Another Year!

So, that was 2016. May we never see its like again.

Okay, gaming-wise it was not a bad year. Gaming-wise, 2016 was a remarkably good year, I think both personally and on the level of the hobby at large.

We saw a number of fine Kickstarters fund: Conan, Delta Green 2nd Edition, Pugmire, The 7th Sea 2nd Edition, Unknown Armies 3rd Edition, and the Swedish Tales from the Loop. From Finland, we’re getting Sotakarjut and Astraterra 2nd Edition.

Additionally, unless I miss my mark, Lamentations of the Flame Princess delivered the last of the adventure modules from that one serial campaign so many years ago – Towers Two, and Broodmother Sky Fortress, and they were worth the wait.

Other cool stuff came out, like Hood from Myrrysmiehet, the Hell’s Vengeance and Strange Aeons adventure paths from Paizo, and the anniversary edition of Curse of the Crimson Throne, with impeccable timing as our party is next embarking on the last part of the campaign.

In play numbers, our Curse of the Crimson Throne campaign advanced by ten sessions, our Reign of Winter by 11. My Legacy of Fire reboot got one game in, and then there was a bit of Pathfinder Society, a Vampire: The Masquerade session that one of the players reported on, and some playtesting of various things.

I finally broke down and bought the D&D 5E Player’s Handbook. It looks like a solid game, though it of course does a thing that I already have a game for and its product support is tumbleweeds. If I ever run Paizo’s Second Darkness adventure path, though, I might convert it to 5E just to see how that goes – it’s in 3.5 and would need to be converted anyway.

So, what’s up for 2017?

The convention season of the year kicks off for me in February with the larp conference Knutepunkt in Norway. I’ll be attending the Week in Norway as well as the conference itself, but I have no responsibilities beyond good behaviour. Have to relax at least at one convention.

I should probably note that in mid-February there’s also Valocon in Jyväskylä, but I doubt I can make it.

Following that is Tracon Hitpoint in March, where I just shot off my program suggestion mail – a very important thing since the program division head has been telling me they’ve got an hour scheduled for me anyway and I’d rather not talk to a chair for 45 minutes. We had the first Hitpoint in 2015 at a school, but the convention is moving up in the world and is taking over the Tampere-talo conference centre. Apart from being bigger and better-suited for actually running a convention, this is nice for me since I can see it from my window. The venue will also host the comics festival Tampere kuplii two weeks later. In late May, I can probably be found in Uppsala for Kontur.

Ropecon 2017 is in late July, and stays at Messukeskus. Two weeks later, the venue will host Worldcon 75. Finally, in September, Tampere-talo will see Tracon 2017.

Whew, that’s going to be a busy year. As for upcoming releases, I hope they’ll include most of the Kickstarters I listed above, the majority of which aren’t yet out with full products. Though it’s a computer game, I will note that Torment: Tides of Numenera is set to launch in February. It is the spiritual successor of the venerable Planescape: Torment, a game so good it basically killed computer games for me. In August we should be getting Pathfinder‘s science fantasy cousin Starfinder.

As for gaming, we’ll be finishing both Curse of the Crimson Throne and Reign of Winter soonish, and I would expect my Legacy of Fire to wrap up before the year is out as well. We’ll see what will be run after that. I have received requests for Vampire: The Masquerade, and I’d like to have at least one adventure path running, but we have nothing solid yet.

And that’s what 2017 looks like to me. I’m probably overlooking something, there are things I’ve forgotten and things that never drew my attention. Please, let me know!