Games I’d like to play in 2015

Inspired by +Ken H over at The Rusty Battle Axe, here are games I want to be involved with in 2015, either by playing them, reading and critiquing, or both.

GURPS Alien Menace: Yeah, fine. It’s mine. But it went on hiatus due to foreseen events and loss of free time. But I think hopefully by the end of the first quarter of Calendar 2015, I’ll be able to resurrect this one. I’m not lacking ideas, and I think I’d like to make sure that I’ve got a few more players in the stable, but this is a campaign I want to get back to.

Fate: I’d dearly love to play in a few games using the FATE system. Something that plays to its strengths, such as superheroes (I think), and something that plays to my system-of-choice’s strengths, like current-day or near-future martial arts, special ops, or similar. I’d want to play enough sessions to get a feel for it.

Night’s Black Agents: My initial run-in with the GUMSHOE system was not favorable. I was in the wrong mind-space for the game, and so I was fighting the system. I’d like to try this supremely awesome setting with a GM that can make it sing.

Other Options and Various Mechanics


There are games and systems out there that I want to become more familiar with for various reasons. Firstly, while I dearly love GURPS, and I have a ton of fun playing D&D, there are rather a lot of other places and games and settings in which people spend their time. If I’m going to do more than dabble, I would like to become familiar with them.

Some of them I’ll at least read the rules, if I don’t actively search out and play.

Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars: Edge of the Empire: I always loved Star Wars when it was d6 by WEG. One of the best campaigns I’ve ever run happened in that system. It’s also one of the more popular, so I hear, games out there. If I’m going to diversify in 2015 a bit in my blogging, I want to hit some of the more popular games out there.

Savage Worlds: I’ve heard that this is where people who used to play GURPS went. Looking at the quick-start rules, I feel like I need to be convinced, but I’m willing to try. The overall system seems to be roll a polyhedral die vs. a target number, with exploding dice from d4 through d12. With a tagline of Fast! Furious! Fun!, making for an easy entry to roll and shout gaming with fairly coarse-grained rules.

Shadowrun, Fifth Edition: I remember playing Shadowrun in college. I also remember loving the setting, and the mechanics . . . not so much. But it’s been a while, and I guess we’d have to see if dice pool games have grown on me or not. It looks like Catalyst has a ton of support for the game, so that seems to the good. If nothing else, the setting has always been very compelling, and adventures could probably be ported pretty easily if one found game-mechanics love elsewhere.

Numenera: I might have to track this one down for the quality of +Monte Cook‘s website alone. Holy crap, that’s a gorgeous site, and I’m not usually given to waxing lyrical about websites. But I remember quite the buzz about this game. The character sheet looks pretty unique. Definitely want to take a look.

Parting Shot


If you think you see a pattern here, you’re not wrong. Looking at the rolling list of popular games on the ICv2 retailer buzz data seemed like a good way to skim the market and get familiar with what’s out there, and probe for strengths and weaknesses in various areas. Where do the systems excel, and where do they get in the way. What kind of play experiences do they facilitate?

I’m sure I’ve missed some, and am open to suggestions.