Hey, crew! Expanse Developer Ian Lemke is down with a cold, so I’m filling in to give you an update. I’m Steve Kenson, Green Ronin designer and author of some of the upcoming new Expanse material.
That includes the Martian adventure that I retitled “The Ozymandias Gambit,” which I wrote, Ian developed, and Green Ronin head honcho Chris Pramas got to run at a couple of recent conventions. The adventure takes place on post-Free Navy Conflict Mars, where the dream of the Red Planet is slowly dying. The Laconians have taken a significant portion of the Martian fleet and Naval personnel, and many Martians have found their skills in demand and better suited to colonizing worlds beyond the Ring rather than bringing life to a dead world.
On a Mars that’s a mere shadow of its former self, a businessman hires the crew to help him find his newly-acquired ship, the Ozymandias, which has gone missing. Who steals a whole ship and why, and where have they taken it? Who is the client and what does he have in mind for the ship, should the characters recover it? Even if the crew does manage to find the Ozymandias, they may well look upon its owner’s works, and despair.
That’s one of the stretch-goal adventures coming your way, once it finishes up in layout, along with the Earth and Belter adventures in the works.
~Steve Kenson
Fulfillment Update: A Tentative Plan
Hey folks, Your friendly neighborhood Ops Manager here too. I am going to try and fill in a quick sketch of where we are with fulfillment on everything else as best as I can. However, things are subject to change (often abruptly and without warning).
Right this moment, the plan is to move forward with printing the core rulebook and start doing fulfillment this summer. That means that we are going to do shipping in waves, which was something we were really trying to avoid. But be assured we won't charge you for additional shipping under this new plan. There are a few factors that could disrupt our intentions here, not the least of which are our printing partner's schedule, randomly fluctuating tariffs, and the uncertainty of shipping logistics these days, but that's our goal.
Along with the core book, we're planning to send out any Dice and Miniatures that backers have pledged for. It seems likely that the Condition Deck, Character Dossier, and Campaign Journal should be able to go out as part of this wave as well, but as of this writing, I do not have confirmation on that. I'll let you know when I know.
VTT: Nothing really to show off at this time. Databases are being loaded and text is being ported. More on this once we have hit a milestone.
That leaves the other three books, Free Navy Conflict, Daemon's Gambit, and the Crew Companion. Of these the Crew Companion is closest to completion and is just waiting it's turn in the queue for layout (Hal is a busy guy right now). Daemon's Gambit is staged for art to be contracted, and Free Navy is right behind it and should be ready for artists in the next week. Art is often the most time-consuming, and expensive, part of production. This is largely where our best-laid-plans tend to go awry, so getting an accurate timeline for completion on these books is remarkably difficult.
The Diamond lawsuit continues to be a source of frustration that seems never-ending. We have effectively been forced to start over with the trustee appointed by the court, and are once again trying to prove that our inventory was to be sold on consignment, and no they cannot just liquidate it to pay off the creditors. And on that note, Humble Bundle has a massive book bundle with offerings from all the Publishers involved in the lawsuit, with proceeds going to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund to help with our costs. It's mostly some really amazing independent comic books, but our own Fantasy AGE 2nd Edition, Mutants & Masterminds Basic Hero's Handbook, ORK! 2nd Edition, and the 2019 Expanse RPG rulebook are included in the bundle as well. $18 for 60 digital books is a heck of a deal.
I’m back with the latest update for The Expanse RPG: Transport Union Edition. It’s been almost as cold as outer space here in my tiny corner of Earth, but the great work continues. I have a few fun things to announce, so without further delay, I’ll get right into it.
First, today I have the first draft of the cover for Daemon’s Gambit to share with you. Please note that this is a WIP, and some minor changes and corrections are still needed. But it gives you a good idea of what to expect. The cover features one of the main characters featured in Daemon’s Gambit, Ace Templeton, campaigning for Transport Union President in the bowels of Medina Station. I adore the level of detail in this cover. I think the fine details are lacking in modern ttRPG covers. So often, they focus only on characters and have little or no background for context. The cover for Shadowrun 1st edition is one of my favorite RPG covers of all time. It tells a story and gives you an incredible sense of the world you are about to discover when you crack the book open.
Art by Andrey Vasilchenko
Second, I’ve wrapped up development on the Mars-based adventure, written by our very own Steve Kenson, and I think it’s pretty awesome. I’m really looking forward to running this one. The adventure is set on Mars during its decline and highlights the troubles that haunt the planet following the mass exodus to the colonies beyond the ring gates. The adventure itself is sort of a mystery-caper that explores many different locations on Mars.
Finally, the first of the Expanse Transmissions—entitled Contingencies—is now available on The Atomic Think Tank. This is a two-page adventure summary, perfect for those game nights when you don’t have the time to come up with an adventure of your own. If you’ve seen the Mutants and Masterminds Mix-Ups, these are very similar in format. I should have another one up on the Tank soon!
