• 14 Dec, 2025 *

2025 was a pretty big RPG year for me. The third year of running published adventures, a successful experiment. Let’s dive into the big moments of 2025 system by system.

Dragonbane - Perfect Ending

My campaign of Dragonbane’s Secret of the Dragon Emperor squeaked onto this list with the last session in 2025. A fantastic ending. The players found themselves pitted against the dread necromancer, Azrahel Koth, in his prison-tomb. Three of the four companions were knocked out and brave Amelia stood alone. Everything hinged on her initiative card. To go first meant victory. And lo, a 1! Amelia went first and loosed the arrow that slew the necromancer. Bravo. No notes. Possibly my favorite campaign. Our table is diving into the second campaign, Path of Glory, for a great bookend on the year.

Pathfinder Second Edition - Da Big’un

My build-heavy, player-choice, trad game is Pathfinder Second Edition. I choose it for the comprehensive wiki, the union staff and the awesome Foundry module.

Abomination Vaults was a pinch hit for a fellow over capacity GM. The Foundry module languished on my account and I wanted to give a massive trad campaign a try. It’s the big comfy blanket of number crunching, positioning and simulationism of trad gaming at its most tactical. It’s also full of min-maxing, shopping trips and other minutiae that I find grating. Expect a full review when we finish in 2026.

Cthulhu Dark - Favorite character

I’m normally not a player so it was nice to have some standout moments from the other side of the table in 2025. A friend ran the classic Call of Cthulhu adventure The Haunting in October for me and one other. I loved it. We leaned into the 1920’s aesthetic and Esther was a flapper pulp novelist, pulling on leads and fearlessly diving into the occult to get that gritty truth for her novels. Really fun to play, with just a minimal framework. Unfortunately she ended up broken by her experience, but her companion Patrick not only banished the spirit but came out sane.

Pirate Borg - Fun misfire

Reading Pirate Borg immediately inspired a "Hell Yeah" and it rocketed up my my list of games to play. The misfire here was attempting a homebrew campaign with almost no prep. I wasn’t prepared, I found the spark tables lacking. I came up with cool ideas but I struggled to assemble the sessions. The crew liked what I came up with but it was more work than I wanted. I will run this again using some modules.

Shadowdark - No-show pickup

I ran two Shadowdark one-shots (Wavestone Monolith and Concealed Abbey) to fill in for missing players or GMs. These were very fun and I have several of these in my back pocket for pickup play in 2026.

Mythic Bastionland - Systems rule

Another game in the player seat. Combat rocks in Mythic Bastionland. Pooling our dice, rolling them in the communal bowl and then deciding our tactics and narrating them? Chef’s Kiss. Intense. Quick. My Riddle Knight bested the Tourney Knight at the spring feast. A tense but fast fight.

Mothership - More, more, Mothership

After The Haunting of Ypsilon-14 I want more Mothership. I’m really excited to run more transhumanist/cyberpunk stuff like A Pound of Flesh, Owe My Soul to the Company Store and Warped Beyond Recognition. Big messy sandboxes are high on the list as well after reading Tide Worlds of Mani and Desert Moon of Karth.

Daggerheart - Need to kick the tires

Creating characters was a blast. The questions led to wonderful connections between are band of oddballs. The combats were fun but thresholds, armor and counting up HP, Armor and Stress felt weird to the table. I’d love to see this hit the table again.

Symbaroum - Not for me

This one didn’t gel with me. At all. The rules aren’t difficult but they never quite made sense. Our adventure was a bit plodding and points didn’t really connect up well.

The Stats

I ended up the GM for 57 sessions, a player in 28, and played 1 solo game. That’s 77 sessions played in 11 different systems. My biggest year in sessions or systems.

#musing #recap