Today is the official launch date for the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Playtest Rulebook. You can find out more about it on the official Marvel site dedicated to the game. The site also features downloadable character sheets, errata, and all sorts of other good bits to make the game easier to play and more fun.

It’s also the launch day for Demiplane’s electronic version of the rules.

And for the official Roll20 virtual tabletop tools.

So it’s a big day! On top of all that, Christian Hoffer at ComicBook.com and Rob Wieland at Forbes.com recently interviewed me about the game, as did Adam Bradford of Demiplane.

As I write this, the print version of the book has risen to #37 for all books on Amazon, making it #1 in Fantasy Gaming, #1 in Comics & Graphic Novels, and #14 in Science Fiction & Fantasy (currently between Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Dune). That puts it in some damn fine company.

Speaking of damn fine company, I dedicated the book to the memory of Stan Lee & Jack Kirby (the creators of the Marvel multiverse) and Gary Gygax & Dave Arneson (the creators of tabletop RPGs). This book stands on the shoulders of those giants in their fields.

I also want to give a big shout out to the creators of the four previous Marvel roleplaying games for giving us all so many hours of fun: Jeff Grubb and Steve Winter (Marvel Super Heroes); Mike Selinker with Michele Carter, Bill Olmesdahl, Steven E. Schend, and Steven “Stan!” Brown (Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game); Dan Gelber, Jeffrey Simons, Evan Jones, Bill Jemas, and Mark D. Beazley (Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game); and Cam Banks, Rob Donoghue, Will Hindmarch, Philippe-Antoine Ménard, Jesse Scoble, Dave Chalker, John Harper, Jeremy Keller, Jack Norris, Aaron Sullivan, and <ahem> me (Marvel Heroic Roleplaying).

I want to thank the entire team at Marvel for bringing me onto the project and shepherding it to market, especially CJ Cervantes, Brian Overton, Jeff Youngquist, Jesse Berger, and Trent Bielen. I also want to give huge thanks also to my co-designers, John Nee and Mike Capps. The game wouldn’t be nearly as incredible without their amazing contributions and hard work, especially early on.

Thanks also to Simeon Cogswell for the amazing job they did with the graphic design and layout, and to Brian Patterson for his amazing map included in the adventure. Plus to the legion of artists whose work graces the game, especially Iban Coello, Peach Momoko, and Logan Lubera, who provided the three different covers. (You can get Iban’s everywhere, but Peach and Logan’s covers are alternates you can find at comics and games stores.)

We actually couldn’t fit all of the art credits into the game, but editor Brian Overton went through and came up with this 4-page PDF that not only identifies the creators of each piece of art but also the characters it shows and where it first appeared. Thanks to all of them (and the writers of those comics too) for inspiring us.

As always, special thanks to my wife Ann and our kids — Marty, Pat, Nick, Ken, and Helen — who supported me every step of the way, including playtesting brutally early versions of the rules.

On top of all that, I’m incredibly grateful to everyone out there for checking out the game, playing it, and helping us bend it into shapes that would shame a pretzel to see where it breaks. As I told Adam Bradford during our interview, “Help us help you have fun!”

This is just the first part of what I hope will be a long and amazing line of games, books, and tools that we’ll be entertaining each other with for years to come.

Game on!

With the pandemic finally starting to slide off a bit and the impending release of the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Playtest Rulebook on April 20, I’m planning to attend a number of conventions this year. Currently I’m looking at:

• Gary Con (March 24–26)
  • I’m running two events at this show, on Thursday and Friday, so I’ll be at the con on those days for sure. Both events are sold out, but you might find me wandering around.
• KublaCon (May 27–30)
  • I’m a special guest at this show in San Francisco.
• Nexus Game Fair (June 23–26) 
  • I’m a special guest at this show in Milwaukee.
• Comic-Con International (July 21–24)
  • I’ll be promoting the Marvel game, I think.
• Gen Con (August 4–7)
  • I’ll run the Diana Jones Award ceremony and be part of the Writer’s Symposium and whatever else comes up.
• WorldCon/Chicon (September 1–5)
  • I’ll be helping out with the gaming track.
• New York Comic Con (October 6–8)
  • I’ll be promoting the Marvel game again, I think.
• Gamehole Con (October 20–23)
  • I’m a special guest at this show in Madison, Wisconsin, and I’m helping run a slate of events for game designers.

