Routinely Itemised: RPGs #37

Last Friday as Routinely Itemised: RPGs #36 was due out, I was hitting refresh on the Hasbro newsroom to see if their big news was out yet.

It wasn’t. Then, when it was, it probably wasn’t big news for many tabletop gamers.

Hasbro sees the future of D&D in computer games and if you want to see the latest footage from one of those then today’s Baldur’s Gate 3 post might help.

In what might be unrelated news, Wizards of the Coast’s digital partner, Fandom announced they have an alpha version of a combat tracker for D&D Beyond. Handy? Yes. If you allow a bit of speculation; the combat tracker starts to blur the lines between D&D Beyond’s role as a digital format and a virtual tabletop. That makes things interesting.

Right, let’s get on with our weekly RPG news round-up!

RPG news from Geek Native

• Hasbro’s big news? The future of D&D is digital.
• Geek Native reviewed iHunt – Killing Monsters in the Gig Economy.
• There’s new playtest material for D&D with options for Artificers, Druids and Rangers.
• D&D Beyond revealed the Combat Tracker.
• Goodman Games joins the publishers refusing to work with the Judges Guild.
• Anthony Joyce released a Witcher inspired adventure for Matt Mercer’s The Blood Hunter class.
• An award-winning short Dungeons & Dragons film. It’s time to Roll Initiative.
• Cubicle 7 revealed the Warhammer Soulbound map for the ‘main region’ of the RPG: The Great Parch.

RPG news from around the web

• ComicBook.com wrote up yet another D&D leak.
• Dicebreaker’s Peter Ray Allison has a great interview with Mike Pondsmith “Making Cyberpunk Red almost killed us”.
• Paizo announced the Twitch show Dragons and Things is returning.
• EN World’s Michael Tresca wrote up How an RPG company launched virtual reality gaming.
• R Talsorian Games introduced us to James Hutt the major of Balance Town.
• The Thrillist brought us news of tabletop gaming by beer.

RPG ideas, tips and discoveries

• Discover your future with this fantasy random prophecy generator.
• Want to get into solo RPGs? Here’s what you need to know.
• What if we did more tabletop roleplaying without the table being in the way?
• Drop hints about characters becoming murderhobos.
• We spotted these lovely wooden hit point trackers.
• Dungeon in a Box retold this story of D&D in a nursing home.
• The ATMA blog has compiled 140 worldbuiding links.
• The Thac0 blog asked Should D&D be competitive?

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;

The RPG Zine season still going. This is going to be a long list!

