…I would be just fine with the state of the gaming hobby! What keeps me in the Gaming hobby is creativity and novelty, new ways to think and work together, stretching boundaries and feeling my neurons connect in new ways. And when it comes to D&D, I’ve played it for over 20 years now. I read the 2e books through middle school. Third edition peaked in high school and college. Fourth edition (Hail! Glory!) covered my graduate education. We’re now in fifth edition and beyond, the greatest hits edition to me, and I can speak D&D in my sleep. I have spent hours writing in its syntax, as a forever GM I can improv in my sleep. I’ve run one-shots, taught a few hundred people how to play, run campaigns that have weaved through tens of characters over more years at a time that has dominated my social calendar. So enough I say. I’ve been playing other games and I wanted to share some high level overviews of them:
His Majesty the Worm
Role: GM
Sessions: 4
Highlights:
Making an actual guild contract between your players? STUNNING.
Using tarot cards to resolve actions? GORGEOUS.
Strict phases and relying on narrative RP to recover health? BEAUTIFUL.
Combat as a poker game against your GM? AMAZING.
My players have entered the chapel of avarice, a dragon-queen themed (so it’s become HER MAJESTY) megadungeon under the city. Each section is rife with grand and warping challenges to see if they can return to the surface covered in her glory with fists full of gold. While this isn’t for novice players, HMtW plays tight and fast when you focus your players on distinct obstacles and goals while you foster their roleplaying so they may camp and recover in between sessions. More people should be playing this.
I’ve added a novel mechanic of my own, and am learning to build creatures in different ways to expand my own experiences. Stay limber, write differently!
Shadowdark
Role: player
Sessions: 2
Highlights: Simplified old school D&D work best when your GM is a calm and vicious veteran who has laid out level after level of material for you to literally run through trying not to get TPK’d. I lost four characters the first session, but my goblin tribe will never go extinct in that game (that is a challenge, Rob). This is why you keep character graveyards around, people!! The first session was part of a full gaming weekend, second session was online and hits different on roll20. But the fun and ability to onboard new players and keep the game rolling is great. Plus, frankly, having to manage light and rations is better than finagling with spell lists. I also really dig the carousing feature, and how important it is for the game. Epic narrative benders FTW! Shadowdark is definitely earning my respect after all the hype around its release.
Pendragon
Role: player
Sessions: 25+
Highlights: Here’s a novel experience: playing semi-accurate historical games like Pendragon with a dash of magic and mysticism has been a big hit. Not only have I become the Duke of Oxford, there is a solid manor building mini-game. Hilarious tangent: Through a streak of amazing dice luck, I have sired ten children between my three characters (and they are all healthy and pox free into the teenage years!). Aging hits hard here, talk about realism!!! ::takes a shot of Advil:: We’d be further down the 80 year timeline if we didn’t break to talk about various types of armor, museum trips, linguistic evolution, and search for IRL feast recipes to try. Oh, and we literally killed Grendel while beowulf watched to prevent more aggressive Saxons from taking power in Britons as a power play! This game was built for learning and growing to meet the needs of your era. Seriously undervalued because it can be complex as well. But there are great ways to manage it.
So while D&D still dominates the overall TTRPG landscape and (probably) always will, I hope these short summaries spark your interest in new games! I still haven’t had time to try games like Daggerheart, or the Mexica themed Macuahuitl, or replay Adoragoblins with more kids. And I was reminded that my Blades in the Dark version of Super Mario Bros is also hanging out, waiting for a revision and replay. Electric Bastionland will blow your mind and open your chakras with the right GM (played once, will be hard to top that experience..like seeing Inception for the first time). The point here is that there is so much content outside of the D&D bubble, pop it and enjoy what’s out there. Flex your brain a little, think differently, grow a little, and have fun immersing yourself somewhere BESIDES the Sword Coast.
Wait, we have more!
The year was 1978. As a nine-year-old kid, I unwrapped a Christmas gift that would shape the rest of my life: the red-boxed starter set for Dungeons & Dragons, accompanied by the boxed set of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. From that moment, I never looked back. This was the beginning of a lifelong passion for tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs).
