Let's Talk About Our Year In TTRPGs

[thullgrim]

Great question. I run a lot of games typically because I get bored. Looking back on 2025 I only ran three different campaigns/four systems all year. Which for me is some kind of record.

January to June I ran Shadowdark and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy using Arden Vul. I suspect we’ll be going back to that well in 2026.

I got to play for 5 weeks in June and July. First time in a couple of years. GURPS Highlander.

July & August I ran Savage Worlds Deadlands Blooddrive.

Sept-current I’m running Pathfinder 1e, Core Rulebook only, Shattered Star Adventure Path. This game could end in February or if they decide to keep going into book 3, May probably.

 

[djotaku]

I'll be writing a blog post about this in a few weeks, but the highlights:

• finished first ToV homebrew campaign
• started running Cosmere TTRPG
• Had a blast running Faster Purple Worm, Kill Kill
• finally got to be a player
• way too many kickstarters even though I was supposed to be taking it easy on KS this year

 

[Evaniel]

2025 was a good year with some lessons learned. Pretty much all of my gaming is online (Roll20) these days as my closer friends have left the area for good jobs.

-Sunday Night is my "main" game of regular players that I DM for. We played Dungeons of Drakkenheim using the 5e 2024 rules. It was a little disastrous. I'm not sure if it was the 2024 rules themselves or Roll20's awful implementation and UI for them, but it ground a few folks' computers to a halt. The new monster sheets were garbage and took a lot of scrolling to find things in. We also kept having to revisit things like Grappling and Counterspell, as these are now pretty counterintuitive. We tried a bit of classic Marvel SRPG and Icons as a palatte cleanser before starting OSE (Advanced Fantasy) with Keep on the Borderlands. That's been going for a few months. Very popular with our old schoolers. Not so much with a few others. I'm going to try to see it through until the Keep is cleared, and then we might convert to 5e, which everyone can kinda agree on.

-Friday Night shares some players with Sunday and it's a bit of a potpourri. A few of us will swap in to DM various games. This year it's been X-Crawl Classics, DCC, and OSE. These have been, by and large, pretty fun! I'm hoping to swap out my DMing duties of OSE for Marvel.

-Saturday Night started new this year in June! It began as a West Marches-style OSE game that has kinda coalesced around a group of regulars. I DM. It can be a little less reliable than the other groups in terms of folks showing up, but this has lessened now that we have regulars. They've killed Bargle, fooled around in Stonehell, rescued the Princess of the Silver Palace, and are now trapped in Castle Amber.

It's been a very, very good year for gaming.

 

[Mannahnin]

before starting OSE (Advanced Fantasy) with Keep on the Borderlands. That's been going for a few months. Very popular with our old schoolers. Not so much with a few others. I'm going to try to see it through until the Keep is cleared,

The keep, or the caves?

They've killed Bargle, fooled around in Stonehell, rescued the Princess of the Silver Palace, and are now trapped in Castle Amber.

I had so much fun with Castle Amber in my last long campaign. I massively expanded the Averoigne section.

 

[LordEntrails]

Kicked off the new year (January 2025) with a new campaign running a new system (FrontierSpace) with the same players (mostly, added a new one this year) I've been playing with for about 5 years.

Last year knew I wanted to move away from D&D as our multi-year campaign was wrapping up, didn't want to get the 2024 rues and was just tired of the system. We all agreed on sci-fi and were considering Star Frontiers or FrontierSpace. Since I was able to get a license from DWD Studios to publish all their content on FG (and would have never been able to get such from WotC) I finished up my ruleset for FrontierSpace on FG and this year converted (and published) all the books so my players and I would have them in the VTT.

We are still going strong and expect this campaign will last a couple more years.

I've been enjoying creating content for a setting that is not highly detailed (is only minimally outlined in the core books) including a Stellar Atlas, expanded custom equipment book, and created over 60 maps this year (using Campaign Cartographer 3+).

