2024 Game plan

While these plans never work out as designed, I want to inspire others to plan their gaming year. Let’s go!

My ideal pace is running a game every other week, so up to 26 sessions a year. Holidays can be more frequent (or less, if out of country), and business travel eats into the weekends – we usually play on Saturdays. In 2023 we managed a little over 20 sessions, so let’s take that as a goal, but the early year looks difficult with a house move and loads of business travel coming up. We might not get around to more than Candlekeep (ongoing), Monsterhearts (there’s a big demand), Alien (already signed up), and Blade Runner (ongoing) this year.

Almost certainly happening

• Monsterhearts 2: My players are asking for it, and I’m always excited to run Monsterhearts. We haven’t run the second edition yet! Too many players are interested, though, and I will need to limit seats. Planning a short campaign, maybe four games with long character generation. MH games at my table tend to burn bright and burn out in three to four sessions.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Candlekeep: ongoing. Details in a separate post.
• Alien RPG: Chariot of the Gods: I had too many players for just one run of the starter set, so I’m running it again. Planned to be over three sessions. Details in a separate post.
• Blade Runner RPG: Fiery Angels: This is the second boxed set for the Blade Runner RPG. We loved the first one and will be continuing both campaigns – same as Alien RPG, we had too many excited players, so I decided to run the first box set twice. What is it with these Free League licensed games, hmm? Details in a separate post.

Wishlist

• Call of Cthulhu: I bought the current (seventh) edition books from a trip to Stockholm last year. We’ve played the fifth edition a lot, a long time ago, along with some Delta Green and a single game of Trail of Cthulhu (which is cool!). I feel like I want to revisit what playing the original game felt like, as it was all before Powered by the Apocalypse and Fate changed the way we play games to a degree. I’m planning on running at least the adventure in the core books, set in the iconic era and environment of New England in the 1920-1930s. Might be two sessions. In advance I am a little concerned about how our current, very character centric playing style, will fit the very old school investigation focus of the game.
• DIE RPG: DIE is the comic book I’ve loved the most since Sandman and Wicked & Divine, and I can’t wait to play the RPG again. We played the beta over a short campaign, and I want to take a swing at “the grand campaign”. Needs the right crew and quite a bit of prep from me (which I realize is against the ethos of the game).
• Delta Green: There are so many cool prewritten scenarios for this, and I just love the sheer hopelessness of the setting. Likely some 1990s action. Single scenario over two to three sessions.
• Lancer: Now Room For a Wallflower: It’s a potentially long campaign I’ve been looking at for some years now. What’s holding me back is that I want miniatures to play with. I largely got a 3D printer to make miniatures for Lancer! Once I have enough, we will play. Needs a specific crew who’s into tactical combat as Lancer is very much a successor of D&D 4E, a game we loved, with slow, tactical combat.
• Systems For Punks: In anticipation of Cyberpunk RED and Cyberpunk 2077, I wrote my own cyberpunk game. You can play it now for pay what you want on my itch.io. I’m planning an overhaul of the skill system as I don’t like the evaluating you need to do with every roll, and once that’s done, there will be more playtesting. I ended up low key hating RED and being obsessed with 2077, there’s still drive to finish this.
• Small games: I have some supposedly single session games on the shelf I want to try. Skeletons, Alice is Missing, Quiet Year (I’ve played it before, but never run it, and not this version).
• DIY Temptation Island: Some of my players are into trash TV with me, and we’ve thought about how you could play an RPG in the vein of the reality TV show Temptation Island Finland. Drama Llamas looks like the way to go, and at some point I’ll take a stab at that. If you have ideas or tips, let me know!
• Mörk Borg: I have a lot of unused material for MB, including my own. Our first campaign was great and I’d love to play more! Low prep, low intensity. While a lot of folks see MB as a joke, all style over substance, it’s a beatiful design that plays super well at the table, and my favorite OSR adjacent system.
• CY_BORG: However: Mörk Borg’s cyberpunk sibling is calling to me, and might have to jump in queue.
• Heavy Gear, new edition: When this launches, I know I’ll need to play it. While I find the original system really not to my taste anymore, I have a lot of love for the setting and the game. In terms of shelf space in my RPG collection, it’s an easy win. The early rules drafts are promising, and the current rules for the tabletop wargame are very good – it’s going in a good direction.

P.S. Middle of the year update

We’re now into August, and the second half’s gaming dates are in the calendar. It’s going a lot better than I expected! I’ve written up notes about everything we’ve played, links below.

I find that with a busy work life, having gaming dates in the calendar for half a year in advance can feel like a wonderful gift you’ve given yourself. I know I wouldn’t muster the energy to put these games together, much less schedule them, if they weren’t already in the calendar. So I make the big scheduling spreadsheet exercise twice a year and reap the benefits every week for the rest of the year.

Already played:

• D&D Candlekeep: we’re up to book eight.
• Alien: Chariot Of The Gods: I ran the boxed set twice.
• Monsterhearts 2: we had a magnificent short game, and are planning on continuing with a second season.
• DIE: we just finished a wonderful game of Bizarre Love Triangles.
• Alice Is Missing: played. Will play again some day.

In the calendar:

• Eat The Reich: we’ll be destroying nazis this week.
• Blade Runner: Fiery Angels: had to postpone the first run, but the second group is up in a couple of weeks.
• Call Of Cthulhu: I am starting the mega campaign Masks Of Nyarlathotep in December.
• Heavy Gear: scheduled for later this year.

Bonus! I am thinking of running Trophy Dark as an introductory game for a player new to my table. Let’s see if that happens – we’ve previously used The Mountain Witch for that purpose, and I want to try something new.