Hello and welcome to another weekly roundup of RPG news.
For most of the week, the RPG news sphere was busy with people reacting to the latest official D&D book Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Did it change D&D too much? Did it over-promise and then under-deliver with a radical racial shake-up? Is it out in Europe yet? (no). You’ll find a collection of links to mostly positive reviews below.
Tasha’s been overshadowed by news of another legal case brought against Wizards of the Coast for breach of contract. This time the complaint comes from Gale Force 9, but it might be a case of the accessories maker moving before Wizards of the Coast did. WotC maintains that GF9’s translation work on some D&D products was so poor that it caused offensive.
There’s much more news than just WotC and D&D though, so keep scrolling, and the bullet points will whisk the headlines to you as fast as you can manage.
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RPG news from Geek Native
- News is breaking that model-maker and DM screen designer Gale Force 9 are suing Wizards of the Coast for nearly $1 million.
- There have been reports of Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything pages coming loose.
- For Comic Relief, British comedians James Acaster, Lou Sanders, Phil Wang and Sally Philips will stream a game of WotC hosted Dungeons & Dragons.
- Geek Native reviewed Cyberpunk Red.
- R. Talsorian Games released the first DLC for Cyberpunk Red with Old Guns Never Die and changed EMP loss values in the first errata.
- Paradox answered some questions about the World of Darkness going back in-house.
- Mythic Table a new not-for-profit virtual tabletop will launch this month.
- Somewhat controversially, Budgie Smuggler Games secures the trademarks to Renegade Legion and plan on releasing games under the same name.
- Nightfall’s The Terminator RPG license includes Dark Horse comic canon but excludes most movies and Arnie’s iconic face.
- Astral Tabletop has a free Cyberpunk Red module called Wood Pirates (P.S. It’s free).
- Onyx Path’s Dagger of Spiragos Scarred Lands adventure might be the first example of DriveThruRPG and Astral integration.
- Green Ronin released a free quickstart to the AGE version of Blue Rose.
- Grant Howitt released a free to download one-page RPG called Kaiju Girls.
- Smore Productions released Chasing Adventure and a free version of the PbtA game.
- Skull Dixon released a Name Your Own Price 5e Gift Golem.
- The Bundle of Holding has two Symbaroum deals.
- Humble Bundle has a collection of Cyberpunk RPGs.
- Mongoose Publishing will publish the Fifth Frontier War and Traveller Mercenary.
- Indie Press Revolution’s job ad for an assistant manager reads like an adventure!
- Google launched a monster-maker.
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RPG news from around the web
- Chaosium has free downloads for The Children of Fear.
- Chaosium also has free handouts for Call of Cthulhu Dark Ages.
- Wizards of the Coast will close the D&D Adventurers League Facebook page and begin to shuttered DNDAdventurersLeague.org as they unify their web platforms.
- ICv2 notes that Wizards of the Coast raises $1.4 million for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.
- Venture Beat looked into how Paradox’s partnership with Renegade Game Studios sheds light on the World of Darkness.
- Paizo Publishing has signed a licensing deal with Hideous Laughter Productions.
- Monte Cook Games has A Look inside Claim the Sky.
- EN Publishing gave us a look at their action-comedy system the Awfully Cheerful Engine!
- Cubicle 7 continued their WFRP Folk and Folklore series.
- Keith Baker wrote up Dragonmark: Flight in Eberron.
- World Anvil already has a character sheet for Ulisses Spiele’s new Talisman Adventures RPG.
- Ranger Games Publishing says they have had a decent year, with enough sales to continue publishing books.
- Cubicle 7 has shared a 40k Forsaken System Player’s Guide Art Reveal
- R. Talsorian Games, a small company who depend on Cyberpunk Red, has asked that people please pay for the game if they’ve got a copy.
- For Black Friday, Itch.io will give back their revenue share to developers.
RPG reviews and interviews from around the web
- Here are the Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything reviews; Power Score RPG, Christian Hoffer at ComicBook.com, The Gaming Gang, Charlie Hall at Polygon, Rob Wieland at Forbes, Bell of Lost Souls and But Who Tho?
- JT Dimino reviews the one-page RPG You Son of a Bitch, I’m in!
- At RPG.net Endzeitgeist reviewed Best Left Buried deluxe
- Angel’s Citadel reviews Hope’s Horizon – Starter Kit.
- Roleplayers Chronicle reviewed Pax Londinium.
- Also at the Roleplayers Chronicle, Stephen Reuille covered Conan the Adventurer from Modiphius.
- Bell of Lost Souls looked at 9th Level Games’ princess RPG The Excellents.
- Obsidian Portal put together a video review on QuillHound Studios’ The Wildsea.
- The Alexandrian reviews Rime of the Frostmaiden.
- Rolling Boxcar reviews Scaldcrow Games’ Wild West Horse Opera.
- OnTableTop reviews Osprey Games’ Those Dark Places.
- Just Push Start reviews WizKid’s 4D Settings: Encampment.
