The Game Forecast for Death Bat in 2016 So Far....

In a nutshell:

Savage Worlds has clearly won out as my de facto generic adventure system. More will come of this for certain. It's best competition? Whatever Design Mechanism concocts this year, probably.

Beyond the Wall and Other Tales calls to me but I must be properly ready and have buy-in from my gang before I dare tackle it.

Fantasy AGE actually got a session in this week. It was fun, but a reminder to me that I actually really need to run something "not fantasy." I'm really burned out on fantasy, and running Fantasy AGE was a reminder of the fact that a cool system is not enough to motivate me. This applies to any and all fantasy systems I've held interest in recently....for me to look at systems X, Y and Z and ask what makes them more special than D&D 5E is a trick question....they're all going to suffer because of my quiet and ongoing fantasy genre saturation point crisis. I need a break, and it needs to be in horror, sci fi, post-apocalypse or modern.

That brings Chill 3rd edition, White Star, Savage Worlds and others back in to the fore.

White Star is going to get a sudden burst of love real soon. If you don't know why you should take this game seriously, then you haven't considered the unholy love child of OD&D and space opera in the proper context...and in a post Force Awakens world White star shines very brightly.

Chill 3rd edition is looking like the go-to system for my next horror game session. Still, I am trying hard to absorb Trail of Cthulhu. I doubt I'll fully embrace the Gumshoe system before Call of cthulhu 7th edition arrives in print this year (please arrive this year) and eats the competition.

Beyond that? I really want to prep for a Mutant Year Zero campaign, and finish reading Feng Shui 2nd edition. I don't know if I'll ever properly absorb Cypher System even though I want to. On the superhero gaming front Savage Worlds' Supers Companion continues to look better than the competition but there's still a part of me that likes to pretend like I have the time to absorb Mutants & Masterminds 3rd edition.

Five more games on my radar that I want to read/play/run? Try these: White Lies, Barebones Fantasy, Void (yes, still!), Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition, and the eventual Conan RPG that I don't yet own but definitely will when it is released.

See, this is why I don't need any new game books in 2016!!!!