January 2021 was the dawn of an age — in fact, of four AGEs, as we welcomed back two offers featuring the Adventure Game Engine (AGE) lines from Green Ronin Publishing.

  • We resurrected the Dragon Age – Fantasy AGE Bundle, originally presented in February 2018.
  • In parallel, for a brief time, we also revived the Modern AGE & Expanse RPG Bundle — originally offered just a few weeks earlier, in December 2020. Why bring this offer back so soon? Its first run marked the December 16 debut of Season 5 of The Expanse TV series (shown in North America on Amazon Prime TV), and this revival highlighted the February 3 finale of that ten-episode season. (You may recall we pulled the same stunt with Green Ronin’s Song of Ice and Fire RPG in April and May 2019, presenting the same offer twice to mark the beginning and end of Game of Thrones Season 8.)

Dragon Age – Fantasy AGE
[from February 2018]

The AGE system debuted in the licensed Dragon Age RPG; designer Chris Pramas later genericized the system as Fantasy AGE, then pushed it forward as Modern AGE. The simple and fast-playing AGE rules make an ideal introduction for newcomers to roleplaying, as do the fantasy campaign settings Thedas (from the BioWare Dragon Age computer game) and Valkana (from the Geek & Sundry video series Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana hosted by TableTop star Wil Wheaton).

AGE is a traditional roll-high system where you roll 3D6, including an off-colored Stunt Die, against a target number. The Stunt Die breaks ties and generates Stunt Points, which let you pull off special maneuvers or earn extra benefits in combat and social encounters. Every action type has a menu of Stunt effects.

Revived from February 2018, this Dragon Age – Fantasy AGE Bundle brought back most of both game lines. There were six titles in this revived offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $46) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Fantasy AGE Basic Rulebook and its Bestiary, the Fantasy AGE Game Master’s Kit, and three Encounters (quick side treks): Children’s Crusade, Menace From the Mines, and Drive for Justice.

Those who paid more than this revival’s threshold (average) price also got this offer’s entire Bonus Collection with five more titles worth an additional $71:

Modern AGE & The Expanse RPG
[December 2020]

How quickly the ten weeks whirled by after the first run of this venerable December 2020 Modern AGE & The Expanse RPG Bundle. These two games push the fantasy AGE rules into high-power action from the Industrial Revolution onward into the 23rd Century.

Once again we presented six titles in this revived offer’s Modern Collection (retail value $46), including the complete Modern AGE Basic Rulebook (plus the free Modern AGE Quickstart); the Modern AGE Companion; the cross-dimensional campaign setting Threefold (and it has a free Threefold Quickstart too); Enemies & Allies for Threefold and other Modern AGE games; the short adventure Missions: Warflower; and the Modern AGE Game Master’s Kit.

This offer’s Expanse Collection added four more titles worth an additional $60, including the complete standalone The Expanse RPG core rulebook (plus the free Expanse Quickstart), The Expanse Game Master’s Kit, the full-length six-scenario campaign Abzu’s Bounty, and the short adventure Salvage Op.

Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to these two AGE revivals’ pandemic-related charity, Direct Relief. Direct Relief gets protective gear and critical care medications to health workers, with emergency deliveries to medical facilities across the US and to regional response agencies across the world.

The Bundle of Holding sells time-limited collections of tabletop RPG rulebooks and RPG-related titles in .PDF and other digital formats.

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