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…
Read More 20–26 May 2019: The Vampire controversy; Stephen Colbert; Fus Ro Dah
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Since early 2018, the United States has been in the grips of a trade war with China. A series of escalating tariff increases on imports between the two countries has hit both hard, along with the global economy. After a short truce, negotiations appear to have failed, and President Donald J. Trump has announced plans…
Read More The US-China trade war, the cost of paper, and the economics behind roleplaying gamesThis has been a busy week in the industry, and not unexpectedly: D&D Live saw three days of Dungeons & Dragons hype, with a host of product announcements. Another bit of news that we should have predicted: the US Trade War with China could hit the RPG industry soon, with a new wave of proposed…
Read More 13–19 May 2019: Trade War, D&D Live Announcements, Satanic Panic
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After our scramble to keep track of the news last edition, this has been an oddly sedate week. Perhaps the RPG world is holding its breath before the weekend-long marathon of D&D Live, coming 17–19 May, along with the release of Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Speaking of which, this week we have a few previews of…
Read More 6–12 May 2019: Plagiarism, Saltmarsh, Beholder
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This has been a huge week in roleplaying games, with a whole host of big announcements. We have the nominations for the Origins Awards, which feature at least one peculiar choice. We have a whole host of upcoming projects announced: Paizo are making a product for D&D 5e, Shadowrun is getting a sixth edition, Gen…
Read More 29 April–5 May 2019: Origins Awards Nominations, Pathfinder for D&D 5e, Shadowrun 6
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Well, we’re back! We took an unscheduled break last week as Amy got hit with a lurgy, so this week we’re catching up with a fortnight’s worth of news. And oh, boy, has it been a big two weeks. First off, we have the release of a number of industry and company reports from 2018…
Read More 15–28 April 2019: RPG Industry Booming, Critical Role lands $11 million, Chris Spivey takes on the Weird WestThis was set to be a quiet little update, with some lovely selfies, a Washington dragon, and yet more computer and board game adaptations. At the last minute, however, the ugly business of harassment in the industry raised its head again. A Peculiar Response to Harassment Content Warning: Links mentioned in this story contain some…
Read More 8–14 April 2019: #DnDSelfie, Cthulhu Computer Games, Ethics
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April Fools naturally brought a string of fake products and inevitably broke a few hearts. There’s big news as Chaosium takes over publishing a classic. James gives us a look at some of the top-selling games of 2018. We take a look at tabletop RPGs becoming computer games (and some reflection on what makes tabletop…
Read More 1–7 April: Top Selling Games, April Fools, Computers vs. RPGsIf there is a theme to this week’s news, it’s that in roleplaying games, politics matter. We see censorship in China leading to the destruction of RPG sourcebooks. We see how racist immigration policies in the 19th Century led to a racist RPG in the 21st. We see how Wizards of the Coast and creators…
Read More 25–31 March 2019: Chinese censorship, Midwest moms, Acquisitions IncorporatedLast week we had some announcements that we all saw coming: the much-hinted-at Vampire: The Masquerade computer game release by Paradox Interactive, and the trailer for the third season of Netflix’s RPG-filled, 80s nostalgia horror, Stranger Things. We were also delighted to see a handful of personal essays by gamers and RPG fans talking about…
Read More 18–24 March 2019: Bloodlines 2, Stranger Things, What D&D Means to Us