Tag: Wizards of the Coast

The Weekly LIVE 157 – WotC Sues NuTSR for Reprehensible Content, Indie RPG Future in 5th Edition, New Vallejo Xpress Color Paints and New Kings of War Book

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Wizards of the Coast, the Dungeons & Dragons publisher, aims to prevent racist, bigoted, and transphobic work from being published. Citing concerns over racist and transphobic material, Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast is trying to take back an old game to prevent its publication. Star Frontiers New Genesis, is a reboot of a classic 1982 game with some very problematic content. NuTSR just won’t learn. Or is this some 4D chess move to get free publicity? Keep an eye out for their legal funds crowdfunder.

With the announcement of the new walled garden of One D&D, independent designers are looking toward a future divested from the weight of D&D. Many believe the tabletop RPG, lifestyle brand, and massive culture juggernaut will keep rolling under its own inertia creating Hasbro shareholder happiness. The sooner they can stop trying to compare themselves to that continued success or worry about capturing part of that fan base, the easier their jobs will become. SRDs, or whatever their next form might look like, may provide fledgling artists waystones through an open field instead of fence posts around private property. Several indie designers gave their input on the state of tabletop roleplaying and the future of platforms like the DM’s Guild.

Vallejo’s entry into the speed painting trend was recently demonstrated with their new Xpress Color paints. Vallejo is known for great paints already, so it’s interesting to see them going this route with a more contrast-style paint. Now we can see how it works and what it can offer in terms of a one-coat solution that sets it apart from the rest. More alternatives are always better. The paints were developed in part by Angel Giraldez and Juan Hidalgo. They will definitely cost less than Citadel Contrast Paints but how will they compare to Army Painter’s Speed Paint and the upcoming release by Green Stuff World?

Instead of complaining about Games Workshop let’s bring some attention to a worthy competitor and look at what is coming out from Mantic Games. Two new army updates, a giant tome collecting all of the updated rules and new styles of play for Kings of War and a new app to make all their games more accessible. If they can just resist the temptation of a monthly subscription they may be onto something. Check these guys out if you like good rule systems and minis that don’t break the bank.
#wotc #nutsr #vallejo #mantic #kingsofwar

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The Weekly LIVE 155 – So Long Astral VTT, D&D Webtoon, Fireheart for Frostgrave, Dark Souls Standalone Expansions, Letter from Dave Arneson and New Disney CCG

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Astral virtual tabletop has been shutdown. Nathan at Arkenstone has written a wonderful post mortem/ obituary for the platform. It is a shame that no open source agreement for the code could be reached. This leaves the hope that some of the best features from Astral may find their way into Roll20, since that is where OneBookShefl has their deal now and probably where the sold the code. We ran two excellent campaigns using Astral and the easy of use and excellent features will be missed. Obviously it is not the best technology and community that wins.

Everyone’s favorite Drow is coming to Webtoon. ALong with Breezy, Drizzt will be featured in an official Dungeons and Dragons Webtoon in 2023. It will be written by Suitor Armor creator Purpah and illustrator Ryan LeCount.with the character’s creator R.A. Salvatore “involved”. This deal was official struck with Wizards of the Coast and all we need to know now is… what’s a Webtoon?

A new expansion for Frostgrave called Fireheart is coming soon from Osprey Games. North Star Military Figures is also producing new miniatures including a female enchanter and apprentice, new construct miniatures as well as a box of hard plastic female barbarians. If it is anything likfke the previous expansions it will be worth picking up for the new adventures and soldier types. If you never played Frostgrave before it is one of the best miniatures skirmish games out there. You don’t have to buy the official miniatures. The game is completely miniatures agnostic. Our first campaign was exclusively with LEGO mini figs. Not really a moneysaver, but great fun!

Dark Souls: The Board Game is releasing a pair of of new expansions. The Tomb of the Giants and Painted World of Ariamis boxes will be standalone expansions and might signal a new chapter for tabletop adaptation of From Software’s popular video game. Steamforged Games, the next two releases will act as standalone core sets for the six-year-old series. New players will be able to pick up either the Tomb of the Giants or Painted World of Ariamis and enjoy the full intended experience. This breaks from all of the past expansions that have required the base Dark Souls Board Game in order to properly function. After the stumble of the Dark Souls RPG which the miniatures from the boardgame would be useful, we will see if these new expansions get more people into this strategy combat game.

