Tag Archives: RPG

Articles, Weekend Update

Weekend Update: 4/3/2021

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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 4/3/2021

  1. Worlds Without Number
  2. Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound: Bestiary
  3. Cyberpunk Red
  4. Sentinel Comics Core Rulebook
  5. The Company of the Dragon

Top News Stories

UFOPress and Rowan, Rook, and Decard merge

Mina McJanda, sole proprietor of UFOPress and designer best known for Legacy: Life Among the Ruins, is joining the Rowan, Rook, and Decard team currently consisting of Grant Howitt, Chris Taylor, and Mary Hamilton. 

PAX East cancelled for 2021

In what is likely the highest profile example of COVID-19 continuing to impact the con and event schedules of gaming industries, PAX East, already delayed to June, has been officially called off. The organizers are ‘cautiously optimistic’ for the remainder of the year’s in-person slate, and are planning an online event for the summer.

TroikaFest is here

TroikaFest is next week, celebrating the delightfully quirky OSR riff and leading up to the Kickstarter campaign for the new supplement Academies of the Arcane. In addition to everything the Melsonian Arts Council is doing there is a game jam on itch which goes the whole month of April.

Discussion of the Week

Cyberpunk, but it sucks

Redditors turned out this week to talk about how the modern scourges of trial subscriptions, DRM, and always-on connections (among others) could and should roll into cyberpunk gaming.

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

Star Trek Adventures In-Depth Review

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Gamemaster’s Log, Stardate 57252.7. It has been several months since the launch of the New Orleans-class starship U.S.S. Verrazzano, NCC-07302, from the Foggy Peak system. Since that time, I have seen her crew serve with distinction in accordance with the finest traditions of Starfleet. I have also seen them called before a board of Admirals to review their actions and directive violations, and while impressive the fact that no fewer than three starbases have had to be commissioned to deal with the discoveries from their missions is beginning to put a notable dent in the power requirements for the local sector’s industrial replicators. As the Verrazzano is currently away, responding to a distress call from a Vulcan Expeditionary Group, I have decided that this is a fine opportunity to review their so-called ‘Star Trek Adventures’ in-depth, to better understand how they have and will continue to boldly go where no one, not even the rest of Starfleet, has gone before.

Continue reading Star Trek Adventures In-Depth Review →

Articles, Meet the Campaign

Meet the Campaign: Star Wars: Inquisitorius

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Listen, I don’t care if you don’t want to sign up with the Alliance. We’re not exactly the conscription types, you should know that. But you’ve got to admit, if you can touch the Force? The Empire is going to be hunting you. If you signed up we’d protect you, yes, but if you’re going to keep ‘listening to the Force and following your Destiny’, we still don’t want you caught. Moral considerations aside, we don’t need more redblades getting added to the roster. Alliance Special Operations has put together some dossiers on Inquisitorius agents. If you have nothing else to do with us I still want you to read these and be careful – we lost people getting this information, make it worth it.

Continue reading Meet the Campaign: Star Wars: Inquisitorius →

Audio/Video, Cannibal Halfling Radio

Cannibal Halfling Radio Episode 12 – Now Playing: Electric Bastionland Pt 1

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A thick-headed former council runner and their caterpillar, a failed puppeteer and their much-smarter puppet, and a banned necro-engineer with their shovel and ‘flavor-masking rub’ walk into a bar . . . and can only order water, because they’re that far into debt. Luckily for the Cannibal Halflings, there’s always money to be made in Electric Bastionland!

Continue reading Cannibal Halfling Radio Episode 12 – Now Playing: Electric Bastionland Pt 1 →

Articles, Bargain Bin Gaming

Bargain Bin Gaming: Space Knights

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Welcome back to the Bargain Bin! This hobby might often be a financially demanding one, and with the almost infinitely-headed hydra known as ZineQuest on the loose again this month that’s even more true than usual, so I thought it might be nice to have a reminder that you can find good games at bargain prices. When the price is Pay What You Want, you can check the game out for free before spending anything! This time out you will cross the galaxy, taking on the battles that no one else can fight. You will face ruthless aliens, explore desolated worlds and perform terrible deeds just to give humankind one more day before extinction. You will overcome these challenges by the might of your arm and soul… or you will face a destiny worse than death. Not as individuals, no, but as legions of elite warriors. This is Space Knights, written by Gabriel Ciprés!

