Ronin Round Table: Green Ronin at ChupacabraCon 2014

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By Donna Prior

Team Ronin decided to start the New Year off right with some convention appearances! When Steve Kenson told us that he was invited to come down to Austin to be a special guest at a gaming convention, Chris Pramas and I decided we wanted to join in the fun. Well, okay, it is entirely possible that BBQ had a big influence on this decision.

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We all volunteered up our services to be panelists, and also host an in-person Green Ronin Round Table, for anyone who wished to come meet us and gab about games. Steve and I also ran a few games. Steve ran Mutants & Masterminds and ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying. I ran a couple fun introductory Dragon Age RPG sessions.

Not only that, but we were able to meet up with Green Ronin Freebooter Demo GM, Chris Ovalle! Our volunteer GM team is small, but we have some really great folks who are participating. Chris ran an adventure set in Midgard using the AGE system.

For my part, I had an amazingly great time. The ChupacabraCon folks were an absolute delight, both before and during the con. Any time I would look lost, or just poking around, they would say hello, ask if I needed help, or just generally chatted about games & life.

I made some new friends, played some new games, and managed to sneak in some visits with old friends in Austin! I also got to be the total fangirl I am, when they allowed me to be on a panel with Ernie Cline, Aaron Allston, Ross Watson, Aaron de Orive, and Jennifer Rehnay. We had a wonderful time sharing stories, poking fun at each other, and just being general silly passionate nerds. Our panel was "Creative Careers and how we got there!" Our audience was wonderful and seemed to enjoy our many tangents and geeking over Star Wars, Rush, and how rejection has helped shape who we are.

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Besides the big hug from Ernie, one of the best highlights for me was that I got to talk about the Freebooter Volunteer GM Program. This program, and others like it, are my biggest passion. I love bringing people together over games; this is why I wanted to work with Green Ronin. Well, besides the fact that they’re all amazing people. But truly, there are some very passionate people who play Green Ronin games and I wanted to help them be more involved. Our program is still very small, but we have some great creative volunteers. We’re looking for more, so if you’d like to know more, you can check out the program here

Ronin Round Table: Chupacabracon!

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By Steve Kenson

By this time next week, I plan to be joining fellow Ronins Chris Pramas and Donna Prior at the inaugural Chupacabracon in Austin, TX, alongside a star-studded list of guests. If you’re in the Austin area, check out the convention’s website and consider joining us for a weekend of games and geekery (and, if all goes well, local BBQ under the guidance of former Austin resident, Mr. Pramas).

Here’s some of the Green Ronin goodness you can find at the convention:

Friday, January 17th

  • 7:00 pm to 11:00 pm – Mutants & Masterminds with designer Steve Kenson. Get a sneak peek at some exciting upcoming adventure material from Green Ronin!

Saturday, January 18th

  • 9:00 am – 1:00 pm – The Forgotten King’s Tomb with Carlos Ovalle, Freebooter Volunteer. An adventure for 2nd level characters set in Kobold Press’s Midgard using the Green Ronin AGE system.
  • 11:30 am – 1:00 pm – Design a Game in an Hour seminar with Steve Kenson
  • 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm – Dragon Age Roleplaying Game with Donna Prior. A 2-hour short adventure, The Arl’s Ransom, to introduce players to the Dragon Age RPG.
  • 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm – ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying with Steve Kenson. Create and play your own original superheroes in this adventure.
  • 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm – Creative Careers and how we got there! seminar with Donna Prior, and other guests covering a variety of creative-driven careers and how we all got started.
  • 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Cross-Media Chaos with Steve Kenson, Aaron Allston, and other guests discussing the process of working with settings and characters that cross multiple types of media, from comics and games to novels, film, and television.

Sunday, January 19th

  • 9:00 am to 11:00 am – Dragon Age Roleplaying Game with Donna Prior. A 2-hour short adventure, The Arl’s Ransom, to introduce players to the Dragon Age RPG.

Chris, Donna, and Steve will also be available throughout the con to answer questions and tell you about Green Ronin’s newest and upcoming products.

