Tabletop Gaming News for Tuesday, 7 May, 2013 [Kobolds' Community Usage, Forbes on Pathfinder, Never

[h=3]EN World News[/h]

• Lots of gaming stuff going on at EN World over the weekend! Here goes:
• Don't forget to vote in the $1000 7-Day RPG Compeition!
• If you're a fan of our Online Generic Randomizer Engine (O.G.R.E.) which allows you to create and share random tables and generators, you'll be pleased to know it got some improvements last week. You can now rate generators, comment on them, and view a list of top-rated generators. Coming soon is the ability to mark a list of favourites, accept user-input as variables, and then we start work on the API for the mobile app which will take the whole thing to a new level.
• This week in Pretty Darn Fun (a look at new PDFs) there is a wide range of different systems covered. It's good to see such variety in the marketplace, as one thing I've learned through the years is that gamers are themselves a very diverse crowd. The Spotlight of the Week is also a unique offering, something I have never seen before from a marketing standpoint. Again, we have a good selection of PDFs to check out for any gamer.
• Southern Oracle discusses Life, Liberty, and the Puruit of Happiness.
• Game Design 108 deals with Realism vs. Fun.
• We have a (glowing!) board game review of FFG's Battlestar Galactica game.
• Radiating Gnome takes a look at self-publising in print, digital, and audible formats.

[h=3]Dungeons & Dragons News[/h]

• No Legends & Lore this week! WotC's Trevor Kidd says: Hey gang, I just found out that we won't have a Legends & Lore next week, Mike was busy fending off a horde of kobolds we found in the basement. L&L should return the week after however.
• Monsters of Many Names by James Wyatt -- "Some creatures have had many names in D&D, and James is here to talk about a few of them—yugoloths and gehreleths. Or daemons and demodands. Come take a look and give us your feedback regarding what you read here today!"
• Dungeons of Dread Illos -- "For DMs looking to run brave bands of adventurers through the Dungeons of Dread, we're also including the illustrations booklets."

[h=3]Pathfinder RPG News[/h]

• There are new Pathfinder Society rewards for reading Pathfinder Tales. Basically, you get something called a Chronicle Sheet which gets signed by a GM when you attend a Pathfinder Society event with one of the novels on the sheet; and that gets you a "boon" for one of your PCs.
• Forbes Magazine reviewed the Pathfinder Beginner Box (if you can get past the popups and interstitials). "The Pathfinder Beginner Box is a great introduction to Paizo’s roleplaying game and to d20 tabletop gaming."
• There are some out-of-print classic Pathfinder books available on Paizo's site -- "We've raided their stash (don't worry, clerics and oracles were on hand to heal damage) and have restocked our shelves with classics like the original Pathfinder Chronicles: Campaign Setting, Goblins of Golarion, even the hard-to-find Cheliax, Empire of Devils! New classics like our the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition Hardcover, the Pathfinder RPG hardcovers, and the entire Kingmaker Adventure Path are available, but we can't guarantee these will stay in stock". You can see the whole selection here.
• Erik Mona previews some more Pathfinder Battles miniatures from the Skull & Shackles set.
• There's a software developer position open at Paizo in Redmond, Seattle.

[h=3]Roleplaying Games[/h]

• Black Chicken Studios, inc., has partnered with Tin Man Games to create a Kickstarter for "...seriously old school adventure gamebook, set in the deep Dwarven caverns beneath the surface world. We're joining Tin Man Games in breathing new life into the glorious, but fading, gamebook genre." It's called Holdfast: A Gamebook of Dwarven Vengeance.
• Theres a family-oriented RPG being Kickstarted by Eden Studios - it's called Adventure Maximus! and is designed with kids in mind. "Adventure Maximus! is a game where kids can easily create a character, plan and run adventures, find treasures and be heroes of their imagination. Adventure Maximus! inspires creativity, problem solving and provides quality face time with other human beings rather than staring into computer screens all with the help of dice and cards (by using dice and cards it gives the kids that extra toy value to keep them at the table)."
• Kobold Press Community Use Policy -- Kobold Press has announced a new Community Use Policy. Using this policy, fans can create free fan works for use with the Midgard Campaign setting (and other Kobold Press material). This will also include packages of art which fans can use, such as the initial ten full-color Midgard NPCs.

