2009 in Review

[crash_beedo]

Highlights:

• The Old School Renaissance - what's not to love about Stonehell, The Grinding Gear, Death Frost Doom? Just about ready to boot up a 1E game with the neighborhood kids
• My (adult) 4E campaign has hit paragon! One player rules a barony, one is a criminal mastermind, another the High Septarch...
• WOTC's decision to create homage's to classic 1E adventures (Against the Giants, Tomb of Horrors)
• I actually like the new approach to 4E DM minis

Low Points:

• DDI Sprawl... crushing amount of Dragon-only player options

2010:

• Hopeful that Chaos Scar, the potential 4E Sandbox, finally goes somewhere other than level 1...
• Looking forward to the 4E setting books - Underdark, Astral Sea, The Abyss
• Hopeful for a Stonehell 2
• Hopeful for an announcement that 4E Temple of Elemental Evil is on the way...

 

[weem]

Great year gaming-wise for me....

The Good:

- Finishing my first 4e campaign

- Starting my second 4e campaign with hand chosen players (yes, we have a lot available here) for my new setting "Last Lands"*

- Helping EN World with a logo and various banner graphics

- Launching a site to share things that can inspire your games (see sig)

- Being very active here on EN World (in 2008/09) compared to the years of lurking about with occasional posts here and there. Getting to know a number of you here much better has been awesome.

- Playing a TON of D&D. Between running my own campaigns, and playing in a few others, 2009 never had more than 5-6 days go by without a game for me and saw me play/DM in 8-12 games per month.


The Bad:

- *Having to leave a few people out of my second (4e) campaign who naturally assumed they would be a part of it (having participated in the first).

- Despite being sure it was not gonna happen, still a bummer to see Planescape passed up (for Dark Sun). Grats to DS fans though!


The Ugly:

- Those wars that get mentioned a lot


For 2010:

- Taking my new (second 4e) campaign into Paragon and Epic tiers

- Continuing to build my "Last Lands" setting as we explore it

- Starting a very loose/open/sandbox game for "slow" times

- Exploring (as a player) more of my favorite 4e character "Kick" (Goblin Assassin) in one of the campaigns I play in

 

[Pour]

High Points

My mIRC/Maptool 4e campaign reached the 1 year benchmark. They are the best group I have ever gamed with, and I admit this is the best I've ever DMed.

Continued DMing an interested younger group (high school juniors and seniors, the number of players around 7-9 every time) who'd previously only experienced fantasy through video games and movies. They absolutely love the freedom and fun of a tabletop, with its theatrics and choices.

DDI and its tool suite. I couldn't do a fraction of what I do without it.

ENWorld for helping me become a better gamer.

Paizo products in general, from adventures, supplements and maps, which consistently inspire me and make leaps into my campaign.

Discovering the joy of early D&D and its almost magical modules.


Low Points

Edition wars. Get over it everyone.

The lack of material in Dungeon. I want a lot more from that magazine.

Not getting the assistant editor's position at Paizo.

I still need a lot of work on my live tabletop DMing skills (it's so much easier typing and stalling and rereading your responses hehe).

D&D eating up a little too much of my free time that should probably have been spent on my t-shirt business or helping secure a more permanent job.

Conversely, not having had the gumption to finish Bioschock, Dragon Age, Planescape Torment or Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession yet.

In 2010...

TOMB OF HORRORS!

The start of a 1e campaign, beginning with the old school ToH, and my mafia family of backup characters.

Dark Sun

Ravenloft board game!

More Goodman 4e support!

More builders for the DDi Adventure Tools.

Possibly starting a Call of Cthulhu 6e game online.

Haha the off chance a Dance of Dragons is finished. And for that matter the HBO Game of Thrones.

Most of all, continuing to DM.

 

[EP]

High Points:
- Joining a group and finally PLAYING D&D for a change
- Playtesting, playtesting, playtesting
- Combat Advantage (the free-zine, not the combat modifier)
- Earthdawn 3rd Edition (even though I have yet to pick it up, still good to know it survives stronger than ever in print)

Low Points:
- Work gets in the way of playing... for now
- Risen bombs
- My homebrew officially dies a slow, tragic death without reaching the climax

2010:
- More gaming!
- CA Live
- Finally trying out Pathfinder and Savage Worlds

 

[aboyd]

I just wanted to say how surprising two things are from this thread. First, many people have not only expressed love for Pathfinder, but actually are running active Pathfinder games. That took me off guard. Does Paizo know they have something successful on their hands? Are you guys actually buying the books, so that Paizo sees income from the product? Because honestly, my assumption has been that Pathfinder is a non-event. It sold what it sold, and it's done. But if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

The second surprising thing is how many people are listing DDI in their low points. Someone mentioned "sprawl." I don't use it, so I really don't even know what that means. But this is surprising to me, as I've heard nothing but love for DDI. I mean, hasn't that been the crown jewel? I don't understand what changed for so many posters here.

