Deathbat's Goals and Predictions for 2024

 Well the new year is here and along with it comes a slew of blogs and vlogs talking about new year predictions, goals and rampant, wild speculation. For my part of this, I am going to lump my post into a list of predictions and goals for myself:

Goal: run Mothership - easily achieved! I am starting the new campaign next Saturday (sesh zero was last Saturday, obstructed by work).

Prediction: D&D One will release but D&D Beyond will be in poor shape for an "early access" portal of online graphics-focused gaming - I actually think that we won't be anywhere close to seeing a properly ready product on D&D Beyond in the way most gamers imagine it will need to be. We're going to see a product that only hints at that demo WotC showed us, instead.

Goal: run Dragonbane - also easily achieved! I will plan to run this, probably on Saturday, after the Mothership campaign.

Prediction: Tales of the Valiant will arrive and be a big hit, may eat in to Pathfinder's market share but won't steal casuals from D&D. Much as I'd like to imagine it could, I don't see it happening. But I do believe that Kobold Press is well known for putting out good products, and that will garner attention within the more "core" RPGer crowd that may be seeking a D&D alternate. It's target of 5E compatibility will make it an easier sell.

Goal: run Traveller! Now that the newer release books are all in my hands I have a keen interest in building out a new Traveller campaign, and I might consider using The Great Rift set to do it. Probably a goal for later this year due to my interrupting the flow with Mothership in January.

Prediction: We will get D&D-like (what we used to call heartbreaker) fatigue in 2024 as numerous other D&D-inspired games finally release in response to the revamped D&D plus the post OGL kerfuffle. Examples include Tales of the Valiant, of course, and the second set of Pathfinder 2E revised book, but Shadowdark is a thing, as is a 2nd edition of 13th Age allegedly supposed to release some day, and there are a fair number of other D&D-based post-OGL products named last year which I recall as being scheduled for release this year.

Goal: Try to get at least 2 posts out every week this year on the blog. I'll try! It is a good writing exercise, this as always has been less about writing for an audience (yeah, may explain some posts lol) and more about writing for myself to keep my own interest engaged.

Prediction: We will not see a lot of new IP or gaming properties this year as the market is too knotted around D&D at the moment. Once the new D&D books and whatever happens with D&D Beyond finally drop, we will see a sag in the market for a bit, and possibly some waning interest over time, followed by maybe some more creative endeavours in 2025. This will be my "bold" prediction. Will see if it comes to pass next year.

Goal: pace myself. I am honestly getting older, so I keep reminding myself, and it can be hard to run two games a week these days while managing a business and family. I need to keep that in mind and not be shy about letting my gamer cohorts know that sometimes Wednesday or Saturday nights are just not good for gaming. Also, whenever possible, I need to foster more local IRL gaming because the VTT experience is just never really going to cut it for me. 

Okay, that's it for my gaming predictions and goals of 2024! I wish I had more of a non-D&D sort for predictions, but it's hard to come up with anything noteworthy. To that end:

--I could say "Chaosium will give up on Rivers of London" for example, but that's hardly a prediction and more just an observation that they backed a really esoteric IP (for the states, at least) and didn't do enough promotion. 

--Or I could speculate that we'll reach January 1 2025 and still be waiting for the third Esper Genesis book to arrive (I am going to call that one now), but that's mostly just a recognition that something on the business/publishing end of the publisher for that book series has gone very south and that I suspect the real reason that they haven't produced the book is lack of funds. 

--Likewise I could predict that Steve Jackson Games may announce a new edition of GURPS this year but I doubt it; I think the core developers/writers at SJ Games are too old and tired to take up the mantle of a new edition, and GURPS has languished in its own special corner of the cottage industry for so long that no new blood exists to come take up the task. 

--I could also predict 13th Age 2nd Edition won't see release this year, because they probably want to wait until well after D&D's next edition has saturated its way through the audience and generated a new group of expats for a different variant edition, but who really knows, Pelgrane Press publishes to the toot of its own horn. 

--I could also predict that Pathfinder, despite now having better, more organized and comprehensive books out, will flounder in the market due to the perceived buy-in being too high for most gamers, but it will still appeal to the subset of D&Ders who crave a bit more dynamic mechanical flair in their games. We'll see!

Anyway, Happy New Year!  

