Audio EXP Podcast: #244 – UK Games Expo postscript

Welcome home.

This is Audio EXP for the 8th of June, and the episode title is “UK Games Expo postscript”

[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #244]

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Ganesha won the RPG Publisher Spotlight this month.

I’ve dropped them an email to request an interview. Here’s the thing. Where in the world do you think Ganesha Games are? Their logo is an elephant god.

They could be American publishers flirting with cultural appropriation or perhaps celebrating Indian roots. Of course, they could also be Indian tabletop game publishers.

As it happens, the footer and copywrite notice at the bottom of their website say they’re in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Yikes. So they surely have more things to consider than a Geek Native interview. Still, we want to help, so we’ll promote them as hard as any RPG Publisher Spotlight winner.

We did get the interview with Calamity Punk Publishing live.

Calamity Punk like modular settings, which you can drop into many worlds. I asked Mike whether there was a fundamental mindset difference between gamers who preferred homebrew and those who preferred published settings.

Which do you prefer?

Mike didn’t think it was so much a mindset issue as it was a level of comfort and time. You can read the full and considered response on the blog.

Since it’s the start of the month voting for the RPG Publisher Spotlight July is open. The candidates are:

• HoloGrounds
• THE OG GM ADVENTURES
• anaislalovi
• Amarillo Design Bureau
• MediaStream Press

There wasn’t a podcast last week, as I was at UK Games Expo.

As it happened, I almost didn’t make it. Let me give you a super quick summary.

I got ill. I got “go home from work early ill and stay in bed all next day” ill. The train to Birmingham and the Expo was due the day after. Luckily, I felt well enough, so got up, checked the timetable to see my train had been cancelled.

Fear not; I hustled to the station and got an earlier one. Made by minutes, but it meant I missed the Do not travel advisory. You see, a train had derailed, and there was travel chaos. Lots of people risked not making it down south and to the Expo.

I got as far as York. That’s a medieval city with great city walls and a great Viking experience. That’s where they threw everyone off my train. The problem this time was the discovery of an unexploded World War 2 bomb near the tracks.

Welcome to Europe. But, after many delays, I made it to Birmingham. As it happens, people traveling from Wales, on entirely different trains and train tracks from me also where told delays and cancelations where due to unecploded World War 2 bombs near the tracks.

Two on one day? It’s possible, but some travellers weren’t convinced. What do you think? Excuses and lies, or is the UK littered with 80-year-old bombs?

I missed the Judges’s Awards at the Expo due to my travel chaos but let’s get back to the news with some highlights from the UK Games Expo 2024 Award winners.

I won’t read the full list.

Best Board Game (American Style)

• Judges’ Award: Redwood by Sit Down!
• People’s Choice: Runescape Kingdoms: Shadows of Elvarg by Steamforged Games.

Best Board Game (European)

• Judges’ Awards: Pampero by APE Games.
• People’s Choice: Windmill Valley by Board & Dice.

Best Board Game (Strategic)

• Judges’ Awards: Cangaceiros by Ares Games/Ergo Ludo Editions.
• Player’s Choice: Voidfall by Mindclash Games.

Best Card Game (General)

• Judges’ Awards: Trio by Cocktail Games.
• People’s Choice: Skullduggery by Cheatwell Games.

Best Miniatures Rules

• Judges’ Awards Mike Hutchinson’s Hobgoblin by Electi Studio.
• People’s Choice: Mike Hutchinson’s Hobgoblin by Electi Studio.

Best Roleplaying Game

• Judges’ Awards: Old Gods of Appalachia by Monte Cook Games.
• People’s Choice: Salvage Union by Leyline Press.

Best Roleplaying Adventure

• Judges’ Award: One-Shot Wonders by Roll & Play Press.
• People’s Choice: One-Shot Wonders by Roll & Play Press.

