From the Green Ronin Website
Welcome to the New Year, everyone! We hope you had a good holiday
season and got in some fun gaming with your friends and family. Now that
we've moved into 2014, it's time for my annual overview of where Green
Ronin is at and where we are going this year. We ended 2013 on a high
note, with the Advanced Bestiary Kickstarter raising over $55,000. Let's
take a look at what's happening next!
Mutants & Masterminds
Mutants & Masterminds, now in its 3rd edition, has been a bedrock
game for GR since its debut in 2002 and that shows no signs of
changing. Right now the long-awaited
Emerald City sourcebook
at at print and should be in stores next month. This 336-page full
color hardback gives you everything you need to set a campaign in
Emerald City, including a full length adventure. You've seen bits of
this background before in
Threat Report, but now the city is revealed in all its glory.
Long time fans will be happy to know that Emerald City does not
replace Freedom City, but enhances it.
Emerald City is in the same
setting (Earth-Prime) but on the opposite coast from Freedom City. It
thus expands the game's original setting. And what if you are newer to
the game and don't have the previous Freedom City books? Well, good
news, Freedom City is getting its own big hardback this year! Steve
Kenson is revisiting and expanding his classic setting for 3rd edition
and this will be our big GenCon release.
We will also be expanding the wider setting of Emerald City and
Freedom City with a new PDF series, the Atlas of Earth-Prime. Each entry
in this series will provide an overview of a different part of the
world and developer Jon Leitheusser is trying to work with freelancers
from those parts of the real world where we can, so we don't up with
characters like English Tea Time (beware his dreaded cuppa attack!),
Kangaroo Boomerang, or other such nonsense. As with previous PDF series,
we will collect these up for a print book next year. Last year's PDF
series, Gadget Guides, will see its print release this year.
We are rounding out the year with two more sourcebooks, The
Cosmic Handbook and
Hero High Revisited. The
Cosmic Handbook is a book people have requested for years. It provides rules, advice, and support for campaigns beyond Earth-Prime.
Hero High Revisited is
an updated and expanded version of Lucien Soulban's stellar book for
2nd edition about playing teenage heroes. We're happy to bring this book
back and Lucien is already at work adding new material.
Love 2 Hate
This year we are branching out in a couple of different ways. The
first is a new card game called Love 2 Hate by designer Colm Lundberg.
Love 2 Hate is a party game of finishing sentences and (poor?) judgment.
In each round of the game, one player acts as the judge and plays one
Starter card. These are cards with nouns on them like Clowns or Lawyers.
The judge can say "I love the way..." or "I hate the way..." Each
player then plays a Finisher card face down to complete the sentence
(for example, "I hate the way clowns subsist entirely on my fear!"). The
judge decides who had the best answer and awards the Starter card to
that player. Get enough Starter cards and you win!
We have playtested this game many times at GR HQ and it's a blast. We
did a big game at the Green Ronin Summit back in October and after that
we all agreed that we had to publish it. The judging mechanic is
similar to that of other party games, so it's easy to pick up. If you
happen to be in Ireland later this month for WarpCon, Colm and I will
both be there with demo decks in hand, so you can check it out for
yourself. Love 2 Hate is currently scheduled for a June release.
Dragon Age and AGE
The burning question is, of course, where the %#&#@ is Set 3 for
Dragon Age? Here's the skinny. The Player's Guide is heading into
layout. When it's finished, we're going to release it as a PDF ahead of
the full set, which is slightly unusual but warranted in this case
because I know people are beyond eager for this material. When the Game
Master's Guide is finished a few weeks later, we'll release the full set
and put it up for pre-order. Printer willing, we should have the
finished sets towards the end of March.
That same month we've also got a fun surprise: Dragon Age dice! We've
partnered up with Q Workshop, whose awesome dice are almost certainly
known to you. Each box of dice will come with two full sets for the RPG.
That's six dice total, four with the Circle and Templar emblems on them
and two with the Grey Warden emblem and the Blood Dragon (the "Dragon
Die" for the RPG).
While I am putting Set 3 to bed, Jack Norris is busy with a lot more
support. He's developing the adventures from The Deep Roads adventure
anthology right now. We'll be releasing the adventures individually as
PDFs as we finish them and then collecting them up later this year for a
print release.
As previously discussed, we'll also be doing two other PDF series, Faces of Thedas and Encounters in Thedas.
Our
AGE Bestiary series
will also continue. AGE, short for the Adventure Game Engine, is the
system that powers the Dragon Age RPG. AGE products uses the system but
not the setting of Dragon Age. We are, as I've discussed before, working
on another game using the Adventure Game Engine, but we had to make the
hard decision to schedule that for 2015. We could not devote the
attention it deserved this year and I am not going to rush it out just
to have it out.
As many of you know, BioWare has been working on the third video game of the franchise,
Dragon Age: Inquisition.
We are working with them to determine the best way to support that with
the RPG, but that's all I can say about it right now. We'll have more
news about that later this year.
Pathfinder
In 2013 we hired Owen Stephens to be our Pathfinder developer. The
first two books you'll see out of this are Freeport: The City of
Adventure and the Advanced Bestiary, both of which were the subjects of
successful Kickstarters last year and both of which should come out this
summer. Those are two mighty tomes (520 and 288 pages respectively) so
that's keeping Owen quite busy in the short term. If you missed the
Kickstarters, never fear. You'll be able to buy both books when they are
done and they'll be available in stores just like any other of our
print books.
We have been discusing what comes next for Pathfinder. We have two
overal goals. First, we want to do a mix of brand new material and
updates to our classic d20 material. Second, we want to really develop
the world of Freeport. Our future material will follow from these
goals.
SIFRP and the Chronicle System
A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying is our game based on George R.R.
