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Monday, August 1, 2016

Klingon, Cards & Dice, Partnerships, And More!

Another day, another week, another month.  It's August and we seem to be at the height of table top season and gaming season in general.  A lot of great stuff has already happened this summer, but in the past week a bunch more has come to pass and, with GenCon coming, there will only be more to talk about!  Today I continue a path towards more information sharing on my news posts.  I wish I could throw a post out for each thing I hear about and want to share, but I just don't have the time.  Perhaps I will do two news posts a week come Fall.  Until then, what I can do is give a run down on some of the things from the past week!


New Resources!

A couple new resources have popped up from Dungeons & Dragons.  First off a new Unearthed Arcana came out last week that features a great little resource for those DMs who want things to be a little easier.  Especially when they are short on time for prep.  The article is titled Quick Characters and can be found over here.  With it you can make some characters for your last minute game and not stress on making too many decisions.  Everything is randomly generated with dice and you are told what to assign and pick, including spells.  Granted, the only options included are from the Basic Rules, but with this framework you could easily expand the options you have for yourself.  Before you yell about today's UA, don't worry I am going to cover that next week!

In addition to the Quick Characters UA supplement, Wizards and Roll20 announced that they would be partnering up to make things even easier for your online games.  You can find more about that over here.  While Fantasy Grounds has been the virtual table top with D&D licensing for a while now, there will now be more options for those of us who us Roll20.  Beginning with the Lost Mine of Phandelver and (soon) the Storm King's Thunder, you will gain access to real D&D materials.  Eventually, I believe, they plan on working out the ability to purchase not only more adventures but assets like maps for your own varied games.


Games, Games, More Games

There are three major announcements that I want to cover concerning new games from last week that I am particularly excited about.  The first is a table top game that isn't an RPG.  However, it calls to my collector's core and my love of Star Wars.  Coming from Fantasy Flight Games, this is an actual collectible trading card game.  That's right it isn't a living card game, booster packs are random and mysterious die.  You heard that right too; the game features dice in addition to cards.  There are of course your games like Magic or Pokemon that pit two players with their own prepared decks against one another, but this game adds a what-if aspect by featuring a variety of heroes and villains from Star Wars and the added mechanics of utilizing dice.  Rey and Kylo Ren starter sets will show up alongside boosters that contain 5 cards and a die this November.  Personally I'm excited to see how dice change the way such games work, as well as the potential forms of play that will evolve from the rules.  Checkout more about Star Wars Destiny here!

Second announcement is a new sci-fi RPG.  Well, an old one made new.  Sasquatch Games is developing a new version of Alternity which featured settings like Gamma World, Star Drive, and Dark Matter in its day.  The publisher is keen to say that this is not a new edition, a remake, or a reboot.  This is going to be its own thing.  It will focus on creating and exploring new worlds and using what they have learned from working on systems from throughout the D&D editions, the original game, and from the systems they have published like Apocalypse World.  News will come out of GenCon about this and we will begin to get previews and updates on their website as we close in on next years release.  For now, check out this announcement.

Last RPG announcement is about the Lord of the Rings.  While many of us have heard of the One Ring RPG, not all of us have played it.  While it has been on my radar, there are a number of things that tend to grab my attention for forcefully.  Game systems with new, unique worlds and awesome new mechanics tend to be at the forefront of such things.  While worlds like Star Wars and Star Trek are exciting to journey into, the world of Middle Earth is much more contained, and learning a whole new rule set to play in it...  Well, it keeps the One Ring lower on my list.  However, Crucible Seven is going to be releasing the Adventures of Middle Earth.  Mentioned earlier this year, we now have an official announcement about the D&D 5E OGL port of Middle Earth and I couldn't be more excited.  I know much of LotR lore, I know 5E, and I love to see more resources for my 5E home games.  To know the publisher has LotR RPG experience is just the icing on the cake.  If you want to know more or pre-order, just head over here.


A New Language & News With The Wandering Alchemist

Before I get into what is coming this week on this site, there is one more announcement I am really excited about.  My inner nerd is just jumping with unbridled joy.  I heard about Duolingo adding a Klingon course.  Now, the news has been out for about a year now, if you look at the status page, but things are hopefully going well.  The recent update on their status page, here, was from 4 months ago, but it does have a bit of info on what they have been doing including syllabus work and language database entry.  For those interested in learning the language you can keep an eye on its status here, as well as sign up to be notified when they're done (hopefully by the end of the year)!

Now what about this page?  This week will feature an article tomorrow, resources on Thursday (of course), and two new episodes from our Edge of the Empire game.  I cannot yet reveal what will show up tomorrow, but I do think we are going to go with internet resources on Thursday.  We are also recording this month's D&Donuts this week.  It is a bit later than I hoped, but it and all the other Patron rewards WILL go up as soon as possible along with updates on other projects coming down the pipeline.  Thankfully the summer is winding down now and balance is being restored.  Stay tuned for more!

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