Table Talk

While we were attending the biggest Flesh and Blood event to date, The Calling in Las Vegas, Fantasy Flight dropped some very significant KeyForge news. Get our full rundown of both, and how those events impact their respective games.

After much deliberation and assessment of the landscape and costs, we've canceled our plans to attend Gen Con this year. But the curiosity only grows stronger - what exactly is Gen Con 2021 going to be like in this environment? And can smaller publishers take advantage?

At the root of some of the hesitancy to jump into a game like Earthborne Rangers or a genre like RPGs (roleplaying games) is a simple question: if you can't win a game, why is it worth playing? And at a certain point, is it even a game? We've seen it pop up a lot lately, so put on your philosophy hats and join us for a deep dive into the point of, well, everything.

Earthborne Rangers has officially launched on Kickstarter, and it is a fascinating change of pace for the platform - certainly when it comes to tabletop games. We hope you'll join us for an equally fascinating (to us, at least!) conversation about vision, systems, and disruption, with Earthborne as the centerpiece.

A beautiful new customizable, cooperative card game launched by the former head of Fantasy Flight Games, Andrew Navaro, is undeniably going to get our attention. Join us for a conversation about Earthborne Rangers, the first from Earthborne Studios, which will hit Kickstarter on July 27.

Follow the project: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/earthbornegames/earthborne-rangers

In a follow up to the previous episode about "old school" organized play, we reflect on another "old school" concept - traveling significant distances to play tabletop games. Between Gen Con and various Flesh and Blood events, it's a joy to rediscover what we so often took for granted - and what we're fortunate enough to do.

Two almost too coincidental announcements happened recently - Magic announced the end of "Pro Magic", including the Pro Tour, while Flesh and Blood announced its new Organized Play structure, which included pathways to its own Pro Tour and World Championship. It's a fascinating moment, and one that may well be formative for the industry when we're looking back in a decade; so let's dive into it.

We originally asked this question in Episode 32 of the cast, when Six Packs Six Weeks was announced for L5R. Now that Arkham Horror has transitioned from 7 SKUs to 2 SKUs, with Investigator and Campaign Expansions, we're back asking the eternal question - what does Living Card Game even mean?

Recent announcements that major publishers - Asmodee, Paizo, Ultra Pro - will not be attending Gen Con 2021 fulfills an assertion from Episode 136 of the cast: breaking habits like convention attendance gives publishers an opportunity to determine what really impacts their bottom line. If sales are unmoved or improved without convention attendance, the logical move is not to return. The upside? A less commercially-centered Gen Con may well be the best Gen Con to date.

During the ongoing research and planning process for our next local store, we've consistently run into paradoxical perspectives about what a store should be (free tables, well-staffed, well-stocked, plentiful events, warehouse pricing) and what is worth paying for (almost nothing). These kinds of paradoxes run up and down the chain, and have for a long time. Is it time to be more realistic?