I’ve been neglecting my blog for all sorts of reasons I don’t want to get into right now, but it’s a new year and time for a fresh start. It’s time to once again look at the games I played in the year that just ended, and see if I accomplished some of my goals.
I played a total of 36, up from last year’s low of 29; this included 14 tactical and strategic games (board, card, and miniatures games), and 22 narrative game (role-playing games, story games, live-action role-playing). Some 23 of these (64%) were new to me, i.e., I had never played them before, including 7 playtests (19% of the total). But there were several repeat games thanks to a few recurring campaigns, particularly 13th Age, Agon 2e (playtest), Dragon Age, Journey Away, and Paladin, as well as perennial favourite Spirit Island.
With five years of data, here is what the breakdown looks like:
For the last four years I’ve also been keeping track of who I play with. It looks like this:
I have been trying to play with more new and diverse people, and that seems to be working, although there is room for improvement.
Here is what my list of games looked like in 2019:
13th Age (Pelgrane Press)
AGON 2e [beta] (One Seven Design & Evil Hat Productions)
BASTION [Mythic D6] (Khepera Publishing)
Blades in the Dark: Bluecoats (Evil Hat Productions)
Blue Rose AGE (Green Ronin Publishing)
Chrono-Trek (Looney Labs)
Cortex Prime/Tribe 8 (Will Hutton)
Dialect (Thorny Games)
Dragon Age RPG (Green Ronin Publishing)
Fate Accelerated/octaNe hack (Evil Hat Productions / Sophie Lagacé)
Fate of Cthulhu (Evil Hat Productions)
Flotsam: Adrift Among the Stars (Black Armada Games)
For the Queen (Evil Hat Productions)
Glorantha: The Gods War (Petersen Games)
Jiangshi in the Banquet Hall (Game and a Curry)
Journey Away (Purple Aether Games)
Legacy: Generation Ship (Modiphius Entertainment)
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying (Margaret Weis Productions)
Mice & Mystics (Plaid Hat Games)
Numenera (Monte Cook Games)
Paladin: Warriors of Charlemagne (Chaosium/Nocturnal Media)
Root (Leder Games)
Scum & Villainy (Evil Hat Productions)
Sentinels of the Multiverse (Greater Than Games)
Sins of the Father (Third Eye Games)
Space Cats Fight Fascism (TESA Collective)
Spirit Island (Greater Than Games)
Spirit Island: Jagged Earth expansion (Greater Than Games)
The 7th Continent (Serious Poulp)
The Captain Is Dead! (Alderac Entertainment Group)
The Iron Druid Co-op Card Game (Vainglorious Games)
The Warren (Bully Pulpit Games)
Tokaido (Fun Forge)
Tschai: Planète d’aventure (500 Nuances de Geek)
Village Builders (Vainglorious Games)
XCOM: The Board Game (Fantasy Flight Games)
In 2020, I want to try more new games by more diverse creators, especially people of colour and people with disabilities. Shortlisted for trying ASAP:
- Afterlife: Wandering Souls by Elizabeth Chaipraditkul (Angry Hamster Publishing)
- BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home by Jamila R. Nedjadi (Sword Queen Games)
- Hearts of Wulin (The Gauntlet)
- Nahual by Miguel Angel Espinoza
- ORUN (New Agenda Publishing)
- Thousand Arrows (Galileo Games)
- Welcome to Tikor: Swordfall RPG by Brandon Dixon
And I’m starting an online campaign of City of Mist (Son of Oak Studio) this very week. Plus our campaigns of Paladin, Dragon Age, and Journey Away (and maybe Blue Rose and 13th Age) are ongoing.
Now that we have more space, I also want to go back to playing miniatures games, especially Relic Blade (Metal King Studio) and Warmachine (Privateer Press.) And post-holidays I also have a couple of new games to try: BFF! (Heart of the Deernicorn) and The Captain is Dead: Dangerous Planet (AEG).
The Reef 