Deathbat's 2023 Best and Worst in Tabletop Gaming (and VTT)

 I got to try a variety of different new RPGs this year which was nice....I didn't stick to my usual barrel of tried-and-true regular games entirely, and as a result some interesting gems such as Mork Borg and Vaesen rose to the surface. I did a lot of collecting and reading this year, but much of it was focused on indie zine RPGs (see that series I have temporarily been ignoring!) and I managed to get aquainted with an entire subset of the hobby that I consider to be a movement toward hyper-focused, art zine style minimalist RPGs with a goal toward simple but effective rules and exotic, creative settings. This style of RPG is essentially a reproach to the modern obsession with giant books, huge campaigns, lavish color paintings for art and big price tags. I also got heavily in to collecting and reading the many offerings of Swedish gaming giant Free League Publishing, which relies on its own special brand of game system (the Year Zero Engine) to build various RPGs. 

What I didn't do this year was make a clean break from D&D though I did do so, fairly decisively, with Pathfinder 2E around --I want to say March?-- of this year. An inter-player conflict and a generally negative response toward the way Pathfinder 2E plays (using Roll20) from about half the players left me with a really bad taste in my mouth for the whole experience, which was made worse by the fact that I as a GM was really enjoying the system from the GM perspective. I subsequently got to be a player in another game, and while I did enjoy it, I found the excess tedium , of the mechanical gravitas of PF2E less to my liking as a player. Now that the new books are out, I am considering a re-entry, but I am also a bit gunshy.....and I know that choosing Pathfinder again may mean some players simply won't show. 

Anyway, here's my take on the Best and Worst for 2023!

RPG of the Year for 2023: Basic Roleplaying System

The new edition of BRP (5th edition) brings lots of minor tweaks and clarifications and a tighter focus, while still containing all the content of prior editions and the framework for any number of BRP powered genre adventures. It does not incorporate the Call of Cthulhu 7E changes as such, so that's about the only issue one might have with it (if you love the 7E changes, that is), though it does remain compatible and you could easily mesh the two iteratons together with minimal or no effort (as I have already done). So this is my Book of the Year overall!

Best RPG Discovery of 2023: Mork Borg

Sure its been out for a while, but Mork Borg was new to me! Sort of....I think I got the RPG a year or two ago, but found it perplexing as to full intent and set it aside. Following the OGL kerfuffle in January I decided to start exploring other RPGs (and simpler ones following the March meltdown as I call it), and Mork Borg rapidly grew to the #1 place on my list as I was able to finally grokk its deceptive emergent complexity out of a simple mechanical premise, and its elaborate yet deliberately obscure setting. Mork Borg may or may not be an ideal system for long term gaming, but it is most definitely a game you can pick up and play at any time and have fun with (as long as you enjoy brutal, grimdark Swede-punk eschatonic nightmare worlds, that is!)

Worst RPG Trend of 2023: Eternally Delayed Books 

There's a BattleZoo Book that was supposed to release months ago (EDIT: literally hours after writing this I got a notice the book "Strange & Unusual" is shipping today, so I guess this one is off the list). There's An Esper Genesis book that's like three years or more past due now. I'm still waiting for the Mothership 1E boxed set and it may not be out until March or later. For my own purposes, I've cut back on backing Kickstarters. By the time the books arrive I am often completely disinterested in the game at that point, having played and finished with it, and the new product is not enough to engender new interest. For various reason 2023 has felt like a tipping point for me: I am done with wondering if or when these products will ever manifest, time to stop pre-ordering or backing these uncertainties once and for all.

In a sense this issue has been around for many years and is as old as Kickstarter, but with one exception all of the delayed books I am waiting on are pre-orders or an ordinary sort, so I guess for me at least 2023 is the year this issue hammered in to the old noggin that its a bad idea.

Best RPG Style of 2023: The Zine RPG

I've spent a lot of time blogging about it this year, so it is no surprise that I think the new style of RPG fostered over the last few years has finally become its own cottage industry and now holds it place as a special subset of gaming in contrast to more mainstream RPGs. The focus on creativity, artistic exoticism, minimalist design and a very conscious effort to foster ad hoc play styles are all fairly unique to this new style of RPG, and those elements which are not unique still get realized in new and unique ways.

Worst Flub of 2023: Wizards of the Coast's OGL Kerfuffle

I won't belabor the issue, but WotC's attempt to destroy the OGL and force third party publishers into draconian contracts where they get a cut of the take backfired and caused the core supporters and fandom to lose trust in WotC. While the giant can no doubt continue with a broader casual fanbase, it will be interesting to see how this impacts them next year when the next edition of D&D arrives, ready to push people into WotC's online D&D Beyond playspace, located just west of micrtransaction hell, I am sure. What we're seeing here (I think) is the idea that D&D as an RPG may now be transcendent to RPGs as a hobby...the hobby will continue on and find new corners and darlings, while D&D itself becomes more, just, "D&D the hobby" and very occasionally a D&Der might be tempted into seeing what the whole other "tabletop are-pee-gee" hobby is all about. Honestly? It's kind of already like that, but the really interesting things is going to be whether or not the concept space of D&D Beyond and a focus on online microtransaction-based VTT gaming can sustain in a hobby who's key appeal has traditionally been that you can socialize around a table. Maybe, in the end, this just further bifurcates the hobby.

