My gaming this year was dominated by two systems; various forms of Dungeons & Dragons and Gumshoe. I hang my head in shame as I haven't managed to get Traveller to the table once. I suspect that this may be the first year that this is the case.
The D&D category was dominated by my Curse of Strahd 5e campaign which is ticking along nicely; we had 19 sessions in all. It's fair to say that December was a train-wreck for this with three sessions being cancelled, but I've booked weekly sessions into the start of next year. I hope we can keep a pace and conclude, if only as it'd be nice to open up space for more. I also ran two sessions of Old-School Essentials (which I intend to revisit by opening a drop-in version of Castle Xyntillan) and Through Sunken Lands. The latter was face to face and one of my gaming highs of the year. However, I'm still in shock that my most run system is D&D, not what I expected. I'm very much with First Age in his view that the long-form has attractions all of its own.
Gumshoe was spread across two systems, both horror. I'm really enjoying playing in Richard Lock's take on Eternal Lies, the epic Trail of Cthulhu campaign. This is being played one-to-two, which Paul Mitchener and I in the player's berths. It's surprisingly intense and the first two chapters (Savannah & Los Angeles) have really captured the feel of their settings. We played ten sessions and are due to arrive in Mexico City in January 2022. We also had five sessions of The Yellow King RPG; this covered the first part of the game in Paris, and was great fun. Paul Mitchener had the helm for this, and it was one of my disappointments this year when we didn't get the game back up and running over the late Autumn.
I played one session of Delta Green and had the joy of running my Stranger Things mash-up at Furnace 2022. I've noted Steve Ellis' comments that it probably needs two sessions to make it have space to breathe. It worked well, and I like the system but it doesn't quite gel with me as yet, probably as I'm calling for too many dice rolls.
I had a fun game of Alien, helmed by Darran Sims who is a master at this game. It was a spur of the moment thing, so I enjoyed it a lot. I enjoyed playing the Last Fleet at Furnace, which Steve Ellis pulled together nicely.
I managed to get Golgotha, a|state, Dune 2d20 and City of Mist to the table and enjoyed them all. This was part of my play what you buy approach (same reason OSE got to the table) and I'm happy with it.
All in all a good year.
Conventions
I attended (and ran) one convention, Furnace, face-to-face. It was fantastic to sit around a table again but also incredibly tiring. I forgot how intense conventions are, but I'm hoping to get more in again next year. I also helped to organise the online versions of Revelation and North Star, which were fun. I suspect that I felt more tired with the face-to-face as I deliberately chose to take sessions off on the online conventions.
Purchases
Bought too many games, but I'm making a valiant effort to at least read them all. More will be sold this year as I don't have the space for them all.
Disappointments this year?
- Best Left Buried Deeper had enough typos that I lost all appetite for what was supposed to be a deluxe book. Not what I expected and I'm looking at the copy of Orbital Blues what was similarly messy in the beta stage and hoping that the editing and proofing are better.
- Swords of the Serpentine finally arrived in PDF, but it's reaching the point I'm not excited by it anymore. I suspect that Through Sunken Lands will steal its niche. Shame really, as my initial skim attracted me.
- Cartel arrived late from Magpie after it hit retail, poor communication throughout, and they lost part of the UK orders. I'm feeling like I'm seeing the same sorry mess happen again with Urban Shadows 2nd edition. I'm going to read it before I decide to sell or not.
- Fearful Symmetries was announced and released at Dragonment. When I saw this, I went and ordered it on the Pelgrane website as I've been waiting to see Steve Dempsey's campaign for a long time. Subsequently, they changed the description to say it was a pre-order. Had I known this I would have waited, as I'm sworn of pre-ordering from Pelgrane until Swords of the Serpentine finally lands.
- Dune 2d20 is excellent; I really like the way they've approached the game and I plan to dig in some more.
- City of Mist - the final books from the Kickstarter arrived. I've read one so far and it was excellent.
- Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft - this is a great reboot of the setting.
- Everything Delta Green - these books are top quality and I hope to get Impossible Landscapes to the table sometime soon.
- Warlock - the streamlined take on WHFRP style play is great, although the production rate of material is too high for me to keep up with!
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