Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

Every week, we send you interviews, news and roundups straight to your inbox. Everything you need to know within the TTRPG hobby and industry without the hassle of social media, generative AI or Google search.

If you want to know more, check us out here! If you like what you’re reading, make sure you subscribe. Help us become one of the go-to sources in the industry on Dungeons and Dragons, independent RPGs and everything inbetween.

It’s a light week of news, with a publishing agreement and a new crowdfunding initiative from Backerkit. Also some cool space news! Honestly, I always need more space news.

Studio Hermitage Partners with Dark Horse to Sell Victorian Horror-Focused Our Brilliant Ruin in Gaming Stores

Studio Hermitage

Our Brilliant Ruin, a new IP created by former World of Darkness creative director Justin Achilli, announced a new partnership with the comic publisher Dark Horse Comics to bring its TTRPG to new audiences.

The TTRPG was originally crowdfunded in 2024 and has quickly produced an audio drama and comic set in the world of the Dramark, “a place where the last fragile remains of society burn with excess and intrigue in the shadow of a dying world,” Studio Hermitage said in a press release. “The Ruin, a preternatural force befouling everything it touches, has ravaged geography and culture alike, wreaking destructive havoc and transforming both people and animals into monstrous creatures. With the world plunged into darkness, how will you spend the time you have left?”

The core rulebook will now be distributed by Dark Horse Comics to local gaming stores, making the game more accessible.

Studio Hermitage previously released a 4-issue comic in partnership with Dark Horse Comics that explored the setting, so this deal is an expansion of their original deal. Studio Hermitage has expressed an eagerness to convert OBR into properties outside of the TTRPG. These include an audio drama miniseries and an in-development video game. TTRPG Insider got to test an alpha version of the video game during PAX Unplugged.

MegaDungeon Month Begins on Backerkit

Yet another of Backerkit’s cross-promotional projects went live this week. Megadungeon Month, a crowdfunding period for megadungeon TTRPGs, went live this week. Megadungeons, in this case, are campaigns where players will often stay in a set of caves or halls for a lengthy period of time, with a focus on the grind over the more traditional in-and-out approach to fantasy storytelling.

The initiative features projects from several large publishers in the space, including Monte Cook Games, Kobold Press, , Ghostfire Gaming, and more.

For example, Troll Lord Games is publishing Caste Zagyg, a megadungeon it claims was written by D&D creator Gary Gygax.

There’s also the DIE Metadungeon, a TTRPG experience from Rowan Rook and Deckard that uses Kieron Gillon’s DIE TTRPG to explore the history of the hobby.

It’s a lot of interesting projects, and you should give it a look!

Mega Dungeon Month on BackerKit

Welcome to Mega Dungeon Month! The biggest names in Tabletop RPGs. All the dungeon content any person could need.

Rolling D20s IN SPAAAAAACE

Instagram post

Rabea Rogge, a German female astronaut, posted a video of herself rolling a d20 in space. I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty cool.

Rogge flew on SpaceX’s Fram2 Mission in 2025, making her the first German woman in space.

Want to see more reporting in the TTRPG space? Heard a scoop or a story you want covered? Let us know! Subscribe to TTRPG Insider and get exclusive interviews, trend pieces, speculation and coverage of D&D, mainstream publishers and the indie scene.

That’s all for this week. Have thoughts on a recent story? Want to promote your latest product? Feel free to send us tips or emails at ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

You can also tag or follow us on BlueSky, Threads or Twitter!

Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

We’re the go-to source for exclusive interviews, analysis, and writing on the TTRPG industry, from Dungeons and Dragons to independent RPGs and everything in between.

If you want to know more, check us out here! If you like what you’re reading, make sure you subscribe.

This week, we’re taking a look at Breathless: Frightmare Edition. Originally a two-page indie action survival TTRPG written by Rene-Pier Deshaies in 2022, BREATHLESS gained immediate notoriety within the space for how it used dice mechanics to establish tension and scarcity in a zombie-infested world. Now the game is getting a major update and several new scenarios and an elaborate new design that’s been published by Mythworks (Wildsea, Slugblaster, etc)

We got to speak with Mythworks co-founder Ray Chou about the project, what this updated version entails, and why it might be a good tool for convincing others to try TTRPGs.

Mythworks

Breathless was originally released in 2022 by Rene-Pier Deshaies as a simple zombie-focused TTRPG, where players are survivors living inside of a Walking Dead-style world filled to the brim with undead monsters and creatures. It was a simple game, but gained a lot of momentum and interest within the space. Its mechanics (which used diminishing dice as a way to reflect the stress that items might go through) caught a lot of people’s attention. 350+ games or hacks used Breathless’ mechanics for their own, according to Deshaie.

Deshaies and Mythworks had a history prior to the games’ release, Mythworks co-founder Ray Chou told TTRPG Insider. The two had collaborated to distribute Deshaies and co-designer Galen Pejeau’s game Stoneburners through Mythworks’ online store. The two eventually discussed updating Breathless and expanding it well beyond the original vision.

Those discussions occurred around the same time Chou was imagining a new series of games published in partnership with CBR-PNK’s Emanoel Melo called STORYPAK.

“STORYPAK is our way of making RPGs as easy to play as possible,” Chou said in a press release. “By creating games that are simple, lightweight, and beautiful, we’re hoping to lower the barrier to entry and expand the possibilities of the medium.” In Breathless’ case, this means that Mythworks, Deshaies, DNGN CLUB designer Jack Panic, and Melo were collaborating to expand the zombie survival game well beyond its original plan.

STORYPAK’s simplistic design was originally established through CBR-PNK, a small, pamphlet-sized TTRPG that presents its rules and cyberpunk-inspired setting through a distinct publishing model that reflects the futuristic setting. The new version of Breathless can be run as one-shots or as a longer 6-12-session campaign if the table wishes.

Frightmare Edition, in contrast, presents itself with a 90s slasher-horror/VHS-inspired aesthetic. The cassette container holds 12 pamphlets, including updated rules, tools for generating your own zombie dangers, four adventures, and much more.

Mythworks hopes to publish several more STORYPAK games in the future, starting with Melo’s upcoming Onigami, a TTRPG about samurai and ninjas who have made pacts with onis in the 16th century.

Whether you’re a designer, content creator or just the biggest fan at your table, TTRPG Insider delivers in-depth reporting, original interviews and regular roundups of the news that you will not find anywhere else. Let us help you become the best designer, player or dungeon master at your table.

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The Manageability of Small Games

Mythworks

Breathless, like a lot of TTRPGs, will be released in a market where they have to compete with established games like Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthulhu and other well-established rulesets. Plenty of DMs and TTRPG fans lament the difficulty of trying to convince friends and companions to try a new game. Chou thinks that the STORYPAK approach to making a TTRPG helps jump that barrier and maybe introduce people to their new favorite game.

“I think the form factor [of STORYPAK] is absolutely one of the things that lowers the barrier to entry,” Chou argues. “When I think about picking up an RPG and playing an RPG with friends, I’ve found that most people stick to one game, and they stick to one game because it's what they know. They don't want to learn a whole bunch of rules. "What we've seen with CBR-PNK is that people who would not otherwise give other role-playing games a chance, or are not attracted to role-playing games, are willing to give it a chance because it seems manageable.” Making character creation and rule mastery easier makes it a lot easier for players to pick up a game and start playing. It makes it a perfect game to pick up and play at conventions, breweries, or even a night where half your TTRPG table has to call off.

Chou’s thoughts do appear to match some popular trends. Honey Heist, a simple 1-page TTRPG about bears stealing honey for themselves, saw massive pickup after Critical Role played it in a one-shot years ago. I also know several DMs who have used one-page TTRPGs to get their D&D-only tables to try non-d20 systems for themselves.

Having a game well-grounded in a popular genre also goes a long way. The zombie apocalypse is a genre that has been explored extensively in modern media (Night of the Living Dead, Left 4 Dead, The Walking Dead, etc.). “Everybody knows what the fiction looks like. So it’s easy to come up with a character who fits the setting,” Chou argued.

Players who are curious about Breathless can get the original version for free on Itch.io right now.

The Kickstarter launches on April 7.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

Every week, we send you interviews, news and roundups straight to your inbox. Everything you need to know within the TTRPG hobby and industry without the hassle of social media, generative AI or Google search.

If you want to know more, check us out here! If you like what you’re reading, make sure you subscribe. Help us become one of the go-to sources in the industry on Dungeons and Dragons, independent RPGs, and everything in between.

This was the first week of April, aka APRIL FOOL’S! Lots of nonsense comes out around this time, but we still found the interesting TTRPG stories of the week. A new villain-themed set of subclasses for D&D, Dimension 20 on a bus, a Square Enix game gets adapted into a TTRPG, and a lot more!

Villainous Options Are Offered in D&D’s Latest Unearthed Arcana

Wizards of the Coast

Wizards of the Coast and D&D continue to experiment with new tools and character options. This week, they released a new Unearthed Arcana, offering new character options for players to consider.

• Pestilence Domain Cleric, which will let players use poison and plague in the name of their deity to save lives or overwhelm their enemies

• Circle of the Titan Druid, which lets players become “Titans”, ginormous Wild Shape options for dominating a battlefield.

• Hell Knights, fighters who master the powers of the hells to inflict fiery damage upon their opponents

• Demonic Sorcery, which allows sorcerers to wield the fires of the hells for themselves.

The two more interesting additions to the UA this time around are the Villainous Paths. These are two distinct sets of feats that players can adopt on a path to become either a Lich or a Death Knight (each iconic forms of undead with enormous power) It’s a system akin to Ghostfire Gaming/Grim Hollow’s Transformations, a set of rules where characters take levels in becoming a Hag, Devil, Lich or other strange entity with positive and negative side effects.

It’s unclear where this set of rules will appear. UAs are often indicators of future content. The themes here would fit into the upcoming Ravenloft book releasing in June, but it may be too soon to implement them.

You can review the UA here. DnD Beyond is also hoping to get feedback starting on April 9.

Orbital Blues Month Launches, Offering New Options for the ‘Sad Space Cowboy’ Game

Backerkit

Backerkit and SoulMuppet Publishing officially launched Orbital Blues Month on April 1. The partnership is the latest entry in Backerkit’s approach to crowdfunding teamups, where it brings creators around a singular set of rules and strives to crowdfund them.

Orbital Blues is a “lo-fi space western roleplaying game” that Soulmuppet crowdfunded in 2021 and officially released in 2022. The campaign centers around Outlaws and Corporations, an expansion of the space setting. Five other creators in the space are also raising funds, including a space racing supplement from One Plus EXP, a planet-hopping adventure from Lone Archivist and other projects.

All of the campaigns have hit their crowdfunding goals, with $110,000 raised so far. It’s a good opportunity to check out this indie game if you are looking for something with a bit of Cowboy Bebop and Firefly aesthetic.

Orbital Blues Month on BackerKit

Orbital Blues Month is a collaborative crowdfunding project running throughout April featuring a brand-new host of content from some of the most wanted Outlaws in the TTRPG publishing space, as well as a new project from the original creators of Orbital Blues.

Blue M&M, Lint and Hat Return in Season 2 of Dimension 20: On a Bus

This isn't a joke, this is Katie's life! 🚌🧝‍♀️

#d20onabus

— Dimension 20 (@dimension20.dropout.tv)
8:00 PM • Apr 2, 2026

Dimension 20, Dropout’s ongoing D&D campaign, premiered season 2 of D20: On a Bus on April 1. This was originally just a joke episode where comedian Katie Marovitch ran something that was not-D&D for some of the more notable D&D actual play DMs on the market (Brennan Lee Mulligan, Matthew “Mark” Mercer, Jasmine Bhullar, Aabria Iyengar). After being labeled the highest-rated episode of the series, they had to make a season 2.

Unfortunately, this episode does require a subscription to Dropout to watch. But maybe we’ll get a season 3? It’s just ridiculous fun, pretty short… and frustrating for my DM brain.

Want to see more reporting in the TTRPG space? Heard a scoop or a story you want covered? Let us know! Subscribe to TTRPG Insider and get exclusive interviews, trend pieces, speculation and coverage of D&D, mainstream publishers and the indie scene.

Octopath Traveler’s TTRPG To Be Adapted For English Audiences

Octopath Traveler, a Square Enix IP and video game series, is getting an English TTRPG published by Dark Horse Books. The game was originally published as a video game by SE in 2018, and was followed by a mobile game and a separate Japanese TTRPG in 2022. Now that same property is coming to English audiences.

“Gather a team of adventurers to explore, battle, and build relationships within an engaging, lore-rich setting that takes place in the official Octopath Traveler timeline,” the official description states. “Players can create characters with their own unique class and background or play as beloved characters from the games with pre-built, customizable character sheets. They can then embark on canon, pre-written heroic journeys of mystery, action, and adventure—or shape the narrative from the gamemaster’s chair and work together with players to create unique stories through the vast magical world of Octopath Traveler.”

The game has heavy Final Fantasy vibes and seems comparable to past adaptations of the property, though it has its own distinct set of classes and lore. It’s clearly a play for the fans of the heavy JRPG fan base.

The game’s core rulebook is scheduled to release on October 6, 2026 in traditional bookstores. (No Kickstarter needed!)

That’s all for this week. Have thoughts on a recent story? Want to promote your latest product? Feel free to send us tips or emails at ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

You can also tag or follow us on BlueSky, Threads or Twitter!

Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

We’re the go-to source for exclusive interviews, analysis, and writing on the TTRPG industry, from Dungeons and Dragons to independent RPGs and everything in between.

If you want to know more, check us out here! If you like what you’re reading, make sure you subscribe.

Today’s issue focuses on another addition to the spectrum of fantasy TTRPGs on the market. Adam Hancock, best known for Demiverse and An Elf and an Orc had a Little Baby, has partnered with a wide spectrum of award-winning TTRPG writers to produce TWELVE REALMS, a new original fantasy game and setting on Kickstarter. It tells the story of Heru, a ringed gas giant that has twelve planets (aka REALMS) swirling around it, each with their own unique culture and realm. But a thirteenth realm has appeared, drawing adventurers to explore what it contains and learn the secrets of this mysteriously empty planet.

The game (published by Gnome Made Games) is about wandering caravans, “item-based progression” and what Hancock calls a “Simultaneous Dice” challenge resolution system. It’s how Hancock (and his fellow writers) is trying to find an alternative to D&D, a game that he fell out of love with. It’s a big goal to pursue, but the project has a fairly strong team of supporters so far.

The team of writers includes VJ Harris, Rue Dickey, Friday Strout, Sebastian Yue and a variety of other writers across the TTRPG community.

We spoke with Hancock about the project and why people should give this attempt at a fantasy system a try.

/i

1. In short, what's the story behind this game? Where did it begin?

In 2023, I suddenly fell out of love with my favorite tabletop role-playing game. And I didn’t really know where to go from there. So, I started a video series called “Finding My Next Favorite TTRPG.” The premise was that for each video, I’d read a game’s rules, summarize them, and make a verdict about whether or not it met my personal criteria.

Starting out, I was sure that I’d fall in love with another game already out there, that it’d become my home game, and that I would then start professionally designing for it. But after four dozen videos—most of them viewer’s recommendations based on my criteria—I realized I probably wouldn’t find it.

I also realized that, without being totally aware of it, I’d been designing a game in my head as I’d been going along. So I commissioned Eduardo Comettant to make the cover art, wrote down the rules that had been coalescing in my mind, assembled a team of award-winning writers—each of whom I’ve worked with in the past—and we were off to the races!

2. What do you mean when you say the game has "fast, simple-to-learn and dynamic dice" mechanics?

Rolling for turn order puts the brakes on the dramatic buildup to a fight. It’s an interruption spent doing light math and time-consuming bookkeeping. It also makes no sense that no matter how high you roll on an attack roll, your damage can still be disappointingly low. Plus, separately rolling attack and damage wastes time. In Twelve Realms, we jettisoned all of these issues, making for an agile game that keeps everything players love while getting to the action faster.

