I talk weekly about the convergence of pen-and-paper gaming with the digital game space of video games but today I get to announce a convergence going in the opposite direction.. Green Ronin, publishers of the popular Mutants & Masterminds, True 20 and the current publisher of The Song of Ice and Fire RPG just announced that they will be taking the world of BioWare’s forthcoming Dragon Age: Origins and converting it into a traditional RPG.

Dragon Age, often referred to in hype releases as “the spiritual successor to Baldur’s Gate” (BioWare’s original Fantasy RPG based upon the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms settings), will be getting a “box set” release in the summer meant to introduce both the world of Thedas (Dragon Age’s setting) and the concepts of traditional role playing to video game fans.

“We’re delighted to be working with Green Ronin to explore more of the Dragon Age universe through a pen and paper role-playing game. We’re excited to deliver Dragon Age’s unique dark, heroic fantasy to our audience in a brand new way—a perfect complement to the landmark game we’re launching on PC, Xbox 360, and PLAYSTATION 3 this fall,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, General Manager and CEO, BioWare and General Manager and Vice President, EA. “Our development teams craft rich, deep worlds, and this is an excellent way to expand the franchise.”

This is not the first RPG setting to make the transition from video game to paper – previously Everquest, Diablo, Starcraft and World of Warcraft have gotten a conversion to traditional RPG products at Wizards of the Coast and with White-Wolf’s Sword and Sorcery imprint. While none of those settings are still in active development this is the first time I can recall that an in-development video game property is getting a tabletop treatment before its even been released.

Who knows, maybe if Dragon Age grabs its audience Green Ronin and BioWare can negotiate to bring Mass Effect to pen-and-paper RPGs as well. I’d be first in line for a game based on that setting. Dragon Age feel like more of the same Tolkien derivative fantasy at this point unfortunately. You can read the full details of the press release after the jump.

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Players always want choices. More skills, more powers, more spells, more gear. This is a given in most of gaming – be it traditional tabletop RPGs or MMORPGs like World of Warcraft.

When Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition launched last year, the cries of limits and simplifications roiled through Internet communities and among local gaming stores as fans of the previous game struggled with the changes introduced by Wizards of the Coast. I was one of the masses who noticed that the game by design limited the utility of some classes from previous iterations and introduced a limited number of choices for new players.  Over the last year I’ve begun to understand that what a lot of us were complaining about was a temporary concern if Wizards continued with the business and publication plan they had openly disclosed before the systems introduction.

The plan was simple – get the starting books in the hands of players, old and new and then build in new choices through later books. If someone was satisfied with the core options introduced in the Players Handbook then they need nothing more to enjoy the game. However players and dungeon masters who craved new choices could plug in the later support books like Martial Power to expand class powers, builds and feats or even the later Players Handbooks ( They, like the Monster Manual and Dungeon Masters Guides, will apparently be annual releases with new content ).

The 4th Edition D&D product line has grown at a reasonable rate. New classes introduced in later books maintain the same design style as the initial core offerings but I’m sure that like my players, just about anyone who has played since launch is tired of every Rogue using a Reaping Strike at level 1 or having the game world only apparently populated by two builds of every martial and arcane class.

While Martial Power saw release last year to expand the options of the Players Handbook martial classes – the Fighter, Warlord, Ranger and Rogue – This years addition focuses on the Arcane classes of Dungeons & Dragons like the Warlock, Wizard, Swordmage, Bard and Sorcerer.
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Along with the resurrection of the site.. we’ll be bringing back out regular editorial content as well. To kick off our first weekend back I thought I’d get The Analog Gamer back up and running quickly as well. First out of the box I wanted to take the opportunity to highlight a game I’m sure many of the mainstream RPG players have never heard of – Untold.

I’ll let the following interview with one of the game’s creators explain exactly what Untold is but lets just say this is not your normal pen and paper RPG concept. Click through to the jump to read through my interview with Brannon Hollingsworth, Untold’s co-creator and one of the talented folks from The Wandering Men Studios. You can also find out more about Untold itself on its official website.

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There are only a few more memorable lines spoken in the original Star Wars than when Obi Won refers to the Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine where Luke and he meet up with Han Solo and Chewbacca as a place where:  “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.”

That fateful meeting set the tone for the scoundrel and privateers in the Star Wars setting and introduced us to our first bounty hunter as well (even if he did get blasted by Han.. alas poor Greedo).

Scum and Villainy is the latest book in the outstanding Star Wars SAGA Edition RPG line. Like the place that inspired the films dialog, the book introduces gamers to the seedy side of galactic life in a galaxy far, far away. Lovable rogues, mercenary privateers and less forthright businessmen get their own sourcebook concentrating on making the gray side of Star Wars’ black and white universe not only playable but interesting to set within an entire campaign.

No longer do force wielding Jedi or noble galactic soldiers need to be the sole focus of a Star Wars campaign. Instead players and GMs alike can spend some time wallowing in the mud, making backroom bargains and getting involved in illicit deals with high risk and big rewards.

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“Here, There Be Dragons…” is a phrase you’d expect to hear in a Dungeons and Dragons game, so I guess it’s only fitting that one of the first monster focused books released for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition would center on the iconic creature that is synonymous with the fantasy RPG experience.

The Dragonomicon series of books is not new to Dungeons and Dragons, in fact the two previous titles – a Forgotten Realms oriented dragon manual in the 2nd edition and a more fluffy, conceptual work in 3rd edition set high standards for what fans of dragons and even dungeons might expect from such a tome.

