Ronin Round Table: 2014 Origins Awards

By Jack Norris

Hey everyone, Jack here. As we work on final proofreading and approvals for Dragon Age Set 3 I wanted to take a moment during this week’s Ronin Round Table to discuss the Origins Awards and in particular DC Adventures Universe, which I did some small bit of work on.

The Origins Awards are, unsurprisingly, an award show for RPG related projects that takes place at Origins, one of the larger and longest running game conventions in the Midwest. The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design compiles nominees in various categories, from Best Roleplaying Game to Best Historical Board Game, and reveals the winners at the convention. It’s always a solid list of worthy competitors and this year is no exception. From Pelgrane Press’ 13th Age to Monte Cook’s Numenera to Battle Front Minatures’ Flames of War and Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day’sTable Top, there is a lot of fun impressive and just plain cool stuff up for awards this year. (Here’s the full list of nominees.)

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Ronin Round Table: Convention Season!

As the Events Manager, this is my favourite time of year…convention season! Not only do I love to attend conventions representing Green Ronin, I love to attend for my “day job” in the video game industry. I’ve recently attended the Game Developers Conference (GDC) and the Emerald City Comicon. I attended the GDC as an official volunteer, aka the Conference Associates program. In my week in San Francisco, I had an opportunity to run demos of the upcoming Love2Hate card game and of the Dragon Age RPG. People who make video games are also very passionate about tabletop gaming, and I had no problems finding people who wished to get in a game. I even got to talk to Jennifer Hepler about Dragon Age for a bit! She’s a fan of the tabletop version and was very encouraging.

At ECCC, I had a table all to myself, to showcase Green Ronin games and to run the DARPG and L2H demos. We talked to a LOT of people about Mutants & Masterminds and DC Adventures, this being a comics convention and all. We had lots of good traction on the Song of Ice & Fire materials, too. I was running a 2-hour version of our Dragon Age RPG Quickstart adventure, “An Arl’s Ransom.” It has action, intrigue, and fantastic moral choices, which is one of my favourite things about the game.

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Ronin Round Table: Feedback and Reviews, Please

In the middle of last week, James Dawsey of the Vigilance Press Podcast invited Mutants & Masterminds designer Steve Kenson and I to talk to him about the release of Emerald City and the just-announced ICONS: The Assembled Edition, which Steve also designed.

We had a good talk, which you can listen to on the Vigilance Press site, and we covered a lot of ground. Steve explained how ICONS started and why he decided to have Green Ronin publish the latest version. I talked about Emerald City, its history, and how happy we were to finally see it in print.

As we were wrapping up our conversation, James asked if there was anything else we wanted to mention. As it happened, one of the things I’d been thinking about in the last few weeks is the feedback we receive from our fans.

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Ronin Round Table: Icons Assemble!

Icons AssembledThe "cottage" nature of the tabletop gaming industry leads to a lot of funny things: supposedly fierce "competitors" often know and see each other socially, companies trade employees and creative staff, and creators…well, sometimes we get a particular idea that takes on a life of its own.

One such idea was Icons Superpowered Roleplaying, a concept that began when I was mucking about with the attribute ladder of the Fudge RPG and mixing-and-matching its concepts with the old Marvel Super-Heroes game (a long-time favorite of mine, as anyone who has read my essay in Hobby Games: The 100 Best knows). I referred to the initial set of notes as "The Superlative System" and it gathered electronic dust on my website for some time.

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Ronin Round Table: The Benefit of Random Encounters

By Chris Pramas

Publishing games is a funny thing. Sometimes games come from personal passion, sometimes from meticulous planning, and sometimes from random encounters. Love 2 Hate, a card game we are publishing this summer, is one of the latter.

It began back in 2002. Nicole and I went to London for a one day convention called Dragonmeet. As is usual for such overseas trips, we stayed for more days than we needed to so we could make the most of it. We stayed with James Wallis, a longtime industry friend and the designer of such games as Once Upon a Time and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen. James had a conveniently located apartment in London. During Dragonmeet he also had another houseguest: Colm Lundberg.

Colm was over from Ireland for the con and we hadn’t met him before. He was a convention organizer himself and it was from him I first learned of the legendary Irish charity auctions. We all got along well and had some fun times in London that weekend. After a couple of days, he returned to Ireland and we to America. When Facebook became a thing, we became FB friends and stayed in touch that way. While I returned to England many times subsequently (even for Dragonmeet again in 2010), our paths never did cross again.

Love 2 HateA couple of years back Colm let me know he was tinkering with some game designs. He wanted some advice on what to do with them and how to find a publisher. This I gave him, also noting that I’d be happy to take a look at them. This led to him sending some prototypes to me here in Seattle. One of them was a party game in vein similar to Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity. It was called Love 2 Hate.