Ronin Round Table: Emerald City Update

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As we head into the holiday break, I have some news that I hope will be met with the understanding and generosity of spirit that is part of the season. It’s about Emerald City, the long-awaited supplement for Mutants & Masterminds that details Freedom City’s west coast counterpart.

When we originally announced this book, it was going to be a single volume hardback. We later decided to change the format and make it a slipcase with three books and a poster map. When we made that decision, we looked into the financials of that format and it seemed workable. It’d be a little more expensive than doing a single hardback but not excessively so.

Two years ago when we started this journey the available options were different, not to mention much cheaper. Our original supplier can no longer meet the price for the project, nor can any of other other suppliers come close. The book had an unusually long period of development and while that was great for making the content shine, it was not good from a production standpoint.

The upshot is this. The best price we’ve been able to find to print Emerald City in the slipcase format we wanted is $16,000 more expensive than doing a hardback book. While we are willing to spend some extra money to make a product shine, $16K is just untenable. It is with reluctance that I must now announce that Emerald City is returning to the hardback format. It will still be divided up into three sections, but it’ll all be in one volume. The poster map will be glued in the back (and that glue will be easily removed). The MSRP will be the same.

We know that many of you pre-ordered the slipcase from us already and we’re sorry to do a format change at the last minute. By way of apology, we’re sending everyone who pre-ordered through the Green Ronin Online Store a $10 coupon for your next purchase.

The content of Emerald City is unchanged. It’s still a kickass setting for your M&M campaign. It’s just the format that’s changing a bit.

Thanks for your understanding, and happy holidays.

Chris Pramas
Green Ronin Publishing

Ronin Round Table: Around the World and Back (to Freedom)

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By Steve Kenson

So in last week’s Ronin Roundtable, Jack Norris gave you a preview of what’s on the horizon for Dragon Age in electronic releases for 2014. This week, we talk a look at Mutants & Masterminds following the conclusion of the Gadget Guide and Wild Cards SCARE Sheets in 2013. (And don’t think we’ll forget about Gadget Guide. A book-length compilation is in the works, including at least 20 pages of additional material.)

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Ronin Round Table: Encounters, Faces, and Beasts: What’s New with Dragon Age

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By Jack Norris

Hello everyone, hope the holidays are treating you well! Jack here to give you some news about two new PDF series we’ll be releasing for Dragon Age in the new year and a continuation of an existing series.

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Ronin Round Table: Villains Don’t Just Break the Rules, They Don’t Know Them…

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By Jack Norris

Hey everyone, Jack here. So for today’s Ronin Round Table I wanted to step into a bit of design discussion. Not just game design, but character design, encounter design, and session design by talking about how we use NPCs, particularly antagonists, in games. Not hard to see why this has been on my mind: In addition to working the usual mix of supervillains, fantasy monsters, and kung fu killers to fit into various projects, I’ve been looking at and discussing monsters and baddies even more because of the new Advanced Bestiary Kickstarter that we’re running here at Green Ronin. The product is spiffy and awesome and you should totally check it out if you like Pathfinder or just want a book of great ideas and examples of how to spice up, modify, or mod antagonists in a campaign. However, I want to draw the conversation out to a slightly more "meta" level and talk about using stuff like templates, special rules for mobs and minions, etc…

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Ronin Round Table: Interview with McG

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Mutants & Masterminds Interviews: Christopher McGlothlin

We’ve covered a lot of different topics in our weekly Round Table columns, from new releases and convention appearances to introducing new staff members and information about joining our Freebooter program. This time around, though, I thought it might be nice to talk to one of our freelancers.

Freelancers may not be on the payroll, but they’re definitely members of the Green Ronin team. In fact, the subject of today’s interview has been a member of the team longer than most of our staff because he created the first supplement (an adventure) for Mutants & Masterminds that wasn’t written by Steve Kenson. And he did it more than a decade ago!

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Ronin Round Table: 10 Years of Freedom (City)

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By Steve Kenson

In the midst of marking the 10th anniversary of Mutants & Masterminds with a new Deluxe Hero’s Handbook (along with the exclusive limited Anniversary Edition), you might think we’ve forgotten the passage of the 10th anniversary of M&M‘s signature setting: Freedom City. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about that city.

