Nisaba Journal Issue 2 (PDF, mobi, epub)

Nisaba Journal Issue 2: Adventures in the DarkToday we have for you the second issue of our fiction magazine Nisaba Journal: Adventures in the Dark.

Nisaba Journal

Open the Nisaba Journal and immerse yourself in original fiction gathered from your favorite worlds. Issue Two collects seven tales from three of Green Ronin’s most popular settings—Freeport, Blue Rose, and Mutants & Masterminds—and offers ideas for incorporating the heroes, villains, and adventures from the stories into the ones you tell in your own campaigns.

Issue 2 featured stories: 

“The Mermaid and the Maelstrom,” by Andrew Penn Romine

She was cast away on a forgotten island, but the hope of rescue brings a confrontation with an old enemy.

“The Price of Mercy,” by Clio Yun-su Davis

Seeking answers, a young woman and her rhy-horse venture into the forest, and encounter an unexpected ally.

“At the Speed of Screwed,” by Andrew Wilmot

All she wants is to be left alone, but that’s not in the cards. Can she hold her ideals, or will Emerald City see the rise of another villain?

“Searching the Shadows,” by Dylan Birtolo

Foul plots choke Freeport, and an unlikely pair of uneasy allies must find the source of the evil.

“The Heart of Things,” by Rhiannon Louve

The Rose Knights draw closer to the source of the shadowspawn plots, but enemies lurk in unlikely places.

“One Night in Freeport,” by Richard C. White

He thought he was getting away with murder, but tonight, he’s not the hunter.

“Haunting Debts,” by Nathan E. Meyer

Hired to protect a notorious witch, a gunslinger finds herself caught in the midst of a bargain gone awry.

In case you missed them, we have quite a bit more fiction to choose from as well. Nisaba Journal Issue 1 is of course also available, and features six terrific tales, also set in the worlds of Freeport, Mutants & Masterminds, and Blue Rose. Tales of Freeport: Dark Currents includes three stories set in the City of Adventure. Shadowtide, by Joseph D. Carriker, Jr., is our first novel, from the rich setting of the Blue Rose RPG. And there’s more where those came from.

Check them out!

Dragon Age: Faces of Thedas Pre-Order and PDF

Dragon Age RPG: Faces of Thedas (Pre-Order) Pre-ordering is now activated for Dragon Age: Faces of Thedas in our Green Ronin Online Store. In addition, when you pre-order the physical book, you’ll be offered the PDF version for just $5! If you prefer to shop at a local store, make sure they’ve joined our GR Pre-Order Plus program, and you can get the PDF deal through them.

Faces of Thedas lets you bring a host of compelling characters from the Dragon Age video games and beyond to your game table. From fan-favorite companions like Alistair and Dorian to deadly antagonists like Loghain and Knight-Commander Meredith, this book gives Game Masters a memorable cast to work with, providing game statistics, backgrounds, and advice on how best to use these characters in your own Dragon Age campaigns. It also includes new rules for managing and using relationships in play, giving additional depth to rivalries, friendships, and romance. Major organizations like the Antivan Crows and the Carta are also detailed. Faces of Thedas is a must for any Dragon Age GM.

The Expanse: Space Combat

The Expanse Roleplaying Game takes the popular science fiction universe of The Expanse fiction series by James S.A. Corey (starting with the novel Leviathan Wakes) and brings it to tabletop gaming using the Adventure Game Engine or AGE System. You may well have heard about The Expanse RPG during our wonderfully successful Kickstarter, and may have even backed it then. In that case you have our thanks and the opportunity to check out a lot of existing previews. There’s also The Expanse Quickstart available to download for free. As the game will also be going into pre-orders soon, we’re going to preview a few more things to give you a look at what you can expect from it.

Space Combat Stunts

Combat between ships in The Expanse is similar in some regards to combat between characters, but on a much larger (and often slower) scale and more simultaneous in execution than character-scale combat.

A round of space combat tends to be a bit longer than a round of character-scale combat, upward of a minute or so, although the exact time is flexible, as with character-scale combat. It’s long enough for all of the ships involved to execute all of the steps listed previously.

