Articles, Level One Wonk

The Curse of the Wandering Eyes

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It’s happened to all of us. You spend weeks, maybe even months, convincing your friends to try a new game that you’ve discovered. It takes some effort, but eventually everyone buys in and you start a new campaign. Things are going well, people are getting into it! And then…Another new game is in your sights. All of a sudden, the thing you were most excited about for weeks and weeks is now a frustrating roadblock. You are a victim of the Curse of the Wandering Eyes.

While the Curse of the Wandering Eyes can strike any gamer, it’s the GMs of the world who are most acutely afflicted, and for whom the affliction can have the most dire consequences. It’s not only the GMs who actually drop games at the blink of an eye who can create group discord, any GM who looks longingly at a game other than the one they’re playing can often let those thoughts and frustrations seep into their current game, making it less fun and possibly cutting it short. What’s worse, though, is that although the grass often looks greener on the other side, when this frustrated GM starts up their next game, often it isn’t any better, and the process repeats anew.

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Articles, Weekend Update

Weekend Update: 10/9/2021

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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, and discussions from elsewhere online.

DriveThruRPG Top Sellers for 10/9/2021

  1. Minsc and Boo’s Journal of Villainy
  2. Deviant: the Renegades
  3. WFRP: Empire In Ruins
  4. Star Trek Adventures IDW Year Five Tie-In PDF
  5. Black Spear

Top News Stories

PAX Unplugged 2021 Confirmed, and Mandates Vaccination: From a press release sent to CHG:

“PAX Unplugged, the most attended tabletop gaming convention in the eastern U.S., returns to the Philadelphia Convention Center from Dec. 10 – 12, 2021. Badges go on-sale soon for the first in-person PAX Unplugged in two years, where attendees can experience new game demos, exciting tournaments, panels with industry giants, and more.

ReedPop and Penny Arcade will build on the successful return of PAX West over Labor Day weekend, where robust health and safety guidelines resulted in universal mask compliance and 93% of attendees showing proof of vaccination. PAX Unplugged 2021 will require all attendees to show proof of a complete COVID-19 vaccination series and abide by stringent masking requirements. For more information, please see the official health and safety guidelines.

Three-day badges for PAX Unplugged 2021 go on-sale soon for $75, while individual Friday, Saturday, and Sunday badges will go for $35 each.”

Vendors name-dropped in the press release include Cephalofair, R. Talsorian Games, CGE, Bézier Games, KOSMOS, Rock Manor Games, Lone Shark Games, Mage Hand Press, Devir Games, Chaosium Inc., Leder Games, and Wyrmwood.

Discussion of the Week

Twitch Hack reveals streamer earnings: The massive Twitch hack which dumped the site’s entire source code, among other things, revealed the revenue made by top streamers on the service. Of particular interest to the TTRPG world was the top streamer on Twitch, Critical Role (of course), which made roughly ten million dollars over the last two years. There’s been a lot of discussion on this front, including Critical Role fans getting unnecessarily defensive about…everything? More germane to the conversation is how earnings play into criticism. Critical Role was already the centerpiece of a conversation about diversity and representation, areas where their very white cast really could do a lot better. Combine this with Twitch’s overwhelmingly white top content creators, and there’s a lot that we need to talk about. Does the volume of CritRole’s earnings change this conversation? Not much. They are at the forefront of RPG streaming and they need to consider that, and those earnings make any excuses for not addressing their diversity problems a little hard to believe. Besides that, though, they do not become the bad guys merely because they’re popular and make a lot of money.

Have any RPG news leads or scoops? Get in touch! You can reach us at cannibalhalflinggaming@gmail.com, or through Twitter via @HungryHalfling.

Articles, Editorial

The Game Master’s Book of Non-Player Characters Review

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There are only so many ways you can spell – or pronounce – the name Bob before your players are going to realize that you’re just making up Dungeons and Dragons characters on the fly. There’s nothing wrong with making up NPCs as you go, of course, but it’s a lot of work! You have to name them, make them interesting, and then you actually have to remember to write down what you made up or next session you’ll have players asking why Ba’ab is named Dave now. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that work done for you, in such quantity that you don’t have to make anything from scratch for a good while? How about, say, 500 characters? Think that’ll be enough? That’s what you’ll find in the The Game Master’s Book of Non-Player Characters from Topix Media Lab!

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Articles, Crowdfunding Carnival

Kickstarter Wonk: October, 2021

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Welcome to Kickstarter Wonk for October! It’s not exactly that spooky in here. I mean, there’s a bit of grimdark, and some goblins, but overall things are light, bright, and colorful. And there are several games about food. Overall though it’s a great crop, with eight games and an honorable mention zine that should make it into your campaign. Ready? Onward!

Continue reading Kickstarter Wonk: October, 2021 →
Articles, Weekend Update

Weekend Update: 10/2/2021

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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, and discussions from elsewhere online.

DriveThruRPG Top Sellers for 10/2/2021

  1. WFRP: Empire in Ruins
  2. Deviant: the Renegades
  3. Heirs to the Shogunate
  4. Achtung: Cthulhu 2d20 Player’s Guide
  5. Soulbound: Champions of Death

Top News Stories

Next revision of D&D expected in 2024: The next ‘expansion’ of Dungeons and Dragons was announced by executive producer Ray Winninger during a livestream event, and predictably it set TTRPG discussion spaces afire. While there isn’t much detail with any official confirmation, guesses about what this will look like center around two pieces of information. First, the new rulebooks have been said to be backwards-compatible with existing Fifth Edition material. This would imply the sort of collation and expansion of mechanics last seen in the ‘Essentials’ revision of Fourth Edition, the lightest touch of the mid-cycle rules revisions seen in modern D&D and the one most easily argued to be backward-compatible. Also building evidence for the ‘5e Essentials’ theory is the paired announcement in the linked article, the ‘Expansions Gift Set’, which seems to do the same sort of collation, albeit with a lighter touch. The second major piece of information has to do with Fifth Edition’s digital ecosystem. Here it would make sense to look to the VTT ecosystem; the VTT value chain is dominated by third parties like Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, and digital infrastructure is one place in the TTRPG hobby where a massive corporation should have a distinct advantage.

