Non-Faerun Video Game, D&D Lego style, TTRPG TV Guide - TTRPG News 4/4/2024

It's the end of another week, and that means it's time for tabletop RPG news! As always, StartPlaying is here to sum up the biggest happenings in tabletop so you can get back to rolling dice. This week, Hasbro invested in a video game multiverse for Dungeons & Dragons, LEGO got brutal, Free League scored another win, and TTRPG streams got their own TV Guide. Let’s dive in. 

Hasbro & WotC Put Almost $1 Billion Into D&D Video Games, Not Just Faerun

It was inevitable after the massive success of Baldur’s Gate 3: both Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast are investing nearly $1 billion into video games. Many different studios have been brought in to work on various Hasbro properties like G.I. Joe, but D&D is getting a lot of the focus. No titles or dates were announced, but the GameSpot interview diving into the initiative dropped some interesting tidbits. The big one is that at least one game not set in Faerun is in development. No specific names were dropped, but it does show that both companies are interested in exploring outside the usual trappings of D&D. 

Free League Gets Another Kickstarter Win With Coriolis: The Great Dark

Free League Publishing smashed its goals for Coriolis: The Great Dark, reaching over $500,000 of its around $25,000 Kickstarter goal. The game is a follow-up to Coriolis: The Third Horizon but can also be played on its own. This great showing of support means two things for the TTRPG industry. For one, there is still great interest in new TTRPGs despite recent data that hobby sales are down. It also shows that Free League has proven itself a reliable publisher thanks to its growing library of solid releases such as Alien, The Walking Dead, and Dragonbane.

D&D's Lego Adventure Can Be Played Without D&D

LEGO and D&D are releasing a huge buildable set featuring an inn, tavern, and dragon, and there’s a playable adventure to go along with it. The adventure, Red Dragon’s Tale, is now available to download on D&D Beyond. It’s a fairly standard romp through the greatest hits of D&D accompanied by the trademark LEGO silliness. One element of note is that it contains guidelines for playing without D&D rules. Damage is streamlined into single-digit numbers and characters simply lose items if they fall prey to certain effects. It makes sense for a kid-friendly approach, but is also surprising as Red Dragon’s Tale was designed by WotC’s own Chris Perkins. 

TTRPG TV Guide Is A Thing Now

There’s a TTRPG TV Guide and it’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like: a free public calendar telling you what TTRPG-related programs are airing on a given day. It’s not related to the TV Guide brand, but is instead the idea of Armaan Babu and Poorna M. of Weave Games. They believe in supporting free resources for members of this niche hobby, and go into the goals behind their creation in this Rascal News piece.

That brings this week to a close! Enjoy your games this weekend, and may your dice be kind.