A newly discovered letters reveals D&D’s co-creator asked to be put in Charge of D&D in 1997. The letter from D&D co-creator Dave Arneson to Wizards of the Coast CEO Peter Adkiso In the letter, Arneson begged to be put in charge of Dungeons & Dragons. This letter and several other interesting artifacts from this time were used in writing the book Slaying the Dragon: A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons, written By Ben Riggs, tells the never-before-heard true story of how D&D almost died in the 90s and was saved by its bitterest rival.

Disney has partnered with Ravensburger, a 139-year-old game publisher. The new joint effort is called Disney Lorcana, a family-friendly collectible trading card game. The first sets are expected in the latter half of 2023. This game is expected to enter the lucrative market created by the PokemonTrading Card Game and Magic: the Gathering. Is this something that anyone will be interested in aside from the rabid Disney-anything collectors?
#astralvtt #dnd #frostgrave #darksouls #davearneson

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The Weekly LIVE 152 – New Cubicle 7 Warhammer 40k TTRPG, Heroscape Returns, 2021 Ennies and Lord of the Rings for 5E

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Cubicle 7 is excited to announce a new Warhammer 40,000 roleplaying game! Imperium Maledictum is the spiritual successor to the beloved series of roleplaying games started by Black Industries over ten years ago. Imperium Maledictum is a d100 based system for roleplaying in the grim darkness of the 41st millennium, and builds on previous Warhammer 40,000 d100 roleplaying games, as well as Cubicle 7’s own award-winning Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition.

Hasbro and Avalon Hill Games announce the new Age of Annihilation expansion pack for the long-dormant cult classic tabletop title Heroscape. Debuted and distributed by Milton Bradley in 2004, Heroscape was a sort of scaled-down take on wargaming that appealed particularly to younger audiences. Discontinued in 2010, it was recently announced that Heroscape will return in the near future with the Heroscape: Age of Annihilation expansion.

We also review the results of the 2021 Ennies. Thirsty Sword Lesbians took both Product of the Year and Best Games. The path to Middle-earth will soon open for new adventurers.

Free League is thrilled to reveal that the acclaimed second edition of The One Ring™ roleplaying game is coming soon in a 5E adaptation, entitled The Lord of the Rings™ Roleplaying. The new edition of The One Ring™ RPG, set in the world of The Lord of the Rings™ by J.R.R. Tolkien and designed by Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi, became the most successful tabletop roleplaying core game ever on Kickstarter when it ended March 4, 2021. Now the time has come to open Middle-earth for even more roleplayers with a brand new 5E adaptation.
#ennieawards #heroscape #cubicle7 #lotr5e

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The Weekly LIVE 148 – Roll20 and OneBookShelf Joint Venture, The Big Squirm for Troika!, 2d20 Summer of Gaming and Mork Borg: Barebones Edition

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Roll20 and OneBookShelf have announced a joint venture that will involve some management shuffling and give you access to all PDFs in the Roll20 VTT… eventually. Not as earth-chattering as some people are making it out to be. It feels more like an excuse to bully smaller publishers that want access to customers and tart yourself up for your eventual buyout by Wizards of the Coast. Good luck with that. This adds convenience but at what cost to the employees, designers and customers of these games. Oh, and did I mention it will also kill the now redundant Astral VTT? It’s just the beginning of a much bigger mess. Roll20 took 10 years to add basic quality of life features to their platform and OBS has the worst backend of any online sales platform. A match made in heaven.

The latest official adventure for Troika! is now on Kickstarter. The Big Squirm is a hard-boiled mystery about speculative worm trading. Players are private detectives and in an open sandbox adventure with a series of clues to uncover by any means necessary. Written by Luke Gearing, previously of Acid Death Fantasy, it will be a 100-page hardcover book with over 40 pieces of art by Andrew Walter and of course published by the Melsonion Arts Council.

