Troll Lord Games

Big, BIG news in our industry folks! It was just announced at the North Texas RPG Conventions, Frog God Games (makers of Swords & Wizardry Complete, Slumbering Tsar, Rappan Athuk Reloaded, etc.) have purchased old NECROMANCER GAMES! That is so awesome. Just think of all of the great material from the d20 days that could be back in print, and for OLD SCHOOL GAMING!

Some/many Necromancer Games titles deserve to see the light of day once again, this time for classic RPGing in my opinion.

I guess that means that those products could also become available to the Pathfinder crowds too.

At least the conversion back to classic RPGs (well, Swords & Wizardry Complete) would be pretty easy to do.

Totally stoked!

Here’s a copy of the press release:


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frog God Games
Poulsbo, WA 98370
Bill Webb, CEO
FrogGodGames@Gmail.com
FROG GOD GAMES ACQUIRES NECROMANCER GAMES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Dallas, TX, (June 7th 2012) – FROG GOD GAMES, the makers of roleplaying games and books, today announced that they are acquiring Necromancer Games, the award-winning publishing house known for Necropolis, Rappan Athuk, City of Brass, Tomb of Abysthor, Crucible of Freya, Tome of Horrors, and many other famous titles.

The purchase of Necromancer Games considerably increases Frog God Games’ influence in the tabletop gaming industry. “The merging of the companies made sense,” said Bill Webb, CEO of Frog God Games. “As primary developer of the Necromancer line of products, I created Frog God Games with the same aesthetics and design principles in mind. We are all about capturing that hard-edged Retro feel in both our Pathfinder Roleplaying Games and our Swords & Wizardry product lines.” The acquisition will provide Frog God Games with the use of Necromancer Games extensive intellectual property, allowing re-imagination and expansion of existing work, as well as new products under both labels. Frog God Games will maintain a separate product line of Necromancer Games products, which so far has included the Tome of Horrors Complete and will soon include Rappan Athuk.

Frog God Games will re-animate several of Necromancer Games’ products in the future to provide its customers with revised and expanded products for a variety of tabletop editions. “The integration of both companies will take place over the next few months. Our customers will continue to receive the same high quality books which they have come to expect” stated Webb.

Necromancer Games, which will continue to operate under that name, is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Frog God Games. The company has not published new material since 2007, although it produced nearly 100 titles from 1999-2007. The Company’s other founder, Clark Peterson will remain involved in an advisory capacity, and will continue to contribute to the company’s success.

About Frog God Games
Founded in April 2010, Frog God Games publishes resources for the tabletop roleplaying games Pathfinder Roleplaying Games and Swords & Wizardry. Its products are known for their grand adventure settings and high quality production values. “If our hardcovers won’t last you a lifetime of use, we have not made a high enough quality product”, said Webb. Frog God Games currently serves over 2500 customers in USA, Canada, Brazil, Europe, South America, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, and has produced over 70 books for Pathfinder Roleplaying Games and Swords & Wizardry in the past two years. The writers of Frog God Games have won numerous ENnie Awards. For more information about Frog God Games visit its website at www.talesofthefroggod.com

For More information please contact
Rachel Ventura, Marketing Director
Frog God Games
815-954-1981
Rachel@talesofthefroggod.com

Very cool. I foresee a Tomb of Abysthor re-release. Kind of weird that they will still sort of operate separately.

Good news all around. I suspect the Rappan Atthuk Kickstarter showed them the value of working together.

I suspect the separate operations will really boil down to Necromancer generating additional new content, while FFG will both generate new content and handle production. But that's just a guess.

Cool news. I'd personally would like to see the The City of Brass boxed Set and The Mother of all Encounter Tables redone for some system (PF, S&W, maybe even C&C). It'd be especially cool if the Wilderlands got redone with at least PF in mind, but I'd really love if FGG did it C&C style.

We begged for those things in C&C. I think FGG/Necro did it in S&W because it is so system neutral. S&W does not have a larger following than C&C. But there are several retro-clones out there that lend well to the simple S&W format. C&C converts easy. I would like to see those titles in C&C but I also live in the real world.

We dont know how 3rd party pubishing will look for D&D Next yet.

This is very cool... I love all of Necromancer's stuff... and now for a little selfish product endorsement... The Mother of All Treasure Tables is a great little resource for adding generic but interesting random treasure to your game. I was lucky enough to get to write quite a bit of material for that book... and it was a fun little job.

Ohhhhh, if they still have the rights to reprint Judge's Guild stuff......!!

Dude, if they reprint the wilderlands box set I will spontaneously combust with glee

Snoring Rock wrote:We begged for thoses thing sin C&C. I think FGG/Necro did it in S&W because it is so system neutral. S&W does not have a larger following than C&C. Bu there are several retro-clones out there that lend well to the simple S&W format. C&C converts easy. I would like to see those titels in C&C but I also live in the real world.

We dont know how 3rd party pubishing will look for D&D Next yet.

Clark Peterson was very adament that he would not do anything for C&C from Necromancer even when there were large requests for him to do so. He was a pretty strong supporter for D20 and kept Necro in that direction. Bill Webb was much friendlier to games like C&C and S&W and already has shown that he will do products for non-d20 based system.

It would not be unreasonable to think that if there were enough requests for some C&C material from Clark that he would consider it.

Julian Grimm wrote:Clark Peterson was very adament that he would not do anything for C&C from Necromancer even when there were large requests for him to do so. He was a pretty strong supporter for D20 and kept Necro in that direction. Bill Webb was much friendlier to games like C&C and S&W and already has shown that he will do products for non-d20 based system.

It would not be unreasonable to think that if there were enough requests for some C&C material from Clark that he would consider it.

While Bill Webb would probably be more open to it, I would be surprised if it happened to be honest.

With Pathfinder, he's effectively supporting the d20 crowd and there are people that still prefer 'stock 3.5' over Pathfinder. The two are so mechanically similar that good Pathfinder material will find its way into the hands of the 3.5 holdouts.

Sword & Wizardry is similarly a base 'old school rule set'. It will take no effort at all for fans of C&C, Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC... etc etc etc to take a S&W product Frog God Games releases and make it their own. If they did do a C&C product as well as a S&W version, it might not generate additional sales collectively compared to just a S&W release. And if it did happen (well, first off, I would be really happy), I'm not sure if we'd see it as a physical product. It could very well end up like Green Ronin's single C&C effort, the Companion Guide to Freeport and just be a PDF.

But who's to say... maybe he'll eventually consider doing a C&C only product.



M