This Week in RPGs: MCDM’s Crows Kickstarter Takes Flight (21st August 2026)

Vampire: The Masquerade 6th Edition Confirmed at Gen Con

Following Gen Con 2026’s close, reports confirmed that Vampire: The Masquerade is getting a 6th edition with a completely reworked ruleset, one of the biggest system announcements to come out of the convention. We first flagged the reveal in last week’s roundup, and details on mechanics and release timing are still thin, but the news has dominated World of Darkness discussion boards ever since.

Rowan, Rook and Decard Forms a Union

Workers at the British publisher behind EAT THE REICH and the newly funded CHILDREN OF TIME have formed an officially recognised union in the UK. It is a notable moment for labour organising in a still-small industry, and worth watching as other indie studios weigh similar moves.

New This Week

BackerKit x DriveThruRPG Partnership

BackerKit has officially partnered with DriveThruRPG to handle digital fulfilment for TTRPG crowdfunders, streamlining how backers receive PDFs after a campaign closes. This should reduce a long-standing pain point for smaller creators managing fulfilment logistics.

Paizo’s Pathfinder and Starfinder Catalogue Hits DriveThruRPG

Paizo has made its full Pathfinder and Starfinder PDF library available on DriveThruRPG for the first time, with print books and Paizo Connect integration reportedly on the way. It is a significant distribution shift for a publisher that has largely kept sales in-house.

Roll20: Eberron Forge of the Artificer – Wizards of the Coast/Roll20 | Released 19 August The latest D&D digital sourcebook drop landed alongside pre-order bonus map packs. Available now on Roll20.

Crowdfunding Watch

Featured Campaign: Crows: Fortune or Death

MCDM Productions’ sophomore RPG book launched on Kickstarter on 16 August with a $650,000 goal, built around expanded dungeon crawling, overland travel and a cast of ambitious adventurers. It has already pulled in over $241,000 from more than 1,100 backers within days, riding heavily on MCDM’s existing fanbase from Flee, Mortals!. The campaign runs through 15 September.

Actual Play Corner

Critical Role

The six-part Daggerheart mini-series Age of Umbra: Sallowlands wrapped its run on 13 August, with fan reaction described as one of the more emotional stretches of the year. Campaign 4’s confirmed return to Aramán lands on 27 August, timed alongside the print release of the Daggerheart: Hope & Fear expansion on 25 August.

Elsewhere

Dungeons & Daddies’ newly launched BackerKit campaign has generated a strong buzz spike this week among actual play fans looking for what comes next after a main campaign wraps.

Media & Entertainment

Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins I #3 hit comic shops on 20 August, continuing Dark Horse’s prequel series following the WEBTOON vertical-scroll release earlier this month.

Community & Industry

Beyond the union news above, chatter has centred on Untapped-style popularity data debates, with creators comparing Daggerheart’s rapid growth against long-runners like Call of Cthulhu and Shadowdark.

GM Resource of the Week

The Tip: Borrow Daggerheart’s Death Moves for any system. Rather than a character simply falling unconscious or dying outright, let the player choose how their character’s story bends in that moment: a final defiant act, a risky bargain for survival, or a quiet, narratively meaningful exit. If you want the fuller picture of how Daggerheart’s tension mechanics work at the table, our piece on Hope and Fear as GM tools breaks down the underlying system this tip borrows from.

Why it works: Handing the dying player a choice, rather than a passive save-or-die roll, keeps them engaged and turns a mechanically flat moment into one of the session’s most memorable beats.

How to use it: Next time a PC hits zero hit points in any system, pause and offer three options in the moment: fight on with a costly consequence, go out on their own terms with one final action, or stabilise but lose something meaningful (an item, a memory, a relationship). Let the choice shape the next scene rather than resolving it with a single die roll.