Miss White Boy Summer? Well now we have the Summer of 2d20. Modiphius is promoting the release of their 2d20 SRD with a sale of all of their published 2d20 systems in both physical and digital form. The sale is 20% off and includes games like Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, Star Trek Adventures, Fallout the Roleplaying Game, Dishonored, Infinity, Conan, John Carter of Mars, Mutant Chronicles, and Achtung! It runs for 48 hours starting July 20th which they have officially named 2d20 Day. In addition to all that, there will a collaboration with Mōdiphiüs xStartplaying.Games, the group finding platform for VTTs All participating Gamemasters who run a 2d20 game with at least two verified players during this period will be entered into a random draw to win one prize of $1,000 USD to spend on the Modiphius webstore, and three players can win one of three $100 USD Did you notice the theme with the number twenty in all that? Marketing!

And finally, proof that Stockholm Kartell’s hit TTPRG isn’t just and art project that escaped to your tabletop. Mork Borg: Barebones Edition is now available for FREE. It is all the text of the original yellow book with the art and much of the graphic design removed. The PDF is available on Johan Nohr’s Itch.io page as Pay what you want. Hopefully, he had the task of dismantling his beautiful doom metal art masterpiece himself so that it maintained some of the wonderful feel of the full volume edition.
#troika #morkborg #modiphius #2d20 #onebookshelf #roll20

The Big Squirm on Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/melsonia/the-big-squirm

Mork Borg Barebones Edition:
https://jnohr.itch.io/mrk-borg-free

OneBookShelf FAQ:
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The Weekly LIVE 147 – AI Plays D&D, WotC Japan, Heavy Fines for Cyberbullying and Fading Suns 4E

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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

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The Weekly LIVE 146 – DMs Guild on Roll20, DTRPG Terms, Alice is Missing Movie, Keyforge Returns and W3itch.io

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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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The Weekly LIVE 139 – The Last Prospector for Stargrave, D&D Beyond Handover, Role Players Doc and Reproductive Rights Bundle

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The Last Prospector is a new campaign supplement for the sci-fi tabletop miniatures game Stargrave by creator Joseph McCullough. In this clever approach to a two-player campaign, the ten scenarios are not played in a narrative sequence, but are chosen by the winner of the previous scenario. There is also a Faction Standing mechanic where crews need to have a positive standing with one or more of the six factions in the supplement to receive faction bonuses. This supplement follows the previous Quarantine 37. Stargrave is the scifi sibling to the fantasy-themed Frostgrave. Both games are miniatures agnostic and d20 based. If you like miniatures skirmish games, this is a good as it gets.

WotC takes control of D&D Beyond next week.There will be a request to update permissions and the WotC Terms of Service and they also clarified what will happen to homebrew and other user-generated content. This follows the WotC buyout of D&D beyond earlier this year, but the official transfer of ownership takes place next week. If you have an account, you might notice a few changes. In related news, D&D Beyond will be permanently removing Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes on May 17th in favor of the upcoming Monsters of the Multiverse book.

Global documentary studio XTR is working on a brand new documentary about the tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons. Inspired by the spike in popularity the game has experienced since its release of Fifth Edition in the Summer of 2014. This is the first full-fledged film on the subject. The documentary is being called Role Players and will cover everything about the seminal fantasy game from its beginnings to present day. This kind of attention can only add to the current popularity or turn off prospective players by how the community is portrayed.

Finally we have a charity bundle from DriveThruRPG’s ‘RPGs For Reproductive Justice’ Bundle Gets You 57 Games For Only $25. In the wake of the leaked Supreme Court decision, a number of RPG creators have come together to raise money for reproductive justice on DriveThruRPG. One of the best ways you can help is by giving to organizations already doing the work. Which is what the Hydra Cooperative, an indie RPG co-op, is doing with the RPGs for Reproductive Justice Bundle. Get some great games while supporting a good cause. #dndbeyond #stargrave #bundle #wotc

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The Weekly LIVE 137 – WotC Ignores Original Creators, Modiphius Announces Cohors Cthulhu, Warzone Eternal Kickstarter Launch Date and Kutulu Hits Japan

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Wizards of the Coast has announced the return of two popular settings now for 5E. Unfortunately, according to Twitter, Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis, creators of Dragonlance and Jeff Grubb, creator of Spelljammer, were not involved in the announcement and found out at the same time everyone did during the announcement. We talked previously about the lawsuit involving the new Dragonlance novels. It doesn’t make WotC look great to ignore the original creators of these settings. Is this to emphasize a break from the past or a chance to save some money?

