GEN-CON 2011 - D&D & RPG news?

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**Alpharius**

Given the rumblings out of WoTC recently, I would have bet that there was a big announcement due Gen-Con 2011 but... that doesn't seem to be the case?

Given the lack of overall news on just about anything, I have to wonder - was anything at all announced?

**Ahtman**

I didn't hear of anything.

**Balance**

I've seen links to discussion of a seminar they did. Basically, lots of novels, a few board games, a few RPG books. Nothing major this year, at least.

They're certainly aware of the way some people feel about 4e and are attempting to respond. From the sound, they may be looking at 'consolidation' over 'expansion'. They're willing to drop projects that weren't going anywhere (a couple books have been canceled as they just weren't coming along) and have decided to try to sue existing mechanisms when possible (An example I saw is that many 'new class' requests will be implemented as 'themes' instead.)

But nothing big. No 5th edition. Some hints they might start rereleasing DRMed digital versions of older books. A new setting is on the way, possibly a non-Dragonlance older setting with dragons. I do think they need to consolidate things: The original 4.0 PHB is unavailable I believe, which leaves the non-essentials 'base classes' somewhat orphaned.

**Alpharius**

Some people thought that WoTC was dropping a lot of 'old school gameplay' type of hints.

And while that may still be true, apparently it didn't translate into any sort of actual announcement at Gen-Con.

**Balance**

Alpharius wrote:Some people thought that WoTC was dropping a lot of 'old school gameplay' type of hints.

And while that may still be true, apparently it didn't translate into any sort of actual announcement at Gen-Con.

If it's the thing I've heard about, one of the lead developers was using a WotC-provided blog to muse about a lot of game design stuff and everyone made a leap to "He's talking about 5th edition!" but, at least for now, the aprty line is he was just brainstorming and they're supporting 4th for the moment.

The 3rd->4th change seems more painful than 2nd->3rd. I can think of two major reasons: 4th is a very different 'philosophy' from 3rd (2nd tried to make the game a bit more 'realistic'/detail-oriented which 3rd generally continued. 4th said "This is a game about kicking in doors in Dungeons to go fight Dragons in a world that has only made the barest sense anway oh so much of the time". Also, 2nd had a massive run, while 3/3.5 was relatively short-lived by comparison.

**Manchu**

To put it in internetese: Realize 4E is huge flop. Cannot make 5E without louder criticism. What do?

I've never heard anyone yet give a coherent reason why they dislike 4E and then go on to suggest what should have been don instead. Now keep in mind I don't read rpg.net for this very reason. My point is, however, that Wizards has some very tough thinking to do if they want D&D to remain a RPG license. Is it really that unthinkable if it wasn't?

**reds8n**

GenCon News—At GenCon Margaret Weis Productions announced the acquisition of the rights to create Marvel Heroes Role-Playing Game. Cam Banks, the line developer and Creative Director at MWP told ICv2: “Our biggest announcement is the acquisition of the Marvel Heroes RPG license, which we are making a 2012 release. There will be 16 books, and the first of them will be launched in February. The initial release is the Basic Game, a softcover $20 book. It will have the rule book in there as well as a sort of mini-event based on Brian Michael Bendis’ New Avengers run, issues 1-6.”

Banks explained the publishing strategy behind the new Marvel Heroes RPG, which is based in large part on major comic book crossover events like Civil War: “After the initial February release, we will have these big event books. The event books will be cornerstone products and each of them has three supplements. The first event book will be Civil War. There will be two versions of the event book. The Premium version will include the operations manual, the same rulebook from the basic game, and the Essential version, which has all the Civil War information without the rulebook. If you are interested in Civil War, you can buy the Premium Edition and all three supplements and you’re fine, you’ve got everything you need to play. If you already own the Basic Game, then you just need to buy the Essential Edition of Civil War.”

The softcover books, which include the basic game and the supplements for the event books will cost around $20. The Premium Edition event books, which include the rules from the basic game, will be $40, and the Essential Editions of the event books, which don’t include the Basic Game, will be priced around $30. The next two event books after Civil War are Annihilation, which is based on 2006 crossover series by Keith Giffen and Andy Schmidt, and The Age of Apocalypse, which is based on the 1995-1996 X-Men crossover series.

Banks explained that the Marvel Heroes RPG will use MWP’s Cortex Plus game system: “We will use our current system, which is called Cortex Plus. The way we do things now however is not to take the same rulebook and use it again and again for different games. We create a new game using those basic, underlying foundational rules. The Leverage and Smallville RPGs are a good indication of how we’ve done it so far. We modify the system to suit the material at hand.”

A good example of the different versions of the Cortex Plus system can be seen in Dragon Brigade, which is based on the recently published novel Shadow Raiders: Book 1 of the Dragon Brigade by Margaret Weis and Robert Krammes. A core Dragon Brigade RPG book will be out by the end of the year. It will have a cover price of $40 and feature a version of Cortex Plus that has been modified to accommodate the swashbuckling action of the Dragon Brigade storyline. MWP plans on releasing one Dragon Brigade book a year for the next three years.

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/20772.html

Haven't used/played any of their other games.

It's a good entry price IMO, and I think the books linked to events is a sensible and cool route to go.

**Manchu**

I've heard very mixed things about both Cortex systems. Cortex Plus sounds pretty fuzzy, IMO. Here's an interested thread on it from the purple:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?556307-Cortex-Plus-Tell-me-and-sell-me

**Catyrpelius**

There were alot of smaller/indie RPG companies there, I was able to pickup alot of new systems for relativly cheap thanks to my Exhibitor Badge, amazing what a little peice of paper that says you work for one of the larger companies can do...

