RPThese stories have been rounded up from all over the internet but many of them come from GamingReport which, as a partner site, remains GameWyrd’s number one choice for industry news. Direct quotes from GamingReport appear in blue text.
- Topics
- New Dragonlance novels and RPG.
- … and will Vin Diesel star in a Dragonlance movie?
- Buffy RPG released; season 7 fine. Lord of the Rings RPG released; movies fine. Farscape RPG released; series cancelled.
- Wizards cut 115 jobs
- … Cheapass Games cut 2 jobs (and hire a cardboard monkey)
- Dragon #300’s “vile content” causes stir
- 70,000 Jedi Knights annoy government
Dragonlance movie
Back in August Margaret Weis announced that a Dragonlance movie was being optioned. This doesn’t mean that there will be a Dragonlance movie but that people in Hollywood are thinking about it.
Further back in July we discovered that Vin Diesel, already a talking point and before his current xXx movie, was an avid D&D fan and might have a secret fantasy movie project. Quoted (without permission) below is a short article from FilmForce (but there’s a link back so they shouldn’t mind).
[There’s something about Dungeons and Dragons.]
July 29, 2002 – I guess you could file this update under: Something Steve Considered Interesting, So He Thought He’d Share It. The deal is, I was at Barnes & Noble earlier today, on a mission to find a copy of Joe David Brown’s Paper Moon, the one with the new introduction by Peter Bogdonovich. Unfortunately they didn’t have the book. But while there I bought the August 2002 issue of GQ, which features Vin Diesel on the cover. Now, from Diesel’s interview, here’s one thing I hadn’t expected to read: “Vin Diesel is a Dungeons & Dragons aficionado.” I had to re-read that a couple times just to make sure it said what I thought it said; a reading-double-take, if you will. Okay… I’m banishing impressions. The soon-to-be-a-mega-action-star speaks our language.Being that Diesel is into D&D, the first part of the interview takes place at the Wizards of the Coast hobby shop at the Beverly Center mall in Los Angeles. Author John Brodie writes, “the movie star strolled into a Wizards of the Coast hobby shop [and] started reading a spell-casting manual.” Brodie also notes that Diesel started playing D&D when he was twelve, when a friend’s mother started Sunday-night games and he was invited to attend.
“So, how’s your campaign going?” Diesel asks a 23-year-old gamer in the store. They discuss the guy’s campaign, and the guy then invites Diesel to participate in an upcoming round, saying, “My buddies will never believe Vin Diesel is into D&D.” Diesel declines the invitation, but he autographs the guy’s new D&D manual and says, “Bring that to your campaign.” And leaving the mall, Diesel and his childhood friend and Dungeon Master, Marcus Abularach, discuss the issues relating to the guy’s hybrid character; a half man, half orc.
Now, here’s the part that’s even more interesting: While Diesel was in the store he purchased around $800 worth of D&D paraphernalia. His reason for doing this, Diesel tells Brodie: research. Research for something he calls, “One of my secret projects.” It’s this project that Abularach has come to L.A. to write.
Chalk up another “Untitled Vin Diesel Project,” something with a heavy fantasy genre slant.
New Dragonlance novels
More recently Gaming Report published a press release from Wizards of the Coast that explained the agreement between WoTC and Dragonlance Publisher’s Sovereign Press. There will be three new Dragonlance novels and a new d20 Dragonlance RPG.
[Posted 2002-09-18] Under the terms of the deal, Wizards of the Coast will publish a trilogy of Dragonlance novels written by Margaret Weis and Don Perrin. The trilogy will be set in Taladas, a continent on the Dragonlance world that has never before been explored in Dragonlance novels. Additionally, Sovereign Press will write and distribute Dragonlance roleplaying game (RPG) accessories that follow up on the publication and release of the Dragonlance Campaign Setting scheduled for release in Summer 2003.
The full press release can be found here.
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