Tomb Raider RPG Cancelled For Creative Differences

Evil Hat Publishing has just announced that the official Tomb Raider TTRPG has been cancelled.

Sad news: We are canceling the Tomb Raider RPG project. Due to creative differences we couldn’t get our vision to gel with the licensor’s, so we've chosen to part ways.

The stellar team designing this game put their hearts into making this an exciting, dynamic RPG of adventure and exploration.

We're proud of the work they've done and we plan to retool the project as a standalone game with a fresh, original setting.

You haven’t seen the last of it.

An official Tomb Raider RPG was originally announced by Square Enix in 2021 for the 25th anniversary of the property. 2023's Lara Croft's Mark of the Phoenix released as free PDF on the Crystal Dynamics website.

The Evil Hat version was announced in February 2024 as a full-color hardback book. The plan was to allow you to play Truth Seekers, allies and contemporaries of Lara Croft who Indiana Jones out hidden artifacts for the benefit of good.

Explore hidden tombs and uncover powerful secrets! Defy danger as you race to discover forgotten artifacts and prevent nefarious forces from exploiting them! Race to unearth secret artifacts and forgotten truths in order to save them from the nefarious forces that would exploit them!

Mystery awaits, and sometimes, the answers we seek can only be found in shadow…

In this officially licensed tabletop RPG you play members of the Truth Seekers: contemporaries of Lara Croft who strive to reveal long-hidden knowledge and thwart those who would steal and exploit artifacts for their own gains. It is a game of action, exploration, and self-discovery. Face perilous challenges and tough choices as you learn what it takes to be a hero.

Tomb Raider: Shadows of Truth requires 3-6 players, pencils, paper, the rulebook, and at least six 6-sided dice in order to play.

Your group will collectively create their Team using one of the Team Playbooks and then build individual Team members choosing from the Crafter, Scholar, Hunter, Companion, Legacy, Changed, and Reclaimer. One player, the Keeper of Truths, describes the dynamic and compelling world around the Team as they all make the connections which bring the adventure to life.

Collect Truths and draw upon your Maps, Aid, and Lore to boost your rolls as you race to enter the Final Tomb!

The Truth is hidden. The Truth is dangerous. And in the end, the power of Truth is what we make it.

 

[Waller]

Weird game to try to adapt to a TTRPG.

"You work for Lara Croft."

Fortunately, despite the quotation marks, this is not a quote and just something you made up.

Though it seems it worked, as now everybody is acting like it wasn't something you just made up.

 

[Aldarc]

I'd too would use Outgunned Adventure over Savage Worlds, but I think Broken Compass is still better for Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider, regardless of TLM's claim about viewing Outgunned as an improvement over it.

If you say so.

 

[Aldarc]

So there is no mechanical implementation there, just GM advice?

That seems to be a pretty standard interpretation of "failure" these days.

Call it what you will, but they're the rules and principles for running the game.

Out of curiosity, what are the mechanics/rules differences between Outgunned and Outgunned: Adventure. Is this a Edge of Empire/Age of Rebellion style situation, where they are trying to sell you the core rules multiple times, or is there a good reason to separate them?

I don't know the full differences as I don't have Outgunned. I only wanted to buy Outgunned: Adventure without having to buy Outgunned. I'm interested in the former but not the latter. I'm glad that it's separate.

 

[Koloth]

I really wish that folks that license these IPs would quit thinking that they need to design Yet Another RPG Rule System(YARPGRS). Instead do something like Powered By GURPS and put a brief note in the front of your Core book that says 'To use this product, you also need access to <rule book name>.' Now most of your book can be spent on describing how Tomb Raiding works instead of being YARPGRS. Don't like GURPS? Paizo is a fair way down the path of having a universal d20 system between PF2 and SF2 and how they are interoperable with each other. Mongoose seems to be doing the same thing with their Traveller system.

I could see a Tomb Raider game world set 10 years after the events in the movies and game where Lara Croft has used her family wealth to create a Croft Explorations Inc and you are one of the folks "Working for Lara Croft". Avoids the problem of there can be only one Lara and everyone else is a sidekick.

 

[schneeland]

Out of curiosity, what are the mechanics/rules differences between Outgunned and Outgunned: Adventure. Is this a Edge of Empire/Age of Rebellion style situation, where they are trying to sell you the core rules multiple times, or is there a good reason to separate them?

The short version is: Outgunned Adventure is a more streamlined version of the game that drops some of the more detail-focused rules of Outgunned (e.g. Outgunned:Adventure does have modifiers by distance for guns) and the focus of the book is also more on common tropes of the classic pulp action/adventuring genre (Indiana Jones and the like), whereas Outgunned (and the supplementary World of Killers book) target modern action cinema in the style of John Wick. You can import rules from Outgunned into Outgunned Adventure, but you don't have to - it's a self-contained game.

