There's a good thread over on TBP about this. What happened or came out in 2008 that rocked your year?
Seanchai
Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide for Saga Edition
and
that's about it. It was a slow year for my game purchases I guess. :D
Edit: Ack - I thought it was just game releases the OP was talking about. Ahem. Well, my Star Wars Saga Edition series was great stuff (my players help make it so). We also had a good Prime Time Adventures series about Federal Time Cops. We had a good two-shot of Coyote Trail. We also had good one-shots of Shadowrun 4th Edition and D&D 4th Edition.
Finding an awesome game group for face to face gaming via this board. Really, the best bunch of gamers I've come across in a long, long time.
Dragon Warriors and CthulhuTech were the stand out games of the year for me. Reign was a distant second, though it initially came out in 2007.
I enjoyed small forays into Dark Heresy and D&D4e but neither had much longevity.
One of the stand out products of this year was Thousand Thrones for WFRP.
Swords & Wizardry followed by OSRIC 2.0 and Mongoose Traveller.
D&D 4e
Carcosa
Random Esoteric Creature Generator
Dark Heresy
The campaigns I ran,
- Fourth Tiwesdæg (http://www.gamecircle.org/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=Tiwesd%C3%A6g+Cl%C3%ADewen+4&back=O.R.C.+2007) - Dark Ages low fantasy using HarnMaster, a continuation of the adventures of the series. Played by Aron, Colin, Matt, and Kiwi Nick from 09Jan08-21Apr08.
- Just Speculatin' (http://www.gamecircle.org/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=Just+Speculatin%27&back=O.R.C.+2007) - scifi trade and adventure. scifi trade and adventure. Played 21Apr08-30Jun08, by Aron, Matt and Phill.
- Osere 2 (http://www.gamecircle.org/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=Osere+2&back=O.R.C.+2007) - modern espionage, being played by Aron, Emil and Phill, 14Jul08-Oct08, 12 sessions
and one I played in,
- After World (http://www.gamecircle.org/modules/wiwimod/index.php?page=After+World&back=WiwiHome) - A post-apocalyptic RPG using the All Flesh Must Be Eaten Rules, run by Matt in Melbourne by Dave, Mike and Kyle, 11 sessions from Oct07-Apr08.
-Two-Fisted Tales
-An awesome campaign that had a fantastic, open-door ending
-Fight On!
-Jamie Mal's Grognardia (http://grognardia.blogspot.com/)
-Getting to use Campaign Coins in my campaign
-Paizo's Pathfinder line
-Another kickass Gen Con
-Getting to tell Dave Arneson we had his seats ready at the ENnies; talking to him for a bit on the dealer room floor
-Seeing Col. Lou Zocchi again, introducing him to my daughter (he did magic tricks for her)
-A plethora of mighty fine simulacrum products
-Finding a few items for my Traveller collection
That's a good question. My year was definitely rocked, but not by any particular game or campaign.
Maybe it was sort of a critical accumulation of evidence of the obvious:
- People don't care what you played thirty years ago, but if you're playing Arduin, have an extra character, and are keeping it loose and fun, they might want to join.
- People don't care what the hot new game is, but if you're playing CthulhuTech, have an extra character, and are keeping it loose and fun, they might want to join.
- If you tell people they're going to play "Wizards and Lizards," and put that on their pregenerated character sheets, they have more fun than if you tell them they're going to play "RoleMaster."
- An flgs lives and dies on its culture, rather than merely its location.
- If you think you have some cool gaming idea, it's easier to do it and see what people think than it is to get people to think it's so cool that you ought to do it.
- Arrogant Bastard grows on you after a while. Celery is your friend. Lay off the cheese.
All this stuff is stuff I probably could have told you a long time ago, but this year has provided many pertinent and poignant anecdotes to convince me that I kinda know what I'm doing and I'm surrounded by some pretty cool people. That's a world-rocking realization.
* Kicking off Living Forgotten Realms!
* D&D4E is awesome
* Rediscovering AD&D1e
* producing a lot of music and for the first time in a while- art
* Getting divorced (no seriously, it turned out to be very awesome..)
* Moving to a new place that I love- I have a loft!
