The studio behind unexpectedly decent Mickey Mouse life sim Disney Dreamlight Valley are venturing into another fantasy land where anthropomorphic animals adventure with human chums, the Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons & Dungeons. Today Gameloft announced they're making a D&D game offering a "hybrid of survival, life simulation and action RPG". They don't have much more to share about the game, not even a name, so presumably it won't be out for some time. Whatever it might be, it's headed to PC and consoles.
]]>A Dungeons & Dragons TV series has been greenlit by Paramount+. The streaming service have given the project an eight-episode order, with Rawson Marshall Thurber, the writer and director of Netflix's Red Notice, to write and direct the first episode.
]]>In a bizarre turn of events, it seems that Hidden Path's unannounced Dungeons & Dragons game is alive and well, after recent reports it had been cancelled. Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that D&D owner Wizards Of The Coast had cancelled five unannounced projects, naming Otherside Entertainment and Hidden Path as two of the studios affected. In a Twitter post last night, Hidden Path emphasised "Our epic D&D project with Wizards is still happening!"; Bloomberg, meanwhile, stand by their reporting.
]]>While the next Destiny 2 expansion is looming on the horizon, hissing curses and weaving lies, you can continue your adventures so far beyond Bungie's official telling in a pen & paper adaptation. Fans have turned the MMOFPS into a tabletop RPG, building on the rules of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition to create Dungeons & Destiny. It's free, it just released a new version, and it's jolly impressive.
]]>Upcoming Forgotten Realms romp Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is venuring forth before this month is over with, so developers Tuque Games have been giving a closer look at its combat and characters. A longer combat trailer posted today gives a rather action-packed look at each character's many special abilities and slice-y, dice-y combos. I'm always well up for an action RPG, especially with co-op, which the trailer has plenty of as well.
]]>When developers Tuque Games first announced Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance, they said it wouldn't have local co-op. Imagine! No local co-op in a spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance series, which, honestly, didn't have much beyond excellent local co-op. It seems the devs have listened to us fans of the old hack and slash RPGs however, as they now plan on adding two-player split-screen in a free content update this summer, after the game has launched.
]]>You ever just wanna mash your tabletop right into your computer? You're having a delightful session of Dungeons & Dragons, but man, you wish you could just watch it virtually rather than have to make up all these call images in your brain. If that's the case, D&D-based RPG Solasta: Crown Of The Magister might be the game for you. Developed by Tactical Adventures, it left early access today, and invites players into a fantasy world based on the D&D 5e ruleset.
]]>Wizards Of The Coast have announced the new third-person RPG Dungeons & Dragons: Dark Alliance is coming out on June 22nd, and I couldn't be more excited. It's a spiritual successor to the old Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance games that first launched on the PlayStation 2 way back in 2001. The new Dark Alliance seems to be doing it's own thing away from those oldies though, with a chilly new setting and a new story to boot - but some of the characters will likely be familiar.
]]>Yer local RPG-watcher's here to report some more RPG goings-on. This time it's a new look at the character creator and combat in upcoming Solasta: Crown Of The Magister. I don't know how the rest of the hairstyles hold up, but those beards are seriously luscious. Outside the character sheet, Solasta also shows off another look at its very vertical combat encounters in this new trailer.
]]>Well, there went two hours of my life in a haze of clicking, fountains of gold coin graphics and repeat, fleeting senses of achievement that were immediately eradicated by desire for the next achievement. "I'll just have a quick look at this official, free to play Dungeons & Dragons clicker game", I thought when I saw an announcement that Idle Champions Of The Forgotten Realms (download via Steam here) is offering some free DLC for the next couple of days, "then I can bash out a quick news piece on it and get back to my day."
Somehow I forgot two very important things: 1) even all these years on from Baldur's Gate, I remain a sucker for anything Forgotten Realms b) if I start playing a clicker, aka idle game, I am DOOMED.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time.
I was a quintessential 90s nerd. I went through the phases so many of us did: Games Workshop, Star Wars, X-Men, Street Fighter II, Robocop, Terminator and Aliens, and of course Dragonlance. Thanks to a series of hugely successful novels, the Dragonlance/Krynn world emerged as the most popular Advanced Dungeons & Dragons setting for a time, seeming so much more layered, characterful and dangerous than the comparatively blander Forgotten Realms. I read the books first, played the pen & paper RPG second, then finally sought out videogame adaptations from years previous.
]]>Dark Sun. Ravenloft. Krynn. All Dungeons & Dragons worlds, and all names I know so well from roleplaying games I never played. In my earliest years of PC gaming, I was limited to games I could beg, borrow or steal from classmates, but I pored through enough magazines to be aware of what was out there and what I didn't have. I can see the Dark Sun advertisement in my mind even today - and my eyes haven't seen it for at least 20 years. Lavish, lurid art suggesting fantastical, impossible adventures; adventures I could not have. I read the news that Dark Sun - plus the equally alluring, gothic-themed Ravenloft and the Dragonlance-set Krynn series - is now available digitally (via GOG) for the first time, and I genuinely started as memories of old hunger surged into my forebrain. "It's there. Now it's possible. A missing piece of my own history."
