Wizards of the Coast has announced a new “Iconic Party” for their official Japanese release of Dungeons and Dragons, set to come out later in 2023. The new party was revealed by the official Wizards D&D JP account as part of the localization effort for the D&D Essentials Kit. The party was designed by artist Chomoran, and has already caused excitement within the community.

More and more Games Workshop looks to be trying to remove the individual creators from everything they produce. From codex books and game systems, right down to their presenters and tutorials, identities have become non-existent in Nottingham. It seems like GW has made their painting team even more generic than ever before, as they are taking out any recognition for the artists in their tutorials, and you can only see the creator’s hands

It is with great pride and pleasure that Dream Pod 9 launches our Heavy Gear 4th Edition Roleplaying Game Kickstarter. Writing and basic layout of the Heavy Gear 4th Ed RPG Rulebook is complete with a massive 480 page count. But it still needs tons of new artwork, hence the reason for the Kickstarter. Our goal is to raise the money for new artwork, and pay for the work done so far. Heavy Gear is a science fiction franchise produced by Dream Pod 9. The first edition of the beloved roleplaying game debuted in 1995 and has since expanded to include many other products including the Heavy Gear Blitz tabletop wargame and hundreds of pewter, resin and plastic miniatures for the game.

VAGABOND is a “lean-and-mean” tabletop roleplaying game, laser-focused on practical play with a modern TTRPG feel. Drawing inspiration from Medieval romance, dungeon synth, and the litany of dungeon crawlers to come before it, VAGABOND is a hybrid tabletop roleplaying game that blends old school utility with modern TTRPG character expression and sensibilities. It also takes inspiration from both Eastern and Western influences, with the potential for a Goblin Gunslinger to be delving a mummy’s tomb alongside a Harpy Dancer in search of the fabled Excalibur. 

#heavygear #vagabondrpg #onlyhands #dndjapan

Heavy Gear 4E TTRPG:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/heavygearblitz/heavy-gear-roleplaying-game-fourth-edition

Vagabond TTRPG:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rebelrousergames/development-for-vagabond-ttrpg

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Free League Publishing is releasing two new game licenses for community creators – a Free Tabletop License (FTL) for the Year Zero Engine and a third-party license for the upcoming Dragonbane fantasy RPG. The Year Zero Engine FTL comes with a massively updated Standard Reference Document (SRD). Feedback can be posted on their forum on all three documents before they are finalized and officially launched.

Did Greg Stafford receive the first ever copy of Dungeons and Dragons directly from Gary Gygax?

Dungeons & Dragons’ 2024 Player’s Handbook won’t contain Ardlings. D&D lead rules designer Jeremy Crawford stated that the Ardlings, a proposed species with celestial origins and animal heads, did not test well in the most recent playtest. “There are a lot of fans of the Ardling, but the Ardlings’ time has not yet come.The Ardling is moving out of the playtest for now and maybe in some future year we will return [to them].”

Celeste Conowitch, Kobold Press’s Senior Game Designer posted on their Design Diary that “ It’s Time for the Monopoly on D&D to End… This is a wildly exciting time to make TTRPGs as we stare down the possibility of an RPG future not ruled by one master game under the control of one master company (The Lord of the Rings taught us this is bad)… This game has meant too much to us for too long to let it remain owned by just one company.”

FreeLeague DRFT Licnese:
https://freeleaguepublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Year-Zero-Engine-License-Agreement-Discussion-Draft.pdf?mc_cid=b763dc8590&mc_eid=5d8af4c50e

Year Zero Engine Revised SRD:

https://freeleaguepublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/YZE_Standard_Reference_Document.pdf?mc_cid=b763dc8590&mc_eid=5d8af4c50e

Project Black Flag Design Diary:

https://koboldpress.com/project-black-flag-friday-design-diary-1/

#freeleague #dragonbane #blackflagrpg #gregstafford #ardlings

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Bank of America Still Dislikes Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast.

Kyle Brink, Executive Producer of Dungeons and Dragons dislikes cisgender heterosexual white people running things.