I always knew my first visit to Freedom City was going to be a temporary one. Still, I got to stay a good deal longer than I had planned, several years, in fact, almost enough time to put down roots. But then it was time to move on: to places both new and familiar, from Thedas and Westeros to Metropolis and Gotham, with short side-visits to Golarion, post-Awakening Seattle, and Stark City, to name a few, before a long assignment on Earth-Prime’s West Coast, an up-and-coming town called Emerald City, and everything that followed the Silver Storm.

But Freedom City has always been there during my travels, a place of old friends and fond remembrances and, this coming year, it will be time for a return visit. I’m sure some things have changed in my absence. In fact, if what I’ve heard so far is any indication, I know that Freedom City will be a different place than the one I remember.

The Freedom League has moved on, I’ve heard. Operating from their orbital headquarters, the days when they called Freedom City "home" are largely behind them. The old Freedom Hall is now just a local branch for a hero team gone global—maybe some new local heroes will take up residence there as part of the League’s franchise? I hope so.

The Atom Family is still around, of course. The Goodman Building isn’t just their headquarters, after all. It’s their home. Chase Atom is in his 20s now, and his elder brother Max is starting a whole new generation of Atoms. Speaking of generations, word is that Michael O’Connor has gone from several successive terms as mayor to serving Freedom City in Washington. The mayor’s office has seen better days but, if the rumors about Callie Summers running for office are true, things might be about to change.

I’m looking forward to some old familiar haunts. Pyramid Plaza and the Sentry Statue still dominate the city skyline, and Liberty Park is a lovely place to spend a day, even if Heroes’ Knoll has a new statue or two. It would be nice sit out at a Starbase Coffee near the FCU campus and try to spot any figures flying overhead. I’m thinking of staying in a place further east, however. Maybe Riverside, close to the park and the ferry to Bayview. Claremont Academy is going to be a must-see, even if most of the kids I knew have moved on. In fact, I hear Whoop-Ant is celebrating his 21st birthday soon. (Heaven help us all…) Some property vacancies have opened up in Riverside, like that old brownstone that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

Freedom City still sees more than its share of the fantastic. The interstellar refugees crowding Star Island may have largely moved on to Starhaven on Jupiter’s moon, Europa, thanks to Daedalus, but some of their influence remains behind (along with a few “illegal aliens,” if you believe the rumors). Indeed, with all the upheaval in the galaxy, it’s no wonder Star Knight has left Earth largely behind to focus on events in space.

Although I’ve been away from the familiar sights, sounds, and streets of Freedom for a while, I’m looking forward to them again. It’ll make a great home base for the travel I’ll be doing for the rest of the year, exploring some exotic locales with some friends and sending notes home about what we find there. Whether you’re a former resident of Freedom City, like me, a newcomer, tourist, or someone who has been there all along, I hope that I’ll be seeing you in the City of Heroes sometime next year!

Ronin Round Table: Introducing the New Ronin

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By Owen K.C. Stephens

Hi folks, I’m Owen K.C. Stephens, the new Pathfinder developer here at Green Ronin. I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself, tell you where I am coming from as a gamer and writer, and talk a little bit about our immediate Pathfinder plans.

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Ronin Round Table: Fate in Freeport

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By Jack Norris

Hello all, Jack here. I wanted to talk to you a bit about one of our recent products I’ve been looking over recently. It’s not one I worked on, but rather one I picked up and have been reading and enjoying myself both as gamer and designer. It’s the Fate Freeport Companion, and it’s pretty darned spiffy. I’ve been looking at a lot at Fate products while writing, designing, and currently Kickstarting my own kung fu/wu xia game using the Fate system, Tianxia (oh hey look, a link to my game, how did that get there?). I’ve seen some really great products using the FATE system but I wanted to take some time and give shout out to this one especially. Okay, now that introductions and my shameless plug are out of the way, let’s talk about FATE and Freeport.

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