Here’s how it works. When combat or some other challenge starts, everyone around the table picks up all of their relevant dice and rolls them all at once with a deafening clatter! Once the dust clears, scan the rolled dice to see each person’s highest roll. Of those highest rolls, the player with the lowest one goes first. That person continues their turn until they run out of dice to resolve or choose to end their turn early.

Each die represents something real in the game world. A die might be your sword, your shield, your ice magic, or your gift of gab. When it’s on the table, you get to decide which opposing die it goes up against—sword versus dragon scales, shield versus oncoming arrow, charm versus mental will. A higher die takes a lower one, removing it from play. The higher the roll relative to its opposed roll, the more damage is dealt. Once all dice are resolved, check to see if anyone is still in the fight and then start a new round!

3. How does this compare to other traditional fantasy games?  Why should I try this over other games?

I love fantasy TTRPGs! So we’re working hard to preserve the parts that folks like me love. But we’re leaving behind the “legacy” stuff that I wish had never been part of the hobby in the first place.

In addition to the three-in-one dice rule I already detailed, Twelve Realms is a classless system. I always felt like character classes are more prescriptive than descriptive anyway. As a result, as a player I was always trying to find ways to subvert class norms.

In our game, character progression is based on player choices, specifically what they do with the items and innate abilities they choose to use. When they try and fail to connect with a sword, for example, or tell a convincing lie or jump over a chasm, they gain experience. (Because victory is its own reward and failure is the best teacher.) And the experience goes toward improving that specific item or ability. The more they try, the more failures they experience, but the faster they’ll progress.

Descriptive instead of prescriptive is the philosophy for all our character options, from character creation to gameplay to progression, and our accompanying campaign setting has that philosophy baked in.

Whether you’re a designer, content creator or just the biggest fan at your table, TTRPG Insider delivers in-depth reporting, original interviews and regular roundups of the news that you will not find anywhere else. Let us help you become the best designer, player or dungeon master at your table.

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4. Is this designed for particular types of fantasy storytelling, or is it just to guide a general sense of fantasy storytelling?

We’re not leaning hard into any one fantasy subgenre. We wanted to leave room for players to tell most kinds of fantasy stories. That’s why we have a campaign setting that runs the length and breadth of most fantasy.

In the Realmsguide, one of two hardcovers for Twelve Realms, you’ll find a fantasy setting with a ringed planet at its center. Orbiting this gas giant are twelve moons, each sitting close enough to the planet’s star to be able to support life. These are the twelve realms. Each one is the ancestral home of a different fantasy people: human, elf, dwarf, gnome, and so on. They’re close enough to each other that there have been plenty of cross-realm exchanges but far enough apart that each people has adapted to life on its own planet.

The need for adventurers has arrived in the last generation in the form of a rogue moon caught by the ringed planet’s pull. This is the Thirteenth Realm. It’s a world filled—on land, on the sea floor, and underground—with the ruins of an ancient civilization that seems to have died out with no explanation. And as the world has heated up, monsters have emerged from the glaciers and depths of the realm. A lot of the adventuring will happen in this realm, as the people from other realms band together to confront the opportunity and dangers suddenly on their doorstep.

5. Is this Gnome Made Games’ first project? What are the plans going forward?

No, not our first! This is our seventh crowdfunding project. We’ve already crowdfunded and published games like Those Who Wander, Luncheons and Dragonflies, and most recently Playing God, and we’ve also made the campaign settings Demiverse (along with its sequel) and Ashwell Gate.

If this crowdfunding campaign goes as well as we hope, demonstrating community interest in the game and setting, we’re looking forward to sticking with Twelve Realms, publishing adventure material, setting expansions, and more character options. There are over a dozen worlds to explore so we’re not at all short on ideas!

6. What's something you're excited for folks to see in the game?

Another thing I’m excited to have is the original caravan rules. I remember running a years-long campaign that featured a wagon train as we trekked from one continent to another. Wagons, mounts, supplies, guides, guards, healers, and more. It’s a village on the road. Caravans are better than bastions or strongholds because you can take them with you on your adventures.

In Twelve Realms, investing in a caravan means improved rests and travel abilities. We know from experience that players often want to adopt every memorable character and keep every wild animal as a pet. We’re going to reward that with mechanical weight and create memorable roleplaying moments.

7. What is your short sales pitch? Why should people try Twelve Realms?

The rules are both agile and dynamic. The writing team with over 20 awards to their names are dreaming up a setting both expansive and inspiring. If you’re anything like us, it’s everything you’ve always wanted in a fantasy TTRPG while still being light on its feet and player-friendly.

Thanks to Gnome Made Games for chatting with TTRPG Insider! The crowdfunding campaign for Twelve Realms is scheduled to launch in the first week of April.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

Every week, we send you interviews, news and roundups straight to your inbox. Everything you need to know within the TTRPG hobby and industry without the hassle of social media, generative AI or Google search.

If you want to know more, check us out here! If you like what you’re reading, make sure you subscribe. Help us become one of the go-to sources in the industry on Dungeons and Dragons, independent RPGs, and everything in between.

This week’s issue is a bit shorter than usual as I just got back from vacation with my family. I spent most of my time catching up on reading and sitting at the beach; a nice change from the fairly chilly climate in Indiana. But there’s still some news for you to review.

Modiphius Announces New Vegas, California Setting Guides for Fallout TTRPG

Modiphius Entertainment announced plans to bring new post-apocalyptic storytelling content to the table with two new guides about the Fallout universe.

The company announced on Thursday that it is releasing two new setting guides for the Fallout TTRPG. In April 2026, it is opening preorders for a New Vegas setting guide. This book will help players explore the updated Vegas setting that was featured in Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout Season 2. It will significantly expand the storytelling opportunities that Royal Flush, the campaign it released earlier this year, offers players.

That release will be followed by a second setting guide focused on New California, where the original Fallout game took place. Players will get new traits and tools to explore the region while also getting an opportunity to fight the Master, learn psychic powers and maybe even become a first-generation Super Mutant. The New California book will release later in 2026.

Modiphius also mentioned plans to release setting guides for the Capital Wasteland, the Boston Commonwealth, and the Appalachian Mountains in 2027.

Brennan Lee Mulligan and Company Run for City Council in Vampire-Themed Campaign

Dropout’s Dimension 20 announced its upcoming season; City Council of Darkness. The game will focus on a smaller town where a new coterie of vampires have to rise to power.

AKA It’s Dimension 20: Vampire the Masquerade edition. D20 has historically only played D&D 5e and a modified version of the Kids With Bikes ruleset, so this is an interesting turn. It’s very contrary to how most people play VTM (myself included) but it should make for some delightful content.

Arkhane Asylum Adapts Ubisoft's The Division to TTRPG

French publisher Arkhane Asylum adapts Ubisoft's The Division tactical shooter into an immersive TTRPG experience. Exclusive interview inside.

The big news for us was the unveiling of The Division’s TTRPG, which is being made through a partnership between Ubisoft and Arkhane Asylum. I spoke with one of the guys making the game.

That’s all for this week. Have thoughts on a recent story? Want to promote your latest product? Feel free to send us tips or emails at ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

You can also tag or follow us on BlueSky, Threads or Twitter!

Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

We’re the go-to source for exclusive interviews, analysis, and writing on the TTRPG industry, from Dungeons and Dragons to independent RPGs and everything in between.

If you want to know more, check us out here! If you like what you’re reading, make sure you subscribe.

In this issue, I got the express opportunity to talk to Arkhane Asylum publishing director Mathieu Saintout about The Division TTRPG, a newly announced adaptation of Ubisoft’s tactical shooter RPG. The franchise focuses on the Strategic Homeland Division, a US-based government agency operating in a world where a disease has wiped out life in the United States. Now the players (sleeper agents assigned to assist the Division) must step up to combat criminals, fight off terrorists and uncover the virus's origin.

The original Division game launched in 2016 to significant success and was followed by one sequel and multiple expansions. Arkhane, in contrast, has translated games for White Wolf and Modiphius for years. The Division will be its second crowdfunded project to date.

Ubisoft has gotten into TTRPGs in the last few years. It partnered with CMON in 2023 to publish an Assassin’s Creed TTRPG, although it has only provided PDF copies of the game to purchasers so far. It also partnered with Modiphius Entertainment to turn the fantasy wargaming property Heroes of Might and Magic into a TTRPG in 2025.

This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.

Arkhane Asylum/Ubisoft

Why did Arkhane and Ubisoft decide to turn The Division into a TTRPG? What's the story of this partnership?
Mathieu Saintout: The project really started from a very personal place. I’ve been a fan of The Division for years, both as a player and as a tabletop RPG publisher, and from early on, I felt it was a world that could translate incredibly well into roleplaying.
What drew me in wasn’t just its striking visual identity—the grounded, devastated urban environments—but its core theme: rebuilding. You’re not just surviving the collapse; you’re trying to restore something meaningful. That’s a powerful foundation for a TTRPG.
We reached out to Ubisoft about two years ago, and that’s when the collaboration began. Since then, we’ve worked hand in hand throughout the entire development process, building a strong relationship of trust along the way. I even had the chance to visit Massive Entertainment’s studio in Malmö, which was both inspiring and invaluable in shaping our approach to the game.
In many ways, this project sits at the intersection of my personal passion for video games and my work as a roleplaying game publisher—and that’s exactly what makes it so special.

Why do you think The Division (out of all of Ubisoft's properties) was the best property to adapt into a TTRPG?

Mathieu Saintout: I’m not sure it was the best choice—only time will tell—but it was definitely the one I knew best, and the one where I felt I could bring the most as a publisher.
What makes The Division particularly interesting for a TTRPG is the contrast between the original medium and what roleplaying allows. As a video game—especially as a first-person shooter—it’s naturally focused on actionand specific gameplay loops. But the world itself is much richer than that.
A tabletop RPG removes those limits entirely. It opens the door to deeper storytelling, moral choices, human drama, and a much wider range of situations and playstyles. There’s a lot of narrative potential in The Division—whether it’s survival, rebuilding communities, or navigating tension between factions.
For us, it wasn’t just about adapting a game, but about unlocking everything the universe makes possible once you give players true freedom. That’s where we felt there was real value.

Ubisoft

What led to the decision to release games internationally? Arkhane has primarily worked in adapting other games into French in the past.

Saintout: When you partner with a company like Ubisoft, you think big from the start. An international release wasn’t an afterthought—it was part of the plan from day one.
Of course, we will publish a French version for our existing audience, who have supported us for years. But The Division is a universe deeply rooted in American culture, both in its setting and its themes, so it made perfect sense to develop a full English edition and speak directly to that audience.
It’s also a natural step for Arkhane Asylum. We’ve built strong experience through localization and publishing in France, and this project is an opportunity to expand beyond that and reach a broader international community.
More than anything, we want to bring something meaningful to players worldwide—not just a video game adaptation, but an RPG designed from the ground up to resonate with an international audience.

This is not a project in development—we’re presenting a finished game, ready to be played. The Kickstarter will function as a preorder and a great way for us to connect with a new audience, especially in the US. We plan to begin production immediately after the campaign, with delivery just a few months later. We’re excited to get the game into players’ hands as quickly as possible.

Whether you’re a designer, content creator, or just the biggest fan at your table, TTRPG Insider delivers in-depth reporting, original interviews, and regular roundups of the news that you will not find anywhere else. Let us help you become the best designer, player or dungeon master at your table.

Subscribe now to gain the advantage you want in this exceptional hobby and industry.

Ubisoft

How would you describe The Division TTRPG? Is it a tactical game of combat? More oriented toward heavy story and improvisation?
Saintout: I’d describe The Division as a fast-paced, high-intensity action game, with a system designed to be quick, efficient, and engaging at the table.
But it’s more than that. At its core, it’s a game about human relationships in the middle of chaos.
One of the key questions that guided us during development was: what actually makes a society? When everything has collapsed, what do you need to rebuild it? Laws? Institutions? Symbols? Trust?
The game is built to support both sides of that experience. On one hand, you have tense, tactical missions where every decision matters and every second counts. On the other hand, you have moments of interaction, negotiation, and difficult choices that shape how your group fits into the world.
Players are not just surviving—they are actively trying to rebuild something meaningful. Whether that means securing resources, helping civilians, or stabilizing a neighborhood, their actions have real consequences.
Ultimately, The Division RPG is about balancing pressure and purpose: operating in a world on the edge, while trying to bring it back from collapse.

What does gameplay look like?
Saintout: The Division RPG is built around a custom system called GRIS—short for Gather, Roll, Indicate, and Succeed—which uses a pool of d10s.
At its core, the system is designed to be fast and intuitive. Each action relies on a Skill, that grants you between 1 to 4 d10s (sometimes 5, if you have a Specialization). Once you’ve gathered your dice poll, just roll and keep one of them, which will become the Resolution dice. Only this one counts to beat the difficulty set by the Coordinator (the Game master). If the result exceeds the difficulty, the player can also trigger narrative and mechanical bonuses.

This makes it easy to learn, quick to read at the table, and very efficient in
play. On a personal level, I’ve never been a fan of overly complex systems. I enjoy rolling dice as much as anyone, but I don’t want to spend ten minutes resolving a single action. For me, that breaks the narrative flow—especially in a game like The Division, where every second matters. I wanted a system that keeps the pressure on, allowing the Coordinator to maintain tension without constantly stopping to check rules or edge cases.
Character progression is handled through a combination of the Skill Tree and the Agent’s equipment and abilities. Specialized gear, including SHD tech, plays a key role in defining how each character operates in the field.

Another important aspect of the system is the squad. We introduced a cohesion mechanic that reflects how effective Agents are when operating as a unit. The more they work together and build trust, the more abilities and advantages they can unlock as a team, emphasizing coordination and group play.
The game is also flexible in how it’s played. It works perfectly in the theater of the mind, but for groups who enjoy a more tactical approach, we support battle maps, tokens, and miniatures.

Ubisoft/Arkhane Asylum

How does this fit into The Division's lore? Is it expanding beyond NYC and DC, or is it also focused on the game's villains and characters?

Saintout: The RPG takes place during the events of The Division 1 and The Division 2. The Starter Set begins right at the onset of the pandemic, with the activation of your agent in those first chaotic days.
From there, the story truly belongs to each group. Every table develops its own narrative, shaped by the players’ choices and actions.
All of the game’s content is developed in close collaboration with Ubisoft, who validated all our work to ensure it fits within the official canon of The Division. At the same time, the goal isn’t to replay the key events of the video games—they already do that extremely well.
What a tabletop RPG brings is something different: the ability to truly live in that universe. It allows players to explore their own stories, make their own decisions, and experience the world from a new perspective.
Players may encounter familiar faces in official scenarios, but their journey remains their own. In a way, it’s like having your own instance of the game—set in the same world, but driven by your own actions and choices.

Who is this game for?
Saintout: A game like The Division RPG naturally speaks to multiple audiences.
First, of course, to fans of the video game. Many of them have already spent hundreds of hours in that world, and this is an opportunity to go further—to create their own missions, explore areas the video game doesn’t cover, and focus on the aspects they enjoy the most. If they love exploration, they can build their experience around
that. If they’re more interested in interacting with civilians or shaping communities, they can do that too.
At the same time, the game is very much designed for tabletop RPG players. While there are many post-apocalyptic RPGs out there, The Division offers a different core experience. It’s not just about surviving in a broken world—it’s about rebuilding, striving for something better, and trying to save what can still be saved from society.
We also made sure the system is accessible enough for newcomers. It draws inspiration from video game design,with elements like the Skill Tree web that make progression intuitive even for those who have never played a TTRPG before.

