News Digest Brainwaves Episode 164
This is a copy of the “script” we used to organise Brainwaves Episode 164. It is not a full transcript but should give you an overview of the news as we reported it. Quotes are in italics.
Headlines
Hasbro cuts 3% of workforce
- Hasbro, the parent company of Wizards of the Coast, has cut its global workforce by 3%. This equates to about 150 jobs lost across the company.
- According to a report in the wall street journal the company is looking to save up to a billion dollars over the next few years due to the impact of global tariffs on its global trade.
- A Hasbro spokesperson said of the move
- “We are aligning our structure with our long-term goals”
- Back in April of this year Chris Cocks, Hasbro CEO, warned that the company would face challenges from the tariffs
- “Ultimately, tariffs translate into higher consumer prices and potential job losses as we adjust to absorb increased costs and reduced profit for our shareholders,”
- Hasbro last laid off a large number of employees in 2023 when they fired about 1900 people over the course of that year including 1100 in the run up to Christmas.
Dungeons and Dragons designers end up at critical role
- Sticking with Hasbro for a moment, it has been announced that two of the team behind the current edition of D&D have ended up in new positions at Critical Role.
- Critical Role started out as a Dungeons and Dragons actual play series in 2013 starring professional actors and voice actors. In recent years it has moved into publishing and its most recent RPG Daggerheart is seen as a challenger to D&D’s dominance of the market.
- Jeremy Crawford, former lead designer on D&D, and Chris Perkins, Creative Director for D&D, are now at Critical Role. They are effectively reprising those roles at Critical Role becoming Game and Creative Director respectively
- Perkins said
- “Storytelling has always been at the heart of everything I do, and joining Darrington Press feels a bit like coming home, I’ve loved being a part of the extended Critical Role family as a regular guest over the years and I’m beyond excited to help create new worlds full of adventure.”
- Crawford says of their new position
- “I’ve always believed that great games invite everyone to the table, and that’s exactly what excites me about joining Darrington Press. This team is passionate, wildly creative, and committed to building welcoming, connected, amazing story-driven experiences—I can’t wait to expand on what Critical Role has already created to develop some really fun and unique games.”
DrivethruRPG hates rebels
- This story comes to us from Rascal. It is behind their Free subscription tier access so we feel safe covering it.
- DrivethruRPG is a pdf only online store that sells a wide range of RPGs. Recently it has come under fire for asking one of its publishers to modify a game’s language. That game is Rebel Scum published by 9th Level Games.
- Roll20, the virtual tabletop used by millions, partnered with DrivethruRPG back in July of 2022. The partner relations manager for Roll20 Meredith Gerber contacted 9th level games’ CEO, Heather O’Neill about reports that Rebel Scum had received on the platform. Meredith said that the book passed most of their product standard guidelines except for one section that contained over political agendas or views.
- The offending section is the foreword to the book that asks if players want to
- “punch a spacenazi right in their stupid, jackbooting, spacenazi face.”
- It makes it clear that this is not a game for those who are vaccine deniers, bigots, white supremacists and similar.
- The page on safety rules doubles down on this and it is here where the publisher seems to have got into trouble
- “While intended to be hopeful and fun, it is shining a mirror back at the post-capitalist, post-truth, post-pandemic political idiocracy that we are currently living through… I have called the REPUBLIK the REPUBLIK so that we can say “I punched that Republikan in the face”. This is deliberate. I have called the GAME MASTER (the GM) the GOVERNMENT™ and the players the NEXT REBELLION™ because there is nothing scarier or more real than the corporatization of our lives, our philosophy, our entertainment, and even our dreams.”
- The publisher argued their case with partner relations lead at ROll20 Todd Gizzi. They were going to elevate it with management.
- 8 months later the publisher heard from Todd and were told that Roll20 was sticking to it ruling. A compromise was offered to put a QR code in the digital edition that would point to the statement but not include it directly in the book. O’Neill declined.
- Roll20 justified this decision by saying they would have to include titles from ‘The other side’ while admitting that overt political agendas are tricky to define.
- Director of partner relations at Roll 20 , Scott Holden, said this to Rascal
- “Yes, art can be political. I want to be clear that the problem in this case came from the book’s foreword, not the content of the game itself,” he said. “We have many games featuring Nazis or other sinister fascist organizations as the bad guys. That has never been a problem. This title crossed the line in taking a satirical game and, via the author’s foreword, moving beyond satire into a real statement about hatred and violence toward the entirety of a broad political group.”
Tabletop Workers United win a Union contract
- An update on a story that we have been covering for a few years now, that of the Tabletop Workers United Union in New York Coty.
- Two years after initially organising, the group which represents worker from three board game cafes- Hex&Co, The Brooklyn Strategist, and The Uncommons (totally over 100 workers in all), having ratified their union contract, in a first for the state.
- This document sets out, amongst other provisos, progressive pay increases; holiday pay; scheduling consistency; “dignity and respect” for workers gender identity; grievance and arbitration processes, and “health and safety provisions, requiring management to respond effectively to sexual harassment and abusive customers.”
- Uncommons worker Casey Knepley said of the success:
- “Winning and ratifying the first Tabletop Workers United contract is truly incredible. I am so beyond proud of my coworkers and community members; without us working together to organize and take collective action to push ownership to meet with us, none of this would have been possible. I hope our small victory for these tabletop stores can inspire people everywhere, across the country, to work together and fight for what we need and deserve during this tough political climate. Our rights as workers and humans are not a game!”
- The group has faced serious opposition since early 2024 from owners Greg May and Jon Freeman and their legal representative, Andrew Hoffman. This opposition (as mentioned on this podcast and covered thoroughly by Rascal News) includes delays, Hoffman apparently calling union members “fucking disgusting,” “moronic,” and “low-class” during negotiations; informed the bargaining committee they “should all burn in hell.”; calling the union’s demands “encapsulating the absolute insanity of the woke” and Hoffman and Freeman going on holiday in the middle of negotiations.