* lots of new gaming friends via LFR
* Another great GenCon- my 7th
* Lots of new neighbors
* Getting my scooter (2008 Honda Metropolitan- it rocks)
* finding a new girlfriend! (I swear this came months after I got divorced and moved out..!)
* Seeing a guy I taught how to play D&D in 2001 get extremely high praise as a DM on an unrelated yahoo group.
I had an immense amount of fun with Dark Heresy this year.
Mongoose Traveller and Sundered Skies
4e is good. I like it. I'm not head over heels, but..I like both Dark Heresy and CthulhuTech more than I thought I would. It's not a very original list, I know.
Seanchai
Hmmm... did the production version of Deluxe Basic Roleplaying come out in 2008, or late 2007? I don't remember. I know that I got my Advanced Reader's Copy late in 2007.
Anyway, I would say that it's probably Deluxe BRP and Hellas: Worlds of Sun and Stone.
I'm a Talislanta fan, and I like the Omni System. Seeing something produced for the Omni System, and not by Morrigan Press (which is stagnant lately), is refreshing to say the least. Also, not to mention that I like Greek Mythology and culture, and it has solar sail technology.
Cthulhutech and Dark Heresy as well as Left 4 Dead which while not an RPG supplement, it has firmly renewed my addiction to All Flesh Must Be Eaten.
My group finished up what is quite possibly the best campaign we've ever run. We ran it using a heavily house-ruled Iron Heroes system in a steampunk fantasy setting. The first half or so of it is posted on theRPGsite, but once they took down the blogs the guys in my group stopped doing write-ups.
We then jumped from that into a really strong first-time-playing-the-system campaign of 4e. We played it a little conventionally at first, but time-travel, PvP and party-splitting have once again cropped up. An alternate-history version of one of the PCs is the current big bad (the Chronolich!), the party warlord hired assassins to kill the family of one of my PCs unless I captured the party warlock for him, and we now have PCs in two different time streams potentially working at cross-purposes to recover a Macguffin.
I only bought three game books this year, but I really liked all of them. Two of them were new games (Mongoose Traveller and Thousand Suns) while one was a book that I just got around to buying this year (Tome of Corruption for WFRP).
In non-game-buying coolness, I loved seeing the Old School movement really get going this year, along with all of the sites focused around it (especially not exclusively Grognardia). I also liked the continuing awesomeness of the various game blogs I read -- Lair of the Evil GM, Jeff's Gameblog, I Waste The Buddha With My Crossbow, and many more.
I didn't do much gaming, what with a con game that I was going to run but had no-shows, and a pair of D&D one-shots (3.5 and 4e), though it looks like I will get to try out Dread next weekend. But I'm going to try to get a PBEM off the ground before year's end; probably Traveller.
Let's see. I unintentionally ran a "pulp" game - Six Guns & Sorcery (Good Night and Good Luck) - which was cool because that's the one genre I have trouble running.
My Aces & Angels (Redtail Blues) campaign was the first authentic historical Flyingmice game.
Was blown away by my players commitment to campaign prep and by their role playing in my OtE (Day of Living Dangerously) campaign.
Regards,
David R
Mongoose Traveller and Cthulhutech were stand outs this year for me.
i also got a copy of Savage Worlds that im currently prepping a homebrew game from as i type this.
oh and Baron Munchausen was another big release for me since i finally got to run a new game off the back of a drinking session where the barons game featured heavily :)
D&D Miniatures. I cannot believe I waited until this year to start purchasing them.
Along with that, Dungeon Tiles, and the Warhammer Quest rules, I am in gaming nirvana.
For me that would be...
- browsing the shelves at Yellow Submarine and Roll & Roll Station in Akihabara, Tokyo
- the whole old school movement (small as it is)
- the comeback of Dragon Warriors
- the German Fight On! equivalent, Abenteuer•
...and most importantly...
- finding the movie Astrópía, convincing my boss to make an offer for the German licence, getting the licence and being responsible for the preservation and/or location of all RPG references in the translation.
It was a good year!
In the RPG world Dark Heresy takes the cake for my year
Video games - Fallout 3 completely delivered and then some.
Movies - Dark Knight
Music - Metallica finally put down some glory again.
TV Shows - True Blood.
