Year in Review 2025 - Endies Edition

Since the Endies were kicked off by Lady Tabletop, I am going to include those bits in my usual end of year. I am stealing Luck Roll's format as it speaks to me most.

This year in stats:
Live sessions ran as a GM: 56
Live sessions as a player in a group: 14
Games read: 13 close read enough to review, est. double that again skimmed
Number of systems played: 5 (3.5e, 5e, Salvage Union, Fabula Ultima, Levity)
Hours played: 328 hours
Number of groups played with: 8
Number of games purchased: Not tracked for sanity's sake. Est. I filled 1 meter additional shelving.

All told a top-3 year, mostly driven by running the Hexcrawl on Friday nights, underpinned by running Ducal House and a bit of Lizard Kings 2d20, and playing the completion of Rime of the Frostmaiden and homebrew Nirealis campaign. Fewer little opportunistic bits than last year, driven by a huge amount of energy in the early year going into implementing code of conduct for RPGVienna and all the cat-herding involved there.

Most played / least surprising inclusion: D&D 5e .
Funniest game: Hexcrawl25 game - the flying lizard session.
Best personal achievement: Getting the Hexcrawling mechanisms down, seeing the players working with the map without my input.
Most memorable ending: Finishing Rime of the Frostmaiden - squeaky fight to the finish, big feels choice at the end, our DM pulled together a great epilogue.
Most satisfying crunch: Starting to get the hang of the Conan 2d20 system.

On running games

Ducal House - slowed this year, 21 sessions, ~3/4 the time we have spent on it post-pandemic, which was effectively a strong start through to summer and then it has slowed dramatically since - pratically becoming a monthly game. A big 'arc' got resolved in June, tracking down an artefact and slaying the last emissary of a dead god. There was some good old fashioned wilderness bashing, stirring and avoiding entanglements in a whole cats-cradle of fighting factions, and a big aerial fight. An adversary encountered in session three in 2020 was finally slain. Things calmed after that, with some self-contained sessions and an impromptu trip to the moon. We shall continue into year seven, see which big threads get reeled in next.

The Dukes Last Stand, by the Bard

Hexcrawl Dual Mode - a standout success - 30 sessions, 136 hours in the Friday night slot - what I switched from open tables to. The Hexcrawl25 challenge serendipitously crossed my radar just at the point I was looking for something new, I pulled in a roster of vibe-matched regulars and got to kill three birds with one stone - motivating myself to build the hexcrawl, running a back-to-basics sandbox campaign and giving myself an easy way to run stand-alone adventures for 'off-cycle' weeks. Overall, solid success, have to work out some squeak where players split up and then do not proactively regroup but 30 sessions says the formula is generally working.

Lizard Kings 2d20 - an attempt to spin up a second 'online after-hours' campaign, modelled off the successful Southern Reaches game. A lumpy start so far, very high drop-out and cancellations, much, much higher than predicted. Paused in Nov with a view to rebuilding the roster and restarting in 2026. Those sessions that ran were not bad and it did succeed in one primary aim to bring some great commissioned art into play. Ran with Conan 2d20 but one has to ask - all the D&D games go ok, the one non-D&D game I've got, the wheels fall off. To be pondered.

On games played during the year

Rime of the Frostmaiden - we wrapped our campaign - this our monthly online game, the core group I started D&D with in the 90s + the in-house test team + one of our college gaming comrades. We took ~169 hours over 28 sessions to save the Ten Towns and Icewind Dale, our second 5e official campaign to get done in cover-to-cover. Great times, always a treat saving overcoming obstacles with such seasoned, goal-focussed adventurers. I liked Rime quite a lot - we did a lot of thundering around the tundra, uncovered a couple of big mysteries, some of which were tied masterfully into randomly rolled character backstories by our DM, and then rushed about saving the Ten Towns from threats. I played a budding megalomaniac evoker, a danger-close fire-ball slinger who was a Reghed tribesman by background - and being a wizard faithful of Tempus - "never back down from a fight" led to me getting downed 22 times in 28 sessions, including one dead-dead and wish resurrection. Good times, good times.