As far as specifics go....

- There is a new Lord of the Rings roleplaying game out, it looked pretty interesting and had a pretty neat mechanic especially to deal with fatigue. I had two problems with the system however, one the guy running the both when asked for a quick rundown of the game just gave me a blank look a minute or two before suffling off to find someone more knowledgable, and second they want $60 for two softcover books. That amount of money for a new system in softcover is way to high for me.

- Pathfinder is pretty much going to keep doing what they usually do, they supposedly have some interesting new books coming out as well as a ton of fiction.

- Chaosium is adding more Cuthulu Invictius type source books, this has me extremly excited as Chaosiums Cuthulu is one of my favorite RPG's

- Kenzer & Company is set to add alot to their Hackmaster series, if you've ever played you can expect new and exciting things, while still staying true to the games roots.

- D&D it might have just been me but they seemed to be pushing their board games more then anything else, although I do have to admit their board games were pretty good. Unfortuantly I didn't make it to the panel.

- WEGS Old Skool this is absolutly my favorite role playing game, it was a pretty big hit for those that saw the booth. They launched their newest set of class cards at the Con. I highly recommend this game to everyone!

Thats pretty much the highlights of Gencon as far as I was concerened, there were probably a ton of companies whos games I didn't get a chance to see...

**Balance**

Catyrpelius wrote:- Chaosium is adding more Cuthulu Invictius type source books, this has me extremly excited as Chaosiums Cuthulu is one of my favorite RPG's

I.E. stand-alone "Cthulhu in Year X" games? Sounds cool. I was just thinking of picking up the Cthlhu Invictus PDF from DTRPG recently.

**Catyrpelius**

Balance wrote:
Catyrpelius wrote:- Chaosium is adding more Cuthulu Invictius type source books, this has me extremly excited as Chaosiums Cuthulu is one of my favorite RPG's

I.E. stand-alone "Cthulhu in Year X" games? Sounds cool. I was just thinking of picking up the Cthlhu Invictus PDF from DTRPG recently.

Pretty Much.

I was also able to finally pickup a GM screen as well as a neat set of adventures set in 1920's Hollywood.

**Balance**

When my group went last year we had a bunch of us do one of the 'competitive' D&D events... Fun, but frustrating as we didn't know you pretty much had to study the prereleased characters before the game to have a chance.

Next year I was thinking of suggesting we try to jump on one of the Call of Cthulhu games... I saw a bunch running in the evening that'd be awesome, especiallyi n he old train station area...

**warboss**

Alpharius wrote:Given the rumblings out of WoTC recently, I would have bet that there was a big announcement due Gen-Con 2011 but... that doesn't seem to be the case?

Given the lack of overall news on just about anything, I have to wonder - was anything at all announced?

I don't know if you were a prepainted minis fan for D&D but they're coming back in a non-collectible FFG type format it seems. They'll be doing some open playtesting supposedly in the next few months ala PP/WM with downloadable cards for the rules. Apparently it'll be more boardgameish in that there will be no dice rolls instead of the traditional roll vs threshold that D&D (and its minis versions) use. One blogger mentioned that you can use your old minis but I haven't seen that repeated by any of the other sources so I think he's just wishfully assuming it. Some rumblings about older edition stuff being republished but it wasn't stated if this meant physical books or PDFs.

http://critical-hits.com/2011/08/08/gen-con-2011-dd-new-products-seminar/

**Alpharius**

Balance wrote:
Alpharius wrote:Some people thought that WoTC was dropping a lot of 'old school gameplay' type of hints.

And while that may still be true, apparently it didn't translate into any sort of actual announcement at Gen-Con.

If it's the thing I've heard about, one of the lead developers was using a WotC-provided blog to muse about a lot of game design stuff and everyone made a leap to "He's talking about 5th edition!" but, at least for now, the aprty line is he was just brainstorming and they're supporting 4th for the moment.

The 3rd->4th change seems more painful than 2nd->3rd. I can think of two major reasons: 4th is a very different 'philosophy' from 3rd (2nd tried to make the game a bit more 'realistic'/detail-oriented which 3rd generally continued. 4th said "This is a game about kicking in doors in Dungeons to go fight Dragons in a world that has only made the barest sense anway oh so much of the time". Also, 2nd had a massive run, while 3/3.5 was relatively short-lived by comparison.

Balance - yeah, that is what prompted a lot of 'old school' RPGers to think something interesting might be happening soon.

warboss wrote:
Alpharius wrote:Given the rumblings out of WoTC recently, I would have bet that there was a big announcement due Gen-Con 2011 but... that doesn't seem to be the case?

Given the lack of overall news on just about anything, I have to wonder - was anything at all announced?

I don't know if you were a prepainted minis fan for D&D but they're coming back in a non-collectible FFG type format it seems. They'll be doing some open playtesting supposedly in the next few months ala PP/WM with downloadable cards for the rules. Apparently it'll be more boardgameish in that there will be no dice rolls instead of the traditional roll vs threshold that D&D (and its minis versions) use. One blogger mentioned that you can use your old minis but I haven't seen that repeated by any of the other sources so I think he's just wishfully assuming it. Some rumblings about older edition stuff being republished but it wasn't stated if this meant physical books or PDFs.

http://critical-hits.com/2011/08/08/gen-con-2011-dd-new-products-seminar/

While that sounds vaguely interesting, a board-game version of D&D isn't the droid I'm looking for.

Thanks for the info though!