Best VTT Environment of 2023: PlayRole

I have to say that Role20 has done a lot to improve this year, so its a good VTT to play with, but my accidental discovery of PlayRole.com was rather profound, and our experimenting with it has proved to me that it is not only a viable place to run games, but preferential to my style of play. We're about to start a full fledged Mothership game tomorrow using PlayRole, so I expect to have a lot more to say about it as we go forward, but my current experiments with OSE, Mork Borg, Dead Mall and UVG has so far been rather satisfactory. 

I'm out of "Worsts" so is one more "Best" to ponder:

Best Revision of 2023: Pathfinder 2E V2    

Not much to say here, other than the new books (Player Core and GM Core) are considerably better organized and laid out, and I really appreciate that. The color scheme is nicer on the eyes, the focus on a new player experience is better, and the minor changes (Mainly extracting OGL content) are non-invasive for the most part. It is enough to tempt me back to trying Pathinder 2E again even though I've had a string of unfortunate incidents with it leading up to March when I abandoned the system entirely due to disgruntled player issues.   

I'll mention a runner-up: Swords & Wizardry Complete was revised by Mythmere Games (and is also back to publishing it), and the revision is very nice indeed! It's mostly the familiar system, but a bit more exposition and some minor but relevant additions make for an even more complete 0 edition retro experience.

2024 Expectations

So for 2024, what do I foresee? 

I'm focused on trying out more of these cool games I have read and discovered in 2023. I want to try out the Mork Borg spin-offs (CY_Borg, Death in Space, Vast Grimm and Pirate Borg) if opportunity presents itself. I want to use Liminal Horror to run The Bureau module, and Runecairn (or regular Cairn!) look fascinating.

I am 100% on board for 2024 with a not-too-distant BRP powered supers game, and I want to play a straight up Open Quest 3 game, especially now that Open Quest Dungeons is out. I am ready for ducks and mallards alike, because I still want to run Dragonbane and am disappointed the chance never presented itself in 2023. I would like to try the Alien RPG and Blade Runner RPG as well, but we'll see; I have never been as good at running IP-property-based games as I have more original fare. Most importantly though I plan to run a ton of Mothership and Traveller 2E, and I predict 2024 will be a big year for me when it comes to science fiction RPGs. We'll see!

I also want to chill out on collecting next year. I did a pretty good job this year, overall, but probably not by volume (I still bought as many books as ever, just many are smaller zine RPG books). I still need to reduce my overall collection, or my descendants will be cursing me in the future with the mess I leave behind. 

I may not get another chance to post before 2024, so see you all in the New Year!

A Deep Dive into the World of Gamer Vlogs (Thanks to the OGL 1.1 controversy)

 As a result of the hoopla over the leaked OGL 1.1 plans from Wizards of the Coast/Hasbro, I have been exposed to an array of takes and spins that I never knew existed....the world of Youtube Vlogs! I think it started with a link someone left on ENWorld.org to a vlog by Roll for Combat, which I incidentally discovered led to a small rabbit hole of 5th edition and Pathfinder 2E books from the Battle Zoo line, which I have now ordered (for Pathfinder 2E) because dang these things look neat.

Anyway, as you may know with Youtube, the moment you watch a thing it's algorhythm immediately concludes you must want a tidal wave of exactly the same content, and as a result I have been flooded with Youtube chanels by a bewildering array of gamers talking about the subject. I have made my relationship with Youtube's algorhythm far worse as a result; at this point it assumes all I want to watch in perpetuity now are old and gray gamers (mostly, but not all) griping to various degrees of hyperbole about the OGL 1.1 in particular and WotC in general. It's going to take a while to fix its expectations.....ah well.

Anyway, I have learned the following: whether your channel has 200 subs or 100,000, this is a disastrous OGL change for everyone. In fact, most of the videos I watched were from creators with around a few hundred to a few thousand subs, which means none of them are doing Youtube for the money.....it is my understanding that you need to crest at least 100,000 subs  to have a chance of making Youtube look like a job. The biggest channel so far that I was referred to is a guy called The Rules Lawyer with 13,300 subs. So......yeah, not high profit channels here.