Niraelis - a new campaign - homebrew from a local DM, play in person with some luxurious pre-game rituals like pot-luck meals beforehand. More character-led and world-exploration driven, we are still in the early phase of unravelling mysteries in this one.

Fabula Ultima - a con-game at the Indie RPG Con organised by the Vienna DM Supergroup. Bufo Bufo, one of the veteran GM's from the Friday night sessions ran Fabula Ultima. It was fun to play the system, rolling with the archetypes, and it was a nice change to do a one-shot of a new system at a con, it has been a while.

Levity - a playtest session with the Vienna GM Supergroup, fun, sort of reminiscent of Royal Blood but a more universal-ised system.

Review of gaming goals

Decent gaming - top 3 year by session count and hours - though I definitely felt the drag of scheduling static more this year than previous - Ducal House, Lizard Kings and Niraelis both suffering from slow patches.

From about April you can see my playcount dropping below what might be expected from previous years as my energy got sapped away by all the nonsense that drove us to stand up the code of conduct for RPGVienna and then dealing with the pushback from it. It seems to have had the desired scarecrow effect as there has been not so much trouble since it was instituted.

Looking back at the goals I set last year to see how things went, it looks pretty good.
"Continue Ducal House - year six!" - that big arc got closed out, things slowed but continued so success.
"Continue Spelljammer Academy at the Friday night drop in games - or pull the plug and try something else by end first quarter." - The answer to this was "pull the plug and do the Hexcrawl" - pulling in a roster of vibe-matched regulars.
"If a new Friday night drop in game is required, maybe something using Ultraviolet Grasslands?" - see above.
"Run more DM'ing 101 to get more new folk happy to try and DM their first game." - only got in one at the start of the year.
"Play more Rime" - done, to great success.
"Try and organise more DM Supergroup" - less done than I might have like but not bad - there was a burst of energy leading up to the Indie RPG con, with a pulse inspired by a false-alarm of Quinns possibly visiting Vienna. After the con, folk relaxed a bit and we did not really pick back up from there.

Blogging has also been more entertaining this year than others - catalysed by Elmcats big project; I think it gave us all a bit more of a sense that there are multiple communities out there, we are not just screaming into the void.

Gaming goals for 2026
Weather the coming of another small householder and return to gaming within the year
Running up to that, conclude Hexcrawl campaign, dismount from Niraelis cleanly
Decide whether to pause Ducal House on a cliff-hanger or some manner of resolution
Try to run more 2d20 Lizard Kings in the New Year, decide if worth maintaining
Do more GM Supergroup, where possible
Hack Your Sector, Your Problem into some form to test at table

Shiny TTRPG links #257

End the year with more shiny links. For yet more, see last weeks collection or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch, delinked by request.

Alone in the Labyrinth launches City '26 Megapost

Ben Hollingum on Guinness World Records gives us Inside a Canadian professor's 43-year-old Dungeons & Dragons campaign

Save vs Total Party Kill writes Advice for Running a Hexcrawl, A Decade Too Late

Revivify Games shares How to Run a Sandbox Adventure

Wacky Weasel gives us Universal Character Sheet

Newt Young writes Lions, Foxes, Wolves – A Set of Procedures for Political Play

Seraphim Seraphina asks What do we mean when we say a game “supports” play?

Dragon Peak Publishing Newsletter gives us Hexcrawling non-geographical landscapes

Habeeb shares the infrastructure of magical convenience

Diceless gives us Embracing Colonialist Dungeons

The Madman's Menagerie gives us PEOPLE TO KILL AND HOW THEY WILL KILL YOU (Bandits)

Hexcrawl '25 Retrospective

tl;dr: finalising my hexcrawl25 run; I enjoyed it a lot, this more structured full-year challenge suited me.

