News and Advice

Chaosium is Under New Management (Again):
Moon Design is now part of Chaosium’s ownership group. Moon Design acquired the rights to Glorantha and the game systems RuneQuest and HeroQuest in 2013. This also prompted a change in leadership within Chaosium, “The four principals of Moon Design are the new management team of Chaosium. The new officers of the company are Rick Meints, President and Secretary; Jeff Richard, Vice President and Creative Director; Michael O’Brien, Vice President – Product Development & Community Outreach; and Neil Robinson, Chief Financial Officer.” This announcement also brought new hope in terms of receiving Call of Cthulhu 7e, it is on it’s way to the printers and should be available for Halloween 2015. Moon Design has had previous experience with Kickstarters and should be able to help get CoC 7e back on track.

Strange Aeons: A Lovecraftian Pathfinder AP: 
Pathfinder has finally joined in on adding the Mythos to their game. This adventure path will be released next August, and feature Mythos monsters. Unlike most Lovecraftian RPGs, like Call of Cthulhu, this will not be investigation based, focused more on killing the horrors. There will be insanity rules and a Corruption system. Wes Schneider is writing the first module, so it should be pretty interesting. I’m curious to pick this up, a huge part of Lovecraftian horror is that it’s inexplicable, so turning it into a monster hunt seems to miss the point. However, I trust Paizo enough to give it a chance!

Another Dungeons and Dragons Movie:
Warner Bros. and Hasbro have announced they will be making a Dungeons and Dragons movie. They already have a script by David Leslie Johnson, who wrote “The Conjuring 2” and “Wrath of the Titans.” Stephen Davis said, “This is such an enormous opportunity to bring the rich fantasy setting of the Forgotten Realms to life and, together with the creative powerhouse of Warner Bros., use movies to tell the stories that have enchanted passionate D&D fans for decades. D&D is the role-playing game that started it all and now we have the opportunity to ignite a franchise for its legions of avid fans in a way never done before.” I’m not holding my breath, every D&D movie I’ve seen has been not good, and what is great about RPGs is telling your own story.

Gen Con has record Attendance:
Gen Con attendance went up another 9%, making this the 6th year of growth for the convention. 61,423 people attended and there were over 400 vendors. I imagine it will only continue to climb, and I can’t wait to go next year.

Congratulations to Ennie Winners!:
Several TRF favorites won Ennies this year, including Horror on the Orient Express, The Strange, Numenera, Miskatonic University, and Roll20! Congratulations to everyone and thank you for putting out so much wonderful material for us to enjoy!