Had a fantastic Gen Con, and we’re looking forward to sharing a bunch of the things we did and announced there over the course of the next couple of weeks.

Arguably the biggest thing revealed by Roll20 at the convention was that we’ve made our own platform exclusive roleplaying game for the virtual tabletop, Burn Bryte.

Creating our own game was among the first things that I set out for us to do when I took over as Managing Partner of Roll20 over eighteen months ago, and we’re really excited to be able to start sharing it with our community.

I think first off it’s important to state (as we already have to many of our publishing partners) that our goal with this is to be additive to the tabletop roleplaying market. Something we’ve felt in the licensing process is that it’s sometimes difficult to convey best practices in converting their content to Roll20, particularly when we can’t share individual financial successes and failures. With our own system, we’re able to try out new experiments, refine processes, and share the results of those happenings with creators.

With that additive property first and foremost, I also specifically wanted a science fiction game, because I believe there’s still a lot of expansion left for new roleplaying experiences there. Additionally, I also knew that Roll20 has a great many things we’re working on as a software company that would mean our staff couldn’t just drop everything to make a game… and so we nabbed a helluva team to do it for us.

James Introcaso, who did the original Roll20 5E OGL Starter Adventure “The Master’s Vault” and has gone on to write successfully for both the DM’s Guild and now Wizards of the Coast officially with the upcoming Waterdeep D&D adventures is co-lead of designing this game alongside Jim McClure, owner of Third Act Publishing (Satanic Panic, Reflections). Additionally designing and worldbuilding were Kat Kuhl, former Game Master and showrunner of Campaign on the One Shot RPG Network, and Darcy Ross, Community Relations Coordinator of Monte Cook Games, scientist, and general badass.

If you are involved in the behind-the-scenes and industry of the tabletop roleplaying world, those four names combining should excite you as much as it did us. They’ve delivered a unique roleplaying experience that encourages using skills and dice rolls differently than their peers, alongside meaningful storytelling tracks that players and game masters will benefit from applying to their sessions. They’ve also built a backdrop that pops.

The Burn Bryte universe is experiencing a possible end… just as there was a “big bang,” many scientists predict the possibility of a “big crunch,” and as such the universe our players are trying to survive in is shrinking– with resources becoming increasingly scarce and cultures that never were forced to interact with each other suddenly cornered into the same galactic real estate. And while all of this sounds intense and bleak, we believe that many who play the game will be heroes that are simply living their best lives helping others through the blow out that is the end of the existence.

Above: Key Art by Beth Varni, logo work by Dylan Todd.

We’ll be playtesting this universe with you incredibly soon; for Roll20 Pro subscribers, later this August even. We have not made all determinations on rollout, including pricing. We’ll be working on getting feedback and refining the game to the point that it’s ready for the biggest possible audience closer to the end of 2018.