• TTRPG Insider
  • Posts
  • News Roundup: EAT THE REICH Publisher Gets Union Recognized

News Roundup: EAT THE REICH Publisher Gets Union Recognized

Rowan Rook and Decard, best known for EAT THE REICH and the recently funded CHILDREN OF TIME TTRPG, has an officially recognized union in the United Kindom

Author

Christopher Hutton
August 16, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 6 minutes

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.

There are bits and bobs of news coming your way this week. Rowan Rook and Decard are unionized, a positive development for the smaller publisher. Paizo is making its game even more available. Warhammer Fantasy’s big update approaches. Plus, we spoke with Steve Jackson about GURPS. You don’t want to miss it!

UK-Based Rowan Rook and Decard Recognized as Official Union

Workers at Rowan, Rook and Decard have secured the first union recognition agreement in the UK table top games industry! 🙌 iwgb.org.uk/en/post/tabl... Work in the UK games industry? Join our union today!

— IWGB Game Workers Union (@gameworkers.co.uk)2026-08-12T14:08:14.171Z

Rowan Rook and Decard, the team behind Spire, Voidheart Symphony and other games, is the first UK tabletop company to unionize.

The small publisher’s employees successfully unionized their workplace under the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) Games Worker Union. RRD’s founders voluntarily recognized the deal, which will make the process fairly simple.

“This is a huge day for us,” Elaine Lithgow, Rowan, Rook and Decard worker and IWGB Union representative, said in a press statement. “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to shout from the rooftops that even a niche creative industry like TTRPGs, one defined by small teams and isolated freelancers, can still come together and support each other through good times and bad. This is just the beginning.”

“We live in turbulent times, where workers’ rights and creative industries are under threat,” Lithgow added. “This new union ensures that worker voices at Rowan, Rook and Decard are heard. We hope that this will galvanize more TTRPG workers to follow in our footsteps.”

The union will provide a “framework to discuss pay, conditions of both staff and freelancers, the use of AI while aiming to make union membership more attractive to the wider workforce,” the company claims

Unions in the TTRPG space are fairly rare; the most prominent one is United Paizo Workers, which was recognized by the Pathfinder publisher.

Rascal has a longer interview w/ the team about the affair.

Paizo Adds 1,200+ PDFs to DriveThruRPG In Expansion of Partnership

Pathfinder and Starfinder publisher Paizo announced on Wednesday that it was expanding its partnership with DriveThruRPG and the Pathfinder Nexus to add all of its content on the platform.

“It feels like Spotify getting to offer the Beatles,” said DriveThruRPG founder Steve Wieck in a press statement, “for the past twenty years, Paizo has had an unrivaled publication of top-tier roleplaying titles, and we’re honored to help bring those titles to an even broader audience of roleplaying game fans.”

“Expanding our partnership with DriveThruRPG makes it easier for more players to discover and enjoy Pathfinder and Starfinder,” added Jim Butler, CEO of Paizo. “We’re excited to bring decades of Paizo releases to the DriveThruRPG community, with even more options ahead.”

In the coming months, Paizo hopes to make all of its titles available for sale in print. Paizo Connect subscribers will also have the option to sync accounts with DTRPG and add their PDF collections to the website.

The deal seems to likely be part of the company’s effort to strengthen its financial stability in light of recent layoffs and reorganizations. Thankfully, the company appears to be approaching a settlement that will help it reacquire hundreds of thousands of dollars in merchandise from the third-party distributor Diamond Comics.

Cubicle 7 continues to tease the release of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 5e, the upcoming update for the popular ongoing TTRPG based on the dark fantasy setting from Games Workshop. The team announced the game’s update in October 2025, stating that the new book would be backward-compatible and would reduce “special-case” rules to improve gameplay and combat flow.

Preorders for the book are expected by the end of summer. In the meantime, C7 will be releasing previews of the new rules in the coming weeks.

We spoke with Padraig Murphy at Cubicle 7 last year about Warhammer: The Old World, a new update to the fantasy setting that’s set centuries before the current game and offers a simpler ruleset to pickup.

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.

A bit of belated news. We tried to get some details about the upcoming LitRPG-based TTRPG He Who Fights With Monsters from Catalyst Games. There were few interesting projects they had at GenCon. But here’s our quick interview with them.

Shadowrun Publisher Gets into LitRPG With 'He Who Fights With Monsters'

The team behind Battletech and Shadowrun are adapting a popular LitRPG book series as the latest series using its upcoming Dice Core ruleset.

Updating GURPS’ Basic Rules: Q&A W/ Steve Jackson

Steve Jackson Games

Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS 4e is one of the longer-running systems in the TTRPG space. Originally published in 1986, the first edition of the game game was designed as a setting-less game, where you could use the rules to play any game a player might want, from fantasy to sci-fi to horror.

Now in its fourth edition, it’s received hundreds of supplements and projects.

Last month, SJG released the Gurps Basic Set, Fourth Edition Revised, an updated variant on the game. It’s a 592-page book that combines the two core rulebooks of Characters and Campaigns into a single tome while also updating it to ensure the rules within are consistent, the material is sensitive content-wise and more.

TTRPG Insider spoke with Steve Jackson about the update.

What inspired the decision to combine the two original books from 2004 into a single one?

Steve Jackson: We wanted to keep the material in print; we didn't want to always be running out of one book or the other; it was clear that by reducing duplication we could keep the cost down and make room for some good essays. Really kind of a no-brainer once it was suggested.

Was anything done to make this volume easier for new players to pick up, or is there a different GURPS product designed for that? 

Steve Jackson: If anything, it is harder to pick up. The heft on that thing is tremendous. No, seriously, it is a little easier because everything is in one book, but the release specifically for new players is the 32-page GURPS Lite. 

It's been twenty years since GURPS 4e was released. Why do you think the game continues to appeal to a very dedicated base of players?

Steve Jackson: After 20+ years, there is still nothing that does ultracustomized characters, or genre mashups, as well as GURPS.

Would you consider creating a GURPS 5e, or is SJG's focus more on expanding the number of supplements?

Steve Jackson: We think a LOT about what could go into a fifth edition. I feel like after 20+ years on one edition, we are entitled to tweak it to keep up with the significant advances in the art of roleplaying. But I can't say when that might happen! "Increasing the number of supplements" is an entirely different question, not an either-or. We will keep on doing new supplements as long as there is interest.

The game is now available for pre-order, and shipping is/was expected to go live on August 10, 2026.

48hrs left to back us at bookmedaddy.com 🎲 Featuring @brennanleemulligan.bsky.social and Beth May with Folgers Vocals by Maxton Waller ☕

— Dungeons and Daddies (@dungeonsanddads.bsky.social)2026-08-12T19:50:02.698Z

If I have to see this, you do too.

Dungeons and Daddies, the sourcebook adapting the popular podcast of the same name, has raised $3 million in crowdfunding as of Saturday. It’s a good performance.

That’s not what’s weird, though. The team partnered with Brennan Lee Mulligan to film an ad for the game based on Coming Home, a 2009 commercial that went viral.

The original commercial featured a pair of siblings having a cup of coffee, which seemed to many people to carry very romantic insinuations. The ad was later parodied to death in the 2000s.

And now it’s back, complete with BLM and the Dungeons and Daddies crew.

That’s all for this week. Have thoughts? Comments? Tips? Snide snarky remarks too rude for Twitter or BlueSky? Email me at [email protected].