Month: July 2022

The Weekly LIVE 150 – Darkest Dungeon Dispute, RiotOnline Closes, Return to Dark Tower Second Printing and Expansion and Cthulhu App in Japan

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The Darkest Dungeon boardgame Wave 1, the English language core game, is printed and ready ship. Unfortunately for Mythic, the company that designed the boardgame, which is based on the PC game by Red Hook Studios, the costs of shipping have dramatically increased. They are now asking backers to contribute a small additional amount to help make up for the $875K difference after they have already added over a million themselves in cooperation with Red Hook. Of course the comments and criticism are flying. This is putting Mythic in a tight spot. These addition costs are unforeseen and as Kickstarter is NOT a preorder, it seems they are justified in asking for this additional funding. It is either that or just dump the whole thing in the China Sea so they can stop paying storage costs.

A surprise message from DriveThruRPG informed us that due to the closure of RiotOnline we are being sent complimentary codes for PDFs of all the materials we had on this digital platform. This situation comes hot on the heels of Astral announcing they are done. RiotMinds is selling their IP catalog to CMON games. This includes Trudvang Chronicles, LexOccultum, and the Ruin Masters brands. Who knows what CMON will do with them. They do have a studio dedicated to TTRPGs so let’s hope for the best.

Restoration Games is returning to their successful reboot of Dark Tower with a seconding printing of Return to Dark Tower. It will also include a new expansion called Covenant that will include new heroes and mechanics. They are already near $1 million on the second printing this time on Backerkit. If you missed it the first time around this gives you a chance to get the game and for those that pledge it offers the chance to get some of the premium upgrades offered in the first Kickstarter campaign.

Finally, Kadokawa the publisher of Call of Cthulhu in Japan has announced a new smartphone app tentatively named Cthulhu Myth TRPG Rulebook PLUS. It will offer for the first time a single place to access all the books produced over the past 40 years for Call of Cthulhu in Japan. It will immediately only be available to iOS on iPhones but that could change depending on popularity. The app allows users to mark pages and add notes. It is free and offers the books as in-app purchases.
#darkestdungeon #riotminds #returntodarktower #cthulhu

Return to Dark Tower on Backerkit:
https://www.backerkit.com/c/restoration-games/return-to-dark-tower

Article on Return to Dark Tower:
https://www.vulture.com/2022/07/return-to-dark-tower-board-game-making-of.html

Shopping on DTRPG (afilliate link):
https://www.drivethrurpg.com?affiliate_id=2081746

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The Weekly LIVE 149 – KillSampleProcess, Pathfinder Revolution! by Steve Jackson Games, Dune: War for Arrakis by and Mazes and Monsters HD

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Kill Sample Process is a stand-alone tabletop miniatures game and rpg setting from the creator of The Last War and Forbidden Psalm and published by Exalted Funeral, inspired by and fully compatible with the CY_BÖRG ttrpg and other Forbidden Psalm miniatures games. Forbidden Psalm is a 28mm miniatures agnostic game. You can use ANY suitable miniatures you already own, or build custom minis for this game. Solo Play and Coop rules are included. All content is compatible with the CY_BÖRG ttrpg. Kill Sample Process is a small-scale skirmish game, where you play with a crew of 5 miniatures per player, against AI controlled Hostiles in scenarios that tak e you across the neon hell scape of CY_. Play as enemies, cooperatively or solo.

Steve Jackson Games and Paizo, Inc. launched Pathfinder Revolution!, a new edition of the Revolution! board game, which is currently on Kickstarter for preorder. This is a new Pathfinder branded version of the Revolution! board game, which was released back in 2009 and spawned expansions (see “‘Revolution! Anarchy'”). The new edition improves the classic political deduction game as well adds game elements from the expansion material. It is set in the world of the Pathfinder RPG, and the goal of the game is to bluff or outguess opponents while building a coalition to gain control of the city of Korvosa.

CMON will be publishing War for Arrakis, an asymmetrical war game based on Frank Herbert’s Dune novel. The designers of the War of the Ring, Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi, are hoping to repeat their previous success with a new setting. The game is controlled through a combination of action dice and event cards, representing the different attributes of the two sides House Atreides and House Harkonnen. CMON is producing all new miniatures and artwork for the game. It is being sub-licensed from the existing Gale Force Nine license for Dune. Do we really need another Dune boardgame? Well, it is coming soon to Kickstarter.

And finally, Mazes & Monsters, the 1982 movie with Tom Hanks, will be available in Blu-ray HD for the first time ever. This is to celebrate 40th anniversary edition of the film based on Rona Jaffe’s 1981 novel that was inspired by the non-fiction book by investigator William Dear’s called The Dungeon Master. The story is about missing university student James Dallas Egbert III, who disappeared in 1979. His interest in Dungeons & Dragons was blamed by the media for his disappearance. This was after all the height of the Satanic Panic.
#cy_borg #paizo #stevejacksongames #dune #cmon #mazesandmonsters

KillSampleProcess on Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/impioussaint/forbidden-psalm-killsampleprocess

Pathfinder Revolution! On Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/pathfinder-revolution-by-steve-jackson-games

Shopping on DTRPG (afilliate link):
https://www.drivethrurpg.com?affiliate_id=2081746

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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:
https://onebookshelfpublisherservice.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/7752903305235

Shopping on DTRPG (affiliate link):
https://www.drivethrurpg.com?affiliate_id=2081746

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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

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

Shopping on DTRPG (afilliate link):
https://www.drivethrurpg.com?affiliate_id=2081746

Check out RC Harvey’s writing:
http://rcharvey.com/

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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

Shopping on DTRPG (afilliate link):
https://www.drivethrurpg.com?affiliate_id=2081746K

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