At the start of each round of combat, the character in command of the ship makes a TN 11 Communication (Leadership) test. If successful, the commander generates 1 Stunt Point, plus additional SP equal to the value of the Drama Die, if the roll contains doubles, much like a Stunt Attack action.

The commander may spend SP generated from the command test on other ship combat actions that round. This is an exception to the general rule that SP must be spent immediately—they can apply to any test by the ship’s crew that round. However, other tests by the crew during that round do not generate SP, only the commander’s initial test. Once a new round of ship combat begins, any unspent command SP from the prior round are lost, and the commander makes a new command test.

Command Stunt Points may be spend on the following stunts:


 

Space Combat Stunts

These stunts are used by ships in space combat.

SP Cost                Stunt

1+                           (Core) Guidance: You grant a +1 bonus to a chosen ship combat test this round for each 1 SP you spend. Choose one of the following: maneuver test, electronic warfare test, evasion test, point defense test, or damage control test.

1+                           Blinding Maneuver: You maneuver your ship in such a way as to blind or limit an opponent’s Sensors. Each SP you spend reduces an opposing ship’s Sensors score by 1 (to a minimum score of –2) until the start of the next round.

2                             Multi-Targeting: Your ship’s point defense cannons (if any) can both attack and defend this round without any penalty.

2+                          On-Target: Every 2 SP you spend increases the TN of tests to evade your ship’s weapon attacks that round by +1.

2+                          Tactics: Every 2 SP you spend increase the TN of an opposing ship commander’s next command test by +1.

3+                          Evasive Action: Every 3 SP you spend grants a +1d6 Hull bonus to your ship that round for resisting damage from successful weapon attacks.

3                             Perceived Weakness: You increase the damage of one successful weapon attack by 1d6. This stunt is a risk, as it has to come in Step 5 of the round, and requires a successful hit.

4                             Precise Hit: One of your successful weapon attacks results in an additional Loss, even if the target’s Hull completely eliminated the damage.

4+                          Set-Up: You maneuver an opposing ship into a hazard, such as a normally shorter range weapon, a field of debris, or even a floating rock. This stunt is considered a weapon attack inflicting damage dice equal to half the SP spent (round down). The Set-Up can be evaded; the TN is 10 + your Intelligence + Leadership focus (if any) + half the SP spent. So if a character with Intelligence 2 and Leadership spends 5 SP on this stunt, the TN to evade the Set-Up is (10 + 2 + 2 + 2.5, rounded down to 2) or 16, and a failure on the evasion test results in 2d6 damage to the target ship.

Green Ronin in 2019! Part 3: Dragon Age, Fantasy AGE, and Modern AGE

Welcome back to our look at Green Ronin’s 2019 plans. If you missed the first two entries, you can check them out here and here. In this final installment, I’ll be talking about Modern AGE, Fantasy AGE, and Dragon Age.

Dragon Age

All three of these games are powered by the Adventure Game Engine (AGE), which has become something of a house system for us over the past five years. Blue Rose and our upcoming Expanse RPG also use AGE, so if you play any of these games, you’re learning the core rules of a growing group of RPGs that cover a variety of genres. I originally designed the Adventure Game Engine for the Dragon Age RPG, and it took off from there. I’m thus happy to report that Faces of Thedas, the long-awaited sourcebook for Dragon Age, is nearly here. Once we get the final green light, we’ll put the PDF up for sale and launch the pre-order. The hour is nigh!

Fantasy AGE

Last year we released the Fantasy AGE Companion, the first real rules expansion for the game. We are following that up this year with two books to make running Fantasy AGE even easier. First up is the Campaign Builders Guide, which is designed to help Game Masters create, build, maintain, and run campaigns. It is filled with advice on crafting encounters and adventures, creating interesting monsters and locations, running epic-style campaigns, and more. It also includes tables to help generate campaign elements when a bit of spontaneity and randomness is desired.

After that we have a book called Lairs, which provides a series of detailed challenges you can adapt to your Fantasy AGE campaign. Each chapter presents a terrifying or formidable adversary, their servants and followers, and their headquarters, base, or lair. Also included are rules for lair and scene specific stunts to step up location-based action in your game. Between Lairs and the Campaign Builders Guide, Game Masters will have many new tools to work with.

