Its been a while. 2020 and 2021 took a lot of energy out of me, and I missed my typical end of year writeup for last year. So in addition to the usual disclaimers that I may have missed a game or two, some of these may have blended together from 2020. So given all that, here’s some games I played in 2021.
The 13th Fleet: I ran a full run of this, something like 8 sessions or so. A Forged in the Dark game, sort of a cross between Band of Blades and Scum and Villainy, everyone is an evil space captain trying to get back to evil space. Much more structured than other FitD games, so boardgamey at times. I think this is a really good casual campaign for absurd laughs and backstabbing.
47 Hags: I played a rough playtest of this at Forge, Dave R’s anti-Vampire. This was entertaining in seeing him turn the tropes of Vampire on their heads… in this game each new Hag is more powerful than the one that came before. Somewhat unbaked, but I’d be interesting in seeing what he does with this.
Action Castle/Parsely: A nice goofy morning Forge game. A game that may be even better played over text than in person.
Dungeoncrawl Classics: I played a few online games with randos on roll20. They weren’t great, but they weren’t terrible.
Dungeons and Dragons: I’m playing in a Rime of the Frost Maiden game run by Colin R. Its a neat spooky sandbox.
Electric Bastionland: I ran a few games of this, including the ultragonzo adventure Wrecked on the Goragath, which must be seen to believed. One of the weirdest things to come out of the OSR recently.
The Expanse: Colin R. ran a short game of this. He ran a short adventure that suffered a bit from assuming the players would react to a specific situation in a specific way, so things kind of evaporated out of that. If you want a game that really simulates the feel of The Expanse, this is that, though there are some rules oddities that seem sometimes like the system is trying too hard.
Fiasco, 2nd Edition: The one with cards. I finally managed to get this to the table, only to have a game where we had some tone expectation mishmash- I was imagining something drier and darker and the other players seemed to want a gonzo romp. We bailed on this particular session, but that’s okay, I was impressed by how easy it was to use the card based mechnics.
Ganakagok: A game of mythic folklore inspired by the Inuit people, I ran this on roll20 for Forge Midwest and discovered that it really doesn’t work well on roll20. This is one of those early Forge games that needs to reinvent the wheel with a completely new game mechanic. Technological hurdles and some clunky mechanics aside, this one generated some very compelling stories. I would definitely want to play this one again in person.
Heroes of the Exploding Kingdoms: Technically I didn’t get to play, but I got to sit in and spectate a playtest run, which was super valuable in terms of game design, and also a lot of fun. Maddie the GM put a lot of effort into adapting the game for roll20, and the players all came up with great character ideas.
Lancer: I’ve been playing in a Wallflower campaign run by Sabe, as well as a one-shot at Forge. I ran an in person game for about four sessions. Do you like tactical mecha combat? Because this game has amazing mecha combat.
Maid: I ran this during an off week of my Scum and Villainy game. Wow this book has not aged well. There’s a core of random table hijinx here, however the text definitely leans hard into the creepy side of anime fandom.
Maze Rats: I ran a short dungeon run of Dungeon Full of Monsters, which I think isn’t a great mashup of system and adventure, but it wasn’t bad. The fragile rogues of Maze Rats definitely prioritize avoiding combat unless its in your favor. My favorite part of Maze Rats was the random spellcasting, which actually paired well with the high strangeness of Dungeon Full of Monsters.
Monster of the Week: I ran a fairly lengthy run of Monster of the Week… but I also got to play, because we did some round robin Gming! We were Fish and Wildlife Agents hunting down cryptids, which was a blast of a premise for a game. I’m very sad that this one fell apart.
Mork Borg: I think this was this year… Colin C ran a short run. The best part of Mork Borg is the random tables and the absurdly grim dark setting. The worst part is trying to read the rulebook.
Ryuultraviolet Grasslands: I ran my mashup of Ryuutama and Ultraviolet Grasslands for the Madison Traditional Gamers group. Its one of those chocolate/peanut butter combinations that is so crazy it just might work, with the travel mechanics of Ryuutama adapting very well to the gameplay of Ultraviolet Grasslands (with some adapting.) I had a lot of fun running this, but got burnt out once the campaign ended up focusing on
Santa, Baby: I played this neat one page Forged in the Dark one-shot, where Santa runs all the bootlegging operations in this town except yours. Silly vaguely Christmas themed gangster warfare.
Scum and Villainy: I ran a short campaign of this on roll20. It didn’t quite have the previous charm for me as my previous in person game I had played. We got a few good sessions out of it though.
Swords Without Master: I played this at Forge, and it reminded me that I don’t really like Swords Without Master, a game where you narrate stuff happening, success and failure are irrelevant. It creates a hollow narrative, with the trappings of a swords and sorcery story but none of the risks or tension.
Willow Rants 