Finally, the game was designed to support a wide variety of playstyles—from high-intensity action missions to more diplomacy- or story-driven scenarios. Every group can shape its own Division unit to match the way they want to play.

Thanks to Arkhane for speaking with us! The Division TTRPG’s Kickstarter page is currently available for review. The campaign is expected to launch in June 2026.

Disclosure: Arkhane provided TTRPG Insider with a copy of the quickstart and its Starter Set for review.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

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This week, we are covering a lot of news. The publisher of KIDS ON BIKES and ALICE IS MISSING previewed its plans for 2026. The Gygax family is working with Wizards of the Coast again. The virtual tabletop Foundry is placing tighter restrictions on AI. And we spoke with the people making a Mork Borg mega-dungeon. Give it all a look!

Kids on Bikes Publisher’s Makes Shifts in Leadership, Plans to Embrace New Crowdfunding Style

Hunters Entertainment, the publisher behind Alice is Missing and Kids on Bikes, announced plans to lead the company full-time as well as the intent to

Company founder Ivan Van Norman published a letter online addressing 2025’s struggles and its plans for the future. He first addressed the company’s struggles, including ongoing delays around the release of Gods of Metal: Ragnarok.

Hunters Entertainment reached several success milestones in 2025, according to Van Norman. The company opened its own warehouse, which will give it greater control of its stock. It acquired “greater ownership” of how it paints, fulfills and supports its books that are created in partnership with other printers.

Hunters Entertainment presented its plans for the upcoming quarters. It will begin crowdfunding the Zoologist’s Primer: Birds in April and is working with several writers to publish adventures for Kids on Bikes.

But the biggest change that fans should expect will be its approach to launching new products. “Instead of treating crowdfunding as a race for 72 hours of funding, we’re introducing what I call ‘Carousel Funding,’” Van Norman wrote. “Potential new titles will begin on our website as a launch page, a place for our community to gather, follow, and shape what’s coming next. When a project reaches a meaningful threshold of
support, we launch together with real momentum.”

Van Norman’s description of “carousel funding” doesn’t offer a lot of details about how this model will work, or when it will go into effect. It did state that it has projects planned to present on the platform. These include an expansion for Alice is Missing, a Zoological Primer and a “GPS stashing” game called Technocracy.

“This next era for Hunters is about independence. About creative control with our designers. About being closer to you, our community than ever before,” Van Norman concluded.

The letter is currently available within Hunters Entertainment’s Discord server.

GaryCon 2026: Luke Gygax to Write Greyhawk Content for D&D

Luke Gygax coming back into the D&D fold to work on Greyhawk

— GamingTrend (@gamingtrend.com)
4:19 PM • Mar 19, 2026

Wizards of the Coast announced that it is publishing Melf’s Guide to Greyhawk, a new setting guide centered on the world that D&D creator Gary Gygax penned for the first edition of the game, with Gary’s son Luke.

Luke and D&D VP of brand Dan Ayoub announced the partnership at GaryCon this week during a press event (quotes from EN World).

The new book will be Melf’s Guide to Greyhawk. Melf is a direct reference to Luke’s PC, Melf. We don’t know much else about the release, although Gygax and Ayoub described it as an opportunity to “mend the rift between family and franchise.” The two have had some tension since TSR’s sale of D&D to WOTC amid financial woes.

Ayoub also mentioned that WOTC intends to bring modules aka short-form adventures, back as part of the recently announced Seasons-focused approach that D&D is pursuing in 2026.

More details about WOTC’s plans for D&D are expected to release at GenCon 2026 in August. Three “seasons” are planned for 2026, according to their GAMA 2026 announcement.

• The Season of Horror, focused on Ravenloft: The Horrors Within

• The Season of Magic, focused on Arcana Unleashed and Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall.

• The Season of Champions, which will center on a third book that has not been announced yet. It seems unlikely that the Melf’s Guide to Greyhawk will be released this year since this deal appears to be fairly recent, but I could be wrong.

The seasons themselves will release content and accessories related to each season within the 3-4 month period that each season will occur.

Foundry VTT Bans “Prepared” AI Content in Updated Policy

The virtual tabletop Foundry announced that it is placing significant limits on what sort of AI-generated content is allowed within modules and and the Foundry marketplace.

• Prepared content, or “text, images, audio, and marketing materials that are intentionally pre-created” must be made by human labor (although AI tools can assist with editing or post-production)

• Improvised content, or "content generated at runtime in direct response to end-user prompts” s permitted. This primarily includes content that a DM or player may include in their own session

• Software code may be AI generated with specific conditions, including the ability of a module being able to modify it themselves.

Creators can designate their packages (code, content, etc) as having no AI and being human-created. Any content or packages that do not abide by this will be archived or deleted. Existing content will have 180 days until they have to update the content, while new content must comply by the rules now.

The policy appears to be a compromise for Foundry creator Andrew Clayton, who has been fairly critical of the technology in interviews. At the same time, it’s a policy that restricts a players

Clayton previously stated that generative AI is “an exploitative technology that unfairly harvests the intellectual property of artists, writers, and designers to produce soulless and derivative works without their consent” and that he believes it cannot be “responsibly employed” until the ethical and legal questions around it are properly addressed.

The Foundry marketplace, which sells Foundry-hosted content directly to DMs, currently has modules available that appear to use AI-generated images.

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Q&A W/ Space Penguin Ink about Mork Borg Mega Dungeon Inkvein

MORK BORG is a deadly, dark and grimy TTRPG for those looking for a dungeon crawl, stylistic design and lethality. It plays to that OSR love of just adventuring and crawling through dungeons. Why not embrace the inky blackness of the setting and delve deep into caves? That’s the focus of INKVEIN, a mega-dungeon written by game designer Luke Saunders and published by Space Penguin Ink.

Players will delve into a sprawling cave system to acquire a strange pigment required for magic. Unfortunately, those caves are filled with peril and living nightmares. But getting out could earn you wealth and power. So will you dive into the mega-dungeon of Inkvein?

I got to talk with Saunders and SPI owner Jarret Crader about the game, what it entails and why they’re excited for it.

---

What Inspired Inkvein’s themes and ideas?

Saunders: In terms of media touchstones, a film that I have really loved for a very long time is There Will Be Blood. The whole theming of almost tapping natural resources and the culture around tapping natural resources as horror is a really interesting idea to me. The whole kind of idea of Inkvein was to explore how we can take this concept of people wanting to extract something valuable from the earth and to make it really, really scary. There’s also themes worker exploitation and cosmic horror, of discovering Lovecraftian monsters the further down you dig.

Caves are often very claustrophobic experiences. How are you trying to capture that part of the experience through gameplay?

Saunders: A big part of it is structuring the basic mechanics so they present genuine threats to players, so they become concerned with their characters. For example, the main risks you might have is getting stuck, which means you’re in the dungeons longer than you wanted to be. That means more encounters, more monsters and more trouble. We also made heights genuinely risky. The other thing is making the creatures well-adapted to the environment. This creates a significant contrast between what it’s like for a human to move through a space and what it’s like for a monster. It creates a prey/predator relationship that GMs can pull on.

What inspired Space Penguin Ink to publish this adventure?

Crader: There really isn’t a megadungeon for Mork Borg yet. It’s one of those things that seem to be missing, and I always like to come up with stuff that hasn’t been made.

What sort of product decisions does SPI emphasize to make their content stand out?

Crader: It’s all about what we think is interesting. We don't really stick with any labels or anything like that. I'm aware of the NSR and the OSR and things like that, but having been around for a long time, I've never really set myself firmly in any one particular camp. But We just want to make stuff for games that we enjoy. (Liminal Horror, Mork Borg, etc)

---

Inkvein launched its Backerkit campaign this week. You can check it out here.

That’s all for this week. Have thoughts on a recent story? Want to promote your latest product? Feel free to send us tips or emails at ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

You can also tag or follow us on BlueSky, Threads or Twitter!

Thanks to Grant Mielke for talking to us! If you want to learn more about this project, you can check it out on BackerKit.

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Today, we’ve got a quick interview with Andrew Bellury aka “TIGER WIZARD” of Exalted Funeral Press. EF recently launched a crowdfunding campaign for TAVERS The Game, a TTRPG that tries to create a psychedelic TTRPG experience while offering “collaborative storytelling, tactile inventory management."

It’s a game about “Tavers”, who are people that sense the strange interplanar connections that unite the “TAVE”, a psychic network of people across various planes of existence. It’s a big game with a lot of ideas, and isn’t for everyone. But it’s weird enough that you should give it a look.

The game was made in partnership with the art collective Meow Wolf and Genuine Entertainment.

Exalted Funeral

Could you tell me where this project came from? What sparked the idea of a collab between Meow Wolf, Exalted Funeral and Genuine Entertainment around this game? What sort of history do you have?

Meow Wolf had long wanted a tabletop role-playing game. Joe LeFavi (Genuine Entertainment) got wind of that desire and sought us (Exalted Funeral) out. I had already been to several of the exhibits, but I had just visited the Denver location for the first time when the prospect landed, so I was full brimming with ideas before we even made the first connection. After it was settled I made it a priority to visit the rest of the locations. Very fun way to research a project!

What inspired the idea of TAVERS overall?

I wanted to emulate the experience I had wandering through the various spaces inside of their exhibits. You would be in one totally amazing room, and then pop through a door and be somewhere completely different. The concept of a TAVER already existed in Meow Wolf’s extensive lore, although there was a lot of space to add on and gamify. I allowed myself a lot of time to visit and read through, well, everything they shared with me, before finally settling on TAVERS as the way to go for a Meow Wolf RPG.

What is it that makes the game stand out thematically?

It’s definitely variety. Once you get your hands on a copy, you’ll see that flipping through the pages spans the gamut of vibes. Which, I suppose, is kinda a vibe of it’s own. Perhaps a better way to state the same thing would be that it is open for interpretation from a breadth of perspectives. The consistent themes that come to mind are: putting art forward, encouraging players to make the Meow Wolf worlds their own, and fostering collaboration through creativity. 

What does the play experience look like? How are you trying to capture the chaotic and psychadelic vibes that the game appears to exude through mechanics?

I imagine from an onlooker's perspective it would look like an arts and crafts day in a preschool. Pages and papers and neon colored squares and pencils and markers littered across the table really does sing psychedelic chaos. I like to relate the experience to doing a jigsaw puzzle with a group of friends. Sure, yes when you spill a thousand brightly colored pieces on the table it's a lotta bit chaotic, but over time, as you sort them and figure out where they go, and laugh about it together, and discuss what the bits mean, you end up putting a story together. The mechanics all exist to aid this process.

Can you elaborate on what the inventory management mechanics entail?

All the items (we call them ITEMTRONICALS) in a game of TAVERS are represented by little squares. Small items are one square each, medium are two, and large ITEMTRONICALS are four orthogonally connected squares. As you discover or collect them you’ve gotta place them on a grid in the center of your character sheet. It’s a fun mini puzzle game within the game.

 What about the “backstory-fueled skills?”

MEMvention is the process of creating a MEM (Effectively a Memory or Dream). Much like the normal gameplay progression, players will take turns adding small bits to a short piece of backstory for one character. That player will get to snatch a few words from the backstory (we call these FRAGMENTS) and add them to their MEM BANK. Your bank holds all your one time use FRAGMENTS, so the skilled moves you can accomplish change as you tell new stories from your past.

What does goal-oriented character progression entail? 

Character progression and story progression happen when TAVERS fulfill their Schemes and Sparks. Schemes are specific to the individual TAVERS, and are fun little side goals. Sparks are also specific to the individuals, but they push the story forward. 

How do all of the mechanics above change the TAVERS experience?

All of these mechanics are present to aid the players in group story crafting. I think of these mechanics like guide rails for portal hopping storytelling. Really, every part of the game is intended to give a wide variety of springboards to bounce their ideas off of each other and the wild environments they find themselves in.

How would you describe the appeal of the game? 

I’ve been using the term “a collaborative drawing experience in tabletop roleplay form”, but you could also describe the limitlessness of an open creative world.

What sort of stories are you trying to tell with this game?

Haha. Well. This one has been tough for me from the beginning. The easy answer is, whatever the players want, but, I am also a storyteller. In designing this game I’ve struggled to not fill in blanks that are intended for the players to find and make their own assumptions about. It’s really cool to see in playtesting all the different sorts of stories that can emerge from play from the same prompts. All the while, I’m watching, thinking to myself, “I want this to happen” or “What if I push this thing to exist” The game really is a storytelling game, and the fun really comes out as players figure out what kind of stories they want to tell.

What role do the distinct art and soundtrack play in the game? 

Again, it’s all about the variety. So many amazing artists are already tied to the project with more on the way. This game is an art object, and the soundtrack adds yet another sensory experience to the game. While you don’t need to use it for background music during play, the tracks are so good that you might need them for your next dance party.

Tavers, the RPG, is available for crowdfunding here.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

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Every week, we send you interviews, news and roundups straight to your inbox. Everything you need to know within the TTRPG hobby and industry without the hassle of social media, generative AI or Google search.

If you want to know more, check us out here! If you like what you’re reading, make sure you subscribe. Help us become one of the go-to sources in the industry on Dungeons and Dragons, independent RPGs and everything inbetween.

There’s a lot of news coming up this week. Rowan, Rook and Decard are releasing a new TTRPG based on Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time. The Neopets TTRPG controversy reaches its climax. 7th Sea 3rd edition is crowdfunding! Plus a new interview with Hasbro’s CEO affirms that D&D seems free of AI for now.

Eat the Reich Developers to Release TTRPG Based on Award-Winning Sci-Fi Series Children of Time 

Rowan Rook and Decard

Science fiction author Adrian Tchaikovsky has partnered with Eat the Reich/Die TTRPG publisher Rowan, Rook and Decard to publish a TTRPG based on his award-winning Children of series of novels.

The TTRPG and licensing agreement were announced on Thursday. RRD will publish a trio of RPG books built around the novel series, which explore the interactions b etween the remnants of humanity and the non-human beneficiaries who have developed their own society after being genetically modified by human scientists. The books explore the relationship between humanity and the aliens, but the TTRPG will let players make their own stories.

“Construct an ark ship of your own and embark on an uncharted exodus towards a planet of your own making, where you uplift and nurture species of your own choosing. Or retell the epic saga of the ark ship Gilgamesh and the evolution of the Portid spiders on Kern’s world. The choice is yours,” RRD wrote in a press release sent to TTRPG Insider.

The game will be designed by Minærva McJanda, designer of the recently released Voidheart Symphony) as well as work from Grant Howitt and Elaine Lithgow.

The Children of series has released three books so far, with a third scheduled to release in March 2026. The first book won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best sci-fi novel, while the series was awarded the 2023 Hugo Award for best series (Although there are some controversies around that.)

Rascal News has a phenomenal interview with Tchaikovsky and McJanda that I recommend diving into if this proepry interests you.

Children of Time: The Roleplaying Game puts the fate of two civilizations in players’ hands

Your own personal "facsimile Adrian" Tchaikovsky.

Neopets TTRPG Comes to an End After IP Owners Terminate Agreement

The Neopets Team

The big story this week was around how The Neopets Team (TNT) and Geekify split and ended the development of the Neopets TTRPG; a topic that has drawn a lot of controversy over the last few weeks.

TNT, the owner of the Neopets IP, announced on Thursday that it was terminating its license agreement with Geekify, which had barred the company from continuing to produce the Neopets TTRPG.

“As part of our commitment to providing quality Neopets experiences, we regularly review our licensing partnerships to ensure they align with our long-term goals and with the standards we set for official Neopets licensed merchandise and experiential projects,” the company wrote in a blog post announcing the deal. “We determined that it is in the best interest of the Neopets brand and our community to cease this specific project and ongoing license agreement.”