Later in the year we should have a setting book for Fantasy AGE. Jack Norris and Jaym Gates have been working on a new setting and you’ll hear more about that as the year progresses. We do also still hope to release the Titansgrave world book, but that depends on some things beyond our control getting sorted out. Can’t say any more than that but fingers crossed.

Modern AGE

Last year we launched the Modern AGE RPG, releasing its Basic Rulebook and GM’s Kit. As its name indicates, this takes the AGE rules into a contemporary context. You can use it to run anything from the Industrial Revolution to the near future. Optional rules for extraordinary powers mean Modern AGE easily handles things like urban fantasy or fighting occult Nazis as well. Just last week we released The World of Lazarus, the first campaign setting for the game. It’s a dystopian near future setting based on the Lazarus comics by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark and it’s a great way to get your Modern AGE campaign going. If you’d like to know more about The World of Lazarus, developer Crystal Frasier did a series of Ronin Round Tables about it that you can find here.

Next up after The World of Lazarus is the Modern AGE Companion. This sourcebook expands the Basic Rulebook in a bunch of fun ways. There are new backgrounds, professions, and talents, plus new rules for extraordinary powers, technologies, and organizations. It’s also got a very useful chapter on adapting the rules to various genres, such as gothic horror, alien invasion, and Cold War spies. Summertime will then see the Enemies & Allies sourcebook. If you’re looking for adversaries and NPCs for your campaign, look no further! Since Modern AGE covers many different genres, Enemies & Allies ranges far afield, from elite operatives and scientists to horrors and arcane beings.

Later in the year we are going big with our first original setting for Modern AGE, Malcolm Sheppard’s Threefold. It’s an epic modern fantasy setting where characters explore countless planes of existence. In it, our Earth is only one of many alternate worlds. Beyond them, the Otherworlds contain dimension-spanning empires of godlings and sorcerers, and Netherworlds ruled by demon-gods raise armies of the damned. Characters might travel between planes as agents of the Sodality, an organization devoted to peacekeeping and exploration, defend Earth as cyborg agents of Aethon the conspiracy which patrols multiple timelines, or serve other groups. Threefold is big by design, and broad enough to contain all of Modern AGE’s genre possibilities. Stay tuned for more info and teasers about Threefold throughout the year.

A Banner Year

All in all, 2019 is shaping up to be a great year and there’s more to come. Look for an announcement about our community content program for Fantasy AGE and Modern AGE soon. As always you can keep us with us on this website, Twitter, or Facebook. We’ve got more fun stuff to reveal as the months go by. Here’s hoping 2019 is better for everyone!

Green Ronin 2019! Part 2: Mutants & Masterminds, Sentinels of Earth-Prime, and 5E

Welcome back to our look at Green Ronin’s 2019 plans. Yesterday I talked about The Expanse, Nisaba Press, Freeport, and Blue Rose. Today I’ll be talking about Mutants & Masterminds, and 5E.

 

Mutants & Masterminds

Mutants & Masterminds is our longest-running RPG, now in its 3rd edition. Last year we released the Basic Hero’s Handbook, a new entry point for the game that makes getting started with M&M even easier. We’re going to follow that up this year with some PDF adventure support and a Revised Edition of the Gamemasters Guide. The GMG went out of print last year and rather than do a straight reprint, we thought we’d take the opportunity to add some new material (new adventures, villain archetypes, and more) and make it integrate more smoothly with the Basic Hero’s Handbook. We’re also making it hardback!

Before the revised GMG, though, we’ve got the Superteam Handbook. This handy sourcebook contains eight pre-built superteams that range from PL 5-12. These can be used to kickstart a campaign, or as allies, rivals, or enemies of the PCs. Later in the year we’ll have the Time Travelers Codex. This book provides a framework and ideas for including time travel in your supers campaign, as well as detailed info on select historical epochs and the sorts of adventures you might have there.

