Another job, another hotel, another lobby. Being a paid killer might sound dangerous, or exciting, or glamorous, and it can be, I suppose. More often than not, though, it involves waiting. Lots of waiting, when the planning is already done and there’s nothing to do but count the moments, watch the goings-on, and think about what you’ve done and what you’re about to do while you wait for your target to appear.
That’s okay, though. I’ve got Time To Kill.
The RPG hobby is driven by remakes and revisions. Fifth Edition this and Seventh Edition that, yes, but entire movements in the hobby are built around hacking and re-hacking D&D’s sub-sub-genre of play, fantasy dungeon crawling. With this perspective, RPGs fit in nicely alongside movie studios who remake Spiderman and Batman decadally, and media companies who continue to make live-action versions of critically acclaimed anime without asking how they’re actually improving things. In a young hobby like RPGs, though, there is still space for remakes to be good. So if you want to make a good remake, why not start with a game that practically screams ‘don’t update me’, the 1984 classic Twilight:2000?
Continue reading Twilight:2000 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: 11/13/2021In the dark future, there’s no such thing as an easy decision; you either have the hard part now or you have it later. When we last saw our erstwhile entrepreneurs, they had just tattled on a mobster named Vlad and put him on the receiving end of an Arasaka kill squad. Then they quietly scooped up all the documents that the corporates didn’t stick around to grab. Priceless opportunity, or painting the target on your back by hand? CabbageCorp employees have to find out, of course.
And among all the mob mischief, Biotechnica is still making moves. Mason’s boss is pleased with the dirt the team has found on Jayhawk, and is planning to exercise a stock purchase option soon. Knowing the contract that Biotechnica made them sign, Jayhawk chief technology officer William Squires reached out for a meeting. Not interested in hearing his pleas or complaints, Biotechnica brass kicked the invite down the chain until it hit Mason. Mason accepts, even though his boss says it’ll be seen as an insult and no meeting will be set up. Despite that prediction, he’s invited to take a ride by private car down to the Heartland Complex in downtown Hydropolis.
Continue reading Adventure Log: Cyberpunk Red: CabbageCorp Part 6Welcome 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.
Shipping costs still bad: COVID-19 wrought havoc on global supply chains, and we’re not out of the woods yet. This thread by Alex Flagg from Crafty Games details just how much the increase in shipping costs is affecting board games, and you can expect the impact on RPGs to be similar. As a consumer, now is a great time to focus on PDFs. As an industry member, now is a great time to look at localized printing and assembly options for your games.
Gaming online still popular: Gaming online spiked in popularity at the beginning of the pandemic for obvious reasons. At this point in time, given higher vaccination rates and sheer exhaustion, many people are looking back towards in-person gaming, given that small-group socialization is both safer than it was before and still much safer than restaurants, bars, or event venues. A spate of threads this week started comparing online and in-person gaming again, as the two start to look like equally possible again. My own contribution pointed out that the increasing feature-richness of VTT platforms has started to get away from what most people need to game, more resembling premium items like interlocking terrain tiles or hardwood dice towers than utilities. The above-linked thread is from @Pandatheist, who made multiple contributions to the discussion which culminated in a useful discussion of what helps you run indie games online.
Have any RPG news leads or scoops? Get in touch! You can reach us at cannibalhalflinggaming@gmail.com, or through Twitter via @HungryHalfling.
Welcome to Kickstarter Wonk for November! There’s a whole bunch going on here as the year gets darker, and it’s a perfect time to stay in and play some games. This is also where the spooky games ended up: we have sea shanty poltergeists, food horror, and even a game where all women are werewolves! In addition, though it’s not a new game and as such isn’t included below, the new box set of Mothership has also gone live on Kickstarter and it looks sick. Even though it doesn’t quite fall in the bounds of a Kickstarter Wonk selection, it’s still definitely worth noting. As far as what does fall in those bounds, we have 8 (plus one) really neat games to check out this month. Grab your dice, pencils, and tarot cards!
Continue reading Kickstarter Wonk: November, 2021Welcome 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.
Seamus and I both came of age at a time where the long-running campaign was considered the platonic ideal of the role-playing game. There’s a lot of historical justification for this; the ‘campaign’ as an innovation in the wargaming space was one of the things that led to interest in the character-driven gaming that eventually became Dungeons and Dragons. The campaign as a procedure within a game, though, has been somewhat of a stagnant thing. Even as games continue to push on notions of advancement and other structures which define how events progress across multiple gaming sessions, it’s still assumed that a long-running game would be played in a series of continuous sessions by a consistent group of players. 15 years ago, a known luminary in the RPG design space ran a campaign that worked quite differently, creating ripples across the hobby. I’m of course talking about Ben Robbins’ West Marches.
Continue reading Meet the Campaign: Intro to West MarchesWelcome 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.
Paizo recognizes union: In a historic and blessedly rapid turn, Paizo has recognized the United Paizo Workers union, welcoming the union members to the table to hammer out a collective bargaining agreement. This is great news for all involved and hopefully marks what is the first of many such agreements in the tabletop gaming world.
Have any RPG news leads or scoops? Get in touch! You can reach us at cannibalhalflinggaming@gmail.com, or through Twitter via @HungryHalfling.
How many RPGs do you know which consist of a single book? There are definitely some, plenty of indie games especially are singular works. When it comes to the games most people play, though, you can expect that the core rules are joined by supplements, additional books which expand the game through either deepening existing elements or adding new ones. Beyond that, you may have secondary accessories, things like dice, card decks, and maps which add to the physical experience of the game. Taken together these elements create a product line. When you add additional material made by players and designers other than the original authors, then now you have an ecosystem.
Continue reading The Trouble With Ecosystems
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