Best Roleplaying Expansion

• Judges’ Awards: ALIEN RPG Building Better Worlds by Free League Publishing.
• People’s Choice: ALIEN RPG Building Better Worlds by Free League Publishing.

Also, at the Expo, I talked to Nightfall Games about Lillithea.

They’re working on a 5e setting based on and inspired by the works of artist Anne Stokes. The quickstart is on DriveThru already.

A reader asked about Harrowvale, the setting Nightfall had announced in conjunction with Handiwork Games. Sure enough, the Lillithea project is going ahead, and Harrowvale is on hiatus due to logistical challenges. It’s not cancelled, just not going ahead right now.

I also spoke to Three Sails Studios about their non-violent TTRPG Mappa Mundi. The quickstart for that, or the prerelease guide as they call it, is also out.

In Mappa Mundi, players explore a world ravished by ecological change to learn more about monsters and creatures. I think that might help save the world, but I got distracted by the skill trees and art.

However, I think a lot of companies sat on news until UK Games Expo had wrapped. A lot happened this week.

Roll20 has bought Demiplane. The PR for the deal talks about Demiplane as an excellent toolkit for building characters.

I don’t know how much Roll20 paid for Demiplane but I really doubt they needed to buy the tech or the playerbase. Roll20, surely, does chargen well enough, and Demiplane didn’t get into worldbuilding management in the way WorldAnvil does.

The deal prevents Demiplane from buying or building a VTT, though. Perhaps the deal also brings a host of talented programmers.

The deal does not bring Adam Bradford, he of D&D Beyond before moving to Demiplane. The day before the Demiplane news broke, we had the heads up Adam was joining Fantasy Ground. It was enough to speculate about the future of Demiplane.

At Fantasy Grounds, Adam seems to be a bit of a jack of all trades, tasked with growing the membership base and I suspect he’ll do that through product development.

Back in the UK, Steamforged Games bought Warmachine and Iron Kingdoms as awell as Formula P3 from Privateer Press.

I don’t think this leaves Privateer with anything, but the company will work with Steamforged on the range.

It is business as usual for the games with no sweeping changes. Behind the scenes, though, it taps both Warmachine and Iron Kingdoms into Steamforged‘s chunkier distribution chain. Go back just a few years, and you’ll find Privateer Games blogging about how hard they found that.

Also, in the UK, Mantic has bought River Horse. That means The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, Highlander, Pacific Rim, My Little Pony, Hunger Games and even Terminator games are joining Mantic.

We’ll have to see how well Mantic does with the roleplaying games in that roster.

While I was running around the NEC, Bronwen has been busy. It’s my fault too as I suggested she watch Attack on Titan. I can count on my fingers the number of anime episodes watched before so this was dropping her in the deep end.

Fortunately, she swam in the bloody pool that is that gory anime and published some highlights, some lowlights and her top ten characters.

Bronwen’s top three are;

3) Annie Leonhart – one of my favourites
2) Hange Zeo – one of my favourites
1) Armin Arlert – that goodie-goodie sneak

Okay, I suppose it’s kind of clever how the third-wheel slowly and almost secretly grows in importance in the show. But is he Hange cool? Well, he won Bronwen over.

Bronwen also found the latest trailer for Alien: Romulus. It seems to divide readers, who either are into it or see it as more of the same.

One last bit of tech news, also from Bronwen, is that the University of Michigan seems to be using AI with increasing success to decode the language of dogs. What could go wrong?

Now, let’s take a look at the bundles.

In the Bundle of Holding there are two Shadowrun fifth edition deals, not that 5e, and the latest version of the cyberpunk fantasy is the 6th. There are also two bundles for the sci-fi RPG RIFTS, which is a mish-mash of sci-fi and fantasy too.

In Humble, there’s a generous Pathfinder 2e tool deal for Fantasy Grounds. Perhaps the best for last is the Delta Green horror TTRPG deal, with the core rules, from Arc Dream Press.

On that note, beware of plagues of unexploded bombs, and see you next week.