Sentinels of Earth-Prime

Mutants & Masterminds is also moving into a new area this year: card games! Sentinels of Earth-Prime is a joint project between Green Ronin and Greater Than Games that originally funded on Kickstarter. Sentinels of Earth-Prime is game that combines M&M’s core setting and the rules of Sentinels of the Multiverse. This is a core game so no previous experience is required. If you have Sentinels of the Multiverse games though, you’ll find that all the decks in our game work hand in glove with your current collection. Why, it’s almost like SotM designer Christopher Badell did all the deck design for our game (because he did!). The game is designed and playtested, and right now we’re working on getting all the art done. As this is a card game, there is quite a bit of art. You should see Sentinels of Earth-Prime this summer.

Tales of the Lost Citadel

Tales of the Lost Citadel novel coming soon!

Fifth Edition

If you enjoyed last year’s hugely successful Critical Role: Tal’Dorei Campaign Setting, we’ve got more Fifth Edition fun for you this year. First, we’ve got Lost Citadel Roleplaying, a campaign setting we also funded on Kickstarter. It’s a world where the dead roam at will and all the survivors have taken refuge in the city of Redoubt. Only its walls and the strength of its inhabitants stand between the dead and annihilation. Lost Citadel Roleplaying is in layout now and should be available for pre-order soon.

Later this spring we’re running a crowdfunding campaign on Game On Tabletop to bring back a Green Ronin classic for Fifth Edition: The Book of Fiends! Older fans will remember this book from the Third Edition era. It was one of our best selling and most critically acclaimed books in the d20 days, so it only made sense to bring it back. Demons, daemons, and devils will be yours in abundance! Rob Schwalb, one of the book’s original designers and also a member of the D&D Fifth Edition design team, updated all the existing fiends and added new ones too. You’d expect no less from the man behind Shadow of the Demon Lord!

That wraps up part 2 of our look at 2019. Come back for the final installment tomorrow to learn about Modern AGE, Fantasy AGE, and Dragon Age.

Green Ronin in 2019! Part 1: The Expanse, Nisaba Press, Freeport, and Blue Rose

It’s January and that means it’s that magic time when I talk about Green Ronin’s plans for the coming year. We have quite a lot going on, so this year I’m going to be splitting this message into three parts that we’ll reveal Tuesday to Thursday this week. Today I’ll be talking about The Expanse, Nisaba Press, Freeport, and Blue Rose.

The Expanse Roleplaying Game coverThe Expanse RPG

Last year we ran a hugely successful Kickstarter for a new roleplaying game based on The Expanse novels by James S.A. Corey. The core rulebook is in the final stages of layout so we’ll be releasing it soon. We will be opening up late pledges for the Kickstarter via Backerkit so if you missed the original campaign, you’ll have another chance. You’ll also find The Expanse in book and game stores, of course, and it’ll be available through our online store as well. Releasing concurrently with the core rulebook is the Game Master’s Kit, which has a screen, a new adventure, and reference cards. Later in the year we’ll be releasing Abzu’s Bounty, a six-part adventure for the game.

After that initial suite of products, we’ll be expanding the game in different ways. The core rulebook is set between the events of the first and second novels. As the game line continues, we’ll be incorporating the events of the later novels in various sourcebooks and adventures. If you’d like to learn more about the game, lead designer Steve Kenson started a series of Ronin Round Table posts about it. You can read parts 1 and 2 now and more will follow starting next week.

 

Nisaba Press

Last year we started Nisaba Press, an imprint for fiction publishing. We are doing both short and long-form fiction that ties into our various game worlds. We began with short stories last year. These were initially released individually but we’ve moved to an electronic magazine format. You’ll now find our short fiction in the Nisaba Journal, a bi-monthly magazine that supports our various game worlds. Issue #1 came out towards the end of last year and issue #2 is out this month.

This year’s exciting development is full length novels! We’ve spent the past year building towards this and we’re beyond excited to debut our first novel this month. Shadowtide is a Blue Rose novel by our own Joseph Carriker and you can order it right now! We’ll be following that up with Height of the Storm, a Mutants & Masterminds novel by Aaron Rosenberg, and a collection of Lost Citadel short stories. More novels are in the works, so keep an eye on Nisaba Press.

Freeport

Last week we started the pre-order for Return to Freeport, a six-part scenario that is the biggest addition of adventure content for the setting in more than a decade. Since 2013 our Freeport releases have used the Pathfinder rules and Return to Freeport follows suit. As you’ve likely heard, however, a second edition of Pathfinder is coming this summer and while we wish our pals at Paizo the best, we aren’t going to support the new edition.

