14 Things That Happened To Games In 2014

Oh 2014, how will we remember you?

That'll probably help, if you don't have a tattoo gun handy, though here's a list of what happened in RPGs this year:

1. Last Gasp got an awesome free instant random generator thingie set up which is the most useful GMing tool I've seen in ages. Most of the rest of the planet can burn if I can keep that.

2. Contessa got a solid and big-tent crew of gamers together and shored up its position as the best and most important convention/event factory in online gaming. P.S. It also just happens to be completely run by women.

3. The only bad news: OSR blog veteran Huge Ruined Scott closed up shop on his once-beloved outpost of arch worldbuilding and early-onset curmudgianity...

4. ...though Basic Red ("So why, in monster manuals bloated with 14 different kinds of vampires, far too many interchangeable reptile men, mermaids, DOLPHINS, WATER WITH A MEANY FACE ON IT, and JUST REGULAR WATER all statted up as off the shelf options to murder your players, how absolute gold like the Kappas gets lost in the shuffle?") and Goblin Punch  ("They resemble huge, predatory cats with long necks (like an eel), no fur or eyes, and gelatinous flesh.  Visible in the center of their semi-translucent body is a football-sized egg, which contains a embryonic princeling (very valuable to the proper sorts)" stepped up their game mightily to attempt to fill the void.

5. John Peterson--author of Playing at The World and the only actually trying RPG historian started putting out articles over at Medium featuring, y'know, research and, like, looking things up and, like, sourcing.

6. The Google Plus RPG community got awesomed-up to the point where you can pretty much generate cool d100 tables to order by just asking for ideas and letting them sit there over night.

7. Kelvin Green showed people a new and better way to put out basic adventure modules with Forgive Us.

8. The 9th World Bestiary gave everybody some cool new monster pictures and sci-fi ideas to play with, even those of us who aren't playing Numenera yet.

9. Tired, angry indies Burning Wheel Headquarters and Onyx Path put out overwrought, derivative bullshit that tanked because everybody who wasn't in the credits saw right through it.

10. The fifth edition of something called "Dungeons & Dragons" came out and exceeded expectations, rapidly becoming almost everybody's second favorite edition.

11. Over here, we played a lot of games, Marilyn Manson talked about playing D&D and his guitarist came over to play. And I wrote a lot about stuff including art history for D&D people and the Churches of Tiamat and Demogorgon.

12. In July the RPG Drama Club finally slid all their pieces onto "Mess with Zak and Mandy" and failed and fucked up so hard they made a rule against saying my name on RPGnet...

13. ...despite or because of which Red & Pleasant Land came out and kicked ass and grossed enough in a week to pay rent in downtown LA for years and more than Vornheim did in its whole run and more than most RPG products make, like, ever.

14. And finally, here at the end of all things, Topless Robot announced 2014 was the best year ever for tabletop games. As the only person to have worked on both of the products in the top two, allow me to say: you're welcome.

So: 2015, Year of the Goat--bring it. I'm gonna finish rewriting every monster in the Manual, watch my players take on a tournament of the Knights of Tiamat and write an adventure about black metal viking amazons. What are you doing?