Gencon Day One: Puppy Rolls, Paizo and Moria

Let the deluge begin! With day one of GenCon in the bag, an enormous amount of news has hit the TTRPG community, from new games to highly anticipated playtests. Take a look!

Greetings from Indianapolis Convention Center! It’s been a busy one, as I had multiple interviews as well as panels to cover. Hopefully you’ll see that become coverage here soon. It’s been a while since I attended a gaming convention, so getting to talk to designers and players is just fun. Lot of things in development that I’m excited to see come to light. Also far too many TTRPG books and board games for my budget. So I have to be picky. Any recommendations you might have would be wonderful.

As for actual news: I published a couple of major stories over at The Fandomentals:

• I had a chance to sit down with Anjali Bhimani to talk about her new project, the “Puppy Roll” as well as her experience as a DM and the future of the South-Asian focused actual-play Desiquest.

• We also covered the Paizo digital keynote, which offered details about the upcoming products that Pathfinder and Starfinder fans can expect in 2024 and 2025 These include the Starfinder 2e Playtest, which is available for purchase. It is also in a nicely priced Humble Bundle for those who want all the books in PDF form. I’ll emphasize that this is a playtest and the official 2e release will not come out until GenCon 2025. But it’s still pretty nice that they published it in a bundle for folks.

In other news:

Free League Publishing launched the Moria expansion of the One Ring TTRPG (in their original rules as well as 5e), which will let players build adventures around the classic mine. The publisher also announced that it will be releasing the Second Edition of the Alien RPG in the fall on Kickstarter, which will expand the established rules and release a new cinematic scenario for players to enjoy.

In indie TTRPG news, Huckleberry RPG, a “Wyrd West roleplaying game” went into early access today. The game is published by Steven of Adventures in Lollygagging. I got to sit down with Steven and talk about the new game about a week ago, so expect a published interview here soon.

Magpie Games is publishing an RPG based on the Fallen London setting, a darker look at the English city based on an old browser-based RPG. Most might know it for its role as the source material for Sunless Seas and Sunless Skies, two roguelike resource management exploration games with delightful vibes. Rascal News has the scoop.

The 2024 Player’s Handbook had its review embargo end today, which means everyone in the industry is publishing their takes. And the takes so far are pretty good. EN World has a collection of reviews already published for you to peruse if you’re inclined. I’ve not gotten a copy myself, but I might try for a lotto spot if I have time at GenCon this week. Otherwise I’m happy waiting until the formal release to get my copy.

But that’s all for today! If I missed any stories, let me know! Otherwise I’ll be back on the floor tomorrow for panels, interviews and hopefully demos if I can find the time. I’m especially eager to get my hands on the Stormlight RPG, which I heard the publisher is demo-ing at the con this week.

Enjoy this picture of a balloon gnome I saw on the con floor.