Does this mean the Freeport line is ending? Hardly! Freeport is our oldest setting, first seen in the Origins and ENnie Award-winning adventure Death in Freeport back in 2000. 2020 is thus both Green Ronin’s and Freeport’s 20th anniversary and you better believe we have some plans.

So this year you will get Return to Freeport and short fiction from Nisaba Press. We’ve collected last year’s Freeport stories into a short anthology called Dark Currents, which is available now. More Freeport fiction will appear in Nisaba Journal throughout the year. Then next year we’ll be doing a big re-launch for Freeport with a different rules system. Stay tuned for more news about that!

Blue Rose

Last but by no means least, we’ve got Blue Rose, our romantic fantasy RPG. We’ve got two books planned for the game this year. The first, Envoys to the Mount, is something special: a full-length chronicle. This series of adventures will play out over five years of game time and see the characters advance through all four tiers of play. Then, late in the year, we’ve got Touching the Wild. This is a dual-purpose book. Half of it is a bestiary of various Shadowspawn to provide new challenges in your chronicle. The other half is a player’s guide for Rhydan with lots of new options for Rhydan PCs. If you like Blue Rose but have wanted more psychic animals, Touching the Wild is for you!

That wraps up part 1 our 2019 plans. Come back tomorrow to learn about Mutants & Masterminds, Sentinels of Earth-Prime, and 5E.

The Expanse: Power Armor

The Expanse Roleplaying Game takes the popular science fiction universe of The Expanse fiction series by James S.A. Corey (starting with the novel Leviathan Wakes) and brings it to tabletop gaming using the Adventure Game Engine or AGE System. You may well have heard about The Expanse RPG during our wonderfully successful Kickstarter, and may have even backed it then. In that case you have our thanks and the opportunity to check out a lot of existing previews. There’s also The Expanse Quickstart available to download for free. Now that the game is also going into pre-orders, we’re going to preview a few more things to give you a look at what you can expect from it.

 

Artist: Mirco Paganessi.

Power Armor

One of the most fearsome sights on the modern battlefield of the System is military power armor, like the Goliath suits worn by Martian Marines. Two and a half meters tall, and weighing 400 kilograms even before a soldier climbs inside, power armor provides both formidable offense and defense. Half armor and half spacesuit, the armor has radiation shielding sufficient to let soldiers walk through a nuclear bomb crater minutes after the blast. The armor’s titanium and ceramic-composite exterior shielding is typically painted in camouflage patterns appropriate to the assignment, and enemies are often surprised just how well an enormous soldier in power armor can blend into the environment when they stand still.

The armor’s hydraulics system magnifies the wearer’s strength, much like a mech rig, and carries most of the weight of the suit, allowing soldiers in power armor to undertake marathon hikes and move surprisingly fast. They also enable the armor carry heavy weaponry, typically a rotary machine gun and sometimes a grenade launcher or micr0-missile pack. Sensor packages feed data to the wearer on the helmet’s HUD, allowing them to identify and track infrared targeting lasers used by opponents’ weapons, and even visually parse those weapons using the suit’s camera feeds to match them against an internal database. Those same cameras monitor in all directions, sending feeds back to squad officers and their military command center, which can monitor the life signs of both the soldiers and opponents who have been detected and attacked.

In AGE System terms, power armor grants the wearer the following:

  • All of the benefits of a vac-suit.
  • +12 armor bonus with no armor penalty, so long as the armor is operational.
  • +10 effective bonus to Strength and Strength (Might) tests.
  • +2 bonus to Speed and +4 bonus to Constitution (Endurance) tests.
  • An integral rifle doing 3d6 + Perception damage and capable of performing automatic weapon gun stunts.
  • +2 bonus to Dexterity (Stealth) tests compatible with the unit’s camouflage.
  • +2 bonus to Perception tests where the armor’s sensor package applies.

If power armor loses power, it becomes massive deadweight, effectively leaving the wearer restrained and unable to use any of the armor’s systems.

Maintenance: Power armor requires regular maintenance activities during interludes to remain in full working order (see Interludes in Chapter 5).

The Expanse: Character Creation!

