As usual, I like to put forth the caveat that these are games I discovered/interacted with in 2022, and not necessarily games that actually came out in 2022. In no particular order....
Game I GMed and Got the Most Out of: Mothership
By far and away Mothership dominated the first half of the year with an ongoing game that lasted to the summer, providing some amazing bang from the buck considering zero edition is a rather slim zine size book, and the first module I ran was about 4 sessions' worth of gaming out of a two page tri-fold. Mothership is a unique zeitgeist of everything I personally need out of a game for it to work, and thankfully in 2023 we'll see the official boxed kickstarted First Edition Mothership for more fun.
Game I have Hit the Wall On: Pathfinder 2E
I ran some Pathfinder 2E earlier in the year but came to a screeching halt as the numbers became too transparent to me, the rigorously balanced values of the game becoming too obvious, and later as a player I found that I, like many of my players had also expressed, just didn't find character generation very fun. There is fun to be had here, but it it so specific in design and intent that, having run one campaign from level 1 to 20 already, I just don't feel I could continue it any further. I'll continue playing in my friend's campaign when he runs it, but as a GM I am done with it. (EDIT: Maybe not. After writing this post it got me thinking a lot more about Pathfinder, and realizing that the issue was more about the fact that I couldn't keep up with the weekly schedule of content I had inflicted on myself for better than two decades. This year, getting a chance to take a break from GMing periodically while someone else takes on the mantle has helped me greatly in feeling more creatively refreshed. So....we'll see. I'm already plotting a Dark Archive inspired campaign now, so my proclamations are, as always, fickle and tempestuous!)
Most Exciting New Discovery of 2022: Everything by Free League Publishing
Whether we're talking about Forbidden Lands and its retro aesthetic approach to hexcrawl style play, Vaesen's exploration of gothic victorian era nordic horror, Mutant Year Zero's modernized take on Gamma World, sci fi like Alien RPG and Coriolis, or the brand new procedural future crime engine in Blade Runner, I am really into the vibe and style of Free League Publishing's take on gaming. It's been pretty much all I can think about for the last few months, and this includes games like vaesen and Mutant: Year Zero which I've had for a while but only recently really started exploring in depth (part of my effort to focus more on reading what I own rather than continuing to mindlessly collect more, more more).
I plan to run at least a couple of these games in 2023. I think Forbidden Lands and Vaesen will be first on the proposal, with Blade Runner and Mutant: Year Zero following quickly behind.
Trend I Most Bought in to in 2022: Zine-Style Publishing
I bought a lot of stuff from Exalted Funeral in 2022, as well as Tuesday Knight Games. I spent a lot of time playing Mothership, I ran two campaigns using OSE and the assorted modules that are out on the market for this traditional take on retro OSR D&D gaming. Although I think I am at a hard brake point on D&D gaming as I go in to 2023, I definitely got a lot of mileage out of the exotic, artsy, and weird fun that has come from the small press chapzine style publishing market that has swept one corner of gaming this year.
Game of the Year for 2022: Mothership
The fact that a 48 page (give or take) 0 Edition player's guide and a handful of supplements can make for one of the best non-Cthulhu horror games and perfectly encapsulate a wide range of the axis of horror and science fiction in the genre that it does is amazing. The way it creates simple but elegant mechanics for fast but deep character generation, rules which drive forward the fear, horror and panic of the genre, and provide a robust yet incredibly simple framework for GMs to run games on the fly with a bewildering array of modules that range from long and deep to a mess of incredibly fun two-page adventures is also amazing. Mothership exploded out of the chapzine craze and captured a new style of gaming that works so incredibly well. Even its imitators wish they were Mothership.
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