Here are my highs & lows:

High Point:
Since I got back into D&D only in 2006, I'm still exploring the D&D 3.5 era, and cherry-picking only the best of 3rd-party books. Recently discovered the Kingdoms of Kalamar book, "Player's Guide to the Soverign Lands," and I love it. I love it for fleshing out the grit of my campaign -- basically just the equipment chapter, with its many plants, herbal concoctions, poisons, and charts for slave prices. Non-magical alchemy for the win!

Low Point:
I'm not really interested in much new stuff, so I'm kinda left behind. I don't like 4th edition, don't even really like Pathfinder, don't even like new video games such as Dragon Age. So I spend my time playing Icewind Dale 2 (the only Infinity Engine game I've yet to play), buying old 3.5 edition books from eBay, and so on. I like it, and I have about 30 people clamoring to get into my campaign, but I still can't help noticing that stuff is getting more & more scarce. Some 3.5 edition books cannot be found for less than $60 now, and I didn't think to buy them when they were in plentiful supply.

 

[Shroomy]

High Points
- Got my first published credits this year!
- Continued to play into the paragon tier in our weekly 4e campaign
- Lots of good stuff being released by WotC for 4e
- I love the DDI, between the CB, Compendium, MB-Beta, and magazines.

Low Points
- The continuing edition wars

Looking forward to 2010
- Getting more stuff published
- Dark Sun
- After the release of PHB2, MM2, and DMG2, the release of the PHB3, MM3, and DMG3

 

[Nikosandros]

I just wanted to say how surprising two things are from this thread. First, many people have not only expressed love for Pathfinder, but actually are running active Pathfinder games. That took me off guard. Does Paizo know they have something successful on their hands? Are you guys actually buying the books, so that Paizo sees income from the product? Because honestly, my assumption has been that Pathfinder is a non-event. It sold what it sold, and it's done. But if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

All statements made from Paizo folks indicate that they are extremely well pleased with Pathfinder performance. The first printing is sold out and there are several books lined up for next year.

 

[crash_beedo]

The second surprising thing is how many people are listing DDI in their low points. Someone mentioned "sprawl." I don't use it, so I really don't even know what that means. But this is surprising to me, as I've heard nothing but love for DDI. I mean, hasn't that been the crown jewel? I don't understand what changed for so many posters here.

Since I mentioned "DDI Sprawl", I'm glad to jump back in. I love the Monster Builder, Character Builder and Compendium; as a DM, I've been fairly happy with Dungeon and about 50% with Dragon. But every month sees a flood of 'class acts' and 'class essentials' articles that add more feats and powers to the game.

I'm finding that my book-only players and my DDI-subscriber players are really looking at two sets of options when leveling.

Oh, and I'm not surprised to see Pathfinder-love well represented... figure the people that even know it exists already have to be heavily invested into the net, online forums, etc. (I wouldn't know about the various old-school 1E publishers without the hard work of the blogosphere, either...)

 

[Southern Oracle]

Highs

Playing 4E!
Building up my mini collection and 3D paper terrain collection
One daughter (out of 4) captivated by gaming!
DDI
Mortaneus's Combat Tracker (love it!)

Lows

My 3.5E tabletop Age of Worms campaign is languishing
My 3.5E online Planescape campaign is gasping its last breaths
Both are due to my working incredibly long and inconvenient hours

2010

More money for gaming products!
Gonna start collecting 3D resin terrain (look out, Dwarven Forge!)
Maybe go to Gen Con ???

 

[Primal]

I just wanted to say how surprising two things are from this thread. First, many people have not only expressed love for Pathfinder, but actually are running active Pathfinder games. That took me off guard. Does Paizo know they have something successful on their hands? Are you guys actually buying the books, so that Paizo sees income from the product? Because honestly, my assumption has been that Pathfinder is a non-event. It sold what it sold, and it's done. But if I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

Yes, they have expressed their surprise at the popularity of the game -- not only was the first printing sold out in a record time by Paizo's standards, but now they've mentioned that third printing will be on its way soon. Also, if they thought the game didn't have any future potential, I doubt they would have organized a Beta playtest for APG, or invested so much energy and effort into development (for example, the Haunt mechanic or new APG classes). In fact, at least GMG got pushed back a few months so that they could "get it right the first time".

And yes, as far as I know we're buying the books (at least all the guys I know in RL and the Paizo boards). Not only that, but I'm actually ordering pretty much everything (Core Rulebook, Bestiary, GM Screen, Gamemastery Guide, APG, NPC Guide, Pathfinder Chronicles, Pathfinder Companions, APs, "stand alone" adventures like Crypt of the Everflame and Carrior Hill and so on) at my FLGS so that they would start carrying the Paizo products. And I'm paying a bit extra for some of the books -- it's about the same price for everything under 20 dollars as I save the shipping costs (12 dollars per book), but I could have ordered the Core Rulebook and Bestiary from Amazon for half the price I paid for them in euros (note: over here they just slap the same price tag, only with euros on it).

So, if you ask me, it's not "over and done" for Pathfinder RPG -- on the contrary, development of new mechanics (e.g. Psionics and the stuff I mentioned above) and expanding the system seems to be a top priority for Paizo. And their other products don't seem to be doing badly, either.