MSRP of the physical edition. That system is being standardized to a set cost based on the category of the product. A full table is included in the link above, but examples are that Pathfinder/Starfinder rulebooks will increase from $14.99/$9.99 (respectively) to $19.99, adventure paths will increase from $17.99 to $19.99, standalone adventures will increase from the $15.99-17.99 range to a set $19.99. Not all products are going up though, as Flip-Maps (currently $10.49+), Flip Tiles (currently $13.99-24.99), Map Folios (currently $13.99+), and pawns (currently $13.99-17.99) will all decrease in price to $9.99, while Battle Cards for both Pathfinder and Starfinder will go from $41.99 to $19.99 and Spell Cards for each line down from $20.99-24.99 to $14.99. These prices will go into effect on October 26 for all new releases and on November 1 for all back catalogue products.
Modiphius released a Native Soil, a new Missions adventure for Star Trek Adventures. The crew is sent to the planet Avalon to assist an archeological team investigating the planet’s original civilization, which was wiped out thousands of years ago by a radiation burst and eventually repopulated. However, the team has found members of that culture held in stasis and now they want their planet back. While the Prime Directive prevents the Federation from deciding for them, the ship’s crew is placed in the role of mediators of the conflict between Avalon’s new colony and its original inhabitants. This 22-page adventure is set in the Next Generation era for a Starfleet crew but has advice for adapting the mission for other eras and crews. The PDF is available now for $4.99.
Free League Publishing put out a new adventure for the ALIEN Roleplaying Game titled Heart of Darkness. The adventure works as a stand-alone cinematic scenario or as a conclusion ot the trilogy that includes Chariot of the Gods and Destroyer of Worlds. From the product description:
The 76-page PDF includes the scenario book, a double-sided map of the Erebos space station, seven pre-generated characters, custom cards for secret messages and personal agendas, and player maps and other handouts. The adventure is available now for $17.99 and can be played with either the ALIEN RPG core rulebook or the ALIEN RPG Starter Set.
Hasbro announced that Hasbro Games sales were down almost 23% for Q3 2022. Compared to the same quarter in 2021, tabletop revenues were down 9% due to changes in the Magic: The Gathering release schedule, while digital gaming was down 37% which was attributed by Hasbro to the release of Dungeons & Dragons Dark Alliance 3 and the end of a sales spike with the launch of Magic: The Gathering Arena Mobile. However, trends place the tabletop gaming segment (which includes Magic and Dungeons & Dragons) up 5% for the first nine months of the year and expected to reach double-digit growth by the end of the year.
And finally, we have a small update for the legal dispute between Wizards of the Coast and the company calling itself TSR LLC. A hearing took place via Zoom on Wednesday and we have the following information about it:
While it’s unclear what the hearing was about precisely, there are two likely possibilities. The first is that the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum store, part of Wizards of the Coast’s countersuit, is still listing Star Frontiers branded playing cards in violation of the agreement reached between both parties in order to delay the hearing for the preliminary injunction. The second is an ongoing campaign by Justin LaNasa and various associates of his to harass Don Semora of Wizard Tower Games, who provided evidence to Wizards of the Coast after receiving a subpoena. The purpose of the hearing will be more clear as the documents are filed over the coming weeks.
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.
It's not like I haven't used Kickstarter before either. And I did look over the pledges. On the other hand, I don't think I've ever backed a Kickstarter with a physical product that needed shipping from Europe. So, there is that... there, I feel better