They also said that they would implement “more robust processes to carefully assess licensees,” implying that Geekify’s approach to Neopets didn’t meet their standards; a big claim for the company.

The statement appears to have come out of the blue, as Geekify's owner, John Taylor, claims the company was “blindsided” by TNT’s decision. They later elaborated on the ending of the license in a post on the original Neopets Kickstarter, claiming that communications between TNT and Geekify has been strained for some time and that they’ve not communicated much since the original Neopets TTRPG beta was released. The beta was a modified copy of Fifth Edition D&D rules with a lot of Neopets flavoring. It also had sections that received significant pushback from indie designers and creators in the TTRPG space.

At this time, it seems unlikely that the people who backed the original Neopets TTRPG will receive anything in return. Kickstarter campaigns do not require people to return funding since that is part of the risk of the crowdfunding approach. TNT did allege that they would provide some in-game benefits to backers, but the details around that are limited.

It’s going to be a major reputational and financial loss for Geekify, who says they already spent a large portion of the $427k they initially raised.

Swashbuckling 7th Sea Launches Third Edition. Check out our interview!

Studio Agate on 7th Sea's Future

Studio Agate spoke with TTRPG Insider about its plans for the swashbuckling TTRPG, what the third edition update will look like, and what fans can expect.

7th Sea, a fantasy/swashbuckling TTRPG owned by Chaosium and being developed by French developer Studio Agate went live on Kickstarter this week. We spoke with the company a few months ago about what they were changing.

Anyone interested in this updated game can check out the campaign here.

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Hasbro CEO Affirms that AI is kept away from D&D Design (Outside of his Private Games)

The Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talked to Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks in the latest episode of Decoder. It’s a lot of interestingness in this (a Peppa Pig AI agent helps design Peppa Pig toys?!?!?!) But what I think most readers care about is what Hasbro is doing with D&D. When asked about how he is thinking about the desire to incorporate AI and the interests of the company’s designers, Cocks said the following:

He also reaffirmed that he uses AI in the 3-4 D&D games that he runs. How a high-level toy CEO has time to run D&D games is beyond me, but AI clearly makes it easier.

You can read the full transcript here:

Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks on AI, KPop Demon Hunters, and Harry Potter

“Megatron makes fun of you for not picking thrash rock”

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Rebellion Unplugged

Tunnels and Trolls, a fantasy game that many consider the second modern TTRPG after Dungeons and Dragons, is coming back around with a new reboot titled Tunnels and Trolls: A New Age.

T&T was originally published in 1975, a year after Gary Gygax published the first version of D&D. While the game is not as well known as its increasingly popular rival, it has maintained a steady stream of fans over the 50+ years and multiple updates.

“The original Tunnels and Trolls was created as a reaction to what D&D did in the 1970s. It saw D&D and said We want to make that, but make it more fun, more accessible, and fill it with life and creative stuff,” Benji Corless, the marketing manager for Rebellion Unplugged, told TTRPG Insider. “So our goal with this is to try and distill down the core essence of 50 years’ worth of a game into something that’s a bit more modern and has skin on the bones.”

While it’s nice to see older games getting a new face and update, it’s entering a market where there are more fantasy games than ever. D&D remains the market leader, while games like Pathfinder, Shadowdark, Daggerheart, Mork Borg, and dozens of others offer their own takes on the genre. So why try Tunnels and Trolls: A New Age?

The main appeal for Tunnels and Trolls: A New Age is the “modularity”, according to Corless. The game is designed to be pick-up-and-play, so players can create a character and run an adventure with very little effort, while DMs can focus on running a game without too many worries. The game uses a stat system similar to D&D but relies on dice pools instead of D20s, making the math for determining success significantly easier. It also adds mechanics that allow players to have dramatic successes and failures via “exploding” dice pools that exist whenever you have matching dice.

The rules, alongside the game’s lore, hope to create a setting that “feels earnest but also doesn’t take itself too seriously,” Corless emphasized. The current version draws heavily on Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Discworld, and The Lord of the Rings for inspiration.

The game also hopes to lean into T&T’s history of solo games. The original game published some of the first fantasy-themed gamebooks, offering solo players a way to go adventuring without a DM.

 T&T: A New Age leans into this as a concept by offering “side quests”, which are solo adventures that a DM can give a player during off-time or if the majority of a table is unable to play. They can run through the adventures and get appropriate rewards. It’s a distinct way to help players stay engaged, even when scheduling conflicts make it difficult to play with others.

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Maintaining Tunnels and Trolls’ Long-Lived Legacy

Tunnels and Trolls

Tunnels and Trolls was initially written in 1975 by Ken St. Andre and published by Flying Buffalo. Andre said he loved the idea of D&D but found the rules confusing, so he made his own. The game would gain some momentum in 1975 and was viewed as a serious competitor to D&D at the time (in part due to its simpler ruleset). T&T's publisher would receive multiple updates over the years and eventually set itself apart with a tone that was a bit sillier than D&D.

While Flying Buffalo released multiple editions over the years, it went quiet after the publisher was acquired by the holding company Webbed Sphere in 2021.

In 2023, tabletop and video game publisher Rebellion Unplugged announced that it had bought the T&T rights from Webbed Sphere with the hope of rebooting the property.

“Tunnels & Trolls will always hold a special place in my heart,” Rebellion Unplugged CEO Jason Kingsley said in a statement. “It sparked a lifelong interest in roleplaying, and fed into my love of the fantasy genre which has stuck with me to this day. I’m delighted to bring it into the Rebellion, and can’t wait for the new adventures from the Unplugged team.”

Corless called T&T: A New Age a “bold reimagining” and a new chapter of the game that doesn’t use the original ruleset, but updates it to try and feel more modern. “The idea is to take the ethos and what the old game was trying to achieve as a reaction to the original games. We're trying to take that and carry its spirit forward,” the marketing manager said. This was also a decision made to separate the game from previous editions so that new players aren’t confused. “If we put a number on Tunnels and Trolls: A New Age, we would have a lot more of a direct comparison to old editions, and that might scare people off,” Corless argued.

Legacy fans shouldn’t worry, however; the majority of legacy T&T books are currently available on DrivethruRPG.com, and the company intends to continue support for that content. It is also seeking ways to adapt a lot of the older content to modern standards.

You can learn more about Tunnels and Trolls: A New Age at their Kickstarter, which launches on March 17. They also have a quickstart available.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

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There’s a lot of news this week! Earlier, we covered the release of the upcoming D&D roadmap. But we also saw the announcement of a Wolfenstein TTRPG, an update to D&D’s labeling, the beginning of the 2026 TTRPG award season, and a lot more.

Blast Nazis Away in Alternate WWII Timeline with Wolfenstein TTRPG

Modiphius Entertainment (Dune, Fallout, Star Trek Adventures) and Bethesda Softworks announced they are adapting Wolfenstein, the modern reboot of the Nazi-blasting action video game, into a TTRPG.

The TTRPG will focus on an adaptation of Wolfenstein: The New Order and The New Colossus, which explore an alternate history in which the Nazis won World War II with advanced technology and conquered the rest of the world. The players will take on the role of resistance fighters who will combat the Nazi threat in a particularly violent manner that the games have defined.

“As a result of our continued relationship with Bethesda Softworks, we’re thrilled to announce that we are working on a tabletop roleplaying game for Wolfenstein,” Chris Birch, co-founder of Modiphius, said in a press release. “We hope that fans will enjoy being able to immerse themselves in the world in a new way. Get psyched!”

The game will use Modiphius’ 2D20 system, which players and fans should be familiar with through Star Trek Adventures, Fallout, and its other properties. The company has a long history of adapting Bethesda’s properties, so Wolfenstein makes a lot of sense. They also have made a World War II-based TTRPG in the past, which should provide them with the groundwork to make the game fairly easily.

The crowdfunding campaign for Wolfenstein is scheduled to launch in Fall 2026.

Wizards of the Coast Formally Adopts “5.5” Label for 2024 Dungeons and Dragons update

Wizards of the Coast

Earlier this week, we broke the story around Dungeons and Dragons’ planned release schedule for 2026. But we also had the company finally embrace a new name for its update to the current ruleset.

The company announced in DnD Beyond’s changelog that it is relabeling its rulesets to help clarify which is which. The original Fifth Edition rules, which released in 2014, are now labeled 5e rules. The 2024 update, in contrast, is now labeled “5.5e.” This change in labels doesnt’ change anything mechanically, but is for the sake of clarity.

We're making this change because we recognize that there's confusion when just referring to the year, especially when browsing your library and building a character,” the company wrote in an update. “This term has also been picked up by the community to refer to the updated rule set, so it was the natural course for the update.”

The embrace of this new tag arrives after years of D&D trying to figure out how to update the game without releasing a new version. The company initially pitched the “One D&D" initiative in 2022 as a way to keep updating the game without releasing a Sixth Edition. The label eventually died off, and the 2024 release was simply described as the 2024 edition of D&D.

The change received mixed responses across the community, with most pushback noting that they should have stuck with the 5.5e release label earlier.

Chaosium, Free League, and Cubicle 7 Feature Heavily in Origin Award Nominees

The Origin Awards, which are GAMA’s set of prizes recognizing game design in the tabletop, TTRPG and miniature space, announced their finalists at GAMA 2026 this week, which is one of the biggest industry conventions in the world. While it is mostly an award show for board game, I wanted to highlight the TTRPG finalists for your consideration

Roleplaying Game
• Age of Vikings – Chaosium
• CHEW: The Roleplaying Game – Imagining Games
• Coriolis: The Great Dark – Free League
• Cthulhu Bay – MS Edizioni and Ares Games
• Daggerheart Core Set – Darrington Press
• Land of Eem Deluxe Box Set – Exalted Funeral
• Cosmere RPG Stormlight Starter Set – Brotherwise Games
• Starfinder Second Edition – Paizo
• The Bonsai Diary – Gene Koo
• Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Player’s Guide – Cubicle 7

Roleplaying Supplement
• Advent-ure Calendar 19: Kitty Clacks Christmas – Black Oak Workshop
• ALIEN RPG: Rapture Protocol – Free League
• Call of Cthulhu: The Sutra of Pale Leaves – Twin Suns Rising – Chaosium
• Cthulhu by Gaslight: Keeper’s Guide – Chaosium
• Full Art Dice Set: Porcelain – Q Workshop
• Green Oaks – MS Edizioni and Ares Games
• Pendragon: Gamemaster’s Handbook – Chaosium
• The Field Guide to Floral Dragons: Explorer’s Box Set – Hit Point Press
• The Vault of Mini Things – Tinkerhouse Games
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: High Elf Player’s Guide – Cubicle 7

If you want the full list of coverage, check out Board Game Wire’s piece, which has all the board game announcements.

GAMA unveils Origins Awards nominees, criticised for leaving out designers for third year in a row -

The Tabletop Game Designers Association, a professional organisation launched in 2024 to advocate for creators in North America, said it requested that year that GAMA begin including designer names in its Origins Award announcements - and reiterated the plea when designer names were left out again in 2025.

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Spotlight: Suburban America and K-Pop Come to D&D

We’re featuring two noteworthy Fifth Edition D&D projects that caught my attention on Kickstarter over the last few weeks. Both projects aim to explore settings beyond the traditional fantasy game. While we’re a fan of making new games to explore settings outside of D&D, we also respect those who want to use these different venues to bring others into the space.

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Idols of the Neon Dark Offer a K-Pop Demon Hunters-Themed On-Ramp to D&D

One that is coming out is Idols of the Neon Dark, a K-Pop Demon Hunters-inspired setting where players enter a “K-Pop drenched setting” that draws on Korean lore and the visuals of the popular Netflix film to create a D&D game that the author (Dan Thut) hopes will offer an on-ramp for younger boys and girls to try D&D.

“My kids know that ‘Daddy plays Dungeons & Dragons,’ and they want to play with me,” Thut told Polygon in an interview. “That creates this tension: How do you bring them into the hobby in a way that feels native to them, not just a watered-down version of my nostalgia?” Parts of that inspiration also drew on Renegade Game Studios’ Tales of Equestria.

The game has gotten some attention in the games press for its distinct K-Pop Demon Hunters energy (something that consumed most of pop culture in 2025.) It introduces a new class and subclasses as well as options for running campaigns that will feel familiar to younger players, according to Thut.

The campaign for Idols officially launches on March 10.

Serenity Springs: Stepford/Suburban Americaa Meets the Domains of Dread

The second is Serenity Springs, a smaller indie Fifth Edition project that attempts to bring suburban horror to D&D. Imagine having your D&D squad go from traditional fantasy to a 1950s version of America. That’s the vision that Ryan Loos (of Grinning Portal Games) proposed with Serenity Springs. The idea was inspired by the Ravenloft setting, where horrific creatures and worlds are sealed within small dimensions by dark creatures, and where players (theoretically) can travel between the realms. So imagine going from something like Curse of Strahd to The Stepford Wives. While the book is not an official Ravenloft adaptation, it draws heavily on Ravenloft to create its own smaller setting and, hopefully, offer players a way to do something a bit different from traditional D&D.

The campaign is expected to crowdfund this spring, 2026.

That’s all for this week. Have thoughts on a recent story? Want to promote your latest product? Feel free to send us tips or emails at ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

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Today, I’m delighted to reveal the details around what’s coming for D&D in 2026. Ravenloft, magic, and a new season-focused approach to sourcebooks are all coming this year.

Ravenloft (WIZARDS OF THE COAST)

The team at Wizards of the Coast unveiled the 2026 roadmap for Dungeons and Dragons at GAMA: The Tabletop Game Association’s annual convention.

According to WOTC, there will be three major releases in 2026.

Cover Art for RAVENLOFT: THE HORRORS WITHIN

Ravenloft: The Horrors Within is the first release in 2026. The book “will deliver more player options like new horror-themed subclasses, species, backgrounds, and Dark Gift feats,” WOTC said in a press release. “It will also deliver content around Darklords and Domains of Dread, as well as dozens of Fearsome Mists Denizens, including potential allies like the iconic Rudolph van Richten. The Horrors Within is a complete package for DMs to build a horror-themed campaign, with content that spans multiple subgenres like gothic, dark fantasy, cosmic, the occult, and more.”

The Domains of Dread are considered D&D’s main horror-focused setting, as it contains a number of small horror-themed planes. Ravenloft is also where Curse of Strahd, D&D’s iconic vampire-themed campaign, is based. We’ve heard occasional rumors of a return to Ravenloft in the wake of a 2025 Unearthed Arcana playtest focused on horror-themed subclasses for 2024 D&D.

The book is scheduled for release in June 2026. Master Tier subscribers on Dndbeyond will have early access on June 2, while Hero Tier subscribers will have access on June 9. The wide book release will arrive on June 16.

Arcana Unleashed (Wizards of the Coast)

The second set of releases will be Arcana Unleashed and Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall. The pair of books will “be the ultimate guide for D&D magic enthusiasts offering more high-magic character creation options and a new magic item system that will allow items to grow in power alongside character levelling,” the company said in a statement. Deadfall, meanwhile, will be “D&D’s ultimate Red Wizards adventure” and focus on the Red Wizards of Thay, a villain faction from the Forgotten Realms that focuse extensively on the undead and necromancy.

Arcana Unleashed and Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall will arrive in September 2026 as a pair.

A third book was alluded to later in 2026, but details were not revealed yet.

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D&D Embraces Season-Focused Approach to Organizing Games and Releases

Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall art (Wizards of the Coast)

The other big note is how each book will be the center of what D&D SVP of branding Dan Ayoub described as “seasons.” The books will serve as an anchor point for related product releases and play initiatives, with the aim of “building a stronger sense of community and ongoing conversation around the major releases.”

For example, the SEASON OF HORROR (centering around Ravenloft: the Horrors Within and occurring from April to June 2026) will feature the release of a Tarokka deck (a tool used for fortune telling within D&D) and a Ravenloft-themed DM screen and map pack. All of those products will be released in June 2026.