For Hexcrawl25, taking the challenge on I settled on the whole super-hex = 40-mile, hexes are 10-mile, sub-hexes 2.5 mile as my working scale. 10-mile was my restriction as that is what all my existing campaign stuff was done in. I cookie-cut a chunk out of an existing block of the world that exists from Azgaars Fantasy Map Generator and initially dropped a 40-mile grid on it.

This turned out to be *way* too large so the rest of the effort was done using just 'super-hex' A for the challenge - and indeed the campaign I ran.

I used the existing culture, religion, nation and biome maps and then zoomed down on those to generate the many sub-hexes within super-hex A.

Last Mile

Nominations for GLoGgies 2025

Vivanter of Mediums and Messages is collating the GLoGgies and so I make my nominations below for the best of the GLoGosphere 2025. Deadline for nominations is Jan 5th if you want to make yours.

The Categories
* Best Dungeon Post
* Best Class Post
* Best Monster Post
* Best Rules Post
* Best Lore Post
* Best Theory Post
* Best Other Post

Adapted from Vivanters original

The big theme I have this year is 'tilling the blog-soil' - things that let us get even more use from blogposts past or draw out community participation through blogwagons.

Best Dungeon Post

Converting GLoG Classes into Dungeons by Mediums and Messages.

I like this as a converter that takes one font of creativity (the many, many classes of GLoG) and allows it to serve another purpose, the unending need for dungeons!

Best Class Post

2023 - GLOG classes recap by Salty Goo

For sheer elbow grease, this has to deserve recognition - compiling all the GLoG classes of 2023. Also, gets my thumbs up for helping to bring gems of the past back to the surface - a theme, I support.

Best Monster Post

A Beholder for your Setting - Lantern Heads by Garamondia

A post so good it kicked off a bandwagon, plus a genius monster that has massive potential to make fascinating campaigns and feel eerie but manageable once you figure out their schtick. Top notch stuff, if you give one of my recommendations weight, make it this one.

Best Rules Post

GLoGhack: Masters of the Strait 🏴‍☠️ by Phlox

Comes in both setting-integrated and neutral version.

Best Lore Post

Beyond Iskander’s Gate: Mothership Hack for 923 A.D Central Asia Campaign by Silverarm Press

Strictly Mothership, not GLoG but lots of good stuff here.

Best Theory Post

Pillaging 2016 GLOG by Tabletop Curiosity Cabinet

I wholeheartedly support tilling up the good ideas of earlier years and putting them back into service. Shape and replace thereafter, but at least hasten your progress with the good ideas of before.

Best Other Post

G L Å U G U S T 2 0 2 5 by The Nothic's Eye

Reenergised the GLoGtober event by recognising calendar congestion and shifting it up to the quiet months of summer.

Shiny TTRPG links #256

Links to some serious thinking as people purge their draft folders before the end of the year. For yet more, see last weeks collection or the weekly r/OSR blogroll or check the RPG Blog Carnival. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.

Alone in the Labyrinth launches #City26 challenge for next year and also gives us City of 100 Gods, Traders Wake: They Who Store The Grain (35); The Deep One (36).

Viridian Void Productions shares Die Hard is OSR

Binary Star Games gives us Conflict as Motivation and Resolution

Billhook Blog writes In Praise of the Pit

Gorgon Bones shares “Boring” Combat is Fine Actually

Methods & Madness gives us Old school swarms/minions (B/X, OSE, AD&D, etc.)

dungeon doll shares Elves

Kill It With Fire! gives us Rotating Players, Stable PCs Campaign Plan

Habeeb (@beeboobubie) writes the default dungeon is colonial

Afraid of Encounters gives us Anti-colonial Dungeon

The Dododecahedron shares Crossing the Dungeon Rubicon

Patchwork Paladin asks Why Go Hexcrawling?

