"After the locusts and pits and boiling seas. After the war in heaven and feasting on earth. After the seven years of blood and forty years of night. There is magic. Magic and bone. Where streets grow weeds and skyscrapers stand hollow. Where old gods wake and new gods form in the hearts of the wayward. Where cult and banner flourish.

I appreciate each and every one of you who read my story last week, hopefully it gave some entertainment or provoked some thought. As was likely obvious after reading the whole thing, Nat was my character in the most recent game of DIE I ran; the story itself both tied in to some events that happened in-game as well as attempted to give some background that explained the game’s conceit and gave Nat an impetus for getting everyone into DIE.

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, something from the archives, and discussions from elsewhere online.

If any one topic is ‘the core’ of this System Hack, this would be it. Base building is the underlying gameplay loop of RimWorld and it is also a topic du jour in RPG circles, with the (admittedly poorly detailed) stronghold building from the D&D days of yore coming back into focus as more gamers want broader storyline opportunities. For our purposes, of course, if we’re making a colony sim we need to make a colony.

PAX Unplugged 2025 is this weekend! Which you probably already know, on account of clicking on this article while you're on your way  there or already in Philly. Alas, I won't be there this time around. I hear tell some other Cannibal Halflings will be there, though, and I don't have to be present to Know Things Worth Your Time. Let's go over some games for you to buy, some games for you to play, and some interesting events to check out.

This piece of fiction is inspired by a recent game of DIE, which I detailed on Cannibal Halfling. Like much of my DIE fiction, it focuses on the character's lives outside of 'The Great Game'. Unlike my previous fiction, though, this one directly references something that happened in the game, and references DIE itself. Inside Nat’s bedroom was one of the windows facing the front of the comfortable home she shared with her parents and significantly younger brother.

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, something from the archives, and discussions from elsewhere online.

Last week, Apocalypse World came back to crowdfunding, with the Bakers seeking funding for a Third Edition of the game. Apocalypse World was first released back in 2010 and it took the indie RPG world by storm; by the time Dungeon World was released in 2012 it was already all but certain that ‘Powered by the Apocalypse’ would be a phenomenon.

I’m writing gaming fiction again, and just like last time it’s centering a character that I created while playing DIE. I spoke a bit about my experience over on Cannibal Halfling, but the important thing to know is that it’s a trend. Over my four different experiences playing DIE, three of them I played the primary scenario (‘Reunited’) and three of them led to me creating characters that just tweaked my brain a little, that just broke me a little.

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, something from the archives, and discussions from elsewhere online.

Welcome to Crowdfunding Carnival for November! There are a ton of campaigns out there this month; my initial pass easily got to 20 even after I realized that there were a lot and started filtering more aggressively. We’ve definitely got more designers putting in the juice, but there are some other interesting developments going on. First, Gamefound has come roaring onto the scene again.

The 3rd edition of the groundbreaking original.

My main interest in starting another site for my writing is to discuss storytelling and generative storytelling. As such, I wanted to anchor it with one of the the most well-known generative storytelling tools around: the tarot card deck. The use of tarot symbolism for divination dates back to the 18th century (although there are many occult myths around the cards that claim much earlier), but tarot as we typically understand and employ it is best dated to the late 19th or early 20th century, around the time that members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn started writing tarot decks.

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, something from the archives, and discussions from elsewhere online.

Storytelling is primary to being human, to being human here and now in the 21st century. Telling stories helps us understand who we are, what's going on around us, and how to imagine a better world. Storytelling is also what separated the roleplaying game from the wargame, and why the former has exploded in popularity as people were finally able to watch game sessions from the comfort of their own homes.

You and Granma were, frankly, on the worst terms. That's what made it such a surprise when you got a package from your cousin, who had wound up being the executor of her estate. Maybe, your cousin writes, Granma was able to overlook your differences since you had become a fellow academic? Either way, the actual package is a copy from her rare books collection, willed to you.

Creating a window into game design