I was prepared for a far greater in-depth dive into PAX Unplugged 2023. I had cleared as much of my schedule as I could, broken down priority events I wanted to join, built in backups and made my plans for getting in and out.
And then the Dice Gods laughed.
Continue reading PAX Unplugged 2023 Notes and Shadow Scar Preview
Ah, the soothing beeps and boops and flashing screens of blasting endless waves of pixelated bad guys from outer space. The realm of arcade shooters down through the ages like Galaga? Sure, absolutely, but you’re not likely to find an arcade machine while wandering the booths of a PAX Unplugged. You could, however, find a dice and card game that makes it feel like you did: Retrograde, the real time roll and write game of arcade blasting from Retronym!
Continue reading A Glimpse into the Unplugged Vault: Retrograde
Welcome to Crowdfunding Carnival for December! Well, folks, we made it. It’s nearly the end of 2023, and the holiday season is now upon us. It’s time to look back on the year, look forward to the next, and light lights to guard against the darkness of winter.
It’s also time for statistics! This year as part of Crowdfunding Carnival, I went into the archives and did retrospectives of the Kickstarter Wonk articles from 2018, the start of the series. With over 100 campaigns reviewed, I was able to collect some interesting data and reflect on the nature of RPG Kickstarters based both on trends within the sample as well as some reflection on what was included in my sample and what was not. While I don’t think anything I learned is particularly earth-shattering, it’s always nice to get a little quantitative nugget among the highly qualitative world of writing about games.
First, though, let’s talk about what’s campaigning now. The holiday season is when you want to finish, not start your campaigns, but there are at least a few that are worth highlighting.
Continue reading Crowdfunding Carnival: December, 2023Sometimes you need a pick me up, and some times you need something soothing, and depending on what you’ve steeped you can find both of those at in a nice cup of tea. Hey, not that I;m saying that some soda, or beers, or stars forbid even water can’t accompany your games just fine. Sometimes, however, it’s nice to have something a bit nicer, with a large variety of flavors and energy levels. So lets take a look at some Tea for the Tabletop from Many Worlds Tavern!
Aki and I are both wandering around PAX Unplugged this weekend – Aki already put out a great guide to both the con and to the surrounding area, and I’ve been sending artificial intelligences up against a ‘ghost ship’ with Games on Demand. We’ve been quite pleased to run into a series of familiar names this year, so here’s a short list of booths we think you should definitely be checking out if you’ve made it to the con.
Continue reading Cannibal Halfling’s Reviewed Games at PAX Unplugged 2023
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, discussions from elsewhere online, and a highlight From The Archives.
Ho adventuring gamers! We are on the eve of PAX Unplugged in downtown Philadelphia. After a few years of plague I have managed to shove a fist through the loose grave I was buried in and make my way last year. There were some changes, and what advance information I have suggests that things will be mostly the same. A few years ago I did a primer on attending, as I happen to live in the general area. For the most part, things in general remain the same but there are a few key differences in getting there from when I tried to dispense wisdom back in…2019? Oof.
Without further ado, this is the wisdom and knowledge I have gained.
Continue reading PAX Unplugged: A Local’s Guide (2023 Update)
It shocked me to learn that it has been six years since I last reviewed an edition of Paranoia; back in 2017 I did a System Split comparison between Paranoia Red Clearance Edition and Paranoia XP, two editions of the game which had significant mechanical departures from each other. At the time, my conclusion was that while Red Clearance Edition was a better game, XP was the better Paranoia. Apparently someone over at Mongoose read my review, because the new edition of Paranoia (called The Perfect Edition while on Kickstarter) takes my conclusions to an unsettling tee: the slicker rules are kept, the setting is rolled back to more reflect a throughline from the older editions, and the cards, which worked way better in theory than in practice, were removed. The result is remarkably close to a version using Red Clearance Edition rules with XP-style fluff, and (unsurprisingly) it turns out that yes, I really do like the version of the game made seemingly in direct response to my critiques. That all said, the new edition of Paranoia is still an edition of Paranoia made in 2023, and that alone has gotten me thinking about this. So let’s set aside the goofy clearance warnings, fake redactions, and admonishments to self-terminate, and talk about how Paranoia, any Paranoia, actually fits into the gaming landscape here in the roaring 2020s.
Continue reading Paranoia The Core Book ReviewWelcome 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, and discussions from elsewhere online.
Continue reading Weekend Update: 11/25/2023I toss down a disc of nanobots that quickly assembles itself into a squad beacon, sending its beam of light up from the balcony of the building I’m in and into the sky, before looking through the scope of my sniper rifle. A squadmate, Ultra Rare, is trying to 1v1 an assault trooper using only her knuckleblades, and I sigh wistfully; we used to be an item before I accidentally got her demoted. I fire a shot, miss terribly, and am immediately targeted by the assault trooper’s team and ripped to shreds by machine gun fire.
Reassembled in orbit, switching from a force recon loadout to that of an engineer, I crash onto the balcony in a drop pod next to the beacon and the nanodust that was the smear I left behind. I exchange greetings and a salute with another squadmate – “Butler.” “Setback.” – who walked into the room while I was dead, and I look down into the courtyard. An enemy mech is literally stomping all over an allied squad – what a bunch of blueberries. I raise my anti-materiel rifle and blast off one of its arms – and am splattered across the wall behind me by the weapons in its other one.
I’m considering another drop pod, when suddenly I schlorp back together, on the ground next to Goblin, who apparently got splattered as well at some point. Between us is a spent revive grenade, and standing over us is Butler. More salutes, more greetings. “Setback. Goblin.” “Butler.”
Just another day on PLANET FIST.
Continue reading PLANET FIST Review – Nano-Powered Narrative Wargaming
Cannibal Halfling Gaming 