This week has been a quiet one on all fronts after last week’s flurry of new game announcements. The Dragonborn is coming to the tabletop as Modiphius announces an Elder Scrolls miniatures game. Paradox Interactive talks about the controversy of Vampire: The Masquerade, and how they’re planning to avoid it in future. And we get two much-anticipated D&D videos: one starring Stephen Colbert, and one starring a Renault KWID Outsider.
But first, hello!
We had quite a few new readers and subscribers joining us last week, and since this has also been a light news week, we thought we’d take a moment to (finally) introduce ourselves!
I am Amy Goodenough (yep), aka. Goonwuff. My partner in crime for this site is James Graham, aka. Semajmaharg. We are London-based tabletop gamers interested in the tabletop RPG industry, and this site is where we track and chart trends.
Every week we produce a roundup of the most important news in tabletop RPGs. I cover corporate news, new releases, and upcoming products, and James covers the most notable crowdfunding projects. We also create more detailed articles focused on various aspects of the industry: last week’s focus on tariffs was the first of these.
If you like, drop us a comment below to say hi! If you like us, you can subscribe to our newsletter, or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. If you like us a lot, you can help us keep this website going by supporting us on Ko-fi.
Now, on with the news.
Paradox talks about Vampire controversy
Polygon interviews Paradox Interactive vice president, Shams Jorjani, about the controversy surrounding Vampire: The Masquerade 5th edition. Jorjani cites the hard borders placed between the Paradox team and the publishers, White Wolf, as one of the factors that led to the controversy. Jorjani says that Paradox intends to oversee future Vampire projects more closely, but not clamp down on creativity.
The intent to find a balance between a lack of oversight and a stranglehold is a good one, but I doubt any media company has ever intended not to strike that balance, so it doesn’t tell us much about Paradox’s strategy going forward. We have seen quite a large number of officially licensed card and board games, and Modiphius has taken over production of the tabletop RPG. With the IP scattered across several companies, oversight of the brand is going to become exponentially harder. This article is (notably) focused on the computer game products.
Polygon also gave us a spotlight on Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines 2.
Two (very different) D&D videos
Stephen Colbert’s played Dungeons & Dragons with Matthew Mercer in aid of Red Nose Day.
The Brazilian Renault ad featuring characters from the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon officially launched, featuring Tiamat, a unicorn, and an uncanny valley Dungeon Master.
I keep thinking we’ve hit peak D&D and then something new happens. Is this peak D&D?
Upcoming Products
Asmodee, parent company of Fantasy Flight Games (along with many board game companies) is launching a gaming accessory production studio under the name Gamegenic. It’s likely that this will focus on accessories for Asmodee’s board and card games, but we could see some accessories for Fantasy Flight’s roleplaying games.
Modiphius has announced an officially licensed Elder Scrolls miniatures game, entitled The Elder Scrolls: Call to Arms.
We don’t normally cover miniatures news, but there are some folks wondering if we might not see Modiphius launch a tabletop RPG to follow, as they did with their Fallout line earlier this year. This is all idle speculation at this point, and we have no information regarding the licensing situation, and no reason to think this is true (beyond an idle hope).
Cubicle 7 gives us a preview of the rules for their forthcoming Warhammer: Age of Sigmar RPG, Soulbound.
WizKids releases info on its miniatures for Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus, Dungeons & Dragons forthcoming storyline which was announced at D&D Live earlier this month.
IDW is launching a miniseries of comics to tie in with Avernus.
Geek Native gives us a preview of Pelgrane Press’s Hideous Creatures bestiary for the Cthulhu mythos, along with an interview with co-creator, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan.
Publisher News
Lyz Liddell joins Paizo as a senior editor.
Bundles & Deals
Bundle of Holding is offering a bundle of books from the Corporation RPG.
DM’s guild is having a sale on nautical-themed products.
Crowdfunding News
Noteworthy New Projects
Grimmerspace: A Starfinder-compatible Sci-Fi Horror RPG, by Iron GM Games — June 24th
In its first week, this has raised almost $63,000 from just under 1,000 backers — no doubt in part because of the celebrity caché of having Sean Astin (The Goonies, Lord of the Rings, Stranger Things). It’s a very ambitious project, which looks like it has been in development for quite some time already. After a bit of a lull, there has been quite a lot of Starfinder and Sci-Fi 5e projects lately, so it will be interesting to see if this is a growing trend or just a coincidence.
Closing Soon
Fantasy Grounds Unity has raised almost $400,000 from over 6,700 backers. The new iteration of the successful virtual tabletop software, rebuilt using the industry-standard Unity engine, offers enhanced drawing tools and image manipulation, animated image effects and 64-bit support for enhanced performance — May 30th.
Empire of the Ghouls: A 5th Edition Campaign has raised $100,000 from almost 1,500 backers. Kobold Press is a venerable and dependable publisher of third-party Dungeons and Dragons content, so it’s no surprise to see this project doing well — May 31st.
Trilemma Adventures Compendium has raised CA$66,000 from almost 1,500 backers. A compilation of adventures, each literally centred around a beautifully illustrated black and white map, it’s perhaps the most unusual of the highly successful projects ending this week — May 31st.
I have to admit, I’m tempted to back Trilemma; I’m a sucker for clean black and white artwork and this just looks great — James
5e & Pathfinder
The Deck of Many Destinies for 5e DnD: A beautifully illustrated, tarot-style Deck of Many Things prop, by Gametee (World’s Finest Wallet of Holding, Our Finest Mechanical Dice Pencil) — June 2nd
OSR
The Crypt in Cadaver Canyon & More! A collection of three Mark Bishop adventures for Dungeon Crawl Classics, by Jon Marr (Crawler’s Companion for All) — June 3rd
General Fantasy
Pirates of Pugmire – A Realms of Pugmire Tabletop RPG: A supplement for the Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau games, bringing pirates to the setting, by Richard Thomas/Onyx Path (Pugmire, Chronicles of Darkness) — June 20th
I’m pretty tempted by this one. I’ve never actually got round to playing Pugmire, but the setting’s gentle, melancholic whimsy appeals to me, and it’s high on my to-play list. Also everything’s better with pirates. — Amy
Has your newsletter different content than the updates on the site?
No, at the moment the newsletter contains all the same content as the round-ups. 🙂 We’ll let you know if that changes.