We're getting towards the end of 2021, so it's a good time for me to look back on this year, also the first full year of my blog. Since role-playing games have always been my focus, this post is dedicated to them. I only intend to mention games I have played - reading is all well and good, actual plays can be useful, but the play's the thing.
After winding down my own first role-playing campaign, I decided that I will no longer run Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Instead, I've continued to learn and play other games, although remain a player in a 5E campaign with my existing local group.
After attempting to playtest it a bit last year, this year is when I had the most experience in Blades in the Dark. You can find an index to the posts I wrote about my experience here. To summarize: very interesting, intense experience, but lacking in constraints in places, and would require me to do a bit of thinking and some constraining of my own before I ran it again. Mostly good as my first real attempt to run a modern fiction-first game. I should try and see how it runs as a player, too. Maybe next year.
I also ran a Sorcerer one-shot. I still struggle to summarize the experience - I think at this point I just feel that it was premature as it stood - but thinking about it, combined with the seasonal connection to my main inspiration for the scenario, A Night in the Lonesome October, led me to my most prolific project of this year, constituting the majority of my posts: Through Sorcerer's Eyes. In some ways it connects to my speculation about system as theory, except applied to literature rather than role-playing.
In terms of games played, this year was a success. I'm surprised that I didn't write a post about Session Zero Online, a convention centered in Manila, the Philippines. In my defense, it was very intense, and came along just as I was starting a new job. I played three games there: a playtest for Basheer Ghouse's upcoming Ahadi, a narrative role-playing wargame focusing on high-ranking officers in the Mughal Empire, which I am really looking forward to seeing in a more complete stage, as even this early draft was delightful; Rajit Kalita's Ramayana Run (now published as Ramayana Tales: Search for the Sanjivni), a 5E adventure and supplement set in the world of the Indian epic, the Ramayana - fascinating, but the experience clarified to me just how much 5E's character sheet game overshadows any attempts at doing something different with the system; and Curious Chimeras` Mere Gods, a contemplative narrative game inspired by traditional Southeast Asian cultures, about people returning to their home-town after a long absence, which I also thoroughly enjoyed.
After this, I helped playtest Bounty Hunter TTRPG, which I had backed on Kickstarter. It was my first experience with a diceless TTRPG - this, in turn, led me to the Amber Diceless Role-Playing Game-focused community, with which I participated in TirCon 2021. There I played two games using ADRPG itself, as well as the award winning Alice Is Missing, which is unfortunately not for me, and an ADRPG-Everway concoction called Amberway, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
Other games I played were Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, Troika!, MÖRK BORG, and Ultraviolet Grasslands (now situated as part of the Vastlands).
Aside from the platforms provided by the conventions I mentioned, I want to thank the CoC-focused Pinkerton One-Shots Agency Discord, especially for allowing me to run my Blades and Sorcerer games, as well as The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, a blog and podcast that I support on Patreon, which is also focused on CoC, but discusses horror and general gaming, and in whose Discord I have played and expect to play many games.
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