The SEASON OF MAGIC will occur between July and September 2026 and center on the Arcana Unleashed texts.) The two books will be accompanied by a new deck of spell cards.

The third season of 2026, titled the SEASON OF CHAMPIONS, will focus on a future product release that will be announced later this year.

WOTC’s representatives also announced that they hope to bring back D&D Encounters, a weekly program it ran from 2010 to 2014. The program will be designed to encourage live play in game shops and to work with local game stores to organize games locally around opening-weekend releases and weekly play.

What Does This Mean?

We’re still waiting on a lot more details around the releases and what they’ll change. But what appears consistent is that D&D’s team is more focused on creating setting supplements for the 2024 D&D than on new campaigns. The Faerun-focused release last year reinforced this, as it offered plenty of great options for quick dungeons to prep and settings to run, but little in the wake of longer campaigns. A good DM could easily turn the content into a longer campaign, mind you. But it’s not the same as the better-known campaigns like Curse of Strahd or Tomb of Annihilation. People continue to want to play those campaigns, if a cursory scan of Reddit and online marketplaces tell us anything.

Is this D&D leaning more into players homebrewing their own campaigns, or is it just where we are in the cycle of releases? What sort of play is D&D exploring? What will this all look like under the guidance of its new team? It’s unclear.

I also need more details on what the re-release of D&D Encounters will entail. Will this solely focus on game stores, or will the resources also be organized online through organizations like Baldman Games and Startplaying.games? What will the seasons themselves entail for these events?

There are a lot of questions that still need answers, but we will wait and see for now.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

Every week, we send you interviews, news and roundups straight to your inbox. Everything you need to know within the TTRPG hobby and industry without the hassle of social media, generative AI or Google search.

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This week, we’re taking a look at Avantris Entertainment’s next big release. We also have a new roadmap from Roll20 for how they intend to update their systems, and an interview with the team behind the upcoming weird fantasy TTRPG The Snarl.

The Crooked Moon Creators Announce Neon Sci-Fi-Themed Fifth Edition Crowdfunding Campaign 

Avantris Entertainment, the people behind the actual play series Legends of Avantris as well as the highly successful horror D&D Kickstarter The Crooked Moon are going for round two with Neon Odyssey, a Fifth Edition D&D campaign that it is crowdfunding in May 2026. The books focus on the Stardust Rhapsody, a setting featured in LoA’s past campaigns.

“Going from the relatively narrow scope of Folk Horror in The Crooked Moon to the enormous, sweeping scope of Space Opera in Neon Odyssey was a huge jump,” Mikey Gilder, CCO and Creative Director at Avantris Entertainment, said in a statement. “We knew we had to go big with Neon Odyssey if we wanted to fill an entire galaxy and make it feel real, lived-in, and filled with endless opportunity for adventure.”

The new campaign will fund a trilogy of books within the new setting.

• The Outrunner’s Handbook, the player-facing guide featuring new space combat rules, reimagined versions of Fifth Edition classes, subclasses, species and more.

• Cosmic Codex, a setting guide for the Stardust Rhapsody

• Overdrive Expansion, a guide that will provide new rules for running professions, racing, ship upgrades and more.

The books will total 1,400+ pages, three times as much as what was presented for The Crooked Moon. The book’s vibes do remind me of Paizo’s Starfinder, although clearly more focused on the 80s aesthetic.

Avantris Entertainment has seen immense success in the last few years. It raised over $4 million in crowdfunding for Crooked Moon in November 2023, and has sold multiple copies of the book since then. Legends of Avantris passed 1 million subscribers last year, and has consistently seen its presence grow over the last year or so.

Interested parties can visit the launch page to RSVP for a new adventure and special dice. They can also visit the Kickstarter page here.

Roll20 Publishes Expanded Roadmap for its VTT, Demiplane and Other Platforms

The team behind the VTT Roll20 has published a public roadmap detailing its extensive plans to incorporate new technologies into its platforms.

The roadmap, published on Jira, outlines many plans the company has for the future. The team emphasizes that this is a “snapshot in time” designed to give players more insight into the company’s development cycle, and that it only features the greatest hits and may be subject to change.

For example, the company says it is working on dynamic lighting to improve its performance. The company also hopes to “reduce friction” for GMs, helping players move from signing up to playing at the digital table more quickly.

Demiplane is also getting new updates, including better character sheets, NPCs for Demiplane campaigns, tools for Homebrew as well as a Nexus (the main interface) for Mongoose Publishing’s Traveler and for Need Games’ Fabula Ultima.

The Dungeons and Dragons 2024 sheets will also get developments, including greater support for Mod Script and advanced dice syntax, which will let them roll more custom advanced dice sets via text.

Dungeon Scrawl, the tool for drawing maps, is adding a Tabletop view for players that can be expanded to a second screen as well as a fog of war feature that will hide details from the players.

You can learn all about these updates here.

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Q&A With Rob Boyle of Posthuman Studios About The Snarl

Posthuman Studios

Posthuman Games, best known for the sci-fi RPG Eclipse Phase, is getting into weird fantasy with its upcoming game The Snarl. Fight for survival among kilometer-high trees, play as sentient anthropomorphic animals and travel the canopy. The game intends to crowdfund later this year

We spoke with Rob Boyle, one of the designers from the company, about The Snarl and what inspired it.

You can check out the playtests for the game here.

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What is The Snarl? What's the story of this game?

The Snarl is a weird fantasy game. It originated from a discussion on the drive home from Gen Con way back in 2014. Davidson Cole and I were both interested in taking a stab at a fantasy game, but we wanted to get strange with it and lean away from the usual fantasy tropes of elves, orks, feudalism, etc. China Miéville's style of weird fantasy was a big inspiration for us. The idea that stuck was setting it in an environment of massive, skyscraper-sized trees with distinctive biomes at different heights. I whipped up some notes later that week, and for the next few years we would have brainstorming ideas here and there, adding more depth to the setting, but it remained a backburner project. We did come up with some cool PC species ideas: telepathic bird-monkey symbiotes that act as a single person, sexually dimorphic beetlefolk, resurrected minds inhabiting sculpted tree bodies, and so on. Around the time the pandemic hit, I started putting more serious time into the project, developing a rules set for it, and we began running playtests. We came up with some innovative stuff in that time, like the jolt system we use for combat, where even misses have an impact and the longer a fight goes on, the more opportunity you build up to take an opponent down. Now, after a few years of rules iterations, it's finally all come together into a nearly finished game.

How does it contrast with Eclipse Phase? Is this a reflavor of your original game, or is it something new when it comes to mechanics or story?

It's an entirely new rules system from Eclipse Phase, but you will see some influence from that game in how we handle a few things. Also, like Eclipse Phase, we've put a lot of effort into world-building to create something fresh and unique. Our intent is that we can take this rules set from the Snarl and apply it other weird-fantasy settings down the line -- we already have a few in mind.

The rules themselves are skill based, using 2d10s for that nice pyramid distribution of results. I was aiming for something close to Dungeon World in terms of complexity level. (It's not a PbtA fiction-first game per se, though you could certainly play it that way, and we do make use of moves and playsheets.) It's geared towards an open adventuring style of play -- exploration, social interactions, combat, downtime -- with an action economy similar to Pathfinder 2.

In terms of story, we designed the setting to focus on two particular environmental threats -- a destructive Blight and an alien, transformative Creep -- that both threaten the Weald (the name of the setting). These twin threats are disrupting the harmony and balance of the world, both in ecological and social terms. Clans that once lived in abundance and operated with a gift economy now find themselves fracturing under the stress and in competition over resources. It's not a setting for treasure-looting murder vagabonds; in fact, gifting away the treasures you find is how you build your status.

I will say that we did of course sneak some transhumanist elements into our fantasy game. Death is not final, you can be resurrected in a tree body or have your corpse absorbed in a dream flower pool, where your mind joins and lives eternally in a gestalt Dreaming state that others can access. There are a few other things that an Eclipse Phase player might look at and recognize or see similarities.

What’s the project’s status?

The book is currently ~95% complete and we have early art rolling in, including some fantastic species illustrations from Crim Reaper (Luis J. Figueredo) and cover art by Hardy Fowler. Once the Kickstarter hits, we'll commission the remaining art we need, make final corrections from the playtest, and get everything off to press for a release later this year!

The current plan is to follow the core book up with a GM/monster release and a full scenario.

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IDW Games Launches Godzilla TTRPG After 4-Year Hiatus

IDW Games makes its big return to TTRPGs with Godzilla: The Roleplaying Game, a card-based kaiju battle experience featuring superpowers and monster combat.

Our big interview this week was with the team at IDW Games about the upcoming Godzilla TTRPG.

That’s all for this week. Have thoughts on a recent story? Want to promote your latest product? Feel free to send us tips or emails at ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

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Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

We’re the go-to source for exclusive interviews, analysis, and writing on the TTRPG industry, from Dungeons and Dragons to independent RPGs and everything in between.

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Today is an interview I am beyond excited for. I got to talk to IDW Games’ team at PAX Unplugged about Godzilla: The Roleplaying Game. It’s the first TTRPG from the comic publisher, and the division’s first big initiative after closing four years ago.

IDW Games

IDW Comics, the publisher known for Sonic the Hedgehog, Ghostbusters, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, is returning to tabletop gaming in 2026 with the release of Godzilla: The Roleplaying Game.

IDW is best known for its comics, but has been playing with tabletop gaming for quite a while now. The company launched its tabletop division in 2013 and released multiple games based on its IPs. The projects struggled to gain momentum, leading IDW to announce in 2021 that it was exiting the tabletop gaming business.

Four years later, IDW decided to revive its tabletop gaming efforts with something it had never made before; a TTRPG.

“I think we're just ready,” IDW Games manager Ellen Boener told TTRPG Insider. “We were really sad to move away from games. But everyone was really excited about finding a way to bring [IDW Games] back, and I think TTRPGs is just a new approach for us that we’re excited to do.”

Publishing TTRPGs is also something IDW is somewhat familiar with, since it is a book-focused format. “Books are our bailiwick,” Boener added. “It’s what IDW does for a publishing company.”

Bringing Godzilla to the Table

IDW Comics

Godzilla: The Roleplaying Game was designed by former Warhammer game designers Jervis Johnson, Mark A. Latham, and Gav Thorpe and will be the second project that this new version of IDW Games is launching. IDW partnered with Hunters Entertainment in November 2025 to crowdfund a Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees story game, based on the dark comic about serial killers and anthropomorphic animals.

The Godzilla IP is a longstanding property for IDW. The company acquired the rights to publish Godzilla comics in 2011 and has released multiple versions of the setting.

Godzilla: The Roleplaying Game is built around the Kai-Sei era of Godzilla, a distinct version of the kaiju introduced in IDW’s comic adaptationss in 2025. The comics describe a post-apocalyptic world with Pacific Rim-inspired elements, where the very existence of kaiju and Kai-Sei energy has mutated the world, forcing governments to form anti-kaiju organizations to protect cities and stop these unstoppable monsters from decimating millions of lives.

Players won’t get to play as the iconic kaiju, however. They’ll play as “fighters, survivors, potential worshippers of the kaiju who have acquired special abilities via Kai-Sei energy that lets them take on the kaiju.”

The game takes on a strong superhero element, where characters can grow in size ala Ant-Man/Ultra Man to duke it out with Godzilla, use massive sci-fi drills to punch through stone, or fire sniper shots from miles away. It’s a very different universe than you might expect from recent WBD film adaptations or even the classic Japanese films (although Boener re-emphasized that storytellers can easily adapt the game to these older settings if they want to).

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Hands-On Experience With Godzilla: the Roleplaying Game

I got to try Godzilla: The Roleplaying Game at PAX Unplugged in late November 2025 in an early playtest¹ . The core story of the playtest featured a team of G-Force operatives going to a base in the middle of the now-decimated Central United States that had gone quiet. Something bad happened there, and the players had to find out what.

Gameplay relies entirely on card draws instead of dice. Players will first pull together an appropriate modifier from the four basic character stats of Strength, Mindfulness, Intelligence, and Coordination. Players will then try to add any and all hooks or equipment that they have to that core stat. Players will also have “Destiny Cards", which are cards in hand that they can use to influence the outcome of a situation. They will then draw a card from the “Chance Deck”, which might increase or subtract from the final roll depending on the color of the card. The storyteller then reviews the number and determines if it is enough. It’s a very simple approach to gameplay that felt natural after 30-40 minutes.

The gameplay adopts a macro approach to movement and momentum. While most D&D fans assume actions in the standard 5-foot-square grid, player actions instead occur on a larger scale per turn. Each character was asked to take one major action per turn as the story progressed. For example, my character (a burly, brawny type with big drills he used to fight the kaiju that changed his life) used his skills to yank open a large metal door while others tried to find evidence of what caused all of the people at this base to disappear.

At the end of the turn after everyone has played, the game’s storyteller will draw a card and increase the “Crisis Clock”, a metric that will determine if and when bad things will escalate. Each bad event is set at a specific number. Once you hit that number, a bad thing happens. It maintains tension and keeps gameplay moving. These could include the arrival of a kaiju, the sudden awakening of a previously unknown threat, the weakening of a structure, or whatever a storyteller might imagine.

The way turns are organized encouraged teamwork and collaboration at my playtest, and made the experience feel like an operation. We were on a clock and had to get things done. The mechanics aren’t too buried in a lot of specifics, which lets players get creative in what they might try to do. Some solutions may have been a bit sillier than others, but they were approved by the storyteller at the end of the experience.

I still have many questions about the game after this experience. What does gameplay look like outside of operations? How does character progression work? What tools are available to storytellers to maintain escalation and keep things interesting?

The biggest question was around the sense of success. If players aren’t able to kill Godzilla, how do you keep them invested and wanting to return (and possibly fight Godzilla again)?

One factor that I found to be an interesting and consistent part of the game’s design is your inability to actually kill kaiju. As a storyteller, I was always told that if you gave a character a stat block in something like D&D or Pathfinder, then it meant that you had to be ready for the possibility that players might kill that character. It’s (partly) the reason you don’t see stats for gods. While Godzilla does provide stats for the iconic kaiju contained within the setting, Boener says you’re only ever to drive them back or stop them from whatever malicious actions they may be enacting within the location you’re operating. Part of that is reinforced in the game’s decision to use willpower as the in-game health metric over actual health. If you bring Godzilla down to 0 willpower in an encounter, that doesn’t mean you killed him; just that you’ve stopped him from continuing his rampage this time around.

“You are fighting a force of nature,” Boener told TTRPG Insider, “It could come back.” That’s why she urges players to shift their goals away from “kill the bad guy” toward different metrics of success. These could be protecting a location, building a wall or weakening the kaiju for good. There might also be other reasons that Godzilla attacks. In many past Godzilla films, the kaiju often attacked an area because something dangerous was there. Maybe another kaiju was in the area, maybe scientists were experimenting with something they shouldn’t. That could equally be at the core of the story. How well the game provides resources for this sort of gameplay remains to be seen.

There’s still a lot I want to know about this game, and many questions about player response. Will it resonate with TTRPG fans? What about kaiju fans?

For now, we’re waiting to learn more about the game in its release.

Thanks to IDW Games for speaking with me! Godzilla: the Roleplaying Game will be available for crowdfunding on March 3, 2026.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

Every week, we send you interviews, news and roundups straight to your inbox. Everything you need to know within the TTRPG hobby and industry without the hassle of social media, generative AI or Google search.

If you want to know more, check us out here! If you like what you’re reading, make sure you subscribe. Help us become one of the go-to sources in the industry on Dungeons and Dragons, independent RPGs and everything inbetween.