Now Green Ronin’s focus has traditionally been RPGs. That said, we have done card games before (Torches & Pitchforks and Walk the Plank) and it was always my intention to do more types of games than RPGs. So one Thursday at Jon Leitheusser’s place when roleplaying was off the table, we playtested Love 2 Hate and I gave Colm some notes. He continued to hone the cards and then sent me another prototype. This we playtested at the Green Ronin Summit in October and after an hour the team agreed: Love 2 Hate was fun and we should publish it!

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In January Nicole, Intern Kate, and I went to Cork for WarpCon. The convention had invited me over as a guest and I was delighted to accept. It was our first trip to Ireland and Colm was there, of course. So we finally got to see other again! Even better, we got to show people Love 2 Hate.

People playing a demo version of Love 2 Hate at WarpCon

You meet someone at random at one convention and 12 years later you meet at another one to demo the game you are going to do together. This is the sort of thing I love about the game industry. Amusingly enough, we flew to London after WarpCon and stayed with James Wallis and his family for a few days, so the whole thing really did come full circle!

Ronin Round Table: Those At Our Game Tables

By Joseph Carriker

Last week, the gaming community was faced with the loss of one of our own once again: Aaron Allston, well-known designer for Champions and Dungeons & Dragons, and author of numerous novels, particularly in the Star Wars universe. And though I didn’t know Mr. Allston myself, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of some loss—a loss that I wasn’t entirely comfortable with, to be honest. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, of course. There’ve been others who have passed, our luminaries and founding fathers, in recent memory, and I found myself experiencing the same kind of loss. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, co-creators of Dungeons & Dragons, died in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

Don’t get me wrong—I’ve certainly known who they were, in every case. It’s hard not to, if you pay any sort of attention to the names on that credits page. I’ve played their games, and read their material over the years. In nearly every instance, these were folks who I’d had the chance to meet (or at least correspond with, in some fashion), but I couldn’t claim to know them. Many of my friends and co-workers certainly have, and I think that’s been part of it. I’m a little embarrassed by that sense of loss. Do I as someone who has only experienced their work have a right to that?

I think that at the end of the day, though, there’s a good reason for it. These aren’t just some people who’ve passed"they are the people who’ve been at our gaming tables with us over the years. We’ve built friendships and great memories through the vehicle of this work, and in a real way, it’s hard not to feel impacted in some fashion when those who created those things pass on. We’ve invested emotion in these memories, and those memories include not just the people at the tables with us, the games we were playing, the worlds we were exploring.

In a way, these folks are just as much a part of those great memories as the people who were physically there, even if the context is different. The context of our grief is different, as well. They leave loved ones, friends and family behind, and part of the embarrassment I’ve felt is rooted there. It’s hard not to think, "Who the hell am I? I’m just a dude who enjoyed their work," like there were some kind of minimum connection necessary to justify a sense of grief and loss.

But that’s also it. As someone who also creates game material, I do feel connected to those who play the games I work on. Though folks in this industry often groan at the thought of facing down a convention of people telling us about their characters, we’re still there, because even with dread is the joy of hearing people enjoy the things we loved creating. In some way, I and my co-creators are at those gaming tables as surely as Gary, Dave, Aaron, and other creators have all been at ours.

This sense isn’t unique to us, of course—people grieve over musicians, actors, writers and artists all the time. But our game designers, writers, artists, and creators are our people, and their work stands out in our memories, in a way that’s uniquely ours.

So here’s to those who’ve shared our gaming tables over the years, through the often-lonely work they’ve put into creating these games we all love so well. You’re friends, and sometimes even family, whether you know it or not. And even those who are no longer with us will continue to share a place at our tables for a long time to come.

Ronin Round Table: Pathfinder Update

Hey folks! I’m Owen K.C. Stephens, the newest member of the Green Ronin Staff, and the Pathfinder Developer. I was brought on to (among other things) help see the Pathfinder books for Freeport: City of Adventure and the new Advanced Bestiary through the writing, editing, and development process. I wanted to talk for a bit about where things are and some of the decisions made along the way.

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Ronin Round Table: The Free & the Brave

By Steve Kenson

You’ve heard a lot about the forthcoming Atlas of Earth-Prime series in previous Ronin Round Tables. As we approach our launch date, let’s take a look at the premier issue of the series, which starts close to home in the nation of Freedom City and Emerald City: the United States of America.

We had two goals for the U.S.A. Atlas: First, talk about some of the places and geography beyond our two main "super" cities, shifting some of the "Beyond Freedom City" material out of the Freedom City book into its own space and, second, open up some opportunities for different types of Mutants & Masterminds adventures and series set in the United States other than "four-color urban superheroes." So, what kinds of new settings can you expect from the first Atlas?

