Gen Con 2023 Update – Witcher, Cyberpunk RED, and more!

Good morning, friends! J Gray, Media Ambassador for R. Talsorian Games here! As is our tradition, we made several announcements about the present and future of the company and our games at Gen Con this year. Normally, we try to post the announcement on our website as soon after the con as possible, but we ran into a new tradition this year – illness right after Gen Con. As a result, we’re behind schedule, and we beg your pardon for all delays in communication. We’ve got a lot to cover in this blog post so let’s jump right to it.

Danger Gal Dossier

We’ve three announcements regarding Danger Gal Dossier. 

• First, it is out and available! By this point, it should be worming its way through distribution to reach stores in the United States. International stores will take longer (and we can’t say how long since such is more up to the distribution network than us). It is available via Bits and Mortar, so if your store takes pre-orders and is part of the program, they should be able to provide you with the PDF right away if such is their policy.
• Second, Danger Gal Dossier went on sale via our webstore during Gen Con, but there was a delay in shipping the books out. It took us a while to pin down the problem but it turns out to have been a miscommunication where the bulk order side of our warehousers business (which handle retail and distribution orders) and the direct order side (which handles orders from our webstore) didn’t communicate properly so the direct order side didn’t know the book was available. We’re taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again and, by this point, people should be receiving their orders.
• Finally, we announced a Danger Gal Dossier Roll20 VTT + PDF bundle on DriveThruRPG before it went live. That’s fixed now. Our apologies for putting the cart before the cyberhorse. 

The Future of The Witcher TTRPG

We have a bittersweet announcement about The Witcher TTRPG. Cody’s asked me to pass on his words on the subject.

“Greetings to the many denizens of The Continent! It was wonderful to see some of you at Gen Con. I hope your travels have been safe and your hearth has been warm. It’s been a while since I gave an update on the state of The Witcher TTRPG, but that’s because things have been pretty complicated behind the scenes. Today, I have some complicated news that will probably be disappointing to many of you, but I hope you’ll stick with me.

“Over the last year or two, we’ve been working on a lot of different projects for The Witcher TTRPG. There was Rodolf’s Guides and then a mysterious new project that we didn’t really get to talk about. Unfortunately, these projects have had to be put on hold temporarily.

“Over the years, our collaboration with our licensors at CD Projekt Red has gotten closer and closer. As much as possible, we’re working together to create a unified world that you can all experience both in the video game space and on the tabletop. But this isn’t a small task, and it has its problems.

“As CD Projekt Red begins work on the fourth Witcher video game we’ve been collaborating to make sure that the information between our two products stays as connected as possible. We’ve had countless meetings covering days’ worth of time discussing the lore of The Continent and the direction of the Witcher franchise. What we’ve come to realize is that it would be extremely difficult or perhaps impossible to continue work on The Witcher TTRPG line at the moment and still maintain the connection with CD Projekt Red’s upcoming plans. So, to make sure that you all get the best products possible with the most consistency possible, we are putting development of the Witcher line on hold until future plans are more solid.

“The Witcher TTRPG line is not dead, and we have many plans for it when things are more solidified, but we don’t feel that we can move forward at the moment in a way that will produce books of quality as part of the broader Witcher canon.

“We will be looking at compiling some DLC material based on pre-existing concepts that will not be changing, but I don’t want to promise anything until I’m certain of it.

“I know this will be incredibly disappointing news for many of you, but I want to give you the best products we possibly can. We’re proud of the work we’ve done on The Witcher TTRPG, and the lore we’ve helped add to the canon, and want to do nothing less than the best we can for you and for ourselves.

“Thank you for your support, your understanding, and your patience.”

Cyberpunk RED Announcements

Here’s what we said about Cyberpunk RED while at Gen Con. Note, we are not at this time announcing release windows for any product.

• We’re still working on the Cyberpunk Edgerunners Mission Kit. This will be a stand-alone box set, similar to the Cyberpunk RED Jumpstart Kit, allowing you to play in the time of Cyberpunk Edgerunners/Cyberpunk 2077. It will feature rules you can import into your Cyberpunk RED game as well, though obviously, it won’t cover every aspect of the 2077 era. We’re particularly excited to announce the pregenerated characters will be designed by Hiroyuki Imaishi, director of Cyberpunk Edgerunners, himself! 
• The next book in the Cyberpunk RED line will be Tales of the RED: Forlorn Hope. This will be a six-mission campaign tied around securing the future of the Forlorn Hope, a beloved Edgerunner bar from the Cyberpunk 2020 era. The writers on this project (in addition to our in-house staff) are Eddy Webb (Pugmire), Chris Spivey (Haunted West), Linda Evans (Danger Gal Dossier), Tracie Hearne (Danger Gal Dossier), Paris Arrowsmith (Danger Gal Dossier), Francis Stewart (Danger Gal Dossier/Tales of the RED: Street Stories), and Melissa Wong (Danger Gal Dossier/Tales of the RED: Street Stories).

Our New Lines!

We announced the beginning of two new game lines as well! 

• One, led by Cody Pondsmith, is a secret, but we’ll be revealing more about it on Wednesday.
• The other is Five by Infinity (aka 5xI), It will feature smaller, more independent, games, including bringing back some old favorites, some new experiments, and sharing creator-owned ideas. Our first game in the line will be Fossilized Violence – a bloody dinosaur-based TTRPG epic!

That’s got us pretty much caught up, now. Come back on Wednesday for a reveal about our secret new line from Cody Pondsmith. Until next time, though, stay safe and keep sharp!