Note the word planning way up there at the top. All plans are subject to change due to any sort of world-shattering predicaments or personal issues that may come along.

If you’re able, I hope to see you out there at some point. It’s been a long couple years since I’ve had a schedule like this, and I’m excited about it. I’ll be as vaccinated and masked as the events and good sense require, so I have high hopes we can do this safely and have a lot of fun.

The Kickstarter for Shotguns & Sorcery: The 5E Sourcebook ends tomorrow, November 16, at 9 PM Central Time to cap off a wild few weeks.

Thanks to our early backers, we got funded in just 4 hours, and we’ve been knocking down stretch goals ever since. At the moment, all backers at the PDF ($30) or higher level get:

• Shotguns & Sorcery: The Omnibus (a collection of all the S&S fiction to date)
• Shotguns & Sorcery: The Wizard’s Wife (a full-size comic book not yet available to the public)
• A brand-new fillable PDF character sheet (unlocked by backers)
• A free key to unlock the digital edition on the Shard Tabletop VTT.

On top of the PDF, that’s at least $45 worth of free stuff!

Thanks to our backers, the deluxe edition now comes with a ribbon marker, and it should wind up with gilt edges too. We have no plans to reprint the deluxe hardcover, so outside of any possible overruns from the printer, this is your only chance to get it.

We have no plans to sell this book in stores (besides those with sharp owners who back this campaign, of course). Sometime after the book winds up in backers’ hands, you should be able to grab the standard hardcover as a print-on-demand book, but it’ll probably sell for $75 rather than $60, which means you save another $15 — for a total of $60 — if you back now. 

Oh, and I almost forgot! The Bundle of Holding is also running a deal for Shotguns & Sorcery: The Roleplaying Game, and it ends at the same time. If you’d rather roam around Dragon City using the Cypher System, head over there and grab $75 worth of PDFs — everything we’ve produced for that system — for only $17.95!

If you’re a PDF completist you could snag the Bundle of Holding and back the Kickstarter and wind up with $150 worth of stuff for only $47.95. That’s an amazing bargain.

The clock is ticking. Don’t miss out!

I want to thank everyone who’s backed the Kickstarter for Shotguns & Sorcery: The 5E Sourcebook. The campaign met its funding goal in just four hours, and we’re now up to over 290%!

So far, we’ve added two stretch goals to the drive: a free PDF of the Shotguns & Sorcery comic book, The Wizard’s Wife, and a new character sheet for your games. When we crack $30k, we’ll add a ribbon marker to the deluxe edition, and there’s more to come after that.

Marty and I have been doing several podcasts and other interviews to help get out the word. For instance, you can hear/watch us on:

• Morrus’ Unofficial Tabletop RPG Talk
• Beside the Rookery (E7) – Shotguns & Sorcery with Matt Forbeck & Marty Forbeck
• Tabletop Santa (TikTok)
• Interview with Matt Forbeck & Marty Forbeck Shotguns and Sorcery for 5e on RPG Talk With Juce
• Drinking with Authors (just Matt)

We’ve also gotten some solid coverage on news sites, including:

• GeekNative: Shotguns & Sorcery brings the dragon emperor and fantasy noir to 5e
• ICv2: FORBECK’S ‘SHOTGUNS & SORCERY’ JOINS ‘5E’
• ENWorld: RPG Crowdfunding News – Skyraiders of Abarax, Planebreaker, Shotguns & Sorcery, and more
• Flames Rising: Exploring Dragon City with Matt Forbeck
• The Gaming Game: Call of Cthulhu: Berlin – The Wicked City Reviewed on The Gaming Gang Dispatch Ep 709

Coming up, you can also find us on the following programs:

• Worldbuilding for Roleplaying Games, a panel being held live on Facebook on November 11 at 6 PM CST, along with Bruce Cordell, Marc Tassin, Melanie Meadors, and Elizabeth Vaughn.
• The Mages & Sages YouTube channel (Ed Greenwood’s friends and fans)
• The Playin’ & Slayin’ podcast
• Game Time! talk show on Twitch
• The Lair of Secrets podcast
• The Nerdarchy live chat, 11 AM CST on Wednesday, November 10.
• An interview with Mildra the Monk

Don’t forget, the Bundle of Holding offer for the Cypher System-powered Shotguns & Sorcery: The Roleplaying Game is still going on too. It ends the same day as the Kickstarter.