Have also jumped in to a Cyberpunk Red game as a player a few months ago. Though we had a rough start for a bit, it's now going strong and we are all having a blast.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Games I played in:
Scum & Villainy
Daggerheart
Call of Cthulhu
Delta Green
Dungeon World

Games I ran:
Stonetop
Band of Blades
Mothership
False Kingdom
Blades in the Dark
DIE

Overall, a good year of gaming across three groups. We literally just began DIE with session zero, and the first full session is this Friday. I'm stoked for that. I expect it will carry us well into 2026 for that group.

 

[Fenris-77]

I spend most of my year designing a bunch of Shadowdark books for my Shadows of Empire line (which has been much fun). I've also played a lot of Heart and Spire, plus a little Western-themed CoC. I've just recently jumped into His Majesty the Worm with both feet, so that's going to a lot of fun too.

 

[Ulfgeir]

Attended 3 gaming conventions in person (Gothcon, Lincon, Borås Spelkonvent), 1 convention virtually (Guardiancon). Have been playing most Fridays and Sundays biweekly, with some extra thrown in for good measure.

Played:

• :Otherscape
• D&D 3.5 (Savage Tides)
• Dragonbane
• Good Society: A Jane Austen rpg (Sense & Second Breakfast)
• Homebrewed PbtA-based Wuxia-campaign. We have done 3.5-4 years now ans are starting to get to the end..
• Mouse Guard (played once at a local convention)
• Scion 2e (1890s setting)
• The Troubleshooters (I GM'ed)

Made characters but haven't played yet:

• Fight with Spirit

Might get to play before the end of the year:

• Sword World

Worked on (writing my own stuff):

• 1-sheet Adventure for The Troubleshooters

Worked on (Proofreading):

• Ereb Altor (a setting for Dragonbane. Is a revival of a classic setting for a previous version of the game)
• Äventyr in Magnamund (Lone Wolf-setting for Dragonbane)

Bought:

• D&D 3.5 - DMG
• D&D 3.5 - Players Handbook
• Ereb Altor (a setting for Dragonbane. Is a revival of a classic setting for a previous version of the game)
• Fight with spirit (in PDF form)
• My late father's correspondence (solo adventure)
• Polaris - Smugglarnas stad (for Leviathan. I thought I had proofread this but it seems I was mistaken, and it was another module I read, which hasn't come out yet.)
• Scion 2e: Demigod companion
• Scion 2e: Dragon companion
• Scion 2e: Mythical Denizens
• Scion 2e: Rock Gods
• Scion 2e: Tasty bits
• Scion 2e: Wild Hunt
• Stunde Null (adventure for Chock: Åter from Graven. Set in Germany right after WWII. I proofread it last year.)

Stuff from Kickstarter* bought earlier, but I received the books during 2025: (* = catch-all term for crowdfunding sites)

• Brancalonia: Spaghetti Fantasy Bestiary
• Castles in the Air (based on Good Society. The Gilded Age coming of age-stories)
• Scion 2e: God

Stuff bought from kickstarters before 2025 and still waiting for:

• Arkham Fate (FATE-based Call of Cthulhu. Had written it off, but got some signs that things might happen. The pdf is released, but I await a physical book.)
• Iron Sky rpg (They will have to make it really good in order for me to not regret buying it. The updates so far hasn't been that promising)
• Scion 2e: Mythic Shards
• Scion 2e: Titans Rising

Stuff bought from Kickstarter in 2025 where I haven't recieved the stuff yet:

• Riverbank rpg
• Shadowrun Anarchy 2.0

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Good Society: A Jane Austen rpg (Sense & Second Breakfast)

OK, that is a brilliant crossover.

 

[Ulfgeir]

OK, that is a brilliant crossover.

It was great fun. Hobbits work very well in that kind of setting. We had dance-offs, pies, drama, young hobbits seeking love...