This week has a lot of different news. First up is an update from the owners of the Neopets IP on how the upcoming TTRPG’s publisher may have overstepped. One of the most iconic TTRPGs is getting a 5e conversion. There’s a new Ghost in the Shell TTRPG. And finally, we got to chat with the author of PUNDERWORLD, a new TTRPG about wit and wordplay.

Neopets Owners say Beta Playtest was Not Approved, Seeks Revisions

Team Neopets

Two weeks ago, I covered how Neopets’ public beta playtest for the upcoming TTRPG caused a bit of “discourse” on BlueSky. The main point of contention was why the game was using a reflavored version of Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons for most of its mechanics. The document received a lot of feedback from fans and other designers for some of its odd choices. For example, the section on hosting a Session 0 (aka the conversation setting standards before you start a campaign) included addressing sexual content; something that seems a bit too adult for a child-oriented game like Neopets. It also included a playtest where you fought a group of bandits over a stolen bracelet, an approach that appeared notably contrary to Neopets’ storytelling style.

It turns out the rules previously released were not approved by Team Neopoets, the organization that manages the IP.

“We’ve carefully reviewed the concerns raised following the release of the beta playtest document,” the company wrote. “Some of that feedback reflects deeper concerns about the project's overall direction, highlighting that we need to re-examine the quality, direction, delivery, and transparency to ensure Neopet’s essence is being protected.”

“We want to be transparent with the community: the beta playtest document that was recently made public was not approved or reviewed by our team prior to its release,” Team Neopets said. “Under our licensing agreement, all content bearing the Neopets name must meet our quality standards and receive our written approval before it is shared publicly.

“Following an internal review, Neopets has determined that the content and themes contained within the document do not align with our brand standards, values, or the expectations we hold for experiences created under the Neopets license. Although the Neopets team has been steadily reviewing the TTRPG in sections as it is submitted, none of the aforementioned submissions was included in the beta document material released. We immediately requested the document’s removal and have been in direct communication with Geekify to address the matter.”

Geekify CEO John Taylor admitted in the Neopets TTRPG Discord that Geekify “was mistaken to post [the Beta playtest] in the first place.” Taylor says that he thought certain subjects had been approved by The Neopets Team, but it appears they were not. He does plan to address the public post in the future.

It appears that The Neopets Team intends to continue to work with Geekify on the project, although it remains unclear what the TTRPG will look like in future stages. Taylor says there’s a lot of work that we have yet to see, so we will have to wait and see. These events will likely mean that the game will be further delayed (Although we were not given a date for when the game would be ready yet, anyway.)

Sci-Fi Classic Traveller Comes to Fifth Edition

Traveller, arguably one of the most iconic science fiction TTRPGs on the market, is being converted to Fifth Edition rules; a decision some find controversial.

“This 5E version introduces Traveller to an enormous new audience. Starships, strange worlds, exotic alien creatures … every aspect of the sci-fi classic is faithfully recreated using the new edition's rules,” said game designer Timothy Brown, who is overseeing the project in partnership with Traveller owner Mongoose Publishing “Will the existing Imperium and all its sourcebooks be updated to the new rules? If there’s demand for that, then yes, of course, but the primary objective is to make a sandbox game that feeds the pent-up demand for whole new game universes. Equally exciting, we're tracking some of our favorite sci-fi novels and series to license as whole new Traveller 5E settings … stay tuned!”

The conversion is intended to make the science fiction setting more accessible to modern-day audiences and to fans who might only know Fifth Edition D&D rules, claims publisher World’s Largest RPGs.

When the project was initially announced in November 2025, it received some pushback from fans who didn’t agree with the need to convert Traveller’s ruleset to Fifth Edition. It’s the latest effort by a non-D&D publisher to convert their projects into a form that D&D fans will enjoy after Paizo and Chaosium released their own Fifth Edition additions on D&D Beyond.

The crowdfunding campaign will launch on March 31.

Ghost in the Shell Gets a Second Manga-Focused TTRPG Adaptation

Mantic Games

Mantic Games, the minds behind the Halo: Flashpoint wargame and several other projects, announced that they are making ANOTHER Ghost in the Shell TTRPG, bringing the classic cyberpunk TTRPG to life….again.

The game is being designed by game designer Alessio Cavatore and TTRPG writer Zak Barouh, who hope to combine “fast-paced, narrative-driven mechanics with the philosophical depth and visual flair that define The Ghost in the Shell.”

“We’re absolutely thrilled to be bringing The Ghost in the Shell to the world of tabletop roleplaying,” said Ronnie Renton, CEO of Mantic Games. “This is one of the most iconic and influential science fiction worlds ever created, and we’re honoured to be entrusted with the official license. Alessio and Zak have worked tirelessly to ensure every story told at the table feels true to the original manga, allowing players to live, think, and fight in the world of Major Kusanagi and the iconic Section 9.”

This project is separate from the Ghost in the Shell: Arise TTRPG that Mana Project Studio crowdfunded last year, which uses the Forged in the Dark rules to tell its story. Mantic Games’ project is entirely separate from Mana Project Studios, a representative told TTRPG Insider. Mana Project Studios’ game is based on the 2013 Arise TV show, while Mantic Games’ version is built on the original manga.

The project is scheduled for launch in Summer 2026.

Want to see more reporting in the TTRPG space? Heard a scoop or a story you want covered? Let us know! Subscribe to TTRPG Insider and get exclusive interviews, trend pieces, speculation and coverage of D&D, mainstream publishers and the indie scene.

Four Wizards, Four Game Systems. Who Wins?

Deficient Master, a D&DTuber, got Bob of BobWorldBuilder, Land of the Blind’s Taron Pounds, and Cody of NoNat1s, to make wizards with four different rulesets and have them fight each other. It’s as silly as you think it is.

Q&A With PunderWorld Author Linnie Schell

There are a lot of different ways to run TTRPGs. You can roll dice, draw cards and even pull blocks from a Jenga tower.

But one game hopes to make bad puns the core of gameplay. Punderworld is a TTRPG launched by Twice Rolled Tales on Kickstarter last week. The game is about the conflict between the City of Wit and the Punderworld. The game was written by Linnie Schell, creator of Tabletop Gone Mad and Burning Down the Goat.

The game’s all about wordplay and wit, and challenges you to rely on bad puns and strange metaphors to tell a story.

We spoke with Schell about the game and its origins.

---

Can you tell me a bit about the history of this game? What inspired it? Where did it come from?

I've been experimenting with games that use language-as-mechanics, and I wanted to mechanically represent the "figurative language becomes literal" idea that I had so loved from early childhood readings of The Phantom Tollbooth. I also wanted to bring to that more modern day/internet inspired wordplay. And I just really, really, really like puns.

The very first version I ran as proof of concept. (The DM screen remains one of my favorite sight gags I've made). As I developed it the more I moved farther away from dice-based mechanics and towards the core mechanics being The Pun.

The City of Wit and The Punderworld developed from idea that "A pun is the lowest form of Wit", and built out from there. If the magics of figurative language existed in both these places, what kinds of wordplay weren't as welcome in Wit, and why? Who got banished to the Punderworld?

How Do Puns Fit into the Mechanics?

My priorities for the mechanics were a) encouraging players to use puns b) preventing the game from getting bogged down by judging the quality of every pun c) retaining an element of chance.

I decided to rely on an ambient magical "Punergy". (It functions a little like Wild Magic, for those many familiar). A player will make a pun, and try to roll under the level of ambient Punergy (from 1-20). If they roll under, the Wordplay is a success, and Punergy resets to one.

The catch is, to increase the amount of Punergy, you have to make puns (in conversation, as tabletalk, as asides - anything). Players may not intend for these to come true, but they still have to roll against the Punergy level, and sometimes they will come true. There's a couple of additional rules for perfect puns, or for truly stuck players, but overall, this rewards players making as many puns as possible and causes the perfect amount of story based chaos.

What is the role of this conflict between Wit and Punderworld? Is the story intended to center on this, or is it merely world setting?

I would say a bit of both. The starter adventure modules as well the locations and New Punny Characters (NPCs) listed in the text are all shaped by the conflict between the realms. However, these places are vast, so there's plenty of room for stories where that conflict is just around the edges, or even in the far distance.

As an overall game, the conflict is in some part a reflection of growing pressures in real life today to define what is "proper" speech, and attempt to banish the weird, wonderful, sexy, and queer from public view. It's not the focus of the game per se, but the influence is definitely there.

Why Puns?

Because I think they're really funny and fun to make. Thankfully, there are enough sickos out there who agree that it made sense to make this game! And ultimately, a good Pun is its own reward.

---

The game is available for crowdfunding until February 24, 2026.

That’s all for this week. Have thoughts on a recent story? Want to promote your latest product? Feel free to send us tips or emails at ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

You can also tag or follow us on BlueSky, Threads or Twitter!

Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

Every week, we send you interviews, news and roundups straight to your inbox. Everything you need to know within the TTRPG hobby and industry without the hassle of social media, generative AI or Google search.

If you want to know more, check us out here! If you like what you’re reading, make sure you subscribe. Help us become one of the go-to sources in the industry on Dungeons and Dragons, independent RPGs and everything inbetween.

This week, we’re going to focus on an interview instead of our little news roundups. I got to speak with Tim Denee, the designer behind Evil Hat’s Blades '68, the latest update to the BLADES IN THE DARK series. The book is the first version to try and expand John Harper’s game-changing BITD game, which helped introduce the world to the FORGED IN THE DARK system. While BITD was initially a Steampunk-inspired setting laden with its deep Dishonored-esque lore, Blades '68 explores that same work in the future, albeit with more of a JAMES BOND/DEATHLOOP aesthetic. The art alone was enough to excite me.

We still have your weekly news roundup attached here as well. But it’s primarily an interview. So enjoy!

Q&A With Blades '68 Designer Tim Denee

Blades ‘68 by Evil Hat

1. What's the story that led to the creation of Blades ‘68?

It started as a passion project - a bit of playing Deathloop (itself a '60s update of the Dishonored setting), combined with my own lifelong interest in the 1960s as a decade, and my long history with Blades in the Dark (making things like my detailed street maps). The idea of a 1960s version of the Blades in the Dark setting was so immediately compelling to me, I knew I had to do it. It simply had to happen. 

Initially the idea was to make the project as small as possible and release it as a free, unofficial, bootleg PDF. Then the previews I shared generated a lot of buzz, and so it went from a small-scope PDF for my own home game to an official book published by Evil Hat Productions. 

Tim Denee

2. Why do you think Blades' rules and setting transfer well into the 60s/70s-influenced storytelling that you are embracing with this game?

I think the 1960s have just the right balance of echoing, but also contrasting, the 19th century industrial feel of the original game. 

By echoing, I mean that there are a bunch of 1960s touchstones that feel right at home with the grimy crime stories that Blades captures so well. I'm thinking basically any crime movie with Michael Caine, and also London in the 60s generally - the Kray twins, dark alleyways, daring heists. It all feels very Blades to me. I also think that in the same way that the 19th century is a turning point between two worlds (from the pre-industrial, superstitious, magical to the post-industrial, mechanical, scientific), the 1960s are a turning point into the modern world as we know it (modern music, advertising, capitalism, politics). 

But I think that to echo and rhyme is not enough - what makes the idea compelling is also the contrast. The startling differences. It's taking a familiar setting and showing it in a whole new light (literally). The 1960s are a great contrast to the gaslamp industrial time period in several ways - the vibrancy, the colour, the explosion of fashion and music and political activism. Part of what makes 1960s London so compelling, in the real world, is its contrast with the gloomy old Victorian London that we're all familiar with. And that contrast works just as well with Doskvol. 

3. How did you try to capture the energy of BITD while also bringing new life to this version of the game? What sorts of mechanical changes did you have to consider or embrace? 

Again, the idea was to both echo but also contrast. The crew types are very similar to original Blades, and so is the core gameplay. You'll have heists and chases and assassinations and all that good stuff. That should all feel quite familiar. 

The tone, however, is slightly lighter; hectic criminal escapades. A bit less grim and gritty, a bit less pulling yourself up from nothing. The crew starts with more advantages, and being Tier 0 is less of a slog. There are also new resistance rules, harm rules, and armor rules that all add up to make the player characters substantially tougher and better able to handle jumping out of a window, driving a car off a bridge, and so on. You can go faster and harder and still shrug it off.

It's also all designed to be very modular, in keeping with Deep Cuts. You can swap in original Blades rules modules if you prefer those, and you can also sub in Deep Cuts modules.

4. What was the most interesting or exciting bit of lore to be transferred from the current version of BITD to now?

In the original Blades, there's this subtle plot line that the Leviathans are migrating away, and eventually, there will be no more Leviathan blood. Civilization runs on Leviathan blood as a fuel source, and most importantly, it powers the lightning barriers that protect the city. What happens 100 years from now? 

The answer in Blades '68 is Electroplasmic Fusion. Leviathan blood is refined into electroplasm, but human ghosts are also electroplasmic. In the original Blades, dead bodies are destroyed at an official crematorium to prevent the soul rising from the body as a ghost. By the '60s, scientists have figured out how to use that process as a fuel source - not just destroying the soul of the dead, but using it as a fuel source. Now they don't need leviathan blood, because there are always more dead bodies.

This is kind of the foundational bit of lore for the whole of Blades '68. Electroplasmic fusion powers the bubble, which protects the city, and the bubble provides Bluetime (the hyper-saturated fake daytime that has replaced the eternal night). It shapes every aspect of life in Doskvol 68. 

Blades '68 by Evil Hat

5. What sort of art aesthetics did you want to elaborate on with this?

To return to the theme of echoing and contrasting, I wanted the graphic design to be very familiar and strongly related to the original Blades. It uses a similar layout on the page, type hierarchies, page numbering, and more. But then also, to provide a strong contrast, it uses a wide palette of bright colours (contrasted with original Blades, which is greyscale), and bold, poppy illustrations. I wanted an aesthetic that reaches out and grabs you, that feels vibrant and exciting. 1960s, yes, but a modern take on that; not yellowed and distressed, but sharp and clear.

6. Does the existence of Blades '68 imply that there may be future explorations of other time periods in that same world/setting later? Or is that above your paygrade?

That's above my paygrade, but I know that Dagger Isles is well along the path to release, so there is at least one more Blades expansion coming soon! I'm not involved, but very excited to see it. 

7. Is Blades '68 aimed at veteran BITD players, or at new players looking to try the game with a fresh vibe?

This is a lazy answer, but the answer is really both. 

On the one hand, I made this game for myself, and I have played a bunch of original Blades. This game is a love letter to that one, and I think veteran players will get a lot out of it. There are all sorts of nods and easter eggs and things to enjoy for the veteran Blades players.

On the other hand, I know that there are people out there who want to try Blades but, for whatever reason, 19th-century industrial fantasy just doesn't hit for them. So I think for those people, this is a great way to get a taste of Blades in the Dark, but in a whole new flavour that might be more up their alley.

8.  What is something you're most excited about from this project? What do you hope players will most enjoy from this project?

The thing that really excites me about Blades '68 is when it links through to original Blades. I'm excited to hear about people playing sequel campaigns, where they revisit the setting but populate it with the after-effects and descendant characters from an old Blades campaign. Or time travel campaigns, where you jump back and forth from Blades '68 to original Blades. Or alternate timeline campaigns, where you take beloved Blades PCs and play "what if they were alive in the 1960s instead". 

There are so many ways for Blades '68 to connect up to original Blades, and I can't wait to hear what people do with that. 

In my home campaign (55 sessions), the same group had played a Blades in the Dark campaign about five years ago. Halfway through our Blades '68 campaign, we did a flashback session, playing original Blades again with those old characters. It was revealed that the '68 antagonist they had been dealing with was an old foe of their old crew, now turned into a vampire. It was just so much fun to revive those old characters for a session, and link them through to this brand new campaign. It was an all-time great gaming moment. 

