It has been quite the year, as I am sure we can all agree. A rough one, for many but many good things did manage to happen this year. Don't forget that. As for me, this blog was still in its infancy and the podcast was simply an idea. To be fair I, still consider both to be barely considered toddlers. There has been so much I have learned, figured out, and seen. There is still so much more. The past year has had both good upswings of productivity and bad downswings. My goal for the up coming year is to avoid the downswings and part of the reason the Fall hiatus even happened was a combination of time and having too much on this plate. That allowed me to figure out to balance that out and slowly we have been building momentum back for the next year.
It means I have written here less and the podcast took longer to get back to. But it also means that I have the ground work of a new class with a new mechanic to get out, a whole RPG product I am working on with a friend, a board game idea, weeks of podcast episodes ready for editing, one shots done, one shots planned, and more. Most of these recent work doesn't show here. But it is there and it feels good to be there.
Enough of that though, I want to write more about what we're doing as it happens this year instead of every so often as an apology for lack of posts. Let's talk about how awesome this year was. The blog saw gigantic growth in page hits and this month has been our busiest yet! Even if I take away a good portion from the Magic the Gathering survey picture influx (no I haven't heard from WotC and may need to e-mail them again) this fact hold up. We have a couple logos now, thanks to my artistic friend, and even managed to inspire a couple pieces of fan art.
The podcast went from idea to reality and spurned a spin off that turned into a monthly thing with direction (thankfully). It continues to do well (in my opinion) though the growth in play numbers are slower than other podcasts. I know a few reasons for this. Mainly we bought a mic with no audio editing experience and went for it, learning along the way. Now we have a friend and player who does this for a living and he has provided an actual stand, real editing, and will help us upgrade equipment when we can!
2016 also brought us the DMs Guild, which provided me with an opportunity to take the ideas I had and turn some of them into actual products for you. I haven't got as much feedback yet as I hoped, but I have gotten some. One of them is currently a Silver Best Seller though! It has, so far, been an awesome experience and help in driving me to work on a lot more. Coming towards the end of the year I have managed to be present for the creation of the DM Support Group, first on Slack and now as a website too. It has grown very quickly and while I have not been able to contribute as much as I had hoped (yet!) I am really glad I am here for it and cannot wait to help out in the coming year.
This Year's Games!!
OK, now we get to the part where I look at my New Years 2015 resources post and figure out what I managed and what I didn't.
Play again worked out pretty well: 2/3. We played an excellent one-shot adventure in Star Wars Edge of the Empire. In fact we recorded it for you (shameless plug). It was a ton of fun and we're already thinking about doing another. And by already I mean we have been for months and, also, Untamed Scribe might run an adventure/campaign. We also found a chance to play the End of the World. Which still has mixed reviews from players. Some really enjoy it and others do not like the mechanics that much, or just don't like the scenario of being themselves. It was fun, but before we share a play session of that with you I think we'll need the right group. And probably the aliens book. We never got around to Shadowrun. A couple reasons for this, mainly lots for a GM to live up to considering that our last GM for it lives in Japan, knew the world and lingo, and gave us an AMAZING game (looking at you Aikos). Maybe in 2017...
Still haven't played also went well: 2/3. Our first podcast episodes featured Kobolds Ate My Baby, which was great fun. We will have to play this again since it is really quick to do. Especially with our new players enthusiasm. TMNT, ahhh TMNT. After so many long years with the 1985 (I think) book sitting on my shelf I got to run the game. It was so much fun. You WILL see a follow up one-shot adventure (instead of session) in 2017. Of course watch out in February for the first adventure! Torchbearer never saw light, though. As we all get more variety of experience with various games, and I get more short adventure experience as GM, this will come out. But only when everyone is ready for a dungeon crawl.
Games to buy, well let's say I did buy something: 0/3. OK, so I didn't manage to get any of the games on my list. They are still on my list, but I am not sure they'll stay the top three for tomorrow's post. This year I did buy some games though and you will see some on tomorrow's list. Cats, Our Last Best Hope, and Cypher System are just a few. I'll have to choose judiciously tomorrow and try to select the ones I will end up buying. You know, so they can move to still haven't played on 2018's list.
I don't think I left out any of the games we played this year (other than D&D 5E) above, but if I did then you'll probably hear about it tomorrow or soon. We have played so much this year, though, it is hard to keep track of. Hopefully 2017 will be just as fun! I do want to shout out some of the Kickstarters I have started receiving and will have to back some more this year. Savage Rifts hardcover books came in just a week or two ago and they are fantastic. Smaller than your average books, but just as full of material. These are going to make fantastic resources. Kult has finally gotten out, not a play test, but a quick start document. It is a good 60 pages long or so and lots to get through. Monte Cook Games got us Gods of the Fall and I cannot wait to get Predation inearly 2017. Hopefully we'll see Sandy Peterson's mythos monster manual out soon too. Despite being for Pathfinder I know I'll be using this for 5th Edition D&D.
Well, that was my year in a nutshell. Kinda. I am sure I could have babbled more, but needless to say it was a good year. I learned a lot and have a lot to look forward to in 2017. Take a chance to look back on your gaming experiences from 2016 and learn from them as well. Make 2017 that much better!
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