The 4th edition version takes a different tact than its predecessors. Sure there is still a bit of enjoyable fluff: things like the anatomy of dragons is discussed in the book, explanations of how a huge reptilian creature could possibly fly or breathe magical energy like fire or acid – but the book walks the line between a guide to species and a collection of game mechanics fairly well. This volume appears to be the first in a line of Dragonomicons and focuses exclusively on the chromatic varieties of dragon in Dungeons and Dragons.

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I realize its been awhile since the last installment of The Analog Gamer and there have been a few big changes in the tabletop gaming market – Wiz Kids, one time golden goat of the plastic collectible miniature market has been shuttered by its parent company Topps, Wizards of the Coast announced it was making substantial changes to the D&D miniature product line and miniature company Rackham SA (producer of sci-fi battler AT-43) disappeared into the dust.

Things are tough all over but there is some hope on the horizon. Wizkids, the owners of the Shadowrun and Battletech intellectual properties recently signed a two year deal with Catalyst games to continue producing pen-and-paper titles in both series and apparently that will continue even after the death of Wizkids. Also there is a lot of interest from other miniature makers to acquire the HeroClix line and to continue the property at another corporation.

The refocusing of Wizards of the Coast on semi-random miniatures aimed at role playing gamers is a compromise tactic that will hopefully please both the hard core players/collectors of the miniature game and people like myself who are dedicated to the pen-and-paper RPG and prefer the ability to buy the minis we need for our campaigns rather than roll the dice and pray we don’t get too many random packs containing the Farmer and Pig mini or its equivalent.

Amongst all this doom and gloom however I find some respite in my love of the undead (I know that was an odd segue but stay with me…). The recent PC release of Valve’s Left4Dead has my gaming time filled with
hordes of the rampaging undead and with grim news impacting the tabletop hobby its hard not to feel a sense of dread. Read the full article »

One of the reasons I began writing The Analog Gamer months ago was to point out areas where digital and traditional pen-and-paper overlapped. I’ve discussed how video games evolved from boardgames, miniature games and of course the classic D&D style RPG but video games also evolve from big media tie-ins like Star Wars and Batman.

The best form of media convergence for me as a gamer has to be when a video game spawns a good tie in back to either film/TV or traditional gaming because then I can take my favorite universes into my other forms of entertainment.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and the forthcoming Star Wars: Clone Wars are two such examples of games or animation translating across multiple media properties. Is it surprising that it’s George Lucas’s baby that is making this leap? Absolutely not, but the first of these two multimedia launches, the much anticipated The Force Unleashed is now on the streets as a novel, a multi-platform video game, an expansion for the Star Wars miniature game and of course the delayed Star Wars SAGA RPG campaign setting.

Along with the release of the game and the RPG book, it appears Lucas licensee Wizards of the Coast thinks that The Force Unleashed is the perfect gateway dru.. er property to lure gamers into its Star Wars mini’s line as well.

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Cryptic’s chief creative officer Jack Emmert has shared his favorite new games from Gen Con in a new Dev Blog on the official website for Champions Online. As an avid gamer, Emmert describes Gen Con as his “birthday and Christmas all wrapped up into one.”

Emmert found several analog or old school pen and paper and or miniature games; some new and some reinventions of old favorites. He snagged several minis games including Warmachine Legends, Monsterpocalypse and Pulp City. He also found the Jungle Temple from The Miniature Building Authority, a company specialized in producing miniature buildings and terrain for games. He also picked up a few RPGs including White Wolf’s update of its original World of Darkness Hunters source book, Hunter: The Vigil. He also grabbed Witch Hunter: The Invisible World and the latest version of the Wild Cards RPG.

If you can’t get to Gen Con yourself, it’s nice to get an idea of what new products to look for. Get a glimpse of Emmert’s picks and the methods to his madness in Jack’s Gen Con Holiday dev blog.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… no longer ago actually. Before the Rebellion against the Empire, before the emo Darth Vader years, before the Clone Wars and even before George Lucas destroyed the Force with Midi-chlorians there was an age of bold knights and heroes. An age filled with warfare against the honorable yet ruthless Mandalorians and the misguided second Sith empire.

The era that brought Star Wars back to its core fantasy roots in Bioware’s excellent Knights of the Old Republic and the promising (but incomplete) tale of The Sith Lords on the PC and Xbox finally gets the pen and paper treatment in the latest edition of the Star Wars RPG.

The Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide sets the bar high for continued products in Wizards of the Coast’s Star Wars SAGA line by providing an excellent and well constructed overview of the mid-republic era.

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I realize its been a few weeks since the last installment of The Analog Gamer but E3 and this little thing called a vacation got in the way, so this week instead of continuing our analysis of Super heroes since I figure many readers have even forgotten that was the plan I thought I’d do a quick geek out session and talk about the recently released book of trouble for the Star Wars SAGA system – Threats of the Galaxy.

While every RPG seemingly requires a book of monsters and enemies for game runners to use as opponents in their homespun adventures, Threats of the Galaxy has a slightly different approach than what we’ve seen in the past. I credit this difference to the approach players and storytellers have to take with a game like Star Wars. Despite the setting’s fantastic elements it is not quite the “Monty Haul” game that its cousin Dungeons & Dragons is, or at least I don’t think it should be anyway.

D&D seemingly was built to be a kill the monster, save the princess, get “Phat loot” sort of system. Taking the lead of George Lucas’ films and the expanded universe content surrounding them, Star Wars can cover the same ground but when was the last time anyone thought Luke or Han was in it for the +4 Lightsaber or the Biker Scout’s Stomrtooper armor?

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