Girl Frame confidently stomps its way into a niche mecha genre

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.rascal.news/girl-frame-confidently-stomps-its-way-into-a-niche-mecha-genre/

The Endie Awards 2025 – Aaron Edition

This post is brought to you thanks to Lady Tabletop, who prompted folks to write about their own gaming experiences of the year and give out their own fun awards. Like Seamus I thought this was a neat idea, and was also glad (and relieved) that ‘The Endies’ weren’t trying to be yet another award given out because someone disagrees with the ENnies. Thinking back on the year and giving your own awards is more useful (and more fun!), anyway. I had a much more constrained gaming year than Seamus in part because I had a very busy year; in the middle of this year my partner and I moved, which involved buying a condo, selling two condos, moving one person once and another person (and a cat) twice. In a way I’m surprised I got as much gaming in as I did, and also surprised I was able to write anything from May to August. Still, the difference in absolute number hides the point that Seamus made to me that, due to the number of campaigns I’m in and how often I run, I probably ran and played more sessions by absolute count than Seamus did. […]

https://cannibalhalflinggaming.com/2025/12/11/the-endie-awards-2025-aaron-edition/

Weekend Update: 12/6/2025

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. […]

https://cannibalhalflinggaming.com/2025/12/06/weekend-update-12-6-2025/

Last Kiss Backerkit Review

Ever feel like the world is out to get you? It is. Five radical teens with attitude should not be responsible for saving the world. You're a bunch of god-damned teenagers. You might act like you have it all figured out, but you don’t. How could you when there is a literal evil force making your lives harder? So go ahead, seek out some normal high school goals like dominating on the sports field, kissing the mean girl, or becoming class president. While you play pretend, the darkness will seep in. The darkness colors the world so nothing is quite right. This is a world where disputes can be resolved via duels, where the next town over seems a world away, and where monsters live in secret. Normal doesn’t have a chance. What will you do before it all ends? Perhaps there's enough time for one Last Kiss... […]

https://cannibalhalflinggaming.com/2025/11/29/last-kiss-backerkit-review/

The design decision which won narrative gaming

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. It’s easy to forget that there was another indie darling riding high in the hobby in the early aughts. Fate was arguably the other big indie game, and it even made its way into the ICv2 bestseller list after the success of its 2013 Kickstarter, an honor typically reserved for D&D, Pathfinder, and a few other corporate games. The ICv2 data point is particularly interesting. Fate outsold Apocalypse World; not only did the game peek into commercial sales charts as late as 2020, Fate even holds the statistically dubious honor of being one of only three games to ever outsell D&D in the ICv2 rankings (the other two being Pathfinder and FFG Star Wars). Commercially, Fate was an indie juggernaut. Fate has clearly not maintained the degree of impact and influence it once had. Hell, the last three Kickstarter campaigns run by Evil Hat Productions, publishers of Fate, were all Powered by the Apocalypse games. The literal keepers of Fate have, thanks in no small part to John Harper and Blades in the Dark, seemingly seen the writing on the wall in terms of salability and influence of PbtA over Fate. Why is that? To start, there’s an obvious disparity to the degree in which unaffiliated designers took the respective systems and ran with them. That said, it’s fairly clear to me that this is a symptom, not a cause. While it’s hard to beat the Bakers’ approach of ‘sure, just don’t literally plagiarize us’ for licensing, Fate was licensed under the OGL and later Creative Commons, which were both used by tons of creators in other contexts. No, the difference in third party support and expansion has to do with the design of the respective games, not their shepherding by their respective creators. And I think I know specifically which design elements made the difference. […]

https://cannibalhalflinggaming.com/2025/11/13/the-design-decision-which-won-narrative-gaming/

Apocalypse World - the TTRPG which spawned the Powered by the Apocalypse engine - is getting a new 3rd edition on Kickstarter. We break out all the details. https://ttrpgfans.com/apocalypse-world-3rd-edition/ #apocalypseworld #poweredbytheapocalypse #pbta #ttrpg #RPG #TTRPGCommunity #rpggames #RPGCommunity

Apocalypse World: Burned Over is kinder and much angrier

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.rascal.news/apocalypse-world-burned-over-is-kinder-and-much-angrier/