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

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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 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

The Last Prospestor for Stargrave on DTRPG (affiliate link): https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/391955/Stargrave-The-Last-Prospector?affiliate_id=2081746

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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:
https://www.modiphius.net/pages/cohors-cthulhu

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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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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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TTRPGs for Trans Rights in Texas!
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Both Itch.io and DriveThru RPGs have come out against NFTs. Wizards of the Coast becomes the first tabletop company to sell a billion dollars worth of player’s handbooks and draft boosters. Critical Role is being criticized for their new campaign’s SWANA (Southwest Asian/North African) setting.

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TSR drops their lawsuit against Wizards of the Coast, but leave their IndieGoGo campaign active. WotC files a lawsuit to end the trademark dispute Does this spell the end of TSR? Free League announces partnership with Demiplane to produce Free League Nexus digital toolset. This will support all of their RPGs and marks the third major company to appear on the platform. Like Pathfinder Nexus and World of Darkness Nexus it will be available in 2022. A major errata is released by Wizards of the Coast that makes several major changes to many of the books released for fifth edition. The most noticeable change is the move to remove all racial alignments. Asmodee is in negotiations to be sold to a video game company called Embracer group based in Sweden. What does this mean for boardgames and IP tie-ins between videogames and tabletop. #tsr #demiplane #freeleague #dnd #asmodee

TSR is back! Again? Which one? They have started an IndieGoGo campaign to assist them in suing Wizards of the Coast for libel and slander, mostly concerning the disclaimer that has been added to legacy products. Cortex Prime, owned by Fandom has released the license details for fans interested in developing mods, etc. for the game. The fans are not happy. The agreement appears to give ownership of all free materials developed to Fandom. New expansion for Vaesen by Free League lets players leave the Nordic setting and explore folklore monsters in Britain and Ireland. EN Publishing loses the 200AD license and holds an enormous flash sale of all remaining stock. Forged in the Dark Bundle of Holding give you 4 RPGs using the system, including the original Blades in the Dark designed by John Harper and published by Evil Hat Productions , for only $10. Quite a deal if you have never tried the system and setting.
#tsr #cortexprime #vaesen #2000AD #ForgedintheDark

Forged in the Dark Bundle of Holding:
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Vaesen – Mythic Britain and Ireland Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/vaesen-rpg-mythic-britain-and-ireland