Half Year Hydration Break

Into July, so time for a check-in on the 2026 Year of Gaming, which uncovers 97 sessions involving 29 different game systems.The three stand-outs feature my four ongoing campaigns in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e, which includes both my ‘Enemy Within’ jamboree, and the Dungeon Muser’s Salzenmund escapade, Dom’s intriguing Coriolis the Greater Dark, and Simon’s series emulating Star Trek Adventures 2D20. Further more recent regulars contrast Tom’s shiny Pendragon, with my own dung-laden Zweihander. They are all tremendous games that will continue to dominate my own charts due to their longevity.

Take my meandering, late medieval river trading game, sorry, I mean ‘Enemy Within’ opus, where we are part way through book two of five. With our fortnightly pacing, I think we are on for a book a year. How many books will we manage? I still have the enthusiasm for all of them, but we will have an annual break and see how it is landing.

A delicious mix of other games have been played, provided through one shots and conventions. Altogether, this has delivered a lot of fun play, with just over a quarter having me in the GMing chair. About a quarter have been played face to face, with the rest via Foundry, Roll20 and Role VTTs in that order of frequency.

I’ve enjoyed all my games, but I’d like to highlight a few that stood out.

• Dom’s Longcon mini campaign of A||State was tremendous. There is something about letting a game breathe and Dom’s deft touch as a GM brought the best out of his players and the game itself. I relish that my character, a negotiator, managed to shape a productive and compromised conclusion, so fitting to the grim setting of The City.
• Pete’s Star Wars flavoured ‘Outgunned’ confirmed what a fun game it was, while expertly delivering genre laden action along the way.
• James’ Imperium Maledictum 40K reminded me how much I enjoy the developed finesse of the Warhammer series of games, now honed in this more recent version. It gives me a warm feeling about the forthcoming Warhammer Fantasy 5e. It is still coming, isn’t it?
• I ran an online session of Nimble, which has crowned the game as the king of high fantasy D&D level and hit points. A tactical 4e replacement? I will do more with it.
• That being said, I’m not really a D&D 5e kind of gamer. The system does nothing for me, and Tales of the Valiant little more. However, our grimepunk pseudo Victorian murder investigation, run by the inestimable ‘Dungeon Muser’, Kevin Madison, is a delight of character roleplay.
• Kevin also ran a fun session of the Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG, which is every bit as good as any official one. It’s one I should run.

As a footnote to the excited burbling, I have to make an admission. I’m actually playing too many games! As much as I enjoy them, it seems that even I have capacity limitations. It is very hard to estimate a campaign length, there are plenty of confounding variables. As such, two of my regulars look to be over-running and one very significantly so. I could do with playing one less per week, and will see how I can do that.

It’s a great ‘problem’ to have!