- Sword and Stitchery review the 2nd printing of Castles & Crusades: Codex Celtarum
- Geek Tyrant’s Tommy Williams review says Alice is Missing is Very Intense and Extremely Amazing.
- Mainstream newspaper the Metro reviewed Cyberpunk Red.
- Egg Embry interviews Magpie Games’ Mark Diaz Truman about Urban Shadows.
- At d20Radio, Embry interviews Tove Lund Jorgensen and Erik Jorgensen about Before the Stroke of Midnight (Edgar Allan Poe and 5e).
- That’s not all, Egg also interviews Matthew Lillard and Paul Shapiro of Beedle & Grimm about their Pathfinder 2e Character Chronicles.
- At Screen Rant, Scott Baird interviews Jeremy Crawford on Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
RPG new releases
- Porcupine Publishing released an Elephant & Macaw Banner adventure called The Royal Captaincy of Rio de Janeiro.
- Parts Per Million released a Mark of the Odd solo game Into the Rad.
- Cubicle 7 released WFRP: Middenheim: City of the White Wolf.
- Jakub Osiejewski released a Savage Worlds supplement of anthros called Beastfolk Menagerie.
- Palladium and James MG Cannon released volume one of Hammer of Forge, a Rifts story, with The Cosmo-Knight.
- Christian Eichorn has written an Eberron 1099 YK adventure called Neon Knights.
- Frankenstein Labs released Occult Character Sheets for 5e.
- Darkstars Universe published FWB Through the Looking Glass Age of Armageddon.
- Rook and Role published The Titan Attacks!
RPG ideas, tips and discoveries
- The Genre Police and Benji revealed what they hoped would be in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
- Jae at Master the Dungeon reminds that we can Play DnD Without Spending Any Money.
- The Alexandrian put together a useful GM tip on Why Wilderness Encounters?
- Cypher System site, Angel’s Citadel wrote up Why Player Intrusions?
- Bastion Land gave us d6 Urban Monstrosities.
- Following on from Tasha’s Cauldron, Doug Vehovec at Nerdarchy writes up Parleying with Monsters in 5E D&D Reveals the Power of Social Interaction.
- Meanwhile, at Screen Rant, Alexandria Turney shared Tasha’s Cauldron Of Everything: D&D’s New Magic Tattoos Explained.
- Reality Refracted asks Do Mono-Cultured Races Ever Make Sense?
- At Kobold Press, Beth and Jonathan write up One-on-One Roleplaying: Supporting Co-Creation in Your One-on-One Game.
- World Anvil also published the Ultimate RPG Dice Roller Glossary, 5 Best Free Fantasy Landscape Image Resources, 5 Best City Map Creator, Builder and Generator Resources and (what a busy week) 5 Best Character Portraits Resources.
RPG Crowdfunding
You can see those Kickstarters and other crowdfunding campaigns that caught Geek Native’s attention over at Kickstarter watch. Here are some industry projects worth a mention;
- Max Cantor has a tabletop RPG about poltergeists and fighting a dysfunctional bureaucracy in the karmapunk RPG Maximum Recursion Depth.
- Glynn Seal is working on a vertigo-inducing OSR adventure called The Bats of Saint Abbans.
- Laura Hammonds is tempting you with RPG Campaign Stationary.
- Former science teacher Michael Cuff wants you to discover The Quintessential Tabletop.
- The Grinning Frog has rebranded and relaunched The Oracle RPG magazine.
- Taylor Smith has been inspired by classic pixel RPGs and Metroidvania video games to write a pixelated TTRPG called Fight Item Run.
- Gallant Knight Games will release RPG zines focusing on survival in three exciting and unique settings with Old SKull Zine RPG trilogy.
- Visualise your favourite RPG characters with hundreds of stickers thanks to Bodie’s Slowquest Stick-A-Hero.
- Uncharted Trilogy has raised thousands to make the Uncharted Trilogy-Aurora Dice Set.
- Steve Jackson Games’ Warehouse 23 has a retro-style collection of articles about The Fantasy Trip Hexagram #6.
- Signum Games are selling access to STL files for 3d model printing.
- Battlefield Press are Kickstarting Kaiser’s Gate for SWAdE and 5e.
- Todd Crapper is creating accessible updates for tabletop RPGs with Vision Layers.
- Dan Letzring has thousands of Dollars pledged for an RPG-inspired book and RPG game system for children called Questlings.
- James Steissand has a chilling hex-crawl for 5e in the shape of Chill Mist Valley.
- Absolute Tabletop has hundreds of backers for an add-on to The Mecha Hack. It’s the Mission Manual.
- What do you with your PC miniatures when one of them starts to ride a horse? Arknight have coloured acrylic mounts that might solve the problem and a project called RPG Mini Mounts.
- Seeds of Wars is a standalone web app for RPG realm management.
- Sasha De’ath has been working on a Southern Gothic monstrosity inspired by a dream for Mork Borg. It’s Granny.
- Stoo Goff has funded an RPG about dreamshare with WILD: Dream Dive Training Simulation.
If there’s a source or news you think is worth monitoring, please get in touch or leave a comment below.
