Welcome to the Cannibal Halfling Weekend Update! Start your weekend with a chunk of RPG news from the past week. We have the week’s top sellers, industry news stories, and discussions from elsewhere online.

DriveThruRPG Top Sellers for 12/23/2023

1. Scion Second Edition: Once and Future
2. Traveller: Wrath of the Ancients
3. Candela Obscura Core Rulebook
4. Traveller: Whispers on the Abyss
5. D&D: Chains of Asmodeus

Top News Stories

Dungeons & Dragons says “no generative AI was used” to create artwork teasing 2024 core rulebooks: After another accusation of using AI art in upcoming rulebook promos, both Wizards of the Coast and the artist of the piece in question came out to refute the accusations, with artist Nestor Ossandón even showing in-progress sketches of the piece, which he painted. While the whipping boy status of Wizards isn’t really in question after numerous fiascos of this year, this incident illustrates a more troubling trend. The detection algorithms used here were wrong, and the resulting accusations hurt the reputation of an artist who didn’t deserve it. Not only are we going to see more false accusations from here on out, but we’re also going to see continually improving generative algorithms which will be evading detection that much more easily. The cat, as they say, is out of the bag.

From the Archives

Hype is building up for R. Talsorian’s upcoming new property Shadowscar, designed by Cody Pondsmith. In addition to the previews that have been dripped out on their website and announcements coming out of GenCon, designer Cody Pondsmith recently did a Youtube Q&A answering questions about the upcoming game. In recognition of this new and intriguing property, this week’s pull from the archives is the review of Cody’s first published RPG, The Witcher.

Discussion of the Week

“Sure, your noncombat-oriented character can still contribute a great deal in my campaign”: There are two fascinating angles to this conversation. First is the obvious, from the title: How do you make a non-combat character effective in a narrow game like D&D? The second, though, is way more interesting. While Godbound, the game mentioned in the OP, is higher powered than Fifth Edition D&D, both games have abilities which, when considered against the society they hypothetically exist in, will break that society. Magical healing and summoning food out of nowhere have immense economic impacts, and games, well, ignore them. For me, I’d side with the player on this one, and more fully explore how these spells and abilities completely upend society. If anything, that’s half the fun of playing a demigod in the first place.

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