The Midgard Campaign Setting fan community is growing faster than an ill-advised alchemy experiment in Maillon! It's an active, vibrant community, full of people who want to take what we've created and run with it in exciting and fun directions. So we thought, why not make it easier for them?

To encourage fan sites and free fan-created projects using Midgard and other Kobold Press IP, we've just launched the Kobold Press Community Use Policy. This policy covers free, fan-created material only; if you want to do a commercial project, check out our Freelancer Guidelines.

Along with guidelines on what fans can use and how, we're also offering the first Kobold Press Community Use Package of resources. This first package contains 10 of the Midgard setting's most iconic characters -- and we'll be adding new packages over time.

Tell us what you think in the comments! And if you have a Midgard fan project underway, or if this inspires you to start one, please let us know. We'd love to see it.
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[h=3]Community News[/h]

• Sly Flourish has written an article about the recently released Dungeons of Dread collection of AD&D 1E modules from WotC - speciifically running White Plume Mountain using the D&D Next playtest rules.
• Sarah Darkmagic writes about gender discrimination in the D&D Next deities section.
• Kobold Press presents The Chemist, a class compatible with either Swords & Wizardry or Labyrinth Lord core rules.
• Guest writer John Fredericks on Gnome Stew has an idea for using "letters from home" received by PCs (the contents of which are determined by the PCs) as a way to enhance the game.
• The news of the cancellation of the Marvel Heroic RPG (understandably) disappointed Christopher Hackler of Gaming Tonic, who asks: What Now?
• Game Knight Reviews has reviewed Blackstar Studios' Shadowlands: The Gates of Tarina (an adventure for the Pathfinder RPG).
• Check out this giant, detailed review of Neverwinter, the new D&D MMO.

[h=3]Boardgaming News[/h]

• I've mentioned it before, but Palladium has a Kickstarter for its Robotech RPG Tactics game. It's now at about half a million dollars, and has two weeks to go (it ends on May 20th). "Robotech® RPG Tactics™ is a fast-paced, tabletop combat game that captures the action and adventure of the Robotech® anime. Two or more players can engage in small squad skirmishes or scale up to massive battles. Relive the clashes of the First Robotech War, engage in stand-alone tactical games or use the dynamic game pieces to enhance your Robotech® RPG experience. Or simply collect your favorite mecha from an expanding range of top notch game pieces, including some Kickstarter exclusives."
• Jason at Play Board Games has decided to update his list of his top ten cooperative (or semi-cooperative) games. Like his other top ten lists, this list only includes games he has played.
• Fantasy Flight has previewed an expansion for Elder Sign. Called Unseen Forces, the expansion features new mechanics, new monsters and new adventures all intended to help you go mad in the Cthulhu-verse.
• FFG also dropped some news on the next X-wing Expansion on May the 4th. Ships featured in the expansion are the Lambda-class Shuttle, the B-wing, the TIE Bomber, and Kyle Katarn's (from the Star Wars: Dark Forces series of games) HWK-290.
• Fantasy Flight has a preview of the deluxe expansion for Android: Netrunner. This preview of Creation and Control focuses on Hass-Bioroid and some of the upgraded units they've produced like Heimdal 2.0.
• The ladies of Starlit Citadel review Fleet Admiral, a Sci-fi game where players start as captains but upgrade ships and crew until they become admirals. See the video below!

[video=youtube_share;VIchl8kz2mw]http://youtu.be/VIchl8kz2mw[/video]
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[Obryn]

I'm very happy Sarah Darkmagic wrote about the weird decision to include genders with the gods in the most recent Next playtest. It's one of those little bits of baggage I'm hoping Next can leave behind.

-O

 

[delericho]

I'm very happy Sarah Darkmagic wrote about the weird decision to include genders with the gods in the most recent Next playtest. It's one of those little bits of baggage I'm hoping Next can leave behind.

There's an issue with pronoun usage - either they refer to a deity exclusively as 'he' or as 'she', and so have assigned genders (either explicitly or implicitly), or they alternate when referring to a single deity (which risks causing confusion). Because of that, explicitly assigning genders is probably the least-worst option.

Now, having said that, Sarah Darkmagic does have a point about stereotypical gender roles, especially in the case of the Protector (male when martial; female when community building). WotC could probably have handled that, at least, somewhat better.

(Of course, it's by no means certain that the archetypes will stick - the 5e PHB or equivalent might well replace those with a sample pantheon as in 3e & 4e. Though I do hope not.)