  • Occult America: Two flavors of "occult mystery" settings, the Southern Gothic of Embouchere, Louisiana, with a simmering gumbo of bayous, Voodoo, criminal syndicates, and mysterious cults, and the Colonial Shadows of Mystery, New Hampshire, situated in the shadow of Mystery Mountain and its tall tales and legendary creatures, both good for use with the Supernatural Handbook.
  • Hard Justice: For two places where justice is far less black-and-white, we revisit Buckner Ridge, the home of the private super-prison Lockdown (and the secrets it contains) and Ferroburg, Pennsylvania, a rusting steel-town beset by crime and urban decay, but protected by a new breed of vigilante willing to do what it takes to save the city, whatever the cost. Great for Iron Age style games of low-powered heroes in the style of a superhero TV series.
  • Hidden Heartland: Midvale, Kansas, is much like any middle-American farming community, faced with the shift from family farms to "big agribusiness," but there’s also the nearby Crater Mound and Serpent’s Run. What secrets do those ancient earthworks conceal and how much super-powered weirdness lies just beneath the surface of an otherwise "normal" town?
  • Strange & Familiar: Short write-ups of real-world cities like Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., and a look at their super-defenders, including Gatekeeper (a new Master Mage?) and the new Raven.

That’s the U.S.A.—waiting in the wings we have La Liga de Metaluchadores in Mexico, ancient astronauts amongst the Mayan ruins, the ghost pirates of the Bermuda Triangle, a shapeshifting Jamaican drug-lord…and that’s just in North America! Stay tuned for a whole new world coming soon!

Ronin Round Table: Around the World in 20 PDFs

By Jon Leitheusser

For the last three years (three!?) Green Ronin has released a weekly series of PDFs for the Mutants & Masterminds game. First were the Threat Reports, followed by the Power Profiles, then the Gadget Guides and Wild Cards SCARE Sheets. Each series has filled a particular niche and served a particular purpose.

We did the Threat Reports because M&M Third Edition was brand new and we wanted to provide Gamemasters with villains and story ideas, give players some bad guys to fight, and introduce people to the Emerald City setting. The series went over very well and convinced us to continue with the PDF series over the following years.

The Power Profiles were created to show players and GMs how to build powers, give examples of some unusual powers, and to make it easier for everyone to create the sorts of characters they wanted—whether they were player characters, NPCs, or villains. Because M&M is both an effects- and point-based system, it can be tricky to get new players up and running with a character they really like. Power Profiles was a way for us to make it easier for them to do just that.

The Gadget Guides series grew out of Power Profiles. People on the Atomic Think Tank asked for a gadgets Power Profile. Steve and I both thought what we really needed was a series of PDFs that covered a wide range of different sorts of gadgets, from swords and guns to traps and nanotech. This series will be collected a little later this year, and when it is it’ll create a veritable catalog of devices and equipment players can use as inspiration.

Alternating with the Gadget Guides were SCARE Sheets based on characters from the latest Wild Cards novels. We’ve had a long relationship with George R.R. Martin and when he told us the series had been picked up by SyFy and Universal to be the subject of their first film together, we were excited to have the chance to show off more Wild Cards characters. The PDFs in this series typically presented a character along with their history and powers. It was a great way to provide GMs with more characters for their game and re-introduce Wild Cards to M&M fans.

Now, in our fourth year, we’re pulling inspiration from the Atomic Think Tank once again! Last year someone (I wish I knew who) mentioned they wanted a "World of Freedom" book that fleshed out the rest of the world Freedom City and Emerald City are located in. It turns out we loved that idea and that the world has an actual name: Earth-Prime!

So, I’m very happy to announce The Atlas of Earth-Prime! It’s a 20-part, twice-monthly series of PDFs that covers every corner of Earth-Prime. Each PDF will be in the eight- to ten-page range and will introduce you to new characters, places, organization, businesses, and groups. Most importantly, the idea behind the series is to give you information to inspire stories and adventures that criss-cross the globe and take your heroes places you may not have considered in the past.

Just like our own world, Earth-Prime is filled with unique and unusual people and places. While the Atlas entries expand on previous material from older sourcebooks, it mostly includes all-new information in order to make the setting more vibrant and exciting. Now when your characters move beyond your home city or home country, there will be a world of things to do, see, and punch in the face.

