XP Rolls

A few friends have posted their “Endies” and other assorted year-end gaming recaps, inspiring me to eke out a basic blog post looking back at my own year in gaming.

When the year started, I had played D&D three times – a one-shot “learn to play” at Thanksgiving weekend with strangers via StartPlaying.games, and then another one-shot the following weekend via StartPlaying with different players and Dungeon Master (DM). I set up a Discord account and ended last December with the first of what would become weekly(ish) online games with a few friends: Randy in Wisconsin, and Jeff & his son Ian in Texas as Jeff led us through the D&D starter adventure, Dragons of Stormwreck Isle.

I really enjoy 5E so don’t have the history (aka baggage) other older players lug around with their soapbox about why every other version that came before is either better or worse. But as I got more familiar with D&D in the first few months of 2025, I had a curiosity about what other games were out there and what else I might like. My local game shop, Battlegrounds had a few other “trad games,” a term for any traditional game that’s D&D-like (D&D, Pathfinder, Warhammer, Dungeon Crawl Classics), but is heavier on tabletop card games (TCGs), so I took a drive up to New Haven to Elm City Games, where I picked up Call of Cthulhu, Kids on Bikes and Blades in the Dark. Starting a theme for the year, I’ve only read two and only played one of the three.

From there, the obsession took hold. I’ve bought more than I’ve read and read more than I’ve played, but working to change the ratios in 2026. Following something that Patchwork Paladin posted recently on “No-buy 2026”, I’m aiming to purchase less, read more and write more – including my first attempt at a published game. My first attempt at creating a hex was posted here on Christmas night last week. Meanwhile, I’m ending 2025 with a brief look back using Lady Tabletop’s Endies template.

47 game sessions played.

I’m assuming about 3 hours/session and some were only a couple of hourse, but likely forgetting a session or two, so we’ll call this accurate enough.

Since this was the regular weekly (bi-weekly, I guess given how often we actually got together) game, no huge surprise here. As I said earlier, I like D&D, so this will likely be the most frequent game in 2026 too. However, I’m going to try to get in most of the other major systems and their offspring next year, so there’s more balance in my education.

I got my feet wet GM’ing, using Kelsey Dionne’s Secrets of Skyhorn Lighthouse. It was challenging, but fun and I’m looking forward to getting in more GM experience in 2026, including a one-shot session of Pirate Borg in January.

I only participated in a few playtests this year, but love playing and learning from what my friend, Rowan is developing with Kelpsprot. Unique mechanics – not a lot of dice rolling here and a strong narrative focus. Tons of mysteries to solve and conflicts to resolve, but we find it’s more about patience and using our drop-in party’s collective wits and a sense of adventure than rolling for initiative and endless slogs of violent combat. Fun stuff.

I’d signed up for my first con, this coming March, GaryCon, but then an opportunity came up to go to PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia, so I got a badge for that back in August. But then, even that got superseded by the smaller but mightier ArcaneCon in October, up in Northampton, MA. In 2026, I’m hoping to return to those and get to GenCon and a couple of other regional cons as well.

Between the cons, the amazing blogger and designer folks from the Prismatic Wasteland discord server, who I learn from daily, and friends I’ve made, I’ve gotten the chance to play a bunch of fun stuff this year. Next year, I hope to improve on that, and also plan to read a game a week to help fix my ratios. Wish me luck!

And despite my ‘no-buy’ attempts, there are still a few games that are on my wishlist for 2026. Shocker, I’m sure.

Happy new year!