Speaking of which, the Kickstarter ends 10 days from now, on November 16. Don’t wait till that last minute if you can help it though. It’s all too easy to let it slip.

So, back the Kickstarter if you can, but either way, be sure to share the news with your fellow gamers. Getting the word out about a project like this is always the hardest part, and we don’t have a massive ad campaign behind us. Instead, we rely on our friends and fans — folks like you! — to help us with that.

Thanks for your support!

I just punched that big button and launched the Kickstarter for Shotguns & Sorcery: The 5E Sourcebook! As I write this, we’re already more than a quarter of the way to being fully funded, and we’re only a half hour in.

Getting to the goal fast really helps a Kickstarter establish momentum. If you back within the first 48 hours, my son Marty (who wrote the 5E rules) and I (who wrote the rest) will autograph your standard hardcover. And if you pledge for the deluxe hardcover, we’ll not only sign it but number it too.

Please share the link far and wide, and if you can back the project, even better! Thanks so much for your support!

Today I finally delivered the last missing bit for the Shotguns & Sorcery: The Roleplaying Game Kickstarter run by Outland Entertainment. It’s an art book that shows off the coolest bits of art that we produced for the game, the cards, the stories, and even the comic book over the years. It’s been a long road, but when I agreed to help Outland finish off that project, I promised myself that the backers would get everything they paid for.

It’s finally done! Whew! I’d love to just collapse, but…

Now we get to move on to the next big thing, and there’s no time to waste!

Tomorrow, at noon Central Time, I’m launching a brand-new Kickstarter for Shotguns & Sorcery: The 5E Sourcebook to bring Shotguns & Sorcery to the world’s most popular roleplaying game.

My son Marty did all the heavy lifting for crafting this version of the setting , and it works wonderfully well. He and I ran it nine times at Gamehole Con this past weekend, and everyone had a ball. 

As I write this, roughly 95% of the art and writing for the new book is already complete, which means we should be able to get it finished off and into your hands fast. I even found a great printer here in the US so we won’t have to deal with international shipping woes. 

If you head to this pre-launch page and enter your email address, you’ll get an email from Kickstarter the moment the campaign launches. In addition to that, if you back in the first 48 hours of the campaign for a printed book, both Marty and I will sign it. If you pledge for a deluxe version of the book, your copy will be signed and numbered too. 

So, please tell all your gamer pals that there’s a new setting in town, and it’s bringing both the shotguns and the sorcery. Thanks!

As you may know, I took over the fulfillment of the Kickstarter for Shotguns & Sorcery: The Roleplaying Game after the license I granted Outland Entertainment expired. Although I had no legal obligation to fulfill that Kickstarter, I felt an ethical duty to my fans who backed it, so I set to working with Outland to make sure that every backer got everything they paid for, paying for many costs out of my own pocket.

At the moment, nearly every bit of that has been fulfilled. The only things still missing are a comic book — which is about 95% complete — and an art book that my son Marty and I are working on right now. They should both be in backers’ hands soon.

Once that’s done, we’re eager to bring Shotguns & Sorcery to the fifth edition of everyone’s favorite fantasy roleplaying game. In fact, we’ve been so eager, we started work on it months ago.

Marty and I already have the manuscript for it about 90% done, and we have over that much of the artwork in as well. We plan to launch a Kickstarter for it soon, hopefully in October, and we’d love to have your support.

If you want in on this, head over to the spanking-new Kickstarter preview page and click that bright green button. That way, the moment we launch the new Kickstarter, you’ll get notified and and join in the fun. Please be sure to share that page with all your gamer pals too. We truly appreciate all your support!

The folks at Calliope and Lone Shark Games have announced that I’m working on a pair of games with them based upon my Monster Academy novels. There are actually three of them, which I delivered to backers a few years ago, but so far I’ve only released Monster Academy: I Will Not Eat People to the public. This was part of my 12 for ’12 project I launched back in 2012, in which I set out to write a dozen short novels in a year.

