A Year of Playing

December 2020 we finished our home office so we could work from home from an actual finished office. This led to finally unpacking the last few boxes (even though we've lived in our house about 10 years now).

Deciding to sell some of my old RPG books led to discovering Zine Quest, and while I've sold most of my old AD&D and GURPS books, I now own way too many zines (with some still on their way). Discovering Zine Quest let to starting up my Twitter account again and joining too many Discord servers, most of them indie TTRPG related.

I also felt a bit self aware about my roleplaying hobby, somehow afraid of being perceived as a nerd. Which now I'm over 40 feels a bit stupid, and frankly a waste. But as the list of games I've played shows, it's never to (re)start a hobby.

Games played/ran in 2021

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (player)

I really had to convince myself to send the message about wanting to start roleplaying again to my local friends WhatsApp group, but I'm happy we did!

Can't say I'm too happy about the system, 5e is not for me, but hanging out (digitally) weekly with my friends is awesome. We're kicking but, and getting close to the one year anniversary of our campaign.

Main dislike? It's just too much options and rules, dragging out combat to fill up whole sessions. Part of this is us learning the system, but while we're getting a bit quicker, I can't see this speed up that much.

No Thank You, Evil (gm)

To play with six-year-old, I bought the Dutch translations of No Thank You Evil: Geen Monsters Onder Mijn Bed.

A fun game which we have played a few times, but some of the most rewarding rules are for cooperation, which is pretty cool in a kids game, BUT not too handy for playing with just one player.

I'm open for suggestions!

Reliquary (player)

Being a member of indie roleyplaying design Discords come with their perks, well, if you're able to match up time zones.

One of these perks is playtesting cool games! Gordie Murphy's Reliquary (kickstarted during Zine Quest 2021) was one of them.

A very awesome GM-less worldbuilding game, which I'd be happy to revisit. Exploring a megastructure in far future. A good game to play online using the provided tools!

NOVA (player)

Another perk of being active in indie discords is being part of actual plays! Still very thankful to Spencer (Gila RPGs) and Tony (Plus One Exp) for letting me join this NOVA stream.

NOVA is an action packed, rules-lite tabletop RPG in which the players pilot high powered exosuits. Pay attention 5e, this is what cool combat looks like.

Sink To Swim (player)

Played in the Brain Trust discord. A very cool GM-less storytelling game about art. Somehow our game ended up shifting into a horror story. Sink to Swim is both very loose and rules light, while providing very good structure and scaffolding to create a well crafted story.

Lasers & Feelings (gm)

During some downtime in our regular 5e campaign I ran a 2 session Lasers & Feelings game. Ok, I'll admit fun to hack, but a bit too rules light to play more than just a one-shot with (IMHO, ofcourse).

Lowlife using Down We Go

Sam Sorensen is a terrific creator, and awesome GM. Being on this Plus One Exp stream was a blast. Want to make your dungeon crawling more realistic, but especially more scary? Checkout out Lowlife. Usable with most trad & OSR games.

It was also nice to have the change to play using Down We Go the in-house OSR system from Plus One Exp. Crunchy where it needs to be, but on the rules light side of things.

DURF

Emiel created something special with his OSR game DURF. It was already pretty nice to meet a fellow Dutch rpg creator, but after joining the DURF Discord, I also got a change to play with him and some other fellow time zone adjacent people in a nice DURF one shot using Nate Treme's Tomb of the Swine Prophet.

DURF is an awesome OSR inspired rules light game. Having played a bunch of games this year, I can see this one is one of my new favorite systems. I know Emiel has some nice new games in the works. Can't wait what he comes up with!

Conclusion

All in all I'm very happy to have rediscovered the hobby! I feel so welcomed in the indie ttrpg scene, and feel blessed to have been able to play such diverse games with diverse people! I can't wait to see what 2022 will bring in gaming.

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