Thanks to Denee for chatting with TTRPG Insider. You can back the campaign now on Backerkit.

Five Tiers of RPG Publishing

Hasbro’s annual earnings came out this week, so I took a look. It is truly staggering how much Wizards of the Coast has changed the company since they were acquired; when looking at unadjusted earn…

Seamus Conneely, aka one half of Cannibal Halfling Gaming, published a piece that went a bit viral on BlueSky, elaborating on what they describe as the five tiers of TTRPG publishers. It ranges from the hundreds-of-million-dollar brand D&D to smaller publishers like Evil Hat and Steve Jackson Games. Most companies in this space don’t disclose their finances for a variety of reasons, so we only know so much about how much publishers actually make. Still, I think this is a really helpful look at the spectrum of profit that companies in the TTRPG space have and how big it really is.

To quote J Gray of R.Talsorian Games:

Random hard truth.

The TTRPG industry (beyond D&D) is a niche hobby market that pretends to be a core hobby market.

We aren’t knitting or crochet, y’all. Those are huge craft hobbies. We’re soap making. Just with a much lower barrier of entry.

— J Gray (@jgraygaming.bsky.social)
3:13 PM • Feb 13, 2026

That’s all for this week. Have thoughts on a recent story? Want to promote your latest product? Feel free to send us tips or emails at ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

You can also tag or follow us on BlueSky, Threads or Twitter!

Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

We’re the go-to source for exclusive interviews, analysis, and writing on the TTRPG industry, from Dungeons and Dragons to independent RPGs and everything in between.

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Today, we’re breaking down Hasbro’s Q4 2025 earnings report and what it reveals about Dungeons and Dragons and the company’s approach to artificial intelligence; something I do think needs to be watched.

Hasbro

Hasbro reinforced its interest in the use of artificial intelligence within its company, although what that means for Wizards of the Coast and Dungeons and Dragons remains unclear.

Hasbro reported its Q4 2025 results on Tuesday. The company’s overall revenue grew 31% year over year, with an 86% growth in Wizards and digital gaming products and 7% in consumer products. Magic: The Gathering proved itself to once again be a constant driving force for the company’s financial success. D&D will have “major category expansions” later this year, Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks emphasized, but there wasn’t much more to add to what comes next for the popular TTRPG beyond him hyping up future video games like Warlock as well as the recently announced partnership with HBO and Craig Mazin.

Hasbro CEO and Director Chris Cocks

The remarks that arguably stood out the most was Cocks’ decision to explain the company’s approach to artificial intelligence during the earnings call and how it might be used. “We're taking a human-centric, creator-led approach,” Cocks told analysts. “AI is a tool that helps our teams move faster and focus on higher-value work, but people make the decisions and people own the creative outcomes. Teams also have choice in how they use it, including not to use it at all when it doesn't fit the work or the brand.”

He listed multiple examples of how the company is using AI, including “financial planning, forecasting, order management, supply chain operations, training and everyday productivity under enterprise controls and clear guidelines around responsible use and IP protection.”

Hasbro is building partnerships with Google Gemini, OpenAI and the voice-focused ElevenLabs in hopes of embedding the technology “where it adds real value,” Cocks emphasized. He even goes on to claim these incorporations will “free up more than 1 million hours of lower-value work.”

“We believe the winners in AI will be companies that combine deep IP, creative talent and disciplined deployment. That's exactly where Hasbro sits,” Cocks concluded.

What Dos This All Mean?

AI remains arguably one of the biggest hype factors for any company to put into practice that will hopefully spark confidence among investors and analysts. I (Chris) spend a lot of time reading earnings reports for one of my part-time jobs, and nobody can stop talking about the technology. So I would take this with a lot of salt.

Seeing Cocks re-emphasize Hasbro’s AI policy isn’t terribly shocking. He’s expressed his support of AI in the past. Cocks spoke about how AI tools could support brands like D&D during talks at Goldman Sachs events. He also claims to use AI extensively during the D&D games he runs for people, according to Semafor. There’s been discussions of how the company could theoretically use the 50 years of content to generate new content as well.

At the same time, D&D and WOTC exist in a particularly weird place in Hasbro’s ecosystem. The company stated in 2023 that artists contributing to the game must “refrain from using AI generative tools” to create final D&D products” after fans discovered an AI-generated piece of art in Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. This continues to be our best understanding of WOTC and D&D’s approach to generative AI tools as a whole.

I do want to note that this language does not bar the company from using AI in other stages (brainstorming, drafts, editing, etc.) But we also don’t have enough insight into that design side to confirm or deny if it is occurring; merely that it appears to be on the table.

That statement also doesn’t bar AI from being used to create an AI agent that offers answers to D&D queries, or helps generate story ideas. I’ve heard plenty of people speculate that D&D Beyond will have some sort of AI incorporation in the future. We just haven’t seen it happen yet.

For now, I do recommend keeping an eye on Hasbro’s evolving AI policy and how it might change amid the conversations around AI bubbles and the stability of that industry.

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Wizards of the Coast

What Q4 2025 Entailed for Dungeons and Dragons.

Q4 featured multiple major book releases for WOTC. Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerun and Heroes of Faerun got a dual release in November, while Eberron: Forge of the Artificer released in early December. The Stranger Things tie-in Welcome to Hellfire Club, the second starter set released for the 2024 ruleset, also hit tables this quarter.

Q4 was also the month when WOTC’s 3D virtual tabletop Project Sigil formally ended development, the clear casualty amid Hasbro’s push for more digital products.

When it comes to Magic: The Gathering, only one major set released in Q4; Avatar: The Last Airbender’s MTG set was released in Q4 and appeared to do well, although they were far from the success that Final Fantasy and Spiderman were expected to be.

The company made its first of many new hires in December, appointing Justice Ramin Arman as game design director. Arman’s hire would be followed by a half dozen new designers brought onto staff in the following month.

Hasbro’s Last Quarter Focused on Digital Gaming

The company released its Q3 2025 report on Thursday. Hasbro reported an 8% increase in revenue, driven primarily by growth in Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming. These two divisions within the toy-making company have proven to be a consistent source of growth compared to the rest of the brands, especially after the standout success of the Final Fantasy card set this summer. The majority of quarterly growth was attributed to Magic The Gathering, which saw its revenue grow 55% this quarter through the August 1 release of Edge of Eternities and the September 26 release of Marvel’s Spider-Man.

It also affirmed its dedication to focusing on digital products like games and expanding DnD Beyond’s capabilities during an investor call.

“The big thing for Dungeons and Dragons is going to be digital games,” Cocks said. “We have several games in development. We're working with some fantastic creators in that space. We tend to be a little gun-shy talking about projects too early, but you're going to start to see more of our digital ambitions come to life with D&D and understand some of the things we have in development over the next couple of quarters." Some of those games include the Raven Queen-themed Warlock (scheduled for 2027) and Exodus’ video game adaptation.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

Welcome to TTRPG Insider!

Every week, we send you interviews, news and roundups straight to your inbox. Everything you need to know within the TTRPG hobby and industry without the hassle of social media, generative AI or Google search.

If you want to know more, check us out here! If you like what you’re reading, make sure you subscribe. Help us become one of the go-to sources in the industry on Dungeons and Dragons, independent RPGs, and everything in between.

This week, I’m covering a hodge podge of topics. I took a closer look at why people are talking about the Neopets TTRPG. HBO announced plans for a Baldur’s Gate television show. Finally, I interviewed a company that manufactures D&D-themed wrestling belts.

Geekify’s Neopets TTRPG Beta Draft Slammed by Designers for Looking Too Much Like D&D

Geekify

This weekend, the TTRPG side of BlueSky exploded in a long conversation about the Neopets tabletop roleplaying game. This project, led by Geekify, aims to adapt the popular web game into a tabletop role-playing game. The original Kickstarter campaign raised over $400,000 in 2024 and was considered a notable success in crowdfunding terms.

Geekify published a beta version of its rules online for public review on February 5, and received a lot of feedback in the days after. The current version of the game appears to be a conversion of Fifth Edition D&D’s rules with some tweaks to stats and language that are designed to capture the unique energy and aesthetic of Neopets. How well that translates into the nostalgic experience Neopets was for many millennials remains to be seen. The game’s “spells”, renamed as powers, include a variety that could quickly be identified as spells listed in the Original Gaming License, WOTC’s document that allows third-party creators to create D&D content without copyright concerns.

The beta set of rules also focuses only on combat. While combat is available on the original Neopets website, most of the content is nonviolent, consisting of minigames and trading. This was a detail that Geekify’s original campaign focused on extensively.

The project attracted significant criticism from independent designers on BlueSky, who noted that the beta rules’ focus on combat and D&D mechanics covers only a small part of what people did on Neopets and ignores other elements at play.

There is a base misunderstanding of what neopets is, focusing on the swords and sorcery that only takes up 1 of the 20 distinct thematic worlds in the actual game; which is a fine thing to focus on, but not to the level of aping all of dnd 5e for.

— Farmer Gadda (@farmergadda.bsky.social)
5:29 PM • Feb 7, 2026

That combat/adventuring aesthetic appears to be core to the game, based on remarks from Geekify’s development team.

“I think anyone coming into this expecting [the Neopets TTRPG] to be an exclusive mirror of performing dailies on the site is going to be a bit disappointed,” wrote Herdy, who claims¹ to be one of Geekify’s game developers. “ We've been very clear from the offset that this has been designed from day one to be set within the 'lore' world of Neopets where the Neopets are people and not animals owned by humans. The campaign book is an adaptation of the Faeries Ruin plot. I cannot imagine a way you could build a campaign around Faerieland falling and an invasion of monsters where the significant gameplay is exclusively fishing and picking berries. That is not to say that you cannot do those things - the campaign book's drafts include mechanics for the Deserted Fairground's games, for example. But sometimes people fight in Neopia and as a beta test, we need to know if the mechanics we've come up with work around tables in the wild.”

Geekify’s team stated early in their comments (according to Rascal News) that the original plan was to build it with Fifth Edition in mind, but the events of the 2023 OGL controversy led them to adapt it into their own system. However, the current design still screams Fifth Edition and will likely continue to do so,based on the responses we’re seeing from the team on the Discord.

Some of the best tabletop design minds of our generation are collectively giving feedback on the officially licensed Neopets RPG playtest document and thats so beautiful to me.

— Lin Codega (@lincodega.com)
6:43 PM • Feb 7, 2026

We’ll see if the game will change in any meaningful way going forward, as the company’s team has expressed in the playtest beta Discord that they’re going to take the feedback. It’s unclear when the company intends to fulfill the project.

Neopets was originally created in 1999 as a browser-based platform centered on collecting and caring for digital pets called “Neopets” through games and other activities. As the site expanded, it became a complex website in its own right with its own community. economy and black market. The IP has been adapted into various video games and physical products, though its popularity has since declined. The site remains active and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors, according to its current owners.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Gets TV Adaptation by Last of Us Co-Creator

Baldur’s Gate 3, arguably the best adaptation of D&D to video game format and perhaps one of the best video games of all time, is being considered for an adaptation into television format, according to a new report from Deadline.

Craig Mazin, the co-creator of HBO’s The Last of Us is developing his adaptation of Baldur’s Gate, with Mazin holding attached to create, write, executive produce and showrun the TV adaptation. The story will continue the narrative, exploring the world after the events of the third game and the mind flayers' work.

“After putting nearly 1000 hours into the incredible world of Baldur’s Gate 3, it is a dream come true to be able to continue the story that Larian and Wizards of The Coast created,” Mazin said. “I am a devoted fan of D&D and the brilliant way that Swen Vincke and his gifted team adapted it. I can’t wait to help bring Baldur’s Gate and all of its incredible characters to life with as much respect and love as we can, and I’m deeply grateful to Gabe Marano and his team at Hasbro for entrusting me with this incredibly important property.”

The show hopes to bring the original cast of performers back, but also intends to work without the game’s developers, Larian Studios, and their input.

The response to this has been mixed, to put it lightly. While I know some folks are eager to see more done with Baldur’s Gate 3 as a whole, I also know that some are not excited about Mazin’s involvement or the lack of involvement of Larian (who many consider to be why the game works as well as it does.)

The project is being created at the same time as Shawn Levy’s Forgotten Realms show that Netflix is developing, although we have not heard much about that project’s status since. The two are intended to co-exist, however.

The project will likely not come to fruition for several years, so keep your eyes out.

With February starting, it's Zine Month! There's lot of projects to consider backing if you're inclined toward such within the TTRPG community. Some of these are made by veteran designers, others by AP and TTRPG veterans and icons. What so should you consider?

Here's my list of names to note:

— Chris Hutton @ TTRPG Insider (@ttrpginsider.bsky.social)
10:26 PM • Feb 2, 2026

It’s ZINE MONTH. Tons of indie developers are releasing small projects at this time for crowdfunding on Backerkit and Kickstarter. We’re talking more than 80 projects in total, with many only seeking $1,000 or less in funding to succeed. I strongly urge you to check out BackerKit’s Zinetopia listing or Kickstarter’s Zine Quest and see if there’s anything that excites you. These are just great opportunities to support up-and-coming creators or maybe try your own hand at indie games yourself.

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A Q&A With TrophySmack About D&D Wrestling Belts

TrophySmack

I regularly get press releases and notes about new D&D products that are being released, from dice to plushies to Fortnite maps. So imagine my surprise when TrophySmack, a company best known for creating trophies, belts, and plaques for sports fans, told me that they were officially licensed sellers of D&D merchandise. You can now buy D&D and Magic: The Gathering-themed wrestling belts and accessories on their website. It’s not a product line that I would immediately affiliate with the very nerdy and unathletic hobby of TCGs or TTRPGs.

But what caused a sports-themed accessory company to start making D&D-themed products? I spoke with TrophySmack's marketing director, Josh Weaver, to better understand.

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1. What inspired TrophySmack to make D&D and MTG-themed products?
   I’m happy to say most everyone at TrophySmack is a gamer in one way or another. At our core, TrophySmack has always been about immortalizing brag-worthy victories. We started in fantasy football, where bragging rights are everything. It felt natural to expand into other areas that thrive on competition and earned victories.
   Many of us are lifelong tabletop gamers who play to win. We believe those unforgettable victories deserve the same over-the-top, championship hardware once reserved only for sports.

2. What are the general reasons people acquire these? Is it for competitions? Fashion? Collectibles?

   Yes, to all of the above. For Magic: The Gathering, our belts and banners fuel weekly competition at local game stores, convention prize walls, and tournaments. They turn wins into something players chase repeatedly. For Dungeons & Dragons, it’s personal. Our Campaign Completion Belts mark the end of an adventure, while Chromatic Chains hit the table mid-session to amplify big rolls and bragging rights. They’re part prize, part ritual, and always a trophy worth wearing.

3. Who initiated the conversation to spark this partnership? Did WOTC approach you, or was it the other way around?

   We did. TrophySmack’s founder [Matt Walsh] has been a long-time Magic: The Gathering player, dating back to 1997. Gaming has long been part of our company culture, and nothing fosters connection, creativity, and team building like tabletop games.
   We approached Wizards of the Coast with a clear vision: to create officially licensed championship products that feel authentic to the communities that play. Since then, we’ve worked closely together to develop a custom line of trophies, chromatic chains, and title belts that inject TrophySmack’s championship DNA into the worlds of Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons - while respecting what makes each game special.

4. What should people expect from this product line?

   This line is for people who play for keeps.
   Fans can expect premium, officially licensed products designed for players who love competition, storytelling, and showing off. Simply put, our products are bragging rights in their physical form.
   It’s the same TrophySmack mindset – just rolled for initiative.

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Full Disclosure: TrophySmack provided review copies of their D&D-themed wrestling belts and “chromatic chains” to TTRPG Insider. They’re a very high-quality product and made of some fairly sturdy metal and leather. I, personally, don’t know how on earth I might use them but they are pretty neat.