That’s all I have for now. Keep an eye out for stray asteroids, and I’ll see you in a month!
Let me start with the recent updates that have been released. The new Roll20 character sheet is live and so is the Quickstart. The new sheet just supports characters at this time, but we do monthly updates to add features and correct bugs. I am happy to report ship support is part of the Jan sheet update!
I should also note that the new character sheet does use different tech and database design from the old sheet. That means characters built on the old sheet won’t port to the new sheet automatically, and players will have to rebuild them in the new sheet. We recommend copying your game before changing the sheet, this lets you keep all your maps, notes, and handouts.
What about the old sheet?: The old sheet isn’t going anywhere, and you can keep using it if you like, but it isn’t going to be receiving any updates and going forward all new releases will be designed to use the new sheet.
Speaking of new stuff, we have completed most of the prep work required to set up The Expanse Compendium over to Roll20 as well as on the Foundry. We did have to wait for the last rounds of edits and proofing on the PDF before we could start porting over the bulk of the text. We needed to do so to ensure we don't let any typos, bugs, and the like slip in due to VTT editions. Along with the core book we will be updating all the older adventures on Roll20 to the new sheet, if you are someone who bought the adventures on Roll20 already you will get the Revised version automatically. For you Foundry folks we will also be making the existing adventures available on the Foundry Store in 2026.
Switching gears, :::grabs Gen Con GM Hat::: Gen Con planning kicks into full swing in early January. If you’ve ever considered GMing for Green Ronin at Gen Con you should jump into the Atomic Think Tank and/or the GRAAD as I will be posting some info there during the holiday and early in the new year.
Ian here again with your monthly update. The holidays are upon us, but game designers never really take time off. Or sleep. Or….
I don’t have much to announce on the book front, other than that the PDF of the core rulebook is now available on DriveThruRPG. (Tell your friends!) However, I do have some other news that may be of interest.
First, we’ve got a few things brewing for The Expanse RPG on Roll20:
The AGE character sheets on Roll20 now fully support The Expanse RPG characters.
Ship options for the character sheet are targeted for inclusion in January.
The Quickstart for The Expanse RPG will be available on Roll20, also targeted for January.
Be on the lookout for a special SECOND December Update, entirely focused on our VTT progress.
Second, the PDF adventures and new systems from the crowdfunder are at various stages of writing and development. I expect the adventures to be ready for editing sometime in January.
Finally, although not Crowdfunder-related, I’m working on an Expanse project for the Atomic Think Tank that I think will make some GMs happy. I want to make sure all my asteroids are lined up before I say much more, but expect something soon! More details in the next update.
On the Diamond debacle front, there seems to be some movement, and with any luck, we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
Here is an excerpt from Chris Pramas’ latest Diamond update:
“At the hearing, they announced their intention to convert to Chapter 7 bankruptcy. That’s the liquidation kind, so we are entering a new phase. We are done dealing with Diamond’s lawyers (hooray!): Now the court will appoint a trustee to liquidate the assets, pay creditors (mostly JP Morgan Chase I’m guessing) and close it all down. There are now more hoops to jump through, but our lawyer believes that ultimately, we will get our stock back free and clear. There are ways this could go wrong, but she considers the odds of the trustee pursuing them to be low."
In other news, we have secured new book trade representation. Not having that for most of the year has blown a hole in our budget, so we are glad our products will be getting back into bookstores. It is nice to see movement after months of frustration.”
I can’t even begin to say how much stress this has put on all of us, and we’ll be glad to have it behind us. We really appreciate your patience with us over the past year. If you want more details about the Diamond lawsuit (which has affected a bunch of companies besides just us) , you can find more details here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-green-ronin-in-critical-legal-defense
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday! May your air recyclers be clean and your water pure.
At long last we have the final version of the core rulebook available for you all to download! Emails are going out shortly, but you can access your Digital Rewards in your surveys directly as well. If needed, you can request a new link to your survey at the following address.
Also as a heads up, because we're in a bit of a situation with the Diamond lawsuit, we'll be putting the Core Rulebook PDF up for sale in the Green Ronin Online Store, and on DrivethruRPG this Thursday as well. Normally we let backers have first dibs for quite a bit longer before we make it available to purchase by the general public, but we hope folks will be understanding if we hurry this along under the circumstances. Lawyers are expensive.
And that's not all! The Roll20 Expanse Transport Union Edition Quickstart should be going live on Thursday as too! And in case you missed Jonesy in the comments recently, the character sheets are already available. A perfect time to get a group together over the holiday break and run through the free adventure.
And finally, this also means that Late Pledges are officially closed once again. Thanks to everyone who was able to join us here! If you need to make any changes to an existing pledge, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected], and we will get things sorted out for you.
That's all for now, but Ian should be back in a few days with the December Update.
