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