The Expanse Roleplaying Game takes the popular science fiction universe of The Expanse fiction series by James S.A. Corey (starting with the novel Leviathan Wakes) and brings it to tabletop gaming using the Adventure Game Engine or AGE System. You may well have heard about The Expanse RPG during our wonderfully successful Kickstarter, and may have even backed it then. In that case you have our thanks and the opportunity to check out a lot of existing previews. There’s also The Expanse Quickstart available to download for free. Now that the game is also going into pre-orders, we’re going to preview a few more things to give you a look at what you can expect from it.

Expanse Character Creation: Izzy Moon

We’re creating an Expanse character for a game set in the Belt and the outer planets, and want someone with some experience aboard ships and stations. Let’s also focus on a character with some technical skills.

Starting off our character, we make nine 3d6 rolls on the Determining Abilities table, giving the character the following scores: Accuracy 2, Communication 1, Constitution 0, Dexterity 2, Fighting 1, Intelligence 1, Perception 2, Strength 3, Willpower 2. Since we want more of a technical character, let’s swap the rolled Strength and Intelligence scores, for Intelligence 3, Strength 1 (you get the option of doing that).

Since our game takes place out in the Belt, we decide to go with a Belter origin, although some of the characters may have different origins. We take note of the Belter traits; hopefully, the characters won’t be spending much time in normal gravity environments like Earth, Belters are hindered, even restrained, in heavier gravity.

We roll 2d6 for our character’s social class, getting a 6. Consulting the Belter column of the Social Class table, that indicates Lower Class.

Rolling a die on the Lower Class Backgrounds table, we get a 5 for Urban. Looking at the background, we give our character +1 Dexterity and choose the Misdirection talent, feeling like our techie is more cunning than athletic. Then we roll once on the Urban Benefits Table, getting an 8 for +1 Perception. Looks like we’re right!

Looking at the Lower Class Professions, we immediately knows that we want Technician and choose that with the GM’s permission rather than bothering to roll. Looking at the description, we give our character the Intelligence (Technology) focus and the Novice degree in the Hacker talent.

Looking over the drives, there are several appealing ones. Unsure which to choose, let’s roll randomly: We get a 5, indicating Column 2 on the Drive table, and then a 4, giving us Rebel, suggesting this character is a nonconformist who has gotten in trouble in the past. That fits. From this drive, we choose Improvisation to add to the character’s talents and Reputation for our improvement.

Our lower class Belter technician has Income 2, not an extravagant lifestyle! It’s pretty clear the character just makes ends meet, and can be described as struggling. The character lives a lifestyle of cramped quarters and eating mostly kibble and cheap noodles, but does at least have essential technical tools and equipment, which are part of the starting character’s package.

So our character’s starting Fortune is 15, unmodified because we applied the improvement from drive to Reputation. The character’s Dexterity is 2, giving us Defense 12 (10 + 2) and Speed 12 and Constitution is 0, so the character has Toughness 0. Sounds like our Belter techie is going to want to stay off the front-lines in a fight!

Consider who our Belter techie is. Let’s say that she came up from a lower class background but her smarts and technical savvy helped her to make it. Unfortunately, she occasionally needed help from less than legal elements to get what she needed for her education and repaid them with the occasional favor. Now she wants to get out from under the thumb of said criminal elements and go legit, but opportunities are thin. Longer-term, she wants to change the system that kept a smart Belter kid from realizing her potential without having to work the black market, although she’s not sure that she agrees with all of the OPA’s politics, particularly the more radical or violent factions.

As a low-class Belter and hacker, our character has plenty of opportunities to make both friends and enemies. She may know fellow Belters, have run into characters with lower class or criminal backgrounds, or who worked security or some other job that brought them to her part of the station. As a hacker, she may know some characters from online interactions, maybe some who think she is someone else entirely, such as corresponding with another character with mutual interests, who doesn’t yet know their friend is a Belter with no formal education.

We work out some more details of our character: We decided somewhere along the line that she’s a woman. Since she’s a Belter, we decide her heritage is a combination of Korean, Indian, and Brazilian in her more recent ancestry. Searching some online resources for suitable names, we come up with Isabella Anika Moon, known to her friends as “Izzy,” who is ready for her first adventure!