- Payton Millet, a member and worker at The Brooklyn Strategist, said:
- “I’m proud and elated that we have won the first contract for tabletop workers in NYC. Our industry is a young and burgeoning one, so it is ever more crucial to secure protections and rights specific to our trade. No doubt our strongest weapons in the fight for these rights were our union’s nimbleness, courage to act, and the unwavering solidarity of our customers and friends for which we are deeply thankful. I hope that our victory can demonstrate the persistence of truths that some would seek to relegate to the past: that every workplace needs a labor union, that workers of every age, gender and race deserve just protections, and that as long as owners seek to reap value for others’ labor, we must demand back our fair share.”
- Huge thanks also have to go to the Tabletop Solidarity Committee, nearly 2000 customers and supporters who campaigned tirelessly for the workers.
Zombicide finds a new home
https://www.cmon.com/press/zombicide-finds-a-new-home-with-asmodee
- Last episode we reported that Cool Mini or Not had started selling some of its IPs to other publishers.
- At the time CMON said they had completed two agreements to transfer games to other publishers, but only announced those that were going to US publisher Tabletop Tycoon.
- Now they have revealed that the other publisher was Asmodee who are taking over the Zombicide franchise.
- Originally released in 2012, Zombicide could be seen as the birth of the modern crowdfunder board game. Since then it has had numerous expansions and spin offs.
- CMON still have 11 unfulfilled Kickstarters so hopefully some of this money will go towards making sure those backers get their games
News
Diana Jones Award finalists announced
- The Diana Jones award is the annual award that has a broad remit of ‘Excellence in gaming’. Everything from individual games to entire conventions has been a recipient of this Prize.
- The award has announced its finalist for this year, with the winner being announced at Gencon later in the year.
- They are
- Charlie Hall, journalist and editor most recently for Polygon before it laid him off
- Daybreak boardgame by Matt Leacock and Matteo Menapace, published by CMYK
- Rascal News, a news and reporting website that focuses on the tabletop hobby. Founded by Lin Codega, Chase Carter, and Rowan Zeoli
- Rose Este, a novelist and gamebook designer. Most famously Rose worked on the Endless Quest series, D&D gamebooks that TSR published in the 1980s
- Congratulations to all the nominees.
Elizabeth Hargrave, Kristin Looney and others meet Capitol Hill to talk about Tariffs
Link to S 1593: https://www.congress.gov/119/bills/s1593/BILLS-119s1593is.pdf
Related post on GAMA’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TheGAMAOnline/photos/gama-members-and-staff-are-on-capitol-hill-advocating-for-zero-tariffs-on-toys-a/1128806115959973/
- In two Bluesky posts dated 11th and 12th of June 2025, Elizabeth Hargrave, designer of games such as Wingspan, Mariposas and Tussie Mussie, announced that she had spent two days meeting with Capitol Hill staffers to discuss how the US tariffs are affecting the board game industry. She was accompanied by members from GAMA, the Game Manufacturers Association, and TTGDA, the Tabletop Game Designers Association,
- The photo that accompanied her first Bluesky post shows Hargarve alongside board game designers Kirstin Looney, most famous for the Fluxx series of card games, Matt Fantastic, designer of games including Aldarra and Heads Will Roll, and Molly Zeff, designer of games such as The Million Dollar Doodle and Wing It: The Game of Extreme Storytelling.
- In her posts, Hargave makes it clear that asking Congress to reduce or even remove tariffs isn’t just a solo initiative but a collaborative campaign.
- The group met with staffers in scheduled sessions and “drop‑bys”, which are informal, unannounced visits to congressional offices on Capitol Hill, to ask members of Congress to co-sponsor S 1593, a bill that exempts small businesses from the emergency tariffs declared by US President Trump on the 2nd of April via Executive Order.
- Hargrave concludes her first post by asking everyone to contact their members of Congress and ask them co-sponsor S 1593.
Reaper moves out of the UK
- Reaper miniatures, a UK based tabletop miniatures manufacturer has announced that is moving its EU/uk warehouse operations to the Netherlands.
- The company is probably most famous for its line of Bones miniatures that provide very affordable high quality sculpts, many of which are aimed at tabletop RPG GMs for old school dungeon games.
- All orders from the warehouse will have ceased by the time you listen to this cast and they expect operations to be back up and running by the end of summer.
Jobs, Opportunities, and Events
Tabletop Jobs Facebook Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/TabletopJobs
Tabletop Games Blog Raffle
http://tabletopgamesblog.com/raffle
- The raffle in aid of The Trussell Trust, a charity that runs UK food banks, continues in June. Tickets are £1 and all proceeds, minus fees, go directly to the charity. The prizes for the June raffle are review copies of Katmai – The Bears of Brooks River and Death Valley: Highs & Lows, both of which are used but in very good condition, and a brand new copy of Pilfering Pandas.
Patreon Shoutouts
Kevin Bertram
James Naylor
Shaun Newan
game-a-lot.fun/en
facebook.com/gamealotboardgames
Our Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/thegiantbrain
Fanroll
https://fanrolldice.com/ref/2783
Our Links
Thanks very much for listening. If you like what you’ve listened to then the best way to help us out is to share the podcast and drop us a review and rating on itunes. You can also follow us on
Oliver: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/3bMx2HK75r
Blusky:https://bsky.app/profile/giantbrain.co.uk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/giantbrainuk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thegiantbrain
Website: https://giantbrain.co.uk/
Email: [email protected]
1 Response
[…] Digest 164 […]