Green Ronin Publishing

[EDIT: Sorry! Time's up!]

As it happens, Free RPG Day falls on my birthday this year. Don't worry, you don't have to get me anything! Your continued support of Green Ronin is the best gift I could ask for. Instead, I'd like to give something to you. For the full 24 hours of June 15, you can download a bundle of free Mutants & Masterminds goodness. It includes the M&M Hero's Handbook, the 10 pre-generated characters of the Sentinels, and Chapter 0 of the Emerald City Knights adventure series. If you've ever been curious about Mutants & Masterminds, now is your chance to check it out!

Chris Pramas

Free RPG Day 2013 Bundle

[Note: It's a special double-header Friday for Ronin Round Table. Here's another post, from Steve Kenson, live at Origins in Columbus, OH!]

By the time you read this Ronin Roundtable, I should be attending the Origins Game Fair in downtown Columbus, OH, as a guest of honor, since the convention's theme this year is "Superheroes" (if they don't find a way to work the phrase "Secret Origins" into it, that's an opportunity lost, if you ask me). So, I figured I'd take the opportunity to talk a bit about Origins and my experiences with it, as both a fan and game industry professional.

Continue reading "Ronin Round Table: Not-So-Secret Origins" »

I've been gaming since I was three years old.

My parents were firm believers in games as a family pastime. We played kids' games like Hi-Ho Cherry-O, Ropes and Ladders, and Candyland as soon as I was old enough, then graduated to things like rummy, Monopoly, and Clue as my reading skills and attention span developed.

Continue reading "Ronin Round Table : Gaming: It's In The Blood " »

Along with weapons, armor and protective gear are some of the first tools and technologies. Heroes lacking invulnerability, intangibility, or superhuman speed may rely on armor and other protective gadgets to survive the dangers of their heroics, and some make armor their primary theme. This Guide looks at all types of protective gadgets, from armor and shields to goggles and gas masks. For M&M Third Edition.

Mutants & Masterminds Gadget Guide: Armor

By Jack Norris, Dragon Age RPG Line Developer

As will surprise probably nobody, I've been thinking a lot about adapting licensed media and non-RPG settings in general to games. Specifically, I've been considering the challenges each type of media presents when adapting it for a roleplaying game. So I figured I'd use today's Ronin Round Table to share those thoughts and maybe give some insight into the strange and wonderful world of adapting licensed properties to tabletop RPGs.

Continue reading "Ronin Round Table: Math, the Silent Killer or Zen and the Art of Licensed RPGs" »

The sixth Wild Cards SCARE Sheet PDF is now available for sale in our Green Ronin Online Store, for just 99 cents!

When it comes to the ace known as "The Amazing Bubbles," looks can be deceiving. For example, you wouldn't know that she's one of the most powerful aces in the world, or that she is actually a former supermodel before becoming a contestant on American Hero. Check out this SCARE Sheet and find out the other secrets of … The Amazing Bubbles! (For Mutants & Masterminds Third Edition.)

Wild Cards SCARE Sheet 6: The Amazing Bubbles (PDF)

Green Ronin Freebooter Game Demo Program

The Green Ronin team is happy to announce we're launching our volunteer GM team, aka The Freebooter Program. We're especially excited to offer this for our players, and we hope that many will step up to the challenge.

We believe there are many amazing Green Ronin games being run, and we believe our players would love to find more people to play them. The Freebooter Program is a great way to get more games in conventions and games stores. By joining the program, you'll be able to share your favorite settings with brand new people, and help build a better community.

Many companies require you to partner with a particular store, but we've decided not to go that route. We want people in our program to run the games that fit in their schedule and locations. As example, in Seattle, we're lucky enough to have game stores & cafes support each other. Many local players run games in pubs, coffee houses, and more. Want to run an open "Green Ronin RPG Day" at a coffee shop instead of a games store? We want to support that!

Of course, this doesn't mean move your regular game to a coffee house to earn XP in our program. We hope that you'll be setting up demos for new people! We also want to support players who wish to do both small and large conventions. We're already planning on having quite a few volunteer run games at Gen Con. Heck; I'm running five Dragon Age RPG intro games at Gen Con! Obviously, you don't have to run that many. We do want you to experience the whole show. That being said, we would like to give you XP rewards for a higher commitment. Yep, I said XP. That's how we'll calculate rewards. No ranks are involved; everyone is equally important.