The longer version is: 2LM had a game called Broken Compass which focused on modern adventuring stories (it's effectively a Tomb Raider & Uncharted game with serial numbers filed off), but also had a companion volume for classic adventuring (called Golden Age). They continued to publish supplements for this game focusing on pirate adventures (Jolly Roger) and adventures in the style of Jules Verne (Voyages Extraordinaires). They also teased a game called Broken Compass RED at this time.
But first, they published/crowdfunded another game called Household, and for this the joint ranks with CMON, which were initially only supposed to supply miniatures for the game. However, apparently the collaboration did not work out as planned and 2LM and CMON parted ways not too soon after (I think it was a year or so). In the course of this separation, 2LM were able to get their IP for Household back, but not that for Broken Compass.
So when 2LM got back to their RED project after Household, they couldn't use the original rule set (they never disclosed the terms of the separation, but discussion on their Discord pointed towards some sort of clause in the contract that prevented them from recreating what they did before). So that's when Outgunned was born. Which was a pretty successful crowdfunding, while at the same time CMON did exactly nothing with Broken Compass.
About a year after Outgunned, 2LM then launched the Outgunned Adventure campaign. Apparently at that point they had figured that it was okay to do a game similar to Broken Compass again. Potentially because there were already talks behind the scenes, since during the Outgunned Adventure campaign they announced that they had bought the rights to Broken Compass back. However, since they had already established their Outgunned line and rule engine, they built the game on top of that and only re-used a couple of illustrations from Broken Compass. Broken Compass itself has been discontinued now.
And as you might have read here on the boards: 2LM are continuing their "season approach" and have crowdfunded another variant for super hero stories. I suspect they will continue this for a while.
Closing note: distribution was a major issue with Broken Compass - it was an excellent game, but very hard to get hold of outside the crowdfundings. This was now been solved for the Outgunned line as 2LM have partnered with Free League (if my understanding is correct, this works similar to how the Stockholm Kartell guys are working with Free League for the distribution of the Borg games).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Pretty. Available anywhere besides crowdfunding?

Adventure Core Rulebook - Free League Publishing

Outgunned Adventure is a pulp adventure game inspired by the movie classics of the genre. In Outgunned Adventure, players take on the role of brave adventurers in search of an invaluable treasure. The Outgunned Adventure core rulebook contains all the basic rules needed to play pulp adventures...

freeleaguepublishing.com

 

[Morrus]

I really wish that folks that license these IPs would quit thinking that they need to design Yet Another RPG Rule System(YARPGRS).

There are thousands of licensed games which use existing systems. That’s what most publishers do. The number who make a new system for a licensed game is vanishingly small.

Instead do something like Powered By GURPS and put a brief note in the front of your Core book that says 'To use this product, you also need access to <rule book name>.' Now most of your book can be spent on describing how Tomb Raiding works instead of being YARPGRS. Don't like GURPS? Paizo is a fair way down the path of having a universal d20 system between PF2 and SF2 and how they are interoperable with each other. Mongoose seems to be doing the same thing with their Traveller system.

I could see a Tomb Raider game world set 10 years after the events in the movies and game where Lara Croft has used her family wealth to create a Croft Explorations Inc and you are one of the folks "Working for Lara Croft". Avoids the problem of there can be only one Lara and everyone else is a sidekick.

But on the other hand, that way you’re a licensee to two separate companies making products supporting their IPs. At what point do you start supporting your own IP, if not the lore OR the rules? You’re not making anything of your own.

Either way works for different reasons. Most publishers do the thing you say you wish they’d do.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Fortunately, despite the quotation marks, this is not a quote and just something you made up.

Though it seems it worked, as now everybody is acting like it wasn't something you just made up.

Could have sworn I read that somewhere when it was first announced. I didn’t care enough to dig it back up.

And are you sure it’s not a legit quote? You can kind of tell by how i referenced absolutely no one.

 

[JConstantine]

Fortunately, despite the quotation marks, this is not a quote and just something you made up.

Could have sworn I read that somewhere when it was first announced.

It is not made up, but it's not actually in reference to this Tomb Raider RPG. It is, in fact, from Lara Croft's Tomb Raiders:

The core rules assume that your characters work for Lara Croft, a wealthy adventuress who has more leads to follow than she has time to follow them.

 

[Reynard]

I really wish that folks that license these IPs would quit thinking that they need to design Yet Another RPG Rule System(YARPGRS). Instead do something like Powered By GURPS and put a brief note in the front of your Core book that says 'To use this product, you also need access to <rule book name>.' Now most of your book can be spent on describing how Tomb Raiding works instead of being YARPGRS. Don't like GURPS? Paizo is a fair way down the path of having a universal d20 system between PF2 and SF2 and how they are interoperable with each other. Mongoose seems to be doing the same thing with their Traveller system.

I could see a Tomb Raider game world set 10 years after the events in the movies and game where Lara Croft has used her family wealth to create a Croft Explorations Inc and you are one of the folks "Working for Lara Croft". Avoids the problem of there can be only one Lara and everyone else is a sidekick.

But you don't need a Tomb Raider RPG for that. A lore and art book will do.