I may still be recovering from that.

My pal Mike Selinker was one of the backers of that project, and he read and loved the books. When Calliope wanted new games from us for their Titans Series Kickstarter, they suggested we work on an RPG-style card game suitable for the whole family. Mike pointed out that Monster Academy would make the perfect setting for it, and off we went!

As Ray Wehrs of Calliope said in one of their Kickstarter updates:

“Mike Selinker and Matt Forbeck are joining forces, like a Game Design Voltron, to bring you not ONE, but TWO games in Matt’s Monster Academy universe. We call this PROJECT APPLE. Mike has a truly unique storytelling concept that introduces light RPG elements, while Matt brings the source knowledge and a heck of an ability to craft amazing narratives in the game. We are looking to have one title that is the core game, much like a traditional Calliope release, playable in under an hour, over and over, but different each time. We will then have a second title in this series—probably standalone but able to be combined with the core box—that introduces deeper linked scenarios for the characters.”

Calliope and Lone Shark are two of my favorite gaming companies, stacked full of not only great games but many longtime friends. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this, and I hope to share more about it with you soon.

Because of the pandemic, I’m only doing two conventions this year. The first is Gen Con — which happens this coming week — and you can see my relatively loose schedule for that here.

The second is my favorite local convention, Gamehole Con, which is held in Madison, Wisconsin, from October 21–24. My son Marty and I have a full slate of events planned for that, including no less than nine two-hour demos for our upcoming Shotguns & Sorcery 5E Sourcebook. Most of the tickets for those events are already sold out, although if you move fast you might be able to grab the last few.

In addition to those, on that Saturday morning at 10 AM I’m playing in a livestream of the Alien RPG to raise money for Extra Life, with Andrew Gaska, Teos Abadia, Banana Chan, and Toni Winslow-Brill

Later that day, at 2 PM, Mike Mearls (lead designer of Dungeons & Dragons 5E) is going to interview me about my career in “Conversations by Design: Matt Forbeck.”

Right after that at 4 PM Saturday, I’m on a panel with Mike, Elisa Teague, and B. Dave Walters called “System Design for TTRPGs.”

If you’re in the area and can make it, Gamehole Con is a wonderful show with a fantastic lineup of guests. They also require attendees to be both masked and vaccinated, so it’ll be as safe as such things can be these days. Come on out and join the fun!

It’s hard to believe, but Gen Con kicks off a week from today, on September 15. It’s normally in early August, of course, but the pandemic bumped it six weeks later. Ironically, because of the rise of the delta variant of COVID the original dates would probably have been safer, but that’s the problem with trying to predict such things months ahead of time. You can only do the best you can.

In any case, the folks there have taken other measures to make it safer, including requiring masking throughout the convention and strongly recommending vaccinations. I’m triple-vaxxed myself (due to meds for my autoimmune issues), and I’ll be there masked and ready. If you will be too, here’s where you can find me:

Wednesday, August 15

• 9 PM: The Diana Jones Award ceremony. The annual kick-off to Gen Con returns, and I’m hosting it again, along with help from an expanded committee. This is a private party for industry professionals, but if you qualify for that, you’re more than welcome to join us. Shoot an email to matt@forbeck.com for the details.

Saturday, August 15

• 11 AM: Matt Forbeck Q&A. Join bestselling author and award-winning designer Matt Forbeck to learn more about his current projects, including the Kickstarter for the Shotguns & Sorcery sourcebook for 5E.
• 4 PM: 35th Annual Gen Con Costume Contest. I’ve judged the fantastic costume contest at Gen Con before. This year, they asked me to MC the event! I’m looking forward to seeing all sorts of amazing outfits. I suspect that this year lots of them will features masks.

Compared to what I usually manage at the show, that’s a pretty light schedule, but I’m trying to keep things flexible. If you see me wandering around the show, feel free to say hi!

If you can’t make it to Gen Con Indy for whatever reason, you still have other options. Gen Con is also running Gen Con Online concurrently, which you can attend through your favorite interactive screen. Plus they’ve set up several Pop-Up Gen Cons at game stores throughout the country.