Interestingly, Youtube never broke away from OGL-related recent posts, so it never assumed I wanted to watch the "let's play" videos, which is pretty much the domain of my 11 year old son who watches them all the time (and shows me his favorite odd highlights). So I guess the algorhythm is trained to assume older gamers don't give a crap about let's play videos. 

Everyone is worried about the OGL 1.1 as presented, and rightly so. The big concern is language which essentially puts the user of the OGL at perpetual risk of WotC pulling the rug out from under them with a 30 day notice at any time. If this were a property lease agreement it would be in violation of state and local laws....but WotC figures they can get away with this, I suspect, because their target crowd for the most part does not make anywhere near enough money to fight them in court.

 It seems like those most in the know believe that the OGL 1.0a can't be revoked....but it will be interesting to see what happens if they try to make a legal move against someone who continues to use that license going forward. 

Some Youtubers are also publishers (all ones I had never heard of(, and are now indicating they will proceed with generating or even retooling content so it does not have to be released as OGL content going forward. This makes me suspect that, assuming WotC sticks to its guns and releases this, they are about to accidentally unleash a new and spooky era of the Fantasy Heartbreakers. I bet most of you reading this blog know what I mean....but if you're young, prior to the invention of the original OGL 1.0 back in 1999ish when someone wanted to make their favorite D&D-like game, they would release it, often as a vanity project, packed full of obscure and often poorly conceived homebrew rule variations. Some of the more infamous such heartbreakers were legendary for cringe weirdness and lack of playability, literal game versions of "The Room" if you will (Synnabar I am looking at you!) Others that might rightly be considered fantasy heartbreakers nonetheless held on their own and became real games....Palladium Fantasy 1st edition started as a competent fantasy heartbreaker, in my opinion (and for the record I loved that edition, played it a lot from 1985-1986 after I discovered it).

One thing I thought amusing: the vast majority of the vloggers I saw were old guys like me, and I did not get a lot of referrals of younger vloggers and only one woman, The Arcane Library, who plans to retool her own home system Shadowdark RPG to a non-OGL product. I suspect this isn't due to the lack of female gamer Youtubers, but rather Youtube's algorhythm trying to guess what I want to watch....and firehosing me with such.

TL;DR What I ultimately learned about all this is....

1. There are a lot of older gamers out there making videos, and none of them look better or healthier than me, so who knows, maybe I could vlog and not feel too self conscious about it;

2. I never saw any channel with more than 25K subscribers, so at least the average vlogger is not at immediate risk of paying royalties to the King WotC;

3. Even if WotC pulls back and goes "psych!" no one's going to trust them after this; the age of the Fantasy Heartbreakers is about to return.

Lastly....I haven't seen Paizo comment at all. I bet they are already lawyering up to assert their continued use of the OGL 1.0a. Most likely though they are waiting to announce something after WotC actually coughs up an official release, possibly on the January 13th date.....should be an interesting reveal. Like watching a trainwreck type of reveal. 

WotC better hope that movie does well! If it tanks or appears uncool and kills interest in the general crowd chasing fad trends, that could be the wooden stake in their vampiric golden goose. 

EDIT: Two other things I learned in seeing all these vlogs....first, you are required to have a large shelf full of various editions of D&D behind you (and some other RPGs to improve your street cred) - this is almost as important as the other item: you better have a beard! The beard appears to be super important for some reason. 

Deathbat's Tabletop Gaming Predictions for 2019

Ah, this is going to be a tough one because the game industry (for RPGs, at least) is fairly stable and predictable these days. But I'll give it a shot with some suggestions for what may come to be:

1. D&D will see an official sourcebook for at least two of these: Spelljammer, Dark Suns, or Eberron

It's clear that Wizards of the Coast has been setting up all three for a return at some point, the question is just: when? And will we see more Ravnica/Planewalker stuff for Magic soon?

2. Far West will not appear this year, and therefore not appear this decade

I have no bone in this failed Kickstarter that is somehow still in limbo after something like seven years. Follow Erik Tenkar for occasional "updates" on the Kickstarter, but the only certainty anymore is that clocks are right twice a day, and this Kickstarter kicked the bucket a long time ago, but the author manages to keep stringing it out to hopefully run out the statute of limitations on lawsuits, I am guessing. 

3. Modiphius will hit some sort of Criticality this year

Modiphius is a prolific publisher and distributor, and just acquired the controls to the entire World of Darkness line in the wake of some shake ups at Paradox/White Wolf over poor editorial controls. As a result Modiphius now has a ridiculous number of titles and IPs under its belt, possibly more than they can handle, although I admit I have no information on total staff size or arrangements.

