Welcome home.
This is Audio EXP for September 14th, and the episode title is “The Tabletop Scotland download”
[The following is a transcript of Audio EXP: #253]
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Tin Star Games won the RPG Publisher Spotlight this month.
The interview with Steve Dee, Tin Star’s President, is already live, and he’s known for being very quick at what he does. In the article, we talk a little about future games Five Years After and The World Well.
In the last podcast two weeks ago, I warned that we might skip a week. As you can see, that happened. I was close to recording one last Saturday but ran out of time and energy. Tabletop Scotland is now in Edinburgh, but it’s a two-hour commute each way, and we had some exclusive news to blog.
In fact, I still need to finish writing up all my notes. Oh dear. I better get a wriggle on. However, I can catch you up with what Bronwen, and I discovered and some geeky highlights from the last fortnight.
But first, since we’ve not had a chance to do so yet, let me quickly tell Patreon backers, those awesome people, who they can vote for the next RPG Publisher Spotlight.
Firstly, the bad news about Tabletop Scotland. I have no controversies to report on. I wrote up Folklore in Fantasy RPGs have a seminar on the topic had one white RPG designer play down concerns around cultural appropriation but not the importance of due diligence and cultural appreciation. That’s the most dirt I have for you, although later we can talk about a Gen Con row.
Tabletop Scotland’s new Edinburgh home was a mixed blessing and drew nearly 4,000 people. I’m sure that makes the convention the third biggest in the UK for tabletop games. It’s very close to being the second, although miles behind UK Games Expo. Nicely, UK Games Expo are big supporters of their Scottish little brother which is nice.
Bronwen, who is an experienced reporter, but with scant few RPGs sessions to her name, wrote up Are newbies welcome as a point-of-view from a first-timer and concludes; yes, newbies are welcome. Although, yeah, it’s a little scary at first.
The first bit of new news is that the next Rivers of London RPG supplement will be an adventure called Jimmy’s Last Dance. I got that from the line manager Lynne Hardy, who was fairly sure she hadn’t told anyone else before being pulled away into a meeting and thus preventing me from asking ‘Are you sure?’ an unhelpful number of times. I’ve avoided using the word ‘exclusive’ just in case.
What is exclusive is that Grumpy Gorilla are making a card game version of Rosebyrne Manor.
If you’ve been to tabletop convention in the UK in the last 12 months you’ll likely have seen Grumpy Gorilla sponsoring, though they’re too modest with the lack of sign for their booth, and heard people rave about the board game. I think there’s a handful of copies left you can buy.
It looks incredible and will likely head to Kickstarter for a mass production run. It’s been so successful that a clever card game that allows you to buy booster packs to expand heroes or get new scenarios is on the way. It’ll let you get into the story without needing a whole tabletop of space to play.
Another exclusive was Geek Native’s reveal of Rat Wave Game House’s second edition of Transgender Deathmatch Legend. If you don’t yet have a game about transgender wrestlers in your collection, then this is your chance.
Bronwen, who is a zeeeeeen fan, was delighted to find that Never Mind the Dice Rolls had created the micro-RPG Haggis 11 just for the convention. We’re warned that it might lean too heavily into Scottish tropes, but, hey, we can live with that.
Bronwen also got a demo of Deep Regrets, enough video footage of that to show you how the game looks and that some of the gameplay is about deciding what you want to eat. I think, given the Cthulhu angle, it will be an unsettling fishing game.
Bronwen also wrote up a gameplay review of Peril Planet’s Neon City Overdrive. That’s a Platinum Bestseller on DrivethruRPG and a d6 cyberpunk RPG.
In fact, Bronwen is on a games streak as outside of Tabletop Scotland she reviewed Noble Collection’s official Minecraft Chess Set. I think that’s going to be a popular Christmas gift this year.
Since we’ve left the safe space of Tabletop Scotland, let me rant a bit about the Gen Con drama. Author and Gen Con Writer’s Symposium committee member E.D.E. Bell has blogged that they’re not happy at after being told the sessions went well to find the whole group had been told their time with the convention is over.
I’m moaning a bit because despite all the people being involved being writers all the written posts about the drama are a devil to understand. No one sets out the context clearly, bothers with any background or elaborates on anything that someone curious about what was going on would want to explore.
For example, Bell notes and then moves on from claims of financial mismanagement. No, no, you can’t skip that.
Writer Erik Scott de Bie has dug in, with little success, some backlash and still we don’t get background or clarity. Erik, though, offers a TL;DR after about a dozen paragraphs, insists the drama isn’t about racism or inclusion but about decisions made the writer leadership team.
I’ve tried to dig into it myself and all I got was people with valid concerns about some incidents at Gen Con or some of the writers. I’m just going to note there’s a drama and move on.
Do you know who else has moved on? Greg Tito. He was the PR guru for D&D, and now he’s working in the American government and says it’s good not to be lining the “pockets of a-holes”. As someone said on BlueSky; “Shots fired!”. He was pretty annoyed at Wizards, Hasbro or both.
I’m surprised. You’d think PR people wouldn’t burn bridges.
I’m not surprised that the Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum has closed. It is in the building where TSR once ran. I think it was also once known as the TSR Museum.
I’m not surprised it’s closed because the owners are all part of the nu-TSR drama, a failed and weird legal attack against Wizards of the Coast and a whole host of attacks on gamers who are different from them.
The museum did have some actual donations of D&D memorabilia and I hope they find honest new homes. The building is worth a quarter of a million Dollars, and the last I looked the asking price for the museum was around five million.
Now, speaking of accountancy errors, Geek Native has an exclusive article from Tom Salinsky about how an incorrect assumption from a BBC accountant made Red Dwarf possible in the first place. We have that because Tom’s book Red Dwarf: Discovering the TV Series is out at the end of the month.
Lastly, in bundles and supporting the new Kickstarter from Magpie Games there’s a deal on the ROOT RPG, another revived deal on Liminal and the Skullkickers comic book series.
These are all at the Bundle of Holding, and I note that the Skullkickers deal includes their 5e RPG and adventure. I can’t tell you name of that adventure as I promised Apple there’s no swearing on this podcast.
On that note, don’t kick too many skulls, and see you next week.
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