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, something from the archives, and discussions from elsewhere online.
DriveThruRPG Top Sellers for 3/16/2024
- Changeling the Lost: The Hedge
- Dune: Fall of the Imperium
- Star Trek Adventures: The Federation
- Dragonslayer Role-Playing Game
- Broken Weave: Corebook
Top News Stories
Hasbro is leaning into AI: In an interview with VentureBeat, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks was candid about the company’s development in AI, specifically citing D&D as a property with ‘fifty years of content we can mine’. AI is a complicated topic as many emerging technologies are, but one thing is clear: when the interest in a franchise is ‘mining’ it, no designer, freelance or otherwise, should expect that their IP or labor rights will be respected.
From the Archives
Dune 2 came out recently, and tons of people are already searching for info on Modiphius’s Dune tabletop RPG, Adventures in the Imperium. If you haven’t tracked it down already, this week from the archives we’re pulling up our review of the 2d20 game. The conclusion? Even though there isn’t much to make it feel uniquely like Dune, Modiphius makes good use of the 2d20 platform to tell the sort of intrigue and space opera stories that align with the books (and gives you a 90 page lore guide if you need a refresher).
Discussion of the Week
Are inherently “passive” players a real phenomenon?: The OP is struggling with engagement from his group, which kicks off a discussion about how players and the GM relate to the game. In a lot of cases, players are coming to the table to be entertained, which can be really disheartening to GMs who want to play a game, not put on a show.
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Cannibal Halfling Gaming 
I read a fair way down in the comments on that Reddit post.
Really seemed like a lot of very different ideas about what is fun, what is a good use of Player Agency, and who defines the reality of a story. The biggest takeaway I got is just that there needs to be some exploration about what people at the table are looking for. Lots of the problems discussed in the post seemed to be about a mismatch between what individuals at a table find interesting about the medium of TTRPGs.
Some play interests/styles can be mixed at a table. But some of the preferences expressed seemed to exclude sharing space with people with other desires.
I think Engagement is partly misunderstood. You don’t get it by doing Thing A or Thing B. You get it by asking what Players are interested in, and by looking at their Character Sheet (or other artefacts), to see what they chose to focus on in the world (your world).
And you have to pay attention during Play to see how they respond to elements you present. What questions do they ask.
I understand for some Game Masters that may be outside their comfort zone, so maybe in that case you present what you do, and those who like that presentation keep playing, and those who don’t, leave.
Knowing what Players want is not the same thing as being able to deliver it. I have Players who want the full Demigod experience, but that is not the kind of Campaign I run (unless I try one of those games like Scion or Godbound). I can still give them moments of being empowered. Hopefully I at least meet part of their need.
Obviously, in a more Story focused game system, there may be more Player input into building out the Shared Fiction. In that case Players provide some of their own Engagement. I have seen a variety of comments on Reddit, though, from people who don’t enjoy sharing control over the Reality of the gaming experience. That is mystifying to me, but everyone has their own way of interacting with games.
In any case, thanks for highlighting interesting Reddit threads. It really helps me to find new and interesting Game things to contemplate.
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