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Issue #002 — Week of July 10, 2026

issues ttrpg  2026-07-10

This Week’s Verdict

Gen Con approaches, so Wizards of the Coast is assembling a six-floor tower, a livestreamed keynote, and a preorder wall labeled Arcana Unleashed. Everyone else is running Shadowdark quests, arguing about race-as-class, and finding their 1983 RPGA pins in a drawer. Business as usual, then, with more scaffolding.

Releases & Announcements

The headline this week is Wizards of the Coast’s Arcana Unleashed, the high-magic 5e supplement now confirmed to carry 8 subclasses, 33 spells, 10 backgrounds, over 20 feats, and over 45 magic items. Its companion adventure Arcana Unleashed: Deadfall is a Level 11-20 campaign centered on the Red Wizards of Thay, with an accompanying Arcana Unleashed Map Pack (10 physical and digital maps). Both books are up for preorder and slated for September 2026.

On the smaller-press side, The Solo Player’s Companion for Shadowdark launched in PDF (reported via The Gaming Gang), and EN World’s RPG Print News rounded up supplements for Dragonbane, Shadowdark, and Mausritter, alongside ruin-themed dice and, for reasons known only to their maker, RPG-scented tea candles for Ten Candles. On the OSR shelf, BX Advanced Bestiary, Volume 3 adds monster variants and player options.

Elsewhere in the wider hobby: Daggerheart opened playtesting for a Summoner class with Necromancer and Theurgist subclasses. And Space Ghost Annual 2026 #1 got a preview at ICv2, if that is your corner of the table.

Rules & Errata

Nothing official this week. The closest thing to a rules development is Daggerheart’s Summoner playtest, which is a proposal rather than errata, and the Arcana Unleashed subclass reveals, which are marketing rather than corrections. No 5e, Shadowdark, or DCC errata crossed the desk.

The Community

The best of the OSR discourse came from The Rpg Gazette, whose “Race-as-Class and the Quiet Death of a Design Idea” is worth your time if you have ever argued about whether “elf” should be a class. Related in spirit, Azukail Games’ Tabletop Mercenary podcast asked the perennial question “Why Do So Many TTRPG Products Use D&D 5E?”, which answers itself if you glance at the preorder queue above.

Old-timer energy ran high. A thread starting with deinol picked at AD&D’s to-hit matrices living in the DMG as “Dungeon Master Only” material, with mdhughes surfacing archived TSR character sheets and a familiar grievance about THAC0. GoldenGrognard found a 1983 RPGA membership pin, and randomwizard waxed fond over O2 Blade of Vengeance, the one-DM-one-player module he loves and would recommend to no one. The honest coda: most groups “just want to sit around, maybe drink a beer, tell some nerdy jokes, beat up some orcs, collect gold, and call it a night.”

For practical table advice, Sly Flourish reminded everyone to spread monster threat across all characters, and The Alexandrian reposted an ex-RPGNet review of A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity. On the play-report front, kyonshi’s Glimmermark session 55 delivered the week’s finest reminder that shadows are not undead, a fact several failed Turn Undead rolls established the hard way.

On the Horizon

The dominant near-term event is Gen Con 2026. Wizards of the Coast is going, per EN World, “all out,” with special guests, a keynote livestreamed on YouTube on July 30th at 6 PM ET, and a six-floor “D&D Tower” (ICv2 and DnDFanatics both have details) promising gaming, celebrities, and panels.

Crowdfunding remains busy. So Many Robots’ necro-industrial 5e adventure Machines of Bone & Blood entered its final days having cleared a dozen stretch goals. Kobold Press is running Pirates & Plunder: 5E Seafaring Options for D&D and Tales of the Valiant on BackerKit and Kickstarter. Sly Flourish launched the Kickstarter for Rise of the Lazy Gamemaster. And per Geek Native’s Routinely Itemised roundup, the headline OSR campaign is Mikael “Oldtimer” Börjesson’s Dragonbane Return to Twin Mountains, among others.

Smaller works in progress worth a note: Scroll for Initiative teased a new project, “The Quintessential Guide to Monsters,” and various convention dates are firming up, from KantCon in Kansas to MonsteriaCon in Münster on September 12th. Plan accordingly, or do not; the books you already own are not going anywhere.

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