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 5/10/25

1. Cyberpunk RED: Interface RED Volume 4
2. Rolemaster: Creature Law Volume One
3. Rick Hershey Family Recovery Bundle
4. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Lords of Stone and Steel
5. Fabula Ultima Atlas: Natural Fantasy

Top News Stories

Rowan, Rook and Decard skipping GenCon this year: The Rowan, Rook and Decard team has announced that they will not be coming to GenCon this year, citing issues with US politics and border control. I hate to say it, but I don’t blame them. The unpredictability and sheer lack of professionalism or oversight over ICE or CBP under the current administration makes travel to or from the United States fraught for everyone, given what looks like the abandonment of due process at our borders. RRD will still have games for sale at the show thanks to US partners and colleagues, but they will not be doing any events, any game tables, any signings, or any meetings.

PocketQuest 2025 – Dreams & Nightmares Now Live: DriveThruRPG’s annual effort on the game jam scene nearly didn’t happen this year due to staffing issues, but they managed to get it off the ground, and creators responded by dreaming up more than eighty new games. It’s been something of a rough launch – those same staffing issues meant the linked page wasn’t just for this year’s efforts, but every PocketQuest game ever, and the algorithmancy behind it had older games hogging the spotlight. Still, there are a lot of interesting-looking new games there, including one from a CHG contributor, and more importantly quite a few from first-time creators!

From the Archives

From the archives this week comes System Split: Burning Wheel and Torchbearer. Published on this day in 2017, this article was our first look at the two games, and eventually both would get the In-Depth treatment as Aaron played and ran campaigns in the games. It is an interesting example of how writing about a game changes, but it also reinforces the value of taking a first look and then going in deeper.

Discussion of the Week

Play to find out what happens: A solid discussion about my favorite Apocalypse World agenda. The most important takeaway? “Play to find out what happens” has little to do with Apocalypse World or PbtA, it is a game style you can run with anything. As it turns out, it’s how I run all of my games.

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.