In summary: As the edition of D&D which has gone longest without any edition-wide revision (Third Edition only lasted eight years), Fifth Edition is unlikely to be changed much by whatever new material is released in time for D&D’s 50th birthday. Fans, players, and DMs likely have little to worry about (though I’m sure many of you will buy the new rulebooks anyway). On the other hand, if you are employed by or invested in Fantasy Grounds or Roll20…you probably have about three years to plan an exit strategy.

Have any RPG news leads or scoops? Get in touch! You can reach us at cannibalhalflinggaming@gmail.com, or through Twitter via @HungryHalfling.

Articles, Editorial

Under Hollow Hills Review

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How much changes in a decade? A couple years ago I went to my tenth college reunion. I was struck by how different things were; how my old fraternity was simply not familiar any more, and how my favorite late night food spots gave me significantly more indigestion. I couldn’t help but notice, also, how much was exactly the same. The city of Pittsburgh was still the same idiosyncratic mix of rust belt and academic, and the campus very much elicited all the memories I had from being in that place. Ten years seems like both enough time for something to change completely and yet not change at all. And so it is with Powered by the Apocalypse.

It hasn’t been exactly ten years since the start of Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA), Apocalypse World was released in 2010. That said, as the game scooped up awards through 2010 and 2011, we could say that it’s roughly the 10th anniversary of PbtA as a phenomenon. By the end of the 2011 awards season the momentum had built, and Dungeon World, the game that arguably sent PbtA into the next tier of indie phenomena, came out in 2012. No matter your exact accounting, though, 2021 is the perfect time to reflect on a decade of PbtA because the Bakers have released a new PbtA game.

Continue reading Under Hollow Hills Review →
Articles, Weekend Update

Weekend Update: 9/25/2021

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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, and discussions from elsewhere online.

DriveThruRPG Top Sellers for 9/25/2021

  1. WFRP: Empire in Ruins
  2. Heirs to the Shogunate
  3. Soulbound: Champions of Death
  4. Star Trek Adventures: Shackleton Expanse
  5. Deviant: the Renegades

Top News Stories

Asmodee up for sale: Report has come out that private equity (not venture capital, those are different) firm PAI Partners has retained Goldman Sachs to help them sell Asmodee, aiming for a valuation of around two billion dollars. As there’s no seller lined up, this is…not great? When PE firms look to sell without a counterparty lined up, it more means they’re looking to get rid of a company. My personal guess is that current supply chain issues have them spooked, and owning a major games distributor is not a good look. As for what this means for Asmodee divisions like Fantasy Flight and Edge Studios…there could be upside depending on what happens, but this is not what I’d broadly call “positive”.

Funcom grants license for The Secret World TTRPG: Cult classic MMORPG The Secret World is slated to be turned into a tabletop game. Publisher-to-be Star Anvil Studios states they’ll have more to share by the end of the year, and are aiming for a Kickstarter in 2022. Funcom is a bit looser with their IP than some others we know, but that seems to have only strengthened the fan community; I’ll be looking out for this one.

Discussion of the Week

Don’t Kill Your Players: An important Reddit thread this week. If you’ve killed one of your players, call the police, and probably a lawyer! Behind the goofing around, there’s some good lessons about design considerations and how games address players versus their characters.

Have any RPG news leads or scoops? Get in touch! You can reach us at cannibalhalflinggaming@gmail.com, or through Twitter via @HungryHalfling.

Adventure Log, Articles

Adventure Log: Living on Borrowed Time: Family Business

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The galaxy is in turmoil. The New Republic is gone, Supreme Leader Snoke is dead, and the Resistance has been decimated. Independent systems are left to fend for themselves, and every faction scrambles for an advantage. 

For the criminals of the galaxy, it is a time of great opportunity. The First Order in particular has few limits on what kind of allies they choose, and in trying to cut off these resources the Resistance must be circumspect. 

On the Smuggler’s Moon of NAR SHADDAA, a pair of Rebel veterans assemble a team with plausible deniability to eliminate one such source of the First Order’s weapons. After all, it’s just FAMILY BUSINESS…

Continue reading Adventure Log: Living on Borrowed Time: Family Business →

Adventure Log, Articles

Adventure Log: Cyberpunk Red: CabbageCorp Part 5

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In the dark future, everyone is looking out for number one. Sometimes, though, it’s what you do when everything’s gone to hell that really shows people who you are. When we last left our band of eager mercs, a deal had gone sideways with a Russian mobster named Vlad. Vlad tasked the team with acquiring a shipping container full of power armor, but when a motorcycle gang caught wind of the successful heist he withheld payment and took the goods anyway. Nobody in the CabbageCorp family was too pleased at that development.

Continue reading Adventure Log: Cyberpunk Red: CabbageCorp Part 5 →
Articles, Weekend Update

Weekend Update: 9/18/2021

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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, and discussions from elsewhere online. This week: chaos gods, Critical credit snafus, hurricane relief, dirty laundry, and dad discussions!

Continue reading Weekend Update: 9/18/2021 →

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