In general Modiphius has been brilliant at handling high quality print and PDF distribution, Kickstarters and distribution deals. I don't know how long they can sustain, and given that they were the only retailer online I ordered from in the last two months that was not quite able to fulfill their orders within the same month that the orders were placed, I suspect that they may be a bit overwhelmed. My prediction is that this year Modiphius could do very well, but it is possible --likely, even-- that they have bitten off more than they can chew at last, and I wonder if some of their product lines are maybe not moving as fast as they should? Even Cubicle 7 seems to have streamlined their product schedule, for example.

It could be that Modiphius is effectively sliding in to a new category of publisher/distributor and maybe is closer to Fantasy Flight Games in terms of scope now than, say, Cubicle 7. But I predict either way that we'll see some sort of impact on their high volume of product output this year.

4. D&D will see more than four major releases from WotC this year

D&D seems to be doing well enough that we're seeing more product creep, which is either a good thing or not depending on who you are. I predict we will see five major releases this year instead of four like last year, with some clever tie-ins to work it all together.

5. Pathfinder 2.0 Release will please the hardcore and capture the curious but fail to expand market share

I don't think this is a brave prediction, unfotunately. I think that the open playtest led to an unfortunate feedback loop in which players turned off by the playtest simply bailed out, and the ones willing to embrace it stayed in, and as a result the playtest will be a solid refinement of what that core likes, while missing the information necessary to expand the game to include the larger overall audience. Will it be playable? Absolutely. Will it be worth playing? Only if it offers an experience that is competitive with D&D in a way that is going to capture new players. Unfortunately I think it's going in the opposite direction.

6. Palladium may go belly up

Possibly not until 2020, but I have a feeling that Palladium will hit rock bottom and finally go kaput this year. Too much negativity from burned fans over Robotech may be the cause, but it's chiefly due to the fact that while many could argue Palladium's games have been stuck in the nineties, now even their business practices are stuck in the nineties, and this along with what seem to be perpetual financial woes may be it for them. I could possibly be wrong here.....but only in that this may not happen until 2020 or maybe 2021, but since I need something contentious for my list this is a good bet.

7. The Fantasy Trip gets a serious revival

This is a no-brainer: TFT is being released, in print, by Marchish. Steve Jackson Games is providing an encouraging online storefront for new product. We'll see the release of classic TFT lead either to serious expansions or a 2nd edition announced before the end of the year.

8. BRP revised finally appears

Fingers crossed, we will see the new 32 page BRP book and maybe an updated Mythic Iceland in PDF at least before December 2019. Of course, Chaosium still needs to get print versions of the Glorantha Bestiary and GM Screen out, which I sincerely hope does happen....even if you're not a Glorantha fan, the game is amazing and deserves attention. It will MAKE you a Glorantha fan!

....okay, that's enough of that! I'll do one for Computer Gaming next.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Commemorative Editions, or "I just Got Internet Whiplash"

I would honestly regard this as bigger news than the 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons announcement...

First is the ENWorld article here.

Next is actual press anouncement here.

..aaaand here's the WotC page for the PHB.

I for one am amazed that they are doing this, and actually this really suggests to me that WotC is now officially "thinking outside the box" about what D&D is and who plays it (and who they want as their customers).

SO yeah, I'll be ordering these new prints of AD&D, and I think I see a brand new 1st edition campaign in the near future to enjoy them!

Wizards of the Coast Product Updates through April

WotC has put up their release schedule through April 2012. Looks like Heroes of the Elemental Chaos is the only actual book being released in that period for 4E. Hmmmmm. I'm sure the two tile sets and the boardgame that they are releasing make the product schedule look full from WotC's side of things...but....sigh.

This is why I like Paizo. Those guys know how to crank out books, and it seems to me that they know that not all gamers will buy all books, but variety is the spice of life, and inevitably Paizo will release a Pathfinder sourcebook or module that will snag someone's money, somewhere. I really have no idea if this is how it's actually done, but it seems to me that releasing 5 products with, say, a 20,000 print run and the expectation that each product will appeal to a different gamer (and a few collecting all of it) is a better approach than putting all the money behind one product with 100,000 copies, and hoping that all gamers everywhere will buy it simply because they are starved for content.*



*On the plus side, if someone were trying to find a game line that was less expensive, WotC's got that part covered. With their rate of releases these days I'm looking at only three book purchases for 4E over the course of the next 7 months; I'll probably buy at least 1-3 Pathfinder books every month in that same time period!