Category Archives: Editorial

Reviews, opinions, and whatever else strikes our fancy!

Articles, Editorial, Level One Wonk

Satisficing and RPG Design

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Economics is the study of resource allocation and management; behavioral economics is the study of how theoretical economics meets practical, human reality. The split between theory and practice is an entire subfield of economics, and arguably other disciplines benefit from the same thing. The broader study of the alignment of human decision making is called decision science, and it takes the P-Q charts of economics and amplifies them with psychology and game theory.

Tabletop roleplaying games are no strangers to decision science, both within and outside the context of playing the game itself. This week I was inspired to look back at one of the most influential recent schools of RPG theory thanks to the Taskerland review of Tabletop RPG Design in Theory and Practice at the Forge, 2001–2012 by William J. White. The review starts with a reread of Ron Edwards’ essay System Does Matter in the context of the book, and restates the thesis of the essay more clearly than most commentators do nowadays: While good games come from good GMs and good players, better games come when those two are aligned with the right game mechanics and systems. This dovetails with notions of GNS and accusations of gameplay ‘incoherence’, but the issue, as the Taskerland review points out, is less with Edwards’ description than his prescription: Aim to play more narrowly aligned games with players who share your priorities.

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Articles, Editorial

Legend of the Five Rings: Imperials Histories Volume I & II

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We tend to look at new things here at Cannibal Halfling Gaming. Our mission of putting games and gamers together often takes the form of introducing something that might be unknown in front of someone who may be interested. But what about sharing new things to love about something you already love, something that provides ideas for play that had not been considered before? I didn’t know it when I first encountered it but these two volumes, Imperial Histories I & II, had been powerful influences on games I played and still remember fondly.

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Articles, Editorial

Curseborne: Onyx Path’s next dark world

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Instead of coming up with some TTRPG pablum for an introduction, I’m going to cut right to the chase: At first I thought it was really weird that Onyx Path Publishing released Curseborne. If you don’t look too closely, the game appears to ape World of Darkness, an entire fork of which Onyx Path is the licensee. The five lineages are clearly aligned to Vampire (Hungry), Werewolf (Primal), Mage (Sorcerer), Demon (Outcasts), and Wraith (Dead). And even if the game is in fact different, why did Onyx Path decide to make their own supernatural horror game now?

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Articles, Editorial

Nine Years of Cannibal Halflings

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Well, we’re leaving our enneadic era behind and heading into our tenth year. If you take OD&D as the starting point of the ‘modern TTRPG’ (although I’d recommend taking a deeper dive), that means we’ve been doing this for… ~17% of the medium’s lifespan? Which also means CHG has been active for longer than some editions of D&D?

Oh gods.

Well, let’s see what we did, and then look ahead to the final solar rotation of a decade of CHG.

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Articles, Editorial

The Endie Awards 2025 – Aaron Edition

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This post is brought to you thanks to Lady Tabletop, who prompted folks to write about their own gaming experiences of the year and give out their own fun awards. Like Seamus I thought this was a neat idea, and was also glad (and relieved) that ‘The Endies’ weren’t trying to be yet another award given out because someone disagrees with the ENnies. Thinking back on the year and giving your own awards is more useful (and more fun!), anyway.

I had a much more constrained gaming year than Seamus in part because I had a very busy year; in the middle of this year my partner and I moved, which involved buying a condo, selling two condos, moving one person once and another person (and a cat) twice. In a way I’m surprised I got as much gaming in as I did, and also surprised I was able to write anything from May to August. Still, the difference in absolute number hides the point that Seamus made to me that, due to the number of campaigns I’m in and how often I run, I probably ran and played more sessions by absolute count than Seamus did.

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Articles, Editorial

The Endie Awards 2025 – Seamus Edition

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This post is brought to you thanks to Lady Tabletop, who prompted folks to write about their own gaming experiences of the year and give out their own fun awards. I like the idea a lot, and as it turns out I actually have a lot of games to mention and talk about and give accolades to. I still plan to write up my usual X Years of Cannibal Halflings on the 31st to look back on the year, but this seems like a fun idea that focuses more on the games than the writing about them. So, let’s see what I played, what I thought about them, and who won what!

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Articles, Editorial

My first corporate convention

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When it comes to nerd hobbies, the convention scene is bifurcated. There are local, volunteer-driven cons that put a lot of effort into building content from enthusiasts around the area. There are also the massive, national affairs that bring attention and revenue to their parents. Gaming cons moved quickly into the latter category, even if the initial efforts were modest; both GenCon and Origins came to prominence after their alignment with TSR and GAMA, respectively. And now there’s a massive leader in the corporate con sphere: Penny Arcade Expo, or PAX.

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Articles, Editorial

Things to See at PAX Unplugged 2025

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PAX Unplugged 2025 is this weekend! Which you probably already know, on account of clicking on this article while you’re on your way  there or already in Philly. Alas, I won’t be there this time around. I hear tell some other Cannibal Halflings will be there, though, and I don’t have to be present to Know Things Worth Your Time. Let’s go over some games for you to buy, some games for you to play, and some interesting events to check out.

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Articles, Editorial

It shouldn’t have been called Single Player Mode

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Cyberpunk Red has been going strong for around five years now. The game came out around the same time as the tie-in video game Cyberpunk 2077, and represented a return to form after 2005’s Cyberpunk v3 (and 2020 being over 30 years old). Now, R. Talsorian Games has kept the party going with continual Cyberpunk support both free (in the form of Monthly DLC) and for pay (in the form of the Interface Red collections as well as standalone supplements like Black Chrome). Single-Player Mode is the most recent standalone supplement, and your take on it will depend entirely on what you think a solo RPG is (or should be).

If you’re older than a certain age, when you think solo RPG you think something like Mythic GM Emulator, a set of rules that can act as a GM and let you play through modules or combats on your own. If you’re younger than a certain age (let’s say younger than me at least), your first thought of a solo RPG is probably more like a journaling game, or a hybrid narrative game like The Wretched. It’s important to state this because despite its 2025 release date Cyberpunk Red Single Player Mode is firmly the first of those two. There are no campaign framing tools, no narrative generation, and no character supplements. Cyberpunk Red Single Player Mode is built firmly on using an ‘oracle’ to answer questions which allow you to progress forward through your imagined narrative, and also provides tools to let you play out investigations, social interactions, combats, and netruns all on your lonesome. What it’s truly best at, though, is having a library of random tables which enable you to set up all sorts of premises, missions, and random encounters to make your Cyberpunk solo game more interesting. You may realize as I say this that random tables aren’t just for solo gaming. Not only is that true, it means that while I think Single Player Mode makes for an excellent GM aid and has some good rules additions…it just doesn’t work as an effective solo game.

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