Editor’s Note: You can also check out our coverage of the opening day of PAX Unplugged 2024!
The second day of the PAX Unplugged 2024 convention in Philadelphia, Pa was filled to capacity this year. Both the single day and multiple day badges were sold out, and it was really evident on the show floor and everywhere else too. The open gaming area and the exhibitor booths on the Expo Hall floor were all crowded with people.
One of the busiest of the publishers was R. Talsorian Games, creator of Cyberpunk, makers of The Witcher TTRPG and also the groundbreaking Castle Falkenstein. The video game version of Cyberpunk with its improved gameplay and strong sales definitely added its effect across R. Talsorian’s large footprint on the floor.
Another booth with lots of traffic was Darrington Press, the publishing label imprint for Critical Role. This publishing house is growing in parallel with its mothership Critical Role. It has increased its staff, and it now has its own YouTube channel (launched in July). Darrington Press offered great fan service on the floor of the convention. I saw many of the exhibitors tirelessly selling their products and answering questions. It even had a side section that had one person demonstrating the newer games like Queen by Midnight. The preorder for Daggerheart, their new fantasy roleplaying game was taking lots of orders. There were discounts on some of their other games like the gothic horror TTRPG Candela Obscura.
I got a few questions into the people who worked on Daggerheart and look forward to seeing it when it releases. Unlike the TTRPG Candela Obscura also from Darrington Press, Daggerheart went through lots of beta-testing and had a larger commitment of resources. Daggerheart also is promising to be a very crunch heavy system with both card and differing dice mechanics. Based on a pared down Blades in the Dark dice mechanic, Candela Obscura is a gothic horror game that leans heavy on safety tools in an alternative world setting resembling the 1900s.
I asked how Daggerheart expected to do its worldbuilding, and the staff explained that there was a chapter in the upcoming book that called such things Campaign Frames. The game master along with help from the players create the world together and have a sub-genre of fantasy the campaign will embody. There are examples of Campaign Frames such as Five Banners Burning, which is a Game of Thrones type of genre with many nations on the verge of war. There’s also the Witherwild where a peaceful, quiet land faces a spreading corruption like in The Hobbit.
Chaosium, the publisher of Call of Cthulhu, Runequest and Pendragon had a smaller table, but it seemed to be moving lots of product. Their newest book, Arkham, was on display, and their great cartographer Matt Ryan was chatting up with buyers with his engaging and energetic charm. As usual at most conventions, all the Call of Cthulhu games were quickly filled up. There’s never enough keepers or game masters for them.
Asmodee, a publisher of board games, card games and RPGs, had a great setup which makes sense because it oversees Catan, Ticket to Ride, Marvel, Legend of the Five Rings, Star Wars and many others. They even have a new Lovecraft based game called Arkham Horror that proclaims its adherence to pulp heroes who can fight rather than just cower or go mad. I asked the people working their front desk if there will be any new releases of the popular Star Wars TTRPG. From what I was told, it looks like there will be reprints of some of the older titles, but unfortunately there was no news of anything new.
I was able to partake in some TTRPGs on the street level of the convention center (called Level 1). It was here where I signed up with the company Lurking Fears. They were running multiple games for different publishers. Every one of those seemed filled up when I played, and the company made sure that those who were on the wait list got priority when an opening occurred.
The first one I played there was Traveller from Mongoose Publishing. The referee (GM) was Matt McCloud, and we played a scenario called Hazardous Cargo. It had premade characters and a great scenario that had the players on a ship that had been boarded by pirates. The players had to fight back, but there was also a dangerous cargo that had been let out.
Matt kept us moving and had a great sense of humor with a grasp of the rules that made combat deadly. Traveller does not give you superhero characters, but instead scrappy space wanderers who rely on their wits and skills against a universe that can reward you with a calculated risk. The other players were lots of fun and invested in playing their characters. I had a space marine medic, and the rest of the group was well balanced with merchants, scientists and space mechanics.
The next game was one I hadn’t even heard of entitled Batman: Gotham City Chronicles-The Roleplaying Game. Jeremy, our GM, explained to us that it was based on a miniatures game and used the well-made game pieces and maps to make it a TTRPG experience. It was fun and unlike most superhero games, it didn’t have what I call the Superman problem. The Superman problem in TTRPGs is when a PC or NPC is so highly powered that anyone else playing has no impact whatsoever.
Jeremy made sure the characters that the players got were explained and easy to understand. I ended up with a grown-up Dick Grayson who left his Robin persona behind and became Nightwing.
The other characters were Batwoman, Alfred, his daughter, Renee Montoya and Harvey Bullock. Anyone who watched the recent Batman cartoons in the past twenty years would easily find their footing. I ended up enjoying it and will purchase it.
The day was filled with panels for such games as Battletech and parasocial concerns for content creators.
There was so much going on that I will need to save some of that for the next article, which will cover the events from Day 3 of PAX Unplugged.