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 9/7/2024

1. Traveller: The Fifth Frontier War: Opening Moves
2. Traveller: War Fleets of the Fifth Frontier War
3. Star Trek Adventures – Second Edition – Core Rulebook
4. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit
5. Metro:Otherscape Corebook

Top News Stories

Tabletop Workers Union Protest Alleged Union-busting From Hex&Co Management: Well, it’s still the same week as Labor Day in the USA, and as Rascal puts it “Nothing says Happy Labor Day like filing nine charges with the National Labor Relations Board.”

“On Saturday, August 31—the first day of Labor Day weekend in the United States—workers at all three Hex&Co locations initiated a walk out and picket in response to management’s alleged union-busting activities. “Ownership has consistently retaliated against workers for exercising their rights,” a press release from Tabletop Workers United stated. “Including implementing unilateral policy changes that lead to increased write-ups and discipline, as well as bullying workers during negotiations.” Hex&Co management did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”

From the Archives

In an interesting bit of convergence, this week’s Crowdfunding Carnival both marked the five year anniversary of ‘Why TTRPG Kickstarters Fail’ as well as one of the first crowdfunding round-ups where a plurality of the campaigns came from a crowdfunding provider other than Kickstarter. There are many reasons why Backerkit has succeeded where other sites have languished, but regardless of the how and why, it’s important that someone is challenging Kickstarter’s monopoly in the hobby games space. From the archives today we’re looking at The Trouble With Kickstarter; even though the blockchain concerns are pretty much done and dusted (and the technological boondoggle du jour has moved from blockchain to AI), Kickstarter still dominates TTRPG crowdfunding and that is an issue no matter how good the company’s behavior is.

Discussion of the Week

GMs, What do you wish someone would have told you 10 years ago?: We all start somewhere, but one advantage of online discussions is fairly easy access to hobby veterans who have been doing this across (multiple) decades, groups, and systems. The best advice is often the simplest advice, and the top-rated comment about GMing is one I’d echo: Just start, don’t worry about the right time or the right game.
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