By Christopher Helton

Although the news was scooped on Friday, today Valiant Entertainment and Catalyst Game Labs announced that they would be teaming up to produce the Valiant Universe RPG. Licensed role-playing games are always met with enthusiasm from tabletop gamers, more so when the licensed property is something that gamers hold a sense of nostalgia towards. In the case of today's announcement of Catalyst Game Labs producing an RPG based upon the characters and storylines of comics made by Valiant Comics.

Catalyst Game Labs produces games based on the popular Shadowrun and Battletech properties (produced under license from The Topps Company), as well as original role-playing games like Cosmic Patrol and miniatures and board games. The system at the heart of Cosmic Patrol, which will be used in the upcoming Valiant Universe RPG, is a non-traditional RPG where storytelling and game mastering efforts are shared among the players of the game. Unfortunately, I have not played the game myself (despite having a PDF copy of it), but Cosmic Patrol has a strong following of dedicated players. Using a non-traditional game system in a licensed role-playing game is always a risk in an industry where the mainstream prefers a traditional approach, but with support a game can still take off.

Over on the Catalyst Game Labs Tumblr, Randall Niell Bills, Managing Developer for the company commented:

I love superheroes…I love gaming…I love making games. And now, having a chance to dive into Valiant's gritty universe of unbelievably cool superhero characters (man I've read a lot of their comics over the last two months…instantly fallen in love with Shadowman…go figure) and pair them with some great games…it really is an amazing confluence of events that have brought me to this place and this opportunity.

One of the things about tabletop RPGs is that they are, more often than not, labors of love on the part of the people making them. It looks like this love for super-heroes and gaming is already a part of the development of the Valiant Universe RPG, and that makes it something to look forward to seeing.

There will be more on this as the game is developed.

Christopher Helton is a blogger, podcaster and tabletop RPG publisher who talks about games and other forms of geekery at the long-running Dorkland! blog. He is also the co-publisher at the ENnie Award winning Battlefield Press, Inc. You can find him on Twitter at @dorkland and on G+ at https://plus.google.com/+ChristopherHelton/ where he will talk your ear off about gaming and comics.