Martin novel series fo the same name (also the source of HBO's Game of
Thrones TV show). The next book for the game is Dragon's Hoard, a
160-page adventure that should keep chronicles going for some time. The
text for that is in for approval right now and we're hoping to have it
out before summer. Once that has a firm release, we'll talk more about
our future plans for the line.
The Chronicle System is the rules engine that powers SIFRP. We released the first in a series of Chronicle System PDFs,
Woodland Beasts,
last year and will follow it up with more this year. Developer Joe
Carriker has been working on several follow ups, including Out of
Strife, Prosperity and Chronicle of Sorcery. The latter is just what it
sounds like--a magic system! This is something SIFRP lacks due to the
nature of the books, but Chronicle of Sorcery aims to fill that gap.
The Freebooter Program
Last year we hired Donna Prior to be our Events Manager. Her biggest
job is running our demo program, the Freebooters. These are folks who
demo our games in stores and at conventions. We've got a good crew but
we need more Freebooters! If you want to run games at GenCon, Origins,
or other cons,
check out the program info and contact Donna. It's a life of adventure in the Freebooters!
More to Come!
I've shared some highlights of what's coming up but it is by no means
everything. We have several projects in the works that we'll be
announcing later in the year. One of them is the subject of our next
Kickstarter! We hope you stay with us for another year of great games
and good fun. Here's to a fruitful 2014!
Today's Atlas of Earth-Prime issue for Mutants & Masterminds: The Lost World is available now!
A land of harsh winters, dramatic landscape, and ancient magics,
Northern Europe is also home to some of the most advanced scientific
organizations in the world. The region's diversity has caused it to
become a hotbed of superheroic—and supervillainous—activity. Ancient
mysticism and modern technology collide, while heroes like Britannia and
MacRoth take on threats like Manteis and the monstrous Iku-Turso.
From sweltering tropical jungles to freezing glaciers, from
snow-capped mountains and salt deserts to paradisiacal beaches, South
America is a land of diversity, both in nature as well as in population.
Heroes empowered by the ancient Orixá of Candomble struggle against
agents of SHADOW and criminal syndicates alike. Agencies like Brazil's
Secretary of Special Affairs (SAE) and Argentina's National Superhuman
Research Council (CONIS) contend with Extra-Dimensional Alien
Intelligences (EDAI) while the small nation of Costazul opens its
borders (and often its citizens) to all manner of technological
interests, both legal and illegal.
Geographically
close, culturally diverse, the nations of Central America have served as
a bridge between the great continents of North and South America, and
that status has cost their people in decades of internecine conflicts,
foreign intervention, and injustice. On Earth-Prime, they feel the
influence of Aztec sorcerers, ancient Mayan artifacts, super-powered
mercenaries, and the sinister tendrils of SHADOW.
Maybe your heroes need an island holiday? Too bad, since they'll find plenty to do as the Atlas of Earth-Prime
takes us to the Caribbean! It is the center for a secret spiritual war
between the Loa, the powerful spirits of Voodoo, and stronghold of
Siren's arch-foe Baron Samedi. Go up against the Jamaican posse run by
the Snowman or help local heroes Coral and Hurican fight criminals and
natural disasters. Explore the mysteries deep in the heart of the
Bermuda Triangle, and visit the fantastic Utopia Isle and its
inhabitants. Much more than just a "day at the beach"!
Chris and Nicole are flying back to
Seattle from a well-deserved break on the beach in Puerto Vallarta, so
let's welcome them home with a new Atlas of Earth Prime PDF: Mexico!
We are pleased to announce that Gadget Guides for Mutants & Masterminds
is now available to pre-order in our Green Ronin Online Store.
Furthermore, when you pre-order the printed book, we'll offer you a
chance to get the PDF right away for just $5 more!
Next week Gadget Guides for Mutants & Masterminds goes up for
pre-order and PDF sale. Gadget Guides compiles the entirety of last
year's series of short PDFs and adds new material to round out the book.
We've put together a preview so you can check out what Gadget Guides
has to offer. You can look over the table of contents, and read samples
of the Inventing and Rituals appendices (both new for this book). Come
back next week when the pre-order goes live!
Today we kick off our next PDF series for Mutants & Masterminds
with Atlas of Earth-Prime: United States of America. This 11-page,
full-color PDF complete with Hero Lab files is available for sale in our
Green Ronin Online Store for just $1.99!
Today the latest Wild Cards SCARE Sheet PDF is available for sale in our Green Ronin Online Store, for just $1.29!
Just in time for the holidays, Steve Kenson has surprised us with Crisis On Christmas, a Third Edition update for this classic Mutants & Masterminds adventure. And best of all, it's free, from us at Green Ronin to all of you.
Today the latest Wild Cards SCARE Sheet PDF is available for sale in our Green Ronin Online Store, for just $1.29!
In less than a century, computers have gone from science fiction
"thinking machines" to ubiquitous elements of everyday life. The
Internet spans the world, opening new frontiers, as well as new
opportunities for criminals and law enforcement alike. This Gadget Guide looks at computers and associated technology, including skills in computer use, programming, and "hacking".
Today the latest Wild Cards SCARE Sheet PDF is available for sale in our Green Ronin Online Store, for just $1.29!
Although many of the gadgets used by comic book characters can be
considered "powers" in their own right, some gadgets are specifically
focused on interacting with super-powers in different ways: enhancing
them, weakening them (or blocking them altogether), or granting them to
those who might not otherwise have them. Gadget Guide: Powers looks at these types of gadgets and how they can affect the powers of characters in your own M&M adventures.
Today the latest Wild Cards SCARE Sheet PDF is available for sale in our Green Ronin Online Store, for just $1.29!