During the D&D Direct announcement last week, Modiphius Entertainment had a strange announcement of their own. In an attempt to possible distract from WotC, Modiphius had an hour long livestream announcement that was just a torchlit wall that eventually crumbles after a very long wait with only some slight change in lighting. They revealed their new TTRPG Cohors Cthulhu set in ancient Rome, a spinoff of Against the God Themselves, set in the same universe as Achtung! Cthulhu. I guess they were following the old adage “if you can’t beat ‘em, just be boring and confusing” or something like that.

We finally have a date for the Kickstarter campaign for Warzone Eternal. It will be launching May 17th, but be sure to listen to the entire livestream to make sure that date is correct. We talked with Alex Kanous from Res Nova Games previously about the new game and crowdfunding campaign. This should be a fun game to follow and hopefully a big success on Kickstarter. Hopefully with either the Cardinal’s blessing or the influence of the Dark Symmetry we will see the return of wargaming in the Mutant Chronicles universe.

Finally, there is a new release in Japan a a Swedish TTRPG, Kutulu by Mikael Bergström. Call of Cthulhu is the most popular tabletop roleplaying game in Japan. This is a much more rules light and streamlined d6 system. The insanity mechanic especially stands out as a great innovation to the Lovecraft setting. The Swedish language PDF is available as pay-what-you-want PDF on DriveThruRPG. With a little language software translation magic you can get an idea of how this system works. Hopefully we will see an English language release. Free League are you listening?

Modiphius website for Cohors Cthulhu:
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The Weekly LIVE 133 – Warcrow by Corvus Belli, Death in Space by Stockholm Kartell, Cortex Prime License 2.0 and Leatherbound 1E Books

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Corvus Belli has announced Warcrow, a new fantasy setting and miniatures game. The showed off a teaser trailer that was more of a logo reveal and a timeline for releases. The first release will be a dungeon crawling game in the Warcrow setting followed next year by the full miniatures wargame. Stockholm Kartell, creators of Mork Borg, revealed a new game available for preorder.

Death In Space is a rules-lite dark adventure game of scavenging and surviving in the dark void of space with your only home being your spaceships and your only family is your crew. It is available for pre-order now which gets you the PDF version right away. The release date is April 26th.

Cortex Prime has posted a redux on their license for community generated content and mods. This was followed by an FAQ from Fandom Tabletop community manager Mellie Doucette. The new 2.0 license makes a distinction between commercial and non- commercial licenses. Anything made under the non-commercial license must be available for free, this 2.0 version carves out exceptions for tip jars and pay-what-you-want options, both features that are part of the most popular community platforms.

TSR3 is selling leatherbound volumes of the original Dungeons and Dragons 1E books. They will cost you $650 each and feature gold ink on the cover and the classic wizard head logo which they have no right to use. With the pending litagation from Wizards of the Coast, it is odd they see this as good move.

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The Weekly LIVE 130 – Itch.io Trans Right Bundle, WotC Sues TSR3 for Fraud, Warlock New Edition and New Dune Box Set

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In response to Governor Greg Abbott and the Texas Attorney General Office’s transphobic declarations, Itch.io has put together all of these games in support of trans rights. Wizards of the Coast sues TSR3 for found around their claim to the trademark and the TSR logo. Warlock! by Fire Ruby Designs gets a new addition with some minor changes and a new font, design and artwork! Modiphius releases the Agents of Dune Campaign Experience Box Set, a stand-alone adventure and complete campaign system with many accessories for tracking character progress. The spice must flow. #wotc #dune #warlock! #modiphius

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