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This issue, we’re taking a closer look at Gallow's Corner, the latest TTRPG project from Three Sails Studios, best known as the makers of Mappa Mundi. The game describes itself as an “alternate historical system” that tells the story of how the lowest of people in the mid-to-late 14th century unite to push back against the powers of the day through collective action and political organization. The Gallows Corner is a real place in London, where the gallows hung for a time but has become a junction. That hasn’t eliminated its relevance to English history, however.

I spoke with game designer George Francis Bickers about what went into the game’s design, what inspired it, and why someone would want to play a game about being peasants in ye Olde England.

Three Sails Studios

What's the story of Gallows Corner? What inspired you to make it?

It's difficult to say what inspired Gallows Corner directly, but it felt right from the start, and continues to feel, like the game I needed to make. I grew up a council estate kid in a single parent household, and to say there was little money about would be an understatement. I was born and raised in Essex (the county touching the north-eastern edge of London) to family who grew up in London (or had been moved out of the bombed out East End in the 50s and 60s), which used to be an incredibly radical place; the real Gallows Corner is in Essex. The Peasants' Revolt of 1381 broke out in Essex and that radical tradition continued for a long time.

But Essex isn't like that anymore, and hasn't been for around 45 years (longer than I've been alive). People are angry, everywhere, and I'm counted among that number. But for me, anger is only productive when it is marshalled in the service of others, in the service of your community. I wanted to create and write a game that spoke to the radical soul and history of the place I grew up; a game that spoke to my own anger and that of others, but offered solutions in the form of community and solidarity, rather than exclusion and (class/race/gender/sexuality) divisions.

Why a historical roleplay around peasantry and the proletariat? What do you hope to capture experientially for the players through this?

Honestly, Gallows Corner is a game about the contemporary moment. Not only here in England or the UK, but globally, I think. What struck me more and more as I was researching and writing was the confirmation of something I had felt for a long time: that things haven't changed much in the 650 years since the game is set (1371; five years before the Peasants' Revolt).

I wanted to create a game that was true to my experiences as a working-class person who feels that identity deeply, even if my life is now very different from how it was a few years ago. I want players to experience the sense of powerlessness that comes with living that kind of life, but also the sheer joy and beautiful power that comes from it, too, when you are surrounded by people who understand you, who will give you the last scrap of food from their table because they know what it is to go without. Gallows Corner will satisfy those fantasies of burning the manor and overthrowing the monarchy. But it will also show you the quiet pride that comes with standing alongside those people you've lived with and loved.

What stories do you hope players will explore? Is this an adventure of the everyday man rising above his station to defeat the proletariat? Is it about collective action? There's clearly a political element intertwined within the historical as well.

So this builds on the previous answer, I suppose! Gallows Corner definitely looks like a game that is all about pitchforks and burning torches, and of the masses marching on the seats of power. And it definitely is that game. But it is also so much more.

What I want players to experience is that change from below is not always, or even regularly, loud and instant. Change is incremental and quiet. This is not to say that people shouldn't raise their voices (and their fists), but that the change that feeds your neighbour when they're hungry, or puts clothes on the back of someone who is struggling, has a massive impact for an act that is often overlooked. I really hope players will feel that they can engage in those smaller moments of change, of community building, and of solidarity.

How does this contrast or compare with past projects from you like Mappa Mundi?

Well, Mappa Mundi is our only previous project, and on the surface Gallows Corner couldn't look more different (despite the incredible Joel Kilpatrick, one of our co-owners, being the artist on both projects). But, really, Gallows Corner is an evolution of the major theme we were exploring in Mappa Mundi: that everyday people, working people, can change the world in fundamental ways if only they stand up and act.

In Gallows Corner, like in Mappa Mundi, you play as working people thrown into extraordinary circumstances. For me, the most heroic thing a person can do is see a structure weighed almost totally against them and still say: I will go and do what needs to be done, in whatever way I can best do it.

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Three Sails Studios

What tools do storytellers and players have to help make the player characters stand out? Is it a lethal game, or more narratively oriented?

That's a really interesting question. So, in Gallows Corner, all character are mechanically identical: each character has three Traits (Physical, Intellectual, and Emotional), a Trade, and a Job. No part of the system is closed off to any character. Everyone can do what everyone else can, mechanically.

But what makes characters stand out are those Trades and Jobs, the way they understand the world, and the way they interact with it. In all the games I've run of Gallows Corner, I've seen players empowered and bringing their characters to life through these two features. Players seem to very quickly embody the worker's life and naturally start to individualise their characters through a collective identity (Trade and Job) the character belongs to.

And the game is definitely deadly. After all, you're untrained peasants and workers taking on the full might of the crown, church, and nobility. But the game is narrative first, so combat (while having a mechanical base) is all about the story of the fight, whether you live or you die.

What sort of research and resources went into this? What work went into trying to capture your vision of England’s history?

There are two answers to this: a lot of research and no research at all.

I'm an ex-academic, so I'm well used to historical research, and there was plenty of it for Gallows Corner. I did a lot of research into the spatial and social organisation of England in the 14th century, including diving into some very obscure (and very hard to find!) academic texts from the early 20th century. I also did a lot of research into the working conditions of the period, the different types of jobs and their social importance, and obviously, a lot of research into the period running up to the Peasants' Revolt. I am indebted to the People of 1381 database for this last bit.

But in another sense, no research was conducted on it at all. I have written this game in my own voice, my authentic working-class voice, which Gallows Corner has helped me reaffirm and, in some cases, rediscover.

What's the short sales pitch? Why should someone try this game?

So if I was a GM trying to get my friends to play this game, my quick pitch would be: 'Do you want to play a Robin Hood TTRPG?' I think that folk hero fantasy we associate with Robin Hood is very clear and easy to understand, and is enough to give people a sense of what they're about to play. But what I love about this sales pitch is that, very quickly, those players are going to see that Gallows Corner takes them in so many more directions, and deeper into that folk hero role than they ever expected!

What's something you're excited for players to discover about Gallows Corner?

This is going to sound incredibly cheesy, but I don't care. I'm most excited about players discovering their own power through Gallows Corner, rather than discovering something about Gallows Corner itself. The game reflects our contemporary moment and all of us within it. It creates, through the game's structures, an exposure of the way power is organised in our contemporary society, and by playing it, experiencing it, and seeing that without those around us, we're all nothing, players will discover something essential about themselves, their community, and the spaces they live in.

You can check out Gallows Corner at their Kickstarter page here.

What are your thoughts? Send any scoops, tips or press releases to ttrpg.insidernews@gmail.com.

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We got a fun scoop on the upcoming localization of iconic Japanese TTRPG SWORD WORLD into English in this week’s roundup. MCDM also formally announced its upcoming survival horror TTRPG, titled CROWS.

We also spoke with Coyote and Crow Games about their upcoming expansion, noted two new hires over at WOTC and featured a pretty cool interview over at VARIETY.

All that and more in this week’s roundup!

Sword Art Online Animator to Lead Localization of Iconic Japanese TTRPG Sword World

A rising director and key animator who’s helped create some of the most popular anime series in the world will help to convert one of Japan’s most important TTRPGs into English.

Shunsuke Nakashige, best known by anime fans for his work as an animator and director, has joined Sword World publisher Mugen Games as the art director for the upcoming Sword World translation into English.

Shunsuke Nakashige

“As we take this to a new stage, I hope we can create visuals that are fresh and exciting,” said Nakashige. “It is important to me that the visuals delight both newcomers and those familiar with the past.”

“We are incredibly honored to have Shunsuke onboard for the Sword World RPG localization,” Ai Namima-Davison, co-founder of Mugen Gaming, said in a press release. “The art for Sword World RPG is central to what we are creating, and we can’t think of anyone better suited to help bring this world to life.”

A new illustration by Shunsuke “showing his dedication to the project”, according to Mugen Games

Most Americans might not know who Nakashige is,but many anime fans are familiar with his work. He’s helped to animate several sequences on shows like Solo Leveling and Sword Art Online, two very popular video game-themed anime series. He also recently directed Solo Leveling: ReAwakening, a 2024 film recapping the show’s first and second seasons.

Sword World RPG is currently scheduled to crowdfund in May 2026.

MCDM Announces CROWS, a Survival Horror-Oriented TTRPG that Combines Dungeon Runs with Resident Evil-Level Horrors

MCDM Productions

MCDM Productions, Matt Colville’s production company, announced the next project that it is launching: Crows, a “survival horror dungeon-crawling roleplaying game.”

“The characters aren’t heroes, they’re adventurers who dive into dangerous ruins to make a living,” wrote game designer James Introcaso in a Patreon article elaborating on the project. “This isn’t a game about fighting monsters, though there are monsters aplenty. Crows is about staring death in the face and grabbing as much loot as you can before your luck runs out.”

The game draws on rules similar to Draw Steel but adapts them to capture the particular vibes Introcaso is aiming for “no heroic resources, no hero tokens and no victories.”

The game appears to be MCDM’s attempt to create their own take on the OSR genre that’s seen a surge in recent years with Shadowdark, Knave and Troika! This means gameplay is more deadly and somewhat gory while also avoiding too many fantasy tropes. Players are going in for the loot, but are also facing monsters that are far more terrifying than skeletons or zombies.

The game is clearly trying to do something very distinct in comparison to D&D and other OSR games, so I will be curious to see if it will find as much success as past MCDM projects. The company’s successfully raised over $1 million in crowdfunding at least five times, so they know what they’re doing. But the player base for this sort of gameplay is definitely a niche audience. That’s not a bad thing, mind you. But will it find momentum?

For now, you can learn more at MCDM’s Patreon or on their Backerkit. The campaign is scheduled to launch on August 3, aka around GenCon this year.

Brennan Lee Mulligan and Matt Mercer Featured in Variety Interview

The fact that Variety, arguably one of the most important entertainment news outlets in the market, is featuring a 50-minute segment about Critical Role and Dimension 20 as well as the pair’s future plans. It is a bit long but I think it’s worth nothing.

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Q&A With Coyote and Crow’s Kenna Alexander

Coyote and Crow Games has been slowly expanding its releases over the last few years. Last year, it officially released AHU TIIKO, a horror-themed setting for the Native American-focused game setting as well as new VTT assets to make it easier to play online. This month, it’s releasing LEGENDS AND ICONS, a new supplement to help players expand their options for running the game.

We spoke with CoC Games founder Kenna Alexander about the game and what it entails, as well as the Storyteller Program, the company’s organized play initiative.

Coyote and Crow Games

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What's the general theme or focus when it comes to creatures, spirits, cults, etc in this particular book? Are you fleshing out specific aspects of the world or is this just a chance to expand the lore and add cool stuff that you couldn't in the core rulebook

KENNA ALEXANDER: One of the things that excited new fans in the core rulebook was the section that provided some opponents and challenges for players, which we called Legends & Icons. We created most of the content from scratch, but we also included a few entries based on real-world Indigenous myths, such as Deer Woman. The book was getting big, though. It was already approaching 500 pages, so we limited that section to just 22 entries. For this new book, we wanted to give folks an idea of the breadth and depth offered by the Coyote & Crow landscape. 

A pattern that many TTRPG players default to is some version of "the characters go to a village, encounter a strange being, then defeat it to save the villagers," or some variation, which is fine. But for me, and I think for many Indigenous folks, spirits and creatures aren't just things that exist in isolation. They're tied to their environments or situations, to the land they are on. Raven Mockers follow dying people. The Dosadaag live in deep snow. So for this upcoming book, we're creating entries that aren't just stats; they explain the environment - both physical and spiritual - that the being exists in. I guess a more straightforward way to put that is: We're not just giving fans the 'who' and 'what', we're giving them the 'where' and the 'why'. 

An example is Quill Fist. They are an enormous being, nearly invulnerable, covered in giant, deadly quills, who lumbers through the Appalachian mountains. What's their connection to that place? Why do they stay there? What are their goals? Sure, their stats and art are useful and fun. But detailing their behavior, their environment, can lead to really memorable stories. And that's what I really want players to get out of this book. Not just opponents to defeat, but launching points for telling engaging stories

What's the Storyteller Program? What are your plans for that?

KENNA ALEXANDER: We've struggled since our inception to create an organized play system. I won't get into the details, but it's been pretty ugly. There was a lot of time and money lost on my part for no return. And since I'm a company with only one full-time employee, namely me, I just haven't had the time to devote to setting up everything I'd like to promote the play of Coyote & Crow. And the game has the extra burden of well-meaning non-Natives being frightened to run tables for fear of offending someone. So, my answer was the Storyteller Program. I hope to give people some cool swag, some digital tools, and some resources to help them feel more confident in running games of Coyote & Crow. And I really want to be able to pay folks for running events at game stores, community centers, and conventions. Those folks do a lot of work and put so much heart into those events, and they deserve some compensation.

We're currently running a GoFundMe to help offset my costs, and we've got a pledge level for the Legends & Icons Kickstarter that includes a membership. And folks can just contribute to the GoFundMe, too, if they don't want a membership but want to support the program. Or they can sign up for the program to get the swag and access without being obligated to run paid events. I think it's a good deal.

How do you hope to incentivize more folks to engage in C&C organized play?

KENNA ALEXANDER: We live in a gaming world dominated by the 'cult of the new'. With Coyote & Crow being almost five years old, much of our initial momentum and hype is in the past. But we still have an incredible core fan base and I'm still surprised at how many people I encounter who have never heard of Coyote & Crow and are thrilled at the idea. I think pairing those two groups is the way to grow our community.

Fans want to share their love and see the game thrive. Giving them a way to do that, while simultaneously giving them some perks, while bringing in new players, is a win for everyone. This program might fall flat. Maybe we're too late. But I feel like I owe it to our hardcore fans to try. A game company can sustain a role-playing game only if there is continued enthusiasm and a healthy fan base. The more expansions and supplements for Coyote & Crow I can produce, the more ways I can find to reward Storytellers, and the more our community will grow, and the cycle then continues.

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Legends and Icons is scheduled to release on February 10, 2026. The Ahu Tiiko expansion will also be available to retailers starting on February 25.

Two New D&D Hires Expand WOTC’s Design Team

Wizards of the Coast

We had two additional hires announced this week. Shawn Merwin, head of Ghostfire Gaming (Drakkenheim, Grim Hollow, etc.) said in a podcast episode that he’s been hired as a contract game designer by Wizards of the Coast. Merwin previously contributed to D&D books like Acquisitions Incorporated, Descent into Avernus, Halls of Undermountain and other WOTC products.

Taylor Ann Navarro also confirmed that she was hired as a game designer at WOTC. Navarro was named the Diana Jones Emerging Designer in 2024 as well as a Big Bad Con scholar in 2022 and 2023. They’ve written and edited multiple D&D supplements and have worked for Evil Hat and Ghostfire Gaming in the past.

The pair will be joining the following hires:

• Justice Ramin Arman, the new game design director at D&D. Arman previously worked at Beadle and Grimm's from 2019 to 2022, joined WOTC as a senior game designer in 2022, and was promoted to managing game designer in 2024. He also has freelance credits with Critical Role, MCDM, and 2C Gaming.

• James Haeck has created third-party content for companies like Critical Role, MCDM, and other publishers for several years. Haeck was the lead designer on Call of the Netherdeep and co-wrote Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount. 

• Leon Barillaro, who has written multiple D&D supplements on DMs Guild. They also have design credits with MCDM, Renegade Games Studios, and EN Publishing.

• Erin Roberts, who wrote multiple adventures for Journeys from the Radiant Citadel as well as content for Paizo and Haunted Table.

There may be several other hires we don’t yet know about. But this flood of announcements from the team further supports my thesis that D&D is in a “rebuild year” and that 2026 may not have many releases as the new team focuses on whatever is next for D&D.

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