End of the Year

As 2013 winds down, I thought I would take a look back at my gaming life over the past year.

What did I play?

A lot of 3.55E (that's 3.5 with some extras stolen from other games). Our campaign to save an alternate Europe from the Plague Lords and their demonic allies waged on, and it seems there may or may not be an end in sight. Ahnuld picked up a few levels in Favored Soul, he has a sword blessed by the God of War, and is currently trying to muster an army of Orcs to help defend against the incursion.

Also played some D&D NEXT. The playtests went well, I thought. Nothing Earth-shattering, but I'm not sure we went about it the right way. We played a really good story (that will probably continue into next year), but it didn't call forth much need to put the new rules to the test. Which may not be bad thing. The feeling we all get from NEXT is that the rules are lighter and more streamlined than recent editions, and so the lack of need to really get into them probably means they work better. At least, that's what I'm hoping.

Went to my first gaming convention this year, with the inaugural year of Gamehole Con right here in Madison, WI. I got to play some B/X run by David Cook; played games of Call of Cthulhu, Pathfinder, and Dungeon Crawl Classics; sat in on panels with Ernie Gygax, Jim Ward, Kieth Parkinson and Terry Pavlet. I'm really looking forward to next year, which should be even bigger and better.

And finally, I self-published some stuff. It seems they were generally well-received, especially for a one-man operation. Not sure how much more I will follow that trail, though.

What am I looking forward to in 2014?

Pretty much more of the same; more D&D, more NEXT, more Gamehole Con. Also looking forward to Gary Con in March for my wife's birthday.

What am I hoping for?

Honestly, I'd like to play more games. And not just more of the same, but other games. I'd really like to play some supers, and/or spies. Maybe some Sci-Fi, or even Science Fantasy. Basically, I have spent many years reading and playing games from all kinds of genres. And I'd really like to get back into that again. There are so many games to play, it seems a waste to just stick to D&D. Besides, as much as I love fantasy, it gets stale after a while. I crave more.

So, what about you? What did you do in gaming in 2013? And how does 2014 look to be shaping up?