I've certainly been excited by these things...
Duty & Honour (http://www.omnihedron.co.uk/dutyandhonour) by Neil Gow is a top contender for my new game of the year. Swashbuckling Napoleonic adventures in the style of Sharpe. It handles the problems inherent in military-style games really well and combines tactical and roleplaying elements into a really, really fun game.
Empire of Dust (http://www.knrpg.com) by Clint Krause and Amy Garcia. Traditional gaming but with lessons learned from other styles and a larger-than-life, Dune-inspired setting.
Who could avoid mentioning 3:16 (http://www.boxninja.com), the brilliant take on SF carnage and war.
The Collective Endeavour (http://www.collective-endeavour.com) continues apace, despite some growing pains. This year saw some great efforts at UK conventions.
KapCon 2008 (http://kapcon.rpg.net.nz) (yes, I know the site is for the 2009 con), New Zealands biggest RPG convention. 2008 was my first time there. Great fun.
The Play Collective (http://playcollective.org) enjoying its second year at Gen Con Indy.
And, of course, I'm tremendously pleased that Paul and myself completed and published Hot War (http://www.contestedground.co.uk/hotmain.html)!
So, 2008 was a pretty good year for me personally. Quite a number of new games that I really enjoyed, some great conventions and some fun play.
Cheers
Malc
The Savage Worlds of Soloman Kane
D&D 4e
Two Fisted Tales - Just well written and well playing Pulp fun!
Mongoose traveller - My first foray into Traveller and I've loved every minute of it!
Hunter: the Vigil - Really like the fridge full of ingredients for a monster hunter game this book is.
Palladium - I never played a Palladium game until this year... and it was totally awesome! TMNT&OS has become an instant favorite game of mine. I'm currently putting together a short Robotech campaign.
FFG's "Descent" became the perfect gaming solution for my one group that only gets together every month or so.
Playing D&D 4e made D&D my high fantasy game of choice for the first time, well, ever.
Too early to tell, but "Dragon Warriors" may rock my 2009 with its atmosphere.
-Matt
4ed. 4ed rocks on fucking toast. Better than I hoped it would.
Beyond that, umm..did nWoD Changeling come out this year? Cause that was f-in cool as well.
Quote from: Malcolm Craig;273399Empire of Dust (http://www.knrpg.com) by Clint Krause and Amy Garcia. Traditional gaming but with lessons learned from other styles and a larger-than-life, Dune-inspired setting.
Sounds interesting. Definitely something I'm gonna' check out.
Regards,
David R
Stuff I already owned and got a chance to play and was cool:
- Spirit of the Century
- Mutants & Masterminds
- Hollow Earth Expedition
- Spycraft 2.0 (and the Fragile Minds horror gaming supplement)
- City of Brass and various Goodman Dungeon Crawl Classics for D&D 3.5.
Cool New Stuff I hope to use soon:
- Mongoose Traveller
- Starblazer Adventures
Swords & Wizardry
Fight On! (issues 1-3)
Castle Zagyg: Upper Works
I'm looking forward to checking out Dragon Warriors once it arrives at my FLGS.
Gamingwise --
Finally releasing Kard és Mágia (http://fomalhaut.rpg4.me/) after years of working on and off on it
My Fomalhaut campaign, now getting closer to its third years and as entertaining as ever
Fight on!
Carcosa
City Encounters
Hm, that's about it. :D
First and foremost, Basic Role-Playing has brought my favourite system into its finest form ever.
T&T7.5 was the biggest and best boxed set I've seen for 20 years. Plus the rest of the Outlaw Press T&T product line, which is not always of highest quality but continues to press the right buttons of no-holds-barred enthusiasm like Palladium stuff used to.
Echoing everyone else, Dragon Warriors and Mongoose Traveller have been great as well.
Mutant Future and Labyrinth Lord deserve a mention.
D&D 3.5 has rocked on toast this year. I'm usually a DM, but for the first time in...well, forever...I'm a player. And it feels damn good. :)
Well, I was proud to be able to release Apocalypse Prevention, Inc... which definitely rocked my world (in more ways than one).
Other than that, I've really been playing a lot of really great games of Changeling the Lost as well!
-Oni