Tag Archives: TTRPG

Cannibal Halfling Radio Ep. 23 – Now Playing: Cowboy Bebop – Trifecta Tango Pt. 1

I think it’s time we blow this scene. Get everybody and the stuff together… On a ship named Progressive, three bounty hunters down on their luck jump at the chance to score big at the House of Dice casino, in orbit over the Jovian moon Europa. Rather than rolling the dice at the tables, though, they’ll be gambling on whether or not they can track down a culprit who is already in the system…

Now Playing: Cowboy Bebop – Trifecta Tango Pt. 1!

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World Ending Game – Saying Goodbye With Style

“Think about screenplays and films, or the final episode of a television show that you know will not be renewed. Think about saying goodbye to friends who are moving away. Think about the last day of summer vacation. Think about funerals. Think about the restaurant that closed all those years ago, and the noodles they used to serve. Think about the best birthday party you ever had. Think about putting off the last chapter of a book until tomorrow. Think about grief, and relief. Think about the end of a world. Think about the feeling of emerging from a movie theater into a dark parking lot, under the stars.” Longtime readers might recall I’ve written about saying goodbye to characters before, but that was largely in a ‘how to remember and treasure them’ way. The reasoning behind that article is, however, the same one that drew me to check out the subject of this one: the attachment to characters that we’ve created and a desire for closure as we leave them, and the snapshot of their lives that we played out, behind. This is a look at World Ending Game by Everest Pipkin.

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Spooktacular Adventure Writing: Part 1

This is a vague sequel to the Maid RPG post published here recently. Spooktacular is a retroclone of the 80s Ghostbusters role-playing game written by Ewen Cluney, who not only translated Maid RPG but also wrote an original game, Kagegami High, that mixes Maid RPG‘s mechanics with the ones found in Ghostbusters.

I decided to write an original adventure for when I would eventually run Spooktacular for my players. This was a problem for me, because I live by the Mythbusters credo; if it’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.

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A Survey of Rules-Lite Superhero RPGs

I recently felt the urge to find a rules-lite system for playing superhero games. Like most nerds I love superheroes; it’s a very unique genre bursting with its own weird tropes and traditions. It’s not surprising that superhero games are popular in the TTRPG space.

What did surprise me as I began to search for a game is that there are a lot of superhero RPGs out there. I found over 25 games that seemed compelling, at least at a glance, and that’s just rules-lite games; there are even more games if you include crunchier systems. But crunchy games aren’t the focus of this piece.

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Zine Month 2024 Round-Up

Lock your credit cards, hide your wallet, tell your banks to close early, because it’s February and that means a veritable deluge of new tabletop roleplaying game zines taking their shot at getting created with some crowdfunded help. Down the hall Aaron can be heard trying to keep his head above water with the first wave of ZineQuest projects on Kickstarter (there’s an alarming number of gargling sounds), but as has been tradition I’m taking a look beyond the white-green halls of the original ZQ to see what other excellent projects can be found in the wider Zine Month 2024.

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The Trouble With Reviewing RPGs

Usually we keep any mention of the Wider TTRPG Discourse to the Discussions section of the Weekend Update, but there’s an exception to everything. Supposedly Matt Colville said some things on a stream earlier this week? I’m sure he did, the man’s got a lot to talk about, he’s got a Kickstarter going on that I’m sure Aaron will talk more about in January’s Crowdfunding Carnival. Of course then the topic got sucked into the ouroboros of social media, starting with Twitter’s rotting alive husk, and do you think anyone is providing any links to said stream? No, of course not. Doesn’t matter, though, because The Discourse spins on, and its latest incarnation is, broadly, this:

Reviewing a game after reading it versus reviewing a game after playing it.

Oh. Oh wow. Are… are we The Discourse?

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PAX Unplugged: A Local’s Guide (2023 Update)

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.


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Eat the Reich (Backerkit Preview)

The date: 1943. The location: Nazi occupied Paris. Your assignment: to climb into a pressurized steel coffin. Survive a drop from a few thousand feet. Make your way to the Eiffel tower, where the Fuhrer’s airship is docked and drink all of the party leader’s blood.

Relevant note: you are a vampire.

Sometimes you need a self respecting monster (or six) to take care of the scummier ones.

A backer preview of Eat the Reich released in October 2023 (fittingly on Friday the 13th). It is an RPG written by Grant Howitt (the creator of the Honey Heist), illustrated by Will Kirkvy and published by Rowan, Rook and Decard (the publishers of DIE RPG), and it is a completely, totally and 100% unapologetically anti-fascist joyride.

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Fabula Ultima Review: A Golden Table Talk JRPG

Epic stories of larger-than-life heroes destined to accomplish great deeds fighting against fearsome villains and tragic antagonists! Fantasy worlds brimming with magic, wondrous locations, and uniquely bizarre monsters! Challenging battles that will call for clever tactics, cooperation with allies, and tricks up your sleeve to win! If you’ve played Japanese roleplaying games like Bravely Default, Chrono Trigger, Granblue Fantasy, Ocotopath Traveler, or (duh) Final Fantasy, the premise might be quite familiar indeed. This, however, is no video game. Neither will it take you through a predetermined story, however many branches it may have, thought up by writers and enabled by coders you’ll never meet. Instead, grab some dice and prepare to put your own tabletop twist on the genre you love, with a story and world of your own creation. Welcome to Fabula Ultima, created by Emanuele Galletto and published by Need Games!

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The Unpublished Network at PAX East 2023

If you want to catch a tabletop game in one of its more interesting stages, it’s always a good idea to swing by the Unpublished Game Network.  The ‘Unpub’ Network  provides, well, networking for unpublished games that are still in development and at a convention gives them a place to put their game through its paces. It’s notable that the signage says ‘looking for playtesters’ instead of just ‘looking for players.’ While not quite as rich in traditional CHG content as its Unplugged sibling PAX East offers the advantage of being right in my own stomping grounds, and getting to attend its ’23 iteration for all four days meant I was able to swing by the Unpub tables multiple times.

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