Inside the Box  is accused on the Kickstarter pages of not paying employees. They have still not fulfilled their two most recent Kickstarters.

Andrews McMeel stops publishing TTRPGs and cancels the contract for Into The Motherlands, an Afrofuturist RPG.

#intothemotherlands #3blackhalflings #insidethebox 

Blade Runner Actual Play FINAL CONFRONTATION:
https://youtu.be/hlE5zMl_rT0

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Amazon Studios today announced that it has secured global rights to Warhammer  40,000, based on the immensely popular intellectual property from Games Workshop (GAW) that has given rise to an immersive global hobby – Warhammer. The agreement encompasses rights to the universe across series, film, and more, and will sit alongside GAW’s activities as they continue to make the best miniatures in the world. This is the first deal of its kind for Amazon Studios for IP of this scale, and it allows the company to utilize the title across its entertainment businesses. Henry Cavill (Man of Steel, Mission: Impossible – Fallout) is set to star in and executive produce the Warhammer 40,000 franchise across all Amazon Studios productions.

Asmodee’s pricing for its new terrain kits for Marvel Crisis Protocol are reminding us of the incredibly overpriced offering from Games Workshop. Discuss.

Dungeons and Dragons fans banded together to get #OpenDnD trending on Twitter. This tag emerged in response to recent activity that suggests Dungeons and Dragons might be considering cracking down on homebrew in One D&D.

We also cover the good and the bad of 2022. A surprising amount of bad.

#onednd #asmodee #amazon #warhammer40k

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In July, Roll20 and DriveThruRPG announced they come together under Ankit Lal. Don’t call it a merger; call it a joint venture. The two have been pretty much operating in unison for the last few months, and now marketplaces for digital content are getting closer together.At the time it was announced that the community content program that OneBookShelf, the DriveThruRPG parent company, has with Wizards of the Coast would expand to include Roll20.Right now, third-party publishers who follow the rules can create and sell D&D adventures and other content from the DMsGuild. As of this week, those modules can also be created for Roll20.

 Role’s co-founder isn’t worried about D&D’s plans for the online RPG space. CEO and co-founder Elle Dwight offered two polite reminders that Role, the streaming roleplay platform she co-founded and runs, is not a virtual tabletop but a toolset for “conversation gaming”. After crowdfunding $106,982 on Kickstarter in 2020, Role has been successfully simmering among the actual play and online RPG space. That scene is quickly expanding, though. Wizards of the Coast announced its own plans for a dedicated, in-house virtual tabletop for Dungeons & Dragons earlier this year, and smaller companies such as One More Multiverse, Foundry and even Roll20 are renegotiating what exactly they can offer players who suddenly find themselves with a wealth of options when it comes to playing games digitally with friends.

When you think of Dungeons and Dragons, the world’s most popular RPG, you might think of heroic orcs, magical elves, or Tieflings running an inn somewhere. But you might not have thought that the tabletop game of fantasy adventures is a game in need of a recurrent spending environment. And you’d be forgiven too. Because unless you’re a WotC or Hasbro executive, odds are really good you’ve never thought the words “D&D under-monetized” before.According to an investor-focused “fireside chat” with Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks, and WotC’s new CEO Cynthia Williams, D&D is under-monetized.

Paizo is offering a webstore-wide holiday discount.From now through January 18, take 15% off a single order* on Pathfinder, Starfinder and Kobold Press print products at the Paizo Store using the code holiday23 at checkout.
#hasbro #playrole #paizo #roll20

Holiday Discount at Paizo Store using the code holiday23 at checkout:

https://paizo.com/store

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A Redditor posted his results from an experiment with the OpenAI’s GPT-3 software. It was an attempt to get the AI to act as a player character. The test was not completely successful, but yielded some interesting results. The AI played a Wizard and was fond of the 5E spell, Magic Missile. Soon virtual tabletops may no longer need human beings to run fantasy roleplay games. The future is very bright.

