News Roundup: Ravenloft Hits Small Screen, PAX Unplugged Goes to Houston

In This Edition

• Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Honor Among Thieves: …

• PAX Unplugged Expands Event to Texas

  • Other Stories from This Week

  • Questwatch AP/TTRPG Experience Comes to Blizzcon 2026

  • Telling AP Stories in a Short Period: Q&A With Legend Lunchbox

Other Stories from This Week

• Exodus, Hasbro’s other IP, is focused on “Hope”, according to a recent interview with But Why Tho.

• Want to join the D&D team? An associate game designer role is available.

• DriveThruRPG added features that allow users to customize their preferences for AI-generated content on their platform.

• Speaking of Ravenloft, the 2010 board game is being reprinted by Renegade Game Studios

• Chris Cocks is confirmed to take over as the lead at Wizards (in addition to his normal work as CEO) while the company seeks a replacement for John Hight.

• The Los Angeles-based company ProgCore is teaming up to make its own publishing company that will also make TTRPGs and novels.

• Matthew Mercer is hosting what appears to be a Daggerheart one-shot at the Activision-Blizzard fan convention BlizzCon. The game will focus around Overwatch, a setting that Mercer voices in.

• The September drop for D&D Beyond is up, and it features a few new races and character options. Most notably, the infamous starter town Phandalin is back and updated.

• Thomas Manuel over at Rascal talks to the Mexican TTRPG community.

• The recent settlement that may have gotten Paizo and Green Ronin their TTRPG books back from Diamond Comic Publisher hit a legal snag.

• Preorders for Warhammer Fantasy Fifth Edition are available now.

• You can buy your own Beholder now.

• Joe Mangianello communicates his vision for D&D Icons in an interview with Gamespot’s Jessica Cogswell

• The business magazine INC spoke to Designit CEO Keri Dawson about how being a leader is like being a good DM. It’s not a terribly interesting interview but I am always amused when I see D&D make its way into corporate scenes through stuff like this.

• Pelgrane Press offers some updates on upcoming projects.

• Paizo unveils what fans can expect in September.

• September 25-27 is Roll20Con 2026!

Telling AP Stories in a Short Period: Q&A With Legend Lunchbox

Actual Play is a space where there are hundreds of games you can listen to, each with their own spin and angle for what makes them stand out in the market. It’s often a bit too much for a fan to dig through or find the best content without some help. The vast majority of shows also don’t work well for families, which can make listening even harder for parents.

One show is trying to deal with both of these problems. Legend Lunchbox is an AP that aims to organize each episode so it’s only 30-40 minutes, and fairly friendly toward children. The game is set in the Skycrawl setting, authored by Aaron A. Reed and uses the Quest ruleset to keep gameplay simple and focused on storytelling instead of deliberation on dice results.

TTRPG Insider got to sit down with Legend Lunchbox’s Chris to talk about where the show came from.

What’s the story behind this show? What inspired you to create it?
Chris: I’ve been playing and running tabletop RPGs for most of my life. It has always been one of my favorite creative outlets.

I've also experimented with podcasting before. I ran an older actual play show, and while it was a lot of fun, I learned a lot about the challenges of making that kind of show.

As my kiddo was growing up, we spent a lot of time watching shows like The Owl House and Avatar: The Last Airbender, and even Pixar movies. One thing I love about those is that they are approachable for kids, but they do not feel like they are only for kids. They have humor, adventure, interesting characters, and stories that adults can enjoy too. They can be silly and goofy one moment, then turn around and tell a meaningful story the next.

That got me thinking about whether we could do something similar with tabletop roleplaying. Could we make a family-friendly actual-play adventure that families could listen to together, where kids could enjoy the adventure and adults could still care about the story?

Why a shorter format? How do you approach and think about telling stories in limited timeslots?
This was partly because I was thinking about how people would actually listen to a show like ours. I have listened to plenty of actual-play podcasts that run an hour, two hours, or even longer, and there is definitely a place for that. It can feel like you are hanging out at the table with the group.

But I kept thinking about how my family actually consumes entertainment. For years, I had a long commute to work and listened to a lot of podcasts during it. Those longer shows were great for a three-hour drive, but I wondered what worked better for shorter moments like driving a kid to school or running errands. A lot of those moments are only 15–20 minutes, which is a very different listening experience.

So then the challenge becomes figuring out which parts of a tabletop session are most interesting to someone listening.

How are you thinking about player choices, improvisation, dice results, and cast chemistry in the context of 30–40 minute shows without it turning into audio drama?
This is probably the biggest balancing act of the whole project. I enjoy audio dramas, but that is not what we are trying to make. The thing I love about RPGs is that nobody at the table knows exactly what is going to happen. As any DM will tell you, no plan survives contact with the players. :) The players make choices, the dice create unexpected results, and then everyone reacts.

The editing process is not about changing those things. It is mostly about removing the parts around them that slow the story down or are uninteresting. A character trying to jump over a pit, terrible dice rolls, or plans that immediately go wrong are often the things that make actual play interesting.

The cast chemistry is also a huge part of it. I was looking for people who would create interesting characters and bounce off each other naturally, not just people who knew the rules. The group ended up being a really fun mix. Jay (Lysander the Naturalist) and Tito (CAM the Doctor) are longtime friends of mine and longtime gamers. Phil (Rolo the Wizard) and Madeleine (Squawk the Fighter) both bring backgrounds in writing and performance, which has been a really fun addition to the group dynamic. More importantly, everyone brings a different personality to the table, and that is where a lot of the fun comes from.

Why Skycrawl? What inspired you to choose that setting?
What attracted me most to Skycrawl was the sense of exploration. Many fantasy settings have a well-established map. You know where everything is and how the world works. Skycrawl gave us almost the opposite feeling.

The world is called the Azure, and it is vast, strange, and ever-changing. There are drifting lands, strange skies, and places that nobody completely understands. This gives us a lot of freedom. One adventure might feel like a classic fantasy story, while another might be completely ridiculous, silly, or unexpected, yet still fit the world.

Our version is what we call 'Driftpunk Fantasy' and it takes inspiration from that idea of skyships, strange worlds, magic, and technology that does not always work perfectly. People in the Azure do not control everything around them, they just learn how to adapt.

You can learn more about Legend Lunchbox here.