Issue #011: Fireworks and Dice

I hope all of my American readers had a lovely Fourth of July! There was no big piece today because of the holiday, but it seems there were quite a few news nuggets to dig through! So here’s a short series of news bits to look into.

A quick personal promotion: I got to preview the new Quests from the Infinite Staircase collection of adventures. Check it out here at The Fandomentals!

Game Deals

1. YET ANOTHER D&D Sale on DnDBeyond and other websites, with up to 40% off. I suspect we’ll see more of these in the coming days.

2. The Queer Games Bundle 2024 is available on Itch.io and offers 489 video games, TTRPGs, solo journaling games, music, fiction assets and more. It’s a hodgepodge of indie content but if you’re into that you might find something you don’t own yet.

3. If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan who ever wanted to learn more or do more in the Mines of Moria, Free League intends to release an expansion for its LOTR RPG in August all about it! Preorder it today!

4. Phantasy Star, an old-school sci-fi video game, is getting its own TTRPG! Published by Skydawn Games, there appear to be plans to reveal more in mid-August. So stay tuned.

THIS WEEK IN TTRPGS:

• It’s KRAKEN WEEK. Youtube creators PointyHat and Ginny Di teamed up with over 50 Youtube creators to make their own version of ‘Shark Week’ and offer a bunch of sea-themed content for RPG tables. It’s an interesting project and worth a look if you have time. If you need oneshots, homebrew classes and races, story ideas or new rules, there’s all sorts of options here!

• Hydro74, the freelancer who creates all of the alternate D&D covers, has announced that he will no longer create alternate covers for D&D books after Vecna: Eve of Ruin.

• Roll20 reported a data breach on June 29. It discovered “unauthorized access” to an administrative breach and claims it cut access fairly quickly. The company claims that it has no reason to believe a user’s personal information could have been stolen, but alerted users regardless.

• Wizards has released a number of new videos detailing the new expansion, from warlocks to rangers to druids. It also added several spells that were previously only available in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.

• The Crit Awards have released a lengthier statement detailing what went wrong with their decision to cancel the in-person event at Gencon, which at least makes it appear that the awards chose to leave. However, this hasn’t stopped many creators from threatening boycotts and pulling out of panels and events.

• Wizards appears to be embracing a DLC approach to the new books, where players will get additional digital bonuses depending on if they preorder the new D&D books. Not a particularly shocking decision, but it does spark questions about how Wizards will attempt to make money off of them.