One thing we decided early on, was that we would focus on the comic book aspects of the setting as opposed to real-world socio-political issues. We don’t ignore the bad things in the world, but instead we approach them in a way that will hopefully give you inspiration for super-heroic stories. So, super-powered people in other countries take on the roles of superheroes and supervillains, just like they do in America. Sure, there are paranormal mercenaries in South America and Africa, but they’re comic book mercenaries.

We also agreed that these PDFs wouldn’t include much hard data about the various countries. So you’re not going to find the population of Cuba in its listing, or the top three exports from Sri Lanka. If you want that sort of information, there are plenty of real world resources available to you.

Finally, and this may have been the most important thing we wanted to do with this series, we wanted to try and get writers from around the world to work on the entries for their region. So far we’ve done pretty well with that: Steve Kenson, an American, wrote the entry for the U.S.A; Scott Bennie, a Canadian, wrote the entry for Canada; Alex Melchor, who lives in Mexico City, wrote the entries for Mexico and Central America, and Fred Furtado, from Brazil, wrote the entry for South America. We may not be able to find writers from Africa or some other parts of the world, but we want to give this series a more global feel, and we didn’t think we could do that if all the entries were written by white guys from America. Plus, we didn’t want to end up with characters like Captain Shamrock, the hero of Ireland if we could help it. And we can.

Steve and I and the other writers on this series are very excited with the ideas we’ve come up with and we’re looking forward to getting the PDFs finalized and out the electronic door. You should see the first Atlas of Earth-Prime: The United States of America in a couple of weeks. We look forward to exploring the rest of Earth-Prime with you!

To celebrate the launch of the Atlas of Earth-Prime, we’re putting the Threat Report book and PDF, Power Profiles book and PDF, Gadget Guide individual PDFs, and the collected SCARE Sheets PDFs on sale for 25% off. Get to the Green Ronin Online store and stock up! The sale ends soon!

Ronin Round Table: Obligatory Dungeons & Dragons Anniversary Post

By Jack Norris

Irreverent title aside, Sunday marked the 40TH anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons. Like a lot of gamers, D&D was my first roleplaying game, and though it wasn’t my last or even my favorite I have to admit I owe it quite a bit and am happy to celebrate four decades of the game. Because D&D was my gateway into tabletop gaming, a field I not only love as entertainment but now do for a living, at least partially.

I didn’t get into D&D 40 years ago. That would have been a great trick, but it would have involved me playing the game as a 1 month old. I did, however, start playing about ten years later. I don’t remember much about my first games, save that my players were whoever I could get. After Dad humored me and various relatives gave it a shot, I managed to find a group of local friends to play the game with. Some were already gamers, others were new to it. In retrospect, none of us much knew what we were doing. We mixed editions of the games, made grand mistakes, and yet still managed to have tons of fun. Enough that when someone in our group pointed out there were other role-playing games out there, we jumped on. So eventually the weekly D&D game went away and was replaced by Marvel Super Heroes, DC Heroes, Star Frontiers, Pendragon, and Champions, just to name a few. Most of us didn’t go back to D&D except for brief visits, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t important to us in ways we didn’t realize much at the time. By college I was running or playing Mekton, Castle Falkenstein, Feng Shui, Legend of the Five Rings, 7TH Sea, and many other games that wouldn’t have likely had an audience and an industry without D&D.

Even if I wasn’t playing it much after my early teens, I was influenced by D&D and my childhood games when running new stuff and later in my design work. Even though I’ve never worked on the D&D product professionally, it’s definitely had an impact. Sometimes this influence was built around wanting to emulate what I loved in the past. Other times, I wanted to avoid past problems and issues I saw with D&D when applied to certain ideas or genres. Either way, it was useful to me and made the fun times I’ve had with gaming better in a variety of ways. So hey, D&D? Thanks, old timer. This is also why I never much buy into all the edition warring and such we see online; because D&D isn’t an age-old hero that did everything right all the time, nor is it a necrotic reanimated horror that won’t die. Nope, it’s a fun cool game with a long, rich, and influential history, that like every RPG out there isn’t for all people or all situations. And that’s totally okay.

Finally, it’s fun to look at upcoming Dragon Age products and see just how much the line I develop for Green Ronin owes to a game published in little white pamphlets 40 years ago. Classes, levels, and other elements rest at the core of an "if it ain’t broke…" ideology that surrounds Dragon Age, both our game and the video game RPGs we base the line on. Stunts allow players to capture the maneuvers, feats, and combat techniques of various editions without turning their character sheets into an overwhelming laundry list of stuff that only a few characters can do anyway. There’s a hundred little ways Dragon Age is like D&D and yet also different, and this mix is one of the things I love about working on the line; it’s simultaneously familiar and new.

Anyway, there’s my D&D testimonial for the grand anniversary. I hope you’re all enjoying your games, whatever they may be.