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 11/2/2024

1. Tales from the RED: Hope Reborn
2. WH40k Imperium Maledictum: Inquisition Player’s Guide
3. Traveller: Traders and Gunboats
4. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Dwarf Player’s Guide
5. BattleTech: Force Manual: Kurita

Top News Stories

DriveThruRPG Now Allows Customers To Filter Out AI Content: Per their Discord, a newsletter, and an update to their help center on Monday, TTRPG marketplace DriveThruRPG now allows users to toggle whether or not they will see products that include AI-generated content. Previously, you wouldn’t be able to see whether or not a game, module, map, or other work on the site was marked as being artificial until you opened its specific project page. Now all that disappointing page-checking can be avoided with a click.

It’s still dependent on a publisher, you know, not lying when they mark a product “Handcrafted” instead of “Contains AI-Generated Content”, and when doubts are cast it will in turn depend on customer reports and site investigations. It is also, as far as one can tell, unable to also filter out the nebulous “Creation Method Not Chosen by Publisher” that a product defaults to if the Publisher doesn’t choose one of the other two options, giving AI slop a potential stealth route. On the other hand, older products are not automatically added/split to aforementioned two options either, so maybe it’s for the best. Or should at least be a toggle of its own.

The filter being on isn’t the default thought, so check the link above for details on how to hit that toggle yourself.

From the Archives

DriveThruRPG is in the news this week, though not for a bad reason. Similarly, there have been continuing discussions about D&D’s monopoly and market share pertaining to that situation. While the right answer in a discussion isn’t always ‘here, look at our article’ (says who? – Ed.), it has its place in the Weekend Update. From the archives today we’re looking at RPG Market Data is a Mess. Unfortunately the situation hasn’t gotten better, with ICv2 holding more of their already narrow data close to their chest, and the Orr Report completely gone. As for DriveThruRPG sales velocity, there may be a follow-up coming, but likely after the holiday season…

Discussion of the Week

What video game do you wish had an official TTRPG adaptation?: Asking for licensed games is a bit of a monkey’s paw situation, especially considering how uneven they typically are and how much money comes into the equation. In a vacuum, though, video games make a great thought experiment for potential RPGs, as often many game properties could really benefit from the freedom of a tabletop adaptation. The crowd seems to agree with my thoughts, as RPG-adjacent video games Mass Effect and X-COM are at the top of the thread.

Have any RPG news leads or scoops? Get in touch! You can reach us at cannibalhalflinggaming@gmail.com, through Mastodon via @CannibalHalflingGaming@dice.camp, and through BlueSky via @cannibalhalfling.bsky.social.