A surprise for the TTRPG gamers of Japan happened this week. Wizards of the Coast created an official Twitter account. They tweeted a message saying more information about the future will be announced later in July. This comes after the legal dispute with Gale Force 9 that lead to WotC taking direct control over their localization in Europe and, now apparently, in Japan.

Yesterday, as of this writing, the penalties for online insults and bullying have become more severe in Japan. This follows a high profile case of a Japanese professional female wrestler and reality star committing suicide due to online harrassment. The main perpetrators received a tiny fine of 9,000yen (US$75) each. The mother of the late wrestler held a press conference celebrating the toughening of punishment which now stands at a fine of 300,000yen (US$2,200).

There is a new Bundle of Holding for the Fading Suns 4E Kickstarter by Ulisses Spiele delivered about mid-2020. This 2021 edition of the game is also getting ready to return to Kickstarter with a new expansion, Fading Suns: Lost Worlds. This is your chance to catch up on the latest version if you missed it and also donate to a good cause.
#dnd5e #fadingsuns #AI #japan

Fading Suns 4E Bundle of Holding
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/FadingSuns4E

Shopping on DTRPG (afilliate link):
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Check out RC Harvey’s writing:
http://rcharvey.com/

OneBookShelf and Roll20 have made a deal to offer Dms Guild content on Roll20. This will increase the amount of fan-made content available to dungeon masters tremendously. Is this also the beginning of Wizards of the Coast focusing on Roll20 for a possible acquisition? They seem to doing a bit of that these days. OneBookShelf updated their Conduct Guidelines for publishers and have rubbed a lot of creators on DriveThruRPG the wrong way. It includes limitations to external linking and price controls as well as focus on Hostile Marketing. Which is vaguely defined as any type of promotion that courts controversy or bad press for OBS. Chris is not happy and we will find out why!

Alice is Missing, the text message based TTPRG created by a producer from Critical Role, has been optioned by Paramount. GenCon should be prepared to move to California and be overrun by scouts and producers from Hollywood to find the “next big thing” to make into a movie. Creative bankruptcy or trend chasing? TTRPG designers better start moving to LA and finding agents. Keyforge is back with new ownership.

Keyforge, the card game that went on hiatus during the pandemic has been purchased Asmodee by Ghost Galaxy, a company run by former Fantasy Flight CEO, Christian T. Petersen. They are bringing along some of the principals involved in the games production so things may be able to pick up where they left off. This should be good news for fans of the unique decks built by software card game. And finally, someone has created a competitor to Itch.io by making an exact copy of the website right down to the CSS and stealing the games being sold there. They want to offer an alternative to creators that want to include NFTs and blockchain in their games. The response to these thieves will make your non-native English speaking day.
#roll20 #keyforge #onebookshelf #aliceismissing

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Steamforged Games is making a Dark Souls TTRPG. They are the studio that credit the impressive boardgame from a free years back. Is there enough in the world to keep roleplayers happy? Wizards of the Coast released an abridged version of the adventure Dragon of Icespire Peak previously included in their Essentials Kit. It includes pre-generated level one characters for new players and to get started fast. Before being purchased by Embracer Group, Asmodee purchased Miniature Market. So a boardgame publisher and retailer in one easy purchase. For almost US$3billion. THere has been a change to the credits for Ernie Gygax on the release of Giantlands.
#darksouls #dnd5e #AstheGygaxTurns #ttrpg #embracergroup

D&D freebie page:
https://dnd.wizards.com/remote/freematerial

Rob’s podcast:
https://anchor.fm/menion

Mutant Crawl Classics Corebook now available at retail stores in both softcover and hardback. Dungeons and Dragons themed restaurant to open in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Another unsuccessful attempt to profit from the birthplace of D&D? World of Darkeness to follow Patherfinder 2E and partner with Demiplane to create World of Darkness Nexus digital toolset in 2022. The forgotten Street Fighter TTRPG powered by the Storyteller System. Bundle of holding brings us the ninth Indie Cornucopia
#mutantcrawlclassics #streetfighter #indiecornucopia9 #goodmangames

Indie Cornucopia 9 on Bundle of Holding:
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Cornucopia9