It was also important for us to establish a Harassment Policy and standards of behavior while representing Green Ronin. We're pretty clear about fostering an inclusive community, no matter where we go. This is why we require you to fill out an application to join. If you're wearing a Freebooter T-shirt representing us at an event, we want you to feel comfortable. We also want people to feel comfortable when they are interacting with a Freebooter.

If you're interested in knowing more of the program, or signing right up, you can read a quick overview here on our site. Once you've read that and want to join, you'll head to the Freebooter Forum for the application and further information.

I'm extremely excited about this program. I've been a fan of Green Ronin and the staff, for far longer than I've been an employee. I believe in this company, the community, and the program.

Game on!

Donna Prior

NEWS

For Immediate Release

Contact: Chris Pramas
pramas@greenronin.com

GEORGE R.R. MARTIN AND GREEN RONIN TEAM UP AGAIN

Popular Characters from the Wild Cards Novels Are Now Available for the Mutants & Masterminds Roleplaying Game

SEATTLE May 22, 2013 — Green Ronin Publishing, in cooperation with George R.R. Martin, the long-time editor, and John Jos. Miller, one of the "Wild Card Consortium" of authors, is producing a new twice monthly series called SCARE Sheets for the Mutants & Masterminds superhero roleplaying game. The PDFs of this new series spotlight the characters of the Wild Cards "Committee Triad" of books: Inside Straight, Busted Flush, and Suicide Kings.

Each entry in the series is formatted as a profile from SCARE: The governmental organization in charge of wild cards in the alternate United States of the books. The series covers members of the Committee, their various adversaries, and neutral or unaligned parties.

The original Wild Cards sourcebook for the second edition of Mutants & Masterminds covered the classic series of books. Now SCARE Sheets offers the opportunity to cover wild cards from the new books, as well as updating the setting for the third edition of M&M (also used in the DC Adventures RPG).

"The first thing we did was release a free preview with conversion notes for the third edition," says M&M Developer Jon Leitheusser. "You can get a sense there how easy it is to use previous edition material with the current game." A new SCARE Sheet is released every two weeks, alternating with the new Gadget Guides series for M&M.

Like the Wild Cards sourcebook, primary writing on the SCARE Sheets is the work of John Jos. Miller, long-time creator and contributor to the Wild Cards series. Mutants & Masterminds designer Steve Kenson provides the game information and notes that go with each profile.

"The Wild Cards universe is complex and always changing," Miller commented, "so much so that even the authors sometimes have trouble keeping up with developments. I wrote these SCARE Sheets so that the writers themselves, fans of the series, and gamers would all find them useful and entertaining."

"I initially wondered how the game system would handle some of the more novel Committee characters," Kenson says, "but, in the end, it was fairly easy working out the game stats for each one within the parameters we set for the series. They really offer a different take on super-powers and ways you can use the M&M system for some non-traditional settings outside of the four-color comics."

SCARE Sheets is planned for a 22 installment run. If the series does well, it may lead to additional Wild Cards support for the game. There are currently six SCARE Sheets available, including two free PDFs. The first includes information on the Committee and the second is the newest SCARE Sheet featuring Drummer Boy, the rock star joker-ace who first appeared in Inside Straight.

Wild Cards SCARE Sheets

The fifth Wild Cards SCARE Sheet PDF is now available in our Green Ronin Online Store, for free!

The punk band Joker Plague has the world's most unique set of drums: the joker-ace "Drummer Boy" who can play himself! Eight feet tall, six arms, and sonic membranes in his chest...if he's going to get noticed regardless, then Drummer Boy is going to rock! (For Mutants & Masterminds Third Edition.)

Wild Cards SCARE Sheet 5: Drummer Boy (PDF)

Following up on this week's A Blog of Games entry, we've got Woodland Creatures, a bestiary for the Chronicle System, the rules that power A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying. This 33-page PDF features animals, beasts, horrors, and legends your characters can encounter in wilderness areas in a homegrown setting utilizing the Chronicle System, or in a Westeros that diverges from the accepted canon. Please keep an eye out for new Chronicle System products!

Chronicle System: Woodland Creatures (PDF)