I’m happy to announced that I’ve licensed the setting for my Shotguns & Sorcery novels to Outland Entertainment for both tabletop roleplaying games and enhanced ebooks. You can read the full press release below, but the tl;dr version is this: Kickstarter for the RPG coming in October. RPG to debut at Gen Con 2015.
It’s still early days as far as the game goes, and we’re nailing down lots of details, but this feels like coming home. I originally created Shotguns & Sorcery as a fantasy noir setting for the d20 RPG, way back in 2001, and licensed it to Mongoose for publication in 2002. Life interrupted that when my wife became pregnant with quadruplets between those two points, and she and I and our three-year-old son wound up welcoming three more boys and a girl into our house that summer instead.
Flash forward to 2010, when I revived the setting for a short story for The New Hero anthologies Robin Laws was putting together. That became “Friends Like These.” I had such a great time with it, I wrote another story, “Goblintown Justice,” which appeared in an anthology edited by Steve Sullivan. (If you’d like a taste of the setting, you can grab that one for free.)
Then in 2012, as part of my 12 for ’12 challenge, I ran a Kickstarter for a trilogy of Shotguns & Sorcery novels. That funded all three books, and I wrote and published Hard Times in Dragon City, Bad Times in Dragon City, and End Times in Dragon City, each featuring the continuing story of ex-adventurer Max Gibson and his hardboiled friends.
In 2013, Noble Beast–which produced the excellent Steampunk Holmes enhanced ebook–licensed the rights to create enhanced ebook editions of all three novels. I had the pleasure of working with producer Ellie Ann, and she matched me up with artist Jeremy Mohler, who really grokked the books.
Sadly, Noble Beast went belly up, and the project died, but Jeremy wouldn’t give up. He approached me about publishing the enhanced ebooks through his company, Outland Entertainment, and while we were at it, he wanted to produce a roleplaying game as well.
I have to admit, I hesitated. Back when I was the president of Pinnacle Entertainment Group, my cofounder Shane Hensley and I published a lot of great, award-winning games, including Deadlands, Brave New World, and The Great Rail Wars. I had all the skills and knowledge to publish the game myself–hopefully even with Jeremy’s excellent artwork–and I harbored dreams of tackling that myself someday.
“Someday” is the key word there. I realized that with as many projects as I’m working on at the moment, someday would be years away, if it ever came. And life’s too short to wait for someday.
So Jeremy and I hammered out a deal, and IT IS ON!
Someday is now. Well, the work starts now. The game will be out next summer, and Outland is going to run a Kickstarter for it this October, to get things rolling.
I’ll be writing a good chunk of the game–concentrating on developing the setting to the point we can hand it off to you to play in–with help from Jeremy and his cadre of outstanding Outland talent. Stay tuned for more updates and details as we’re ready to share them.
Shotguns & Sorcery: The Roleplaying Game. It’s rolling your way. Soon.
See the full press release below:
Press Release: New Shotguns and Sorcery RPG to Debut at Gen Con 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SUMMARY: Matt Forbeck’s acclaimed Shotguns and Sorcery series to be adapted into a dynamic roleplaying game running on Kickstarter this fall and debuting at Gen Con 2015.
SEPTEMBER 2, 2014, KANSAS, UNITED STATES–Award-winning author and game designer Matt Forbeck is partnering with Outland Entertainment to produce a tabletop roleplaying game based upon his fantasy noir Shotguns & Sorcery novels, as well as enhanced ebook editions of those popular books. Fans of the series will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in the world, meet the characters from the books, create their own heroes, and play though brand-new adventures developed exclusively for the game.
“I’d long thought about trying to publish a Shotguns & Sorcery game myself,” Forbeck says, “but I could never manage to find the time. Then Jeremy Mohler came to me with so much love for both games and these books–and he’s such a talented artist to boot. I couldn’t ask for more dedicated publishing partners than Outland.”
“Shotguns and Sorcery is just about the perfect blend for me,” says Mohler, founder and CEO of Outland Entertainment. “I’m a huge fan of detective novels and all things fantasy. Matt has taken the two genres and mashed them together while staying true to each in such a fun way. I immediately fell in love with the series and knew I’d have to find a way to play in his world.”
The Shotguns & Sorcery trilogy of novels (Hard Times in Dragon City, Bad Times in Dragon City, and End Times in Dragon City) originally funded on Kickstarter in 2012, becoming one of the top 10 fiction projects ever at that time. Outland is taking the Shotguns & Sorcery RPG to Kickstarter as well, in October 2014. The finished project is scheduled to debut as a full-color, hardcover book at Gen Con in Indianapolis the following year.
Outland’s license also includes the rights to create enhanced ebook editions of each of the Shotguns & Sorcery books. These will feature new covers and interior illustrations as well as interactive maps and other exclusive enhancements.
Matt Forbeck has twenty-seven novels published to date and has written, developed, and designed countless games and supplements, particularly during his time as the co-founder and president of Pinnacle Entertainment Group. His gaming projects have been nominated for 28 Origins Awards and won 17, as well as five ENnies. His recent work includes the Magic: The Gathering comic book, The Marvel Encyclopedia, the Leverage novel The Con Job, the Dangerous Games trilogy of thriller novels set at Gen Con, and the Monster Academy YA fantasy novels.
Outland Entertainment has managed the artwork for multiple games and comics, including New Fire (an Aztec-themed roleplaying game) and, most recently, Magnum Opus, a deck-building game by Game Salute. Outland Entertainment is headed up by Jeremy D. Mohler, a longtime illustrator and colorist whose work has appeared in Marvel Comics, the World of Warcraft CCG, and several recent books for IDW. The Shotguns & Sorcery roleplaying game and enhanced ebook will feature his original artwork.
Visit Forbeck.com and OutlandEntertainment.com to learn more.
