Welcome to Night Vale TTRPG Crowdfunding Announced

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Renegade Game Studios announced the Welcome to Night Vale TTRPG will come to Backerkit on October 1, 2024. Originally announced last year, the tabletop roleplaying game will use the Essence20 System used by Renegade’s other licensed properties such as Transformers, G.I. Joe, Power Rangers, and My Little Pony.

Welcome to Night Vale is a narrative podcast presented as an in-universe talk radio show from the desert town of Night Vale where strange supernatural events occur. Started by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor in 2012, the podcast has attracted such names as Mara Wilson, Wil Wheaton, Molly Quinn, Felicia Day, and many others over the years.

The Backerkit pre-launch page has a description of the podcast:

“Welcome to Night Vale is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff’s Secret Police, mysterious lights in the sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and current events. Turn on your radio and hide.”

In the original press release from 2023, President Scott Gaeta of Renegade said, “Joseph and Jeffrey have created a fantastic world full of vibrant characters, mystery, and rich engaging stories. Roleplayers around the world have long been fans of the series and we’re excited to now allow them to have their own adventures in the world of Night Vale.”

You can sign up for the mailing list on the Renegade Game Studios website or get notifications from the Backerkit pre-launch page.

 

[Stone Dog]

Special rule, once per adventure, declare it is time for The Weather, play some indie song nobody has ever heard of, and the current problem is mostly resolved off camera.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've been listening to Welcome to Night Vale since the beginning, but nothing about it says, to me, a system that uses classes (called "roles" in Essence d20) or levels.

If anything, this feels like a setting that cries out to be a Powered by the Apocalypse sort of story game. All sorts of crazy stuff happens in Night Vale, but it's mostly resolved by talking.

That said, it'd be neat to get a setting guide and bestiary. And it'll be interesting to see if the game leans on the radio aspect of the show -- there have been a number of radio-centric RPGs lately, and this seems like a natural one to do the same.

 

[DarkCrisis]

haven’t listens to Nightvale in years. (Haven’t listened to Podcasts in years)

Be interesting to see what an RPG is like.

I went to a Nightvale live performance once and a good half of it was Indy bands playing before the actual Nigjtvale thing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The live shows are very good. I haven't attended one in person, but I buy the recordings on Bandcamp and they're great accessible single stories with, yeah, lots of good music and guest voice actors.

 

[Anon Adderlan]

Couldn't have gone to a worse company or been implemented in a less appropriate system. It's frustratingly heartbreaking.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Boy, the Backerkit updates on this project are absolutely not nailing the tone of Night Vale, down to things that might seem little but are actually actually a core part of the franchise, like how to use punctuation.

"Welcome to Night Vale" sounds great to anyone who doesn't know the show. If you've listened to it even once, it's clearly either "welcome -- to Night Vale" or "welcome, to Night Vale," although that one would probably get marked up by English teachers and dramaturgists for being unclear.

This franchise is all about little things like this -- it's a radio play with a lightly sketched world.

I sure hope the quickstart puts my fears to rest.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

As expected, they're off like a rocket, with $178k raised and 2.127 backers in the first 12 hours.

The core pledge is a box set, with content split into an apparently systemless setting book, a player book, a GM book and an adventure. The box also comes with pregenerated characters, "threat" cards, basic dice (Night Vale logo on the four-sided, and presumably the others, since just on the d4 would be weird), a d2 coin and a screen.

Backerkit exclusives turn out to be different colors of dice, a dice bag and a dice tray. So not a crisis if people wait until fulfillment, whenever that is. (I really don't like how Backerkit doesn't require campaigns to put that info front and center. They're very much focused on the people running the campaigns, often to the detriment, IMO, of the backers.)

I do not see a way to download a sample of the game or a quickstart guide although there are actual play videos to watch.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Buy the Welcome to Night Vale TTRPG for the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home

Welcome to Night Vale, the beloved fiction podcast starring a beleaguered public radio host, is being turned into a tabletop RPG. The BackerKit campaign is live.

www.polygon.com

 

[johndesmarais]

I've been listening to Welcome to Night Vale since the beginning, but nothing about it says, to me, a system that uses classes (called "roles" in Essence d20) or levels.

If anything, this feels like a setting that cries out to be a Powered by the Apocalypse sort of story game. All sorts of crazy stuff happens in Night Vale, but it's mostly resolved by talking.

That said, it'd be neat to get a setting guide and bestiary. And it'll be interesting to see if the game leans on the radio aspect of the show -- there have been a number of radio-centric RPGs lately, and this seems like a natural one to do the same.

Funny. I’ve never listener to the podcast, but for some reason I’ve always made an association between it and Monster of the Week in my head.