• Josh Dixon is funding an RPG Zine about pets you can take on adventures. They are Dungeon Pets.
• Cody Barr is taking part in Zine Quest 2 with a solo RPG project called Wandering Dreams.
• Sophia Tinney is crowdfunding a game where you lead civilization, birth heirs and fight monsters. It’s Kingdoms.
• Mike Yohe is on Kickstarter for a system-agnostic RPG Zine on the city of Wex’s Drift.
• W.M. Akers has a tabletop game where 40,000 colonists wage interstellar war. It’s Lost Ship: A Survival Game.
• Haunted Meat has scored a “Project We Love” with Kickstarter for the enviro-metal post-apocalyptic OSR adventure Bunker: An OSR Zine.
• Hannah Pate is trying something experimental with Agile, Anxious and Attached.
• Knights of Vasteel have a 5th edition sourcebook of unique magic items. It’s Magwa’s Magic Item Compendium.
• Exalted Funeral is on Kickstarter with a tabletop game set in the Cold War called Covert Wars.
• Campaign Coins are back with another project. This time they’re offering some metal RPG Treasure.
• A standalone game set in space about convicts, mutiny and the end of the world. It’s Damocles’ Decay.
• Playwright and game designer is collecting money for a super PBTA RPG called Rooftops: The World is Watching.
• Become a dragon or destroy one with Keith Hoffart’s Dungeon Master Saga.
• Tony Vasinda has a hairy RPG for Zine Quest 2 called Beards & Beyond.
• Fernando Olmedo is offering characters and locations with Trophaeum.
• A post-apocalyptic tabletop RPG from Contraband Games called What Remains.
• Sirly Whirly have a compact storytelling RPG collecting funds called Incarnis.
• Rebelle de Jour, inspired by the Hero’s Journey, is funding an RPG about becoming the hero you already are. It’s a solo game called Journey Back.
• Mike Rieman is collecting funds for a fast-paced and chaotic one-shot called Last Flight of the Pandora.
• Shane Neville is on Kickstarter with an adventurer’s pocket guide to the forgotten lands. It’s a Zine Quest 2 project called The Ollustria Field Guides.
• Timothy Watkins is crowdfunding a space-faring tabletop RPG designed for one player in the shape of Nadir.
• Rory Voie has an ass-kicking, shit-stealing sci-fi based on Troika and Fighting Fantasy called gasp Goddamn Fucking Dungeons Punks.
• Bard College Games is funding a gothic horror-themed adventure for 5e called Baron of Blackwatch.
• Caesar Ink is on Kickstarter to fund a Zine Quest 2 project of 20 system-agnostic adventure sin the shape of Dungeons and Designs: Volume 1.
• Ebon Gryphon Games is working on a zombie apocalypse TTRPG that looks at how people cope with loss. It’s Affliction: Coping with the Apocalypse.
• Donovan Caldwell has a tabletop RPG horror module in which the opponent claims to be A Wizard.
• Christopher Mennell has a small zine for sci-fi RPGs in the shape of Beyond the Weird.
• Depths Unknown Publishing are working on a system-agnostic fantasy RPG zine with a focus on random tables. The name? Depths Unknown.
• BoardEnt are a small press publisher with an e-zine for world builders called The World of Sylansse.
• Randy Musseau is offering up 26 isometric dungeon maps with Randy M’s DELVE to HELL.
• Nick Baran is on Kickstarter with a Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG zine called Rabid Dogs.
• Mike Caprio is collecting funds for a diceless collaborative storytelling game. It’s Liber Somnia: The Book of Dreams.
• Sons of the Singularity are back on Kickstarter with a setting for 5e and the Lore 100 system based on Welsh and Brythonic myths. They’re funding The Camlann Chronicles.
• Wes Otis has the sounds of the weird west in background loop form for you with the Deadlands Audio Collection.
• Emanuel James Miller has optional rules for Swords & Wizardry and some other OSRs in the shape of Swords & Wizardry Dark.
• Eric Brunsell is collecting funds for a Forged in the Dark game called Anti-Hero: Supers.
• G. Michael Truran is crowdfunding a one-shot TTRPG about becoming the evil you hunt with Darker Malleus: A Grim Tragedy for 2 to 5 players.
• An RPG set in a fictional Austen inspired world about social standing and the eldritch apocalypse. It’s Seance and Sensibility.
• An app which helps DMs with random encounters. It’s Dungeon Mastered.
• James Davey is on Kickstarter to fund a tabletop horror that explores PTSD in a world full of monsters with a game called The Midnight World.
• Robin Carpenter has a monster zine with 11 new creatures for Dungeons & Dragons 5e in the shape of Monster Template: Issue 1.
• Ember + Ash are Kickstarting a double-zine for Troika with “So You’ve Been Thrown Down A Well”.
• Jorge Gaspar as an ambitious project to create a board game RPG hybrid for kids called Dungeon Escape.
• Matt Madigan is working on a system-neutral RPG sourcebook for adventures in a 1925 luxury hotel. It’s The Grand Tower Hotel.
• Harry Sprinks is collecting Kickstarter funds for a tabletop RPG of desperate survival and martial combat. It’s a Zine Quest project called Fabled Dead.
• Roger C Jones has a Zine Quest sci-fi one-shot murder mystery in the shape of Apocalypse Survive.
• Charles Simon is working on a Zine Quest inspired by Metroid 2 and Forged in the Dark called Pocket World.
• Tritonis Games are collecting funds to illustrate their sci-fi TTRPG of mystery, betrayal, sacrifice and faith with Colony: SALEM
• Many tens of thousands of dollars have been raised by BattleMats to fund Town & Taverns – 2 Modular Books of Battle Mats for Roleplay.
• D.M. Wilson has a mini-setting zine for old-school essentials called Dreamhaven.

Gamerati News Update

Marcelo Ferrari of Gamerati is here and helpful again with news of Night Horrors: Spilled Blood from Onyx Path, Heroes of Asgard and new shipping options from WizKids.

If there’s a source or news you think is worth monitoring, please get in touch or leave a comment below.