Continue reading Bargain Bin Gaming: Space Knights →

Articles, Editorial

SLA Industries 2E Review

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Are you not satisfied with the dystopia in your life? Is Paranoia too tongue-in-cheek? Is Dark Heresy not tongue-in-cheek enough? Is Cyberpunk just too grounded for what you had in mind? Well, loyal readers, there is another dystopia out there. Combine Paranoia’s sense of humor, Dark Heresy’s grim and dark setting, and Cyberpunk 2020’s love of guns, and you get something altogether different but still, well, ‘British Isles’ in its sensibilities. It’s time to freshen up your resume and go work for SLA Industries.

Continue reading SLA Industries 2E Review →
Articles, Crowdfunding Carnival

Kickstarter Wonk: February, 2021

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Welcome to Kickstarter Wonk! It’s February, and you know what that means: ZineQuest! ZineQuest is off to a roaring start this year, and even after merely two days my eyes are already crossing from all the zines I’ve seen. To make it even crazier, there are also actual full-length games still being funded, and I’m trying, at some level, to cover both. First, here’s three full-sized Kickstarter campaigns which are all worth your consideration and perusal. Second, I’ve picked out 40 Zinequest campaigns that both look cool and are currently active. Don’t think that’s enough? Me neither! Since Zinequest campaigns traditionally last 14 days, 14 days from now I’ll be posting a special ZineQuest Wonk which covers all the zines which have campaigns starting after this publication date. For now, though, let’s check out some games!

Continue reading Kickstarter Wonk: February, 2021 →

Articles, Indie Frontiers

Find Catharsis and Get Payback with Capitalites

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When we were kids, my sister and I played with dolls. I had a small team of GI Joes. I’m not sure when I fell out of love with them really. But sometime before they got their own movie, I had clearly decided that playing with soldiers from an American paramilitary organization was not, in fact, good wholesome fun. My sister played with Barbies which was potentially worse. Did you know she – Barbie, not my sister – runs in every presidential US election now? Her last ‘glam-paign’ promised to turn the White House pink. If this was an Onion article, I would’ve laughed. But it’s not – it’s a successful public relations program by a billion-dollar toy company. It’s a well-worn refrain nowadays that we live in a time where satire is complicated.

When I first heard of Capitalites by Samuel Mui Shen Ern, I thought it was satire – a la Crazy Rich Asians, a skewering of Asia’s wealthy. But I was wrong. Capitalites describes itself as “a slice-of-life, coming-of-age tabletop roleplaying game about young adults living in the big city” that explores “real-world themes like ambition, sex, family, and friendships and the sacrifices you make in order to grow up”.

Continue reading Find Catharsis and Get Payback with Capitalites →

Articles, The Independents

Disposable Heroes Review – Gig Economy Heroes Dying for a 5-Star Rating

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A couple hundred years ago, an event called The Fold sent every living being across every dimension into a sort of nightmare reality. Very Powerful Beings were able to reconstitute themselves eventually, but the world was utterly trashed. Using magic and strange technology, lichs, dragons, demons, angels, capitalists, and other monsters built the sprawling megacity of Neo-Francisco. In one of those lost realities, you might have been the heroes destined to save it. In the neon-sick car crash of technological majesty, fantasy weirdness, dimensional rifts, and incredibly funky music that is NF, however, you’re gig workers working for the delivery app Disposable Heroes. It’s deadly work, but it pays! Sorta. This is the deck-based roleplaying game of long hours, high mortality rates, and blazing neon from Sandy Pug Games!

Continue reading Disposable Heroes Review – Gig Economy Heroes Dying for a 5-Star Rating →

Audio/Video, Cannibal Halfling Radio

Cannibal Halfling Radio Episode 11 – Campaign Closure

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It’s been a while! We talk a little about what some of our contributors have been up to when it comes to designing games of their own, including a look at a creative challenge that will be coming around again. Then, we get down to the real business of the episode: ending tabletop roleplaying game campaigns, from how to avoid premature endings, to making the endings you reach satisfactory, to moving on to the next game (sequel or otherwise)!

Continue reading Cannibal Halfling Radio Episode 11 – Campaign Closure →