]]>Youths, I know you do so enjoy disrespecting your elders, lingering outside the bowls club drinking Four Loko and 'ironically' listening to Barry Manilow. You can now up your rebellion by playing some of the ancient RPGs that fogies swear are better than games you herberts enjoy, then use that experience as inspiration for cutting subtweets.
Fogies, weren't things better back in the day? As the saying goes, you can't spell "progress" without "regress" if you've lost your glasses and your memory's going. Relax. From today, you can easily revisit The Golden Age of RPGs. GOG have dug up thirteen old Dungeons & Dragons RPGs in the Forgotten Realms setting, you see.
]]>Sword Coast Legends [official site] was one of my favourite experiences at E3. In a little booth off the main show floor, the developers are demo-ing their D&D game's dungeon master mode. I've only recently dipped a toe into D&D with a tabletop campaign but it's been excellent fun so far and I was curious as to how the mode would measure up.
]]>Luskan! City of... of... well, mostly pirates as far as I know. But also, as evidenced in this new gameplay footage from Sword Coast Legends [official site], city of thieves, skeletons, zombies and other stock D&D nasties.
There's also a zombie ogre in there, as if regular ogres weren't already possessed of disgustingly low standards of hygiene.
]]>Hello youse.
Running a live session of D&D Fifth Edition is far easier than you'd think. First of all, you need an audience of nice people – we have plenty of those in Glasgow. Then you need some good, funny players. I had those too, all of them friends of mine, all of them involved in the TV comedy game in some capacity. Then you need Dungeons & Dragons itself. I had the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual behind my DM screen. Oh, and I also had the new Dungeon Master's Screen.
]]>Hello youse.
Where would we be without Dungeons & Dragons? A few days ago I ran a live session of 5th Edition D&D at Glasgow Film Festival, and it was a really fun experience. I'll be talking about that session in some detail next week when I review 5th Edition itself, but let's spend this week just reminiscing about Dungeons & Dragons, and thinking about everything that Dungeons & Dragons means to people like us.
And by “people like us” I mean people who like Dungeons. And Dragons.
]]>Brawls! Ghouls! Fifth Edition rules! Oh, what a lively place that Sword Coast is! So vibrant. It's got real character. Of course, in a few years it'll be filled with brunch venues, bars that are also vintage clothes shops, market stalls selling £4 scotch eggs, and young people. Get in while you can, before people like you change it forever. Perhaps take a visit in Sword Coast Legends [official site].
Announced last night, it's a Dungeons & Dragons RPG set in that corner of the Forgotten Realms so popular with games like Baldur's Gate. It'll support co-op for up to four adventurers, and let another play as Dungeon Master too.
]]>The RPS gang have been playing with dice. Our Dungeons & Dragons campaign (DM'd by Jim) has been slaying goblins and exploring sinister caves for a few months now, so we thought we'd have a chat about it, and consider how it reflected on our many years of playing videogames.
]]>Not 100% relevant to PC gaming, but 1) D&D's rules have been enormously influential on computer RPGs 2) whatever the new edition ends up doing will almost certainly filter down to a PC game or six at some point 3) your mum.
Wizards of the Coast are taking another pass at Dungeons & Dragons, after the recent fourth edition rules proved more than a little divisive. Divisive = MASSIVE RAGEFEST, of course. On top of that, WOTC reckon vidjagames are taking an increasingly deadly bite out of their side. So, they want to get D&D back on track - and they're actively looking for the community's input to do so. Is that you? Ooh, probably.
]]>Not strictly PC gaming, but it's nevertheless fascinating. It shows Carnegie Mellon's proof of concept application for running a D&D game on Microsoft Surface and, well, that zoomable fantasy world map is about the most alluring piece of nerd-kit I have ever seen. I mean, I love maps at the worst of times, but that is simple too much. What's even more interesting about it is the way that in terms of interaction, it hybridises boardgame conceits - maps, dice, and physical surfaces - with videogame processes - having menus and automated computation. Pen and paper games become "screen 'n' finger" games?
]]>It has been sad times for proto-gaming of late. We lost Gary Gygax a mere 13 months ago, and, unbelievably, his Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Dave Arneson has now passed away too. The great man died on Tuesday, aged just 61.
]]>Update - confirmations now trickling in from across the web.
]]>It's been a few years since I've been an avid Pen & Paper Tabletop roleplayer. Like - say- about sixteen or so. However, I've dabbled sporadically ever since and have tried to keep an occasional eye on the hobby, if only for old time's sake. So I was aware that Wizards of the Coast had announced they were releasing a fourth edition of the D&D rules next year.
It wasn't until someone who'd been following it a little closer talked to me about it last week that I realised it actually was something genuinely radical. Buried between the announcements of Swords Versus Scarabs +3 now being +4 and kobolds being pink rather than whatever colour kobolds are, Wizards have done something interesting and relevant to RPS.
They've turned it into a PC game.
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