Old Men Running The World gives us How to get better at improvising

Connecting the Fictional Dots shares The Grand Table of Settings – and a Christmas Game

MurkMail gives us The Stakes of Grimdark

Apocalypse for thee, but not for us (RPG Blog Carnival )

This month the RPG blog carnival is hosted by Advantage on Arcana and has the topic of The End Times And After - which is an interesting one.

The End Times for a given world are not 'the End of all things' and things continue thereafter - see the weird time epochs collected on Coins and Scrolls or last summers Blog Carnival topic "It Came From Beyond Time" where I went into some of the ways that things can survive through 'deep time'. We also see that 'the end times' of a given people may be little to nothing for their neighbours (d6 Sites of the Long Wars) and also that adventure can be found in the immediate aftermath of the end-times: d12 post-apocalyptic worlds (GLoGtober '22).

Things eventually bounce back - especially when we are dealing with a multiverse teeming with life - even a world burnt to a cinder is briefly a paradise for fire-elementals before turning into a rock suitable for dao, xorn and other rock-creatures.

All this assumes your apocalypse hit hard enough to disrupt the underdark and the oceans, both of which provide vast reservoirs of hardy life which can re-seed a devastated land.

Menagerieworld has four great extinction events - where "the fate lines pinched out" - running back to the distant past. Multiple devastating conflicts and continent shaking events barely register on such a scale.

One can have truly global 'end times' with nuclear winters, the fading of life and the long wait for re-seeding from the seas, underdark, wildspace of the planes - but one can get most of the same adventurable bang-for-buck from a continental apocalypse; sufficiently large that it is practically beyond escaping but still leaving the possibility of remnants out there.

One kind of 'post apocalypse as we don't generally understand them' is something unique to our fantasy realms - where a thriving civilization can essentially be cut down while its neighbours or even some of its citizens carry on.

d6 possible 'post-apocalyptic' games
1. The elves of this world all just withered away - their soul-tree in Arvandor died. What is found in their forest holds? What treasures slipped from their fingers? What gates they held barred now fall open?
2. An illithid invasion swept this world, nautiloids hang in the skies and subterranean cities are being constructed. You are one of the inedible races - warforged, plasmoids, dhampir - carve out a niche in the new order
3. The seas rose, much has drowned - you are in one of the few remaining spots of protruding land - adapt to this new water world and its now pre-eminent aquatic masters
4. Princes of Undeath - you and your peers have out-lasted the mortals, as was always the plan. They had some ragnarok, all souls went on and now, finally, the gameboard is clear and long-held grand ambitions can be pursued
5. The great chill - volcanic plumes have darkened the skies, sufficient to hold off the baleful sun - forests spread, the deserts shrink, the claw-locked grip of the lizard-folk empire are loosened. As they skulk off into hibernation or away to warmer climes, what to do?
6. The great migration - everyone just up and left, reasons unknown. Rumours of strange heralds beckoning and driving all through portals that opened everywhere. Are they gone for good? If not, when will they return?

The broad theme here is a massive shake to the system that opens a window for outsiders to potentially forge a new destiny in the abandoned palaces or ruins of the old.

Review: Green Corridor

tl;dr: an eco-restoration-themed map-crawler pamphlet game with some interesting resouce balancing mechanics.

I looked at this as a part of Capsule Reviews #9: HELLO//GOODBYE Charity Bundle but a chance draw from a review round-robin has geas-ed me to take another look - so let us delve deeper.

GREEN CORRIDOR has up to five players be agents of REWIND, a group of survivors of the climate catastrophe and corporatism that has ravaged the world. Agents seek out pockets of The Green, habitable regions where people and wildlife can flourish, aiming to reconnect them by exploring a hex-map and rebuild the world one ecological pathway at a time.

A punchy tri-fold pamphlet game, print it out and fold it, works well - good contrast, clear layout, nice piece of art for the front cover. So what do you actually get?