• 15 Dec, 2025 *

Just because my blog is new doesn’t mean I don’t get to do a year-end round-up!

Right?

Okay, here goes, post numero uno:

Tabletop

I played a lot of games this year, actually? I didn’t realize until putting this list together. So, in no particular order…

1 - Mothership

The big mama. Finished a 20-odd session campaign by dear friend Owen O’Donnell (Year of the Rat) with our regular Discord group. It was a hard-boiled cyberpunk noir in a conquered city on a desperate planet, and my jazz-loving ex-secret policeman (who was struck with the Coward condition early on) managed to pull off some serious big faction shenanigans. It ended in a pretty fraught scene with some serious PvP as we struggled to stop an evil neo-Mormon and an MKULTRA-style psychiatrist from broadcasting a pacifying signal across the city. A great time!

I’ve also tested, along with my writing partner Abe, our module for Mothership Month ALL ON RED, and its subsequent stretch-goal spin-offs. Its a ripper, with every group that plays it pulling at strings and levers in ever-surprising ways. Look for it later this year on the Tuesday Knight Games store and the itch page for our little game studio, Glue Trap Games (once we get it set up)!

2 - OVER/UNDER

Much has been written and said about this fascinating experiment, and you can check out my thoughts HERE. I am very grateful for the community that’s sprouted since, and I think the end of this year would have been very different without it.

3 - Mythic Bastionland

I need to get a full campaign of this to the table, but my writing partner Abe Chester and I played a duet game for four (?) sessions? His Vulture Knight conquered the myth of the Desert, and then clashed with the Elephant Knight. We need to pick it back up, perhaps with some other folks, since our last session ended with the Vulture Knight getting his clock cleaned. A real blast, the resolution system is smooth as butter, and the hexploration is so easy to use and evocative.

4 - Dolmenwood

In the aftermath of our Mothership campaign, my regular group began to rotate through different games. I ran a several session Dolmenwood campaign (that we’re picking up next week!) and we had a great time delving into Winter’s Daughter. There was some fantastic random encounters with a group of erstwhile bandits (shoutout to Dimothy) and a flight from three huge Trolls. The party made off with quite a bit of loot, and have settled in Prigwort to cool their heels, where the Magician Woodgrue is apprenticed to Mostlemyre Drouge. I’m excited to see where this campaign goes!

5 - Delta Green

One of the players in our regular group is a big DG-head, and ran us through a short adventure of his own creation, where I played an intrepid, down-on-his-luck reporter who had his worldview… significantly shattered. A month or so later, we played God’s Law, where I played Zen Buddhist U.S. Marshal who unfortunately got obliterated by a corrupt (and eldritch) Sheriff’s Deputy. Delta Green is a cool system, and I enjoyed putting together a conspiracy board with the group.

6 - Liminal Horror

In October, I ran Hotel Dracula by Cats Have No Lord for our regular group! This was a hoot and a half. The random encounter die provided me with THREE 1s in a row in the final session. 1 on the die being “It’s Dracula. Dracula’s here.” I love when randomness works out: the final girl (a badass documentarian) stabbed Dracula through the heart with a fire poker, and our undercover Bureau agent got turned into a vampire. I hope to run some more LH in the new year, especially the Southern Gothic campaign setting I’ve been working on.

7 - Mork Borg

I’ve been trying to get my partner into playing more tabletop and I figured Mork Borg would be simple enough that we could kind of casually play. We played through the delightful Feast for a Sphinx (read about it here) and (with another friend) Sepulcher of the Swamp Witch. We had a great time with them both, and I’m planning to run him through Crown of Salt by Tania Herrero at some point soon. We’ll see if he survives for very long!

I had so much fun with Mork Borg that I wrote that Mantis-Men adventure, which will be getting polished up and laid out in the new year!

8 - a dungeon game

Speaking of that delightful community from OVER/UNDER, I had the privilege of joining several post-O/U Discord servers. One of which, run by the former Canyonheavy Cowboys, has been a fantastic incubator for new work and good gaming. Chris Bissette (the author of “a dungeon game,” among many other things) ran us through his Moss Mother’s Maze. The dungeon was fantastic, twisty, with several nasty surprises, and the system itself was lightweight and easy to use with a really fun magic system that allowed for some hella creative problem solving.