A Review of 2025 Play

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. System & Adventure Breakdown
  3. Memorable Highlights
  4. Facilitator Shoutouts
  5. All the Data
  6. Conclusion

Introduction

The end of year awards are making their rounds, and being a lover of a data, I'm doing a breakdown on what I played, what I ran, and some fun analytics of it all.

System & Adventure Breakdown

System Breakdown

This year, I played a total of 24 new systems! I played a bit of everything. Story games, OSR, Powered by the Apocalypse, etc. Let's get into it! Here's a list of all the systems I played and when I played them. I've marked GM in subscript next to the games I ran myself. Systems played for the first time are highlight in bold.

Q1 2025

Q1 Total: 9

Q2 2025

Q2 Total: 2

Q3 2025

Q3 Total: 8

Q4 2025

Q4 Total: 18

Q4 was my best quarter for both playing and running games. Of the 37 sessions I played in, I was the DM for 13 of them. Shockingly below 50% which is something I think I'll strive for in 2026.

Mothership was my post played system. Absolutely no one should be suprised by this after I participated in Over/Under.

Category

I'm curious as to what type of system I gravitate towards. I like to think of myself as someone who will play anything once (genuinely). Am I self selecting that/surrounding myself with people who run a variety of games or not?

Looking at the numbers, it's a pretty even spread of OSR and OSR-adjacent games such as Mork Borg, Into the Odd, etc. The OSR one is unsurprising, but I'm glad to see a large variety across the board. Also very proud at the number of system playtests here. Exciting stuff!

2026 Goal: Play more FitD and Solo games.

Gender Ratio

After writing my Appendix N post earlier this year and having a thorough discussion about gender, I'm wanting to see how many women/genderfluid designers I play games by. I did research on all the systems I played this year, and I'll highlight all the women and non-binary folks involved in creating these systems. It was a whopping 6 of the 28 (~21%). They were the following:

  1. Shadowdark by Kelsey Dionne
  2. Old Gods of Appalachia by Steve Shell (he/him) and Cam Collins (she/her)
  3. Orbital Megastructure by Evlyn Moreau
  4. Urban Shadows by Magpie Games (Co-Owners Mark Diaz Truman (he/him) and Marissa Kelly (she/her))
  5. Cloud Empress by watt (they/them)
  6. Orbital Blues by Sam Sleney (he/him) and Zachary Cox (they/them)

I knew it would be low, but I didn't think it would be this low. I am shocked and saddened by this.

2026 Goal: Play more systems by women, nonbinary, and other genderfluid folks.

Adventure Breakdown

I primarily played published adventures this year with a handful of playtests. The last remaining few were custom games created by great GMs on the fly.

  1. Mrs. Mayfield's Secret
  2. Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur
  3. Funfair Frights (playtest)
  4. Wonky Willie's Authentic Interactive Extravaganza
  5. The Fast and the Furriest (custom)
  6. With a Bang, or a Whimper (included with core rulebook)
  7. Deluge at Drizzle Distillery
  8. Spawning Grounds of the Crab-Men
  9. Mind Dungeon of the Crystal Eye (playtest)
  10. The Strange Lab of Dr. Erichtho (playtest)
  11. The Dare
  12. A Wicked Secret
  13. Through Ultan's Door
  14. All's Well (unreleased book, played at a con)
  15. Salt of the Earth (included in the rulebook)
  16. Funeral for the Anti-Saint (a hex inside the Land of the Dead)
  17. Barkeep on the Borderlands
  18. Year of the Rat
  19. ABYSS // EXE
  20. Naughty List

It seems premade adventures are what I'm mainly playing. This makes sense, since all these sessions were one-shots, and I didn't participate in any camapaigns this year except a Call of Cthulhu one.

Memorable Highlights

I want to spend a brief moment highlighting favorite table moments that are still sticking out in my mind as the new year begins.

  1. Crash Pandas: I got my sister who was 14 at the time, and it was her first ttrpg. She had a blast, drew her character in advanced, really took to embodying her character. It was a delight to give her that.
  2. Shadowdark: I played Shadowdark at GenCon, and the GM for this session not only had the map loosely drawn out with tokens for us, but also props for torches. Each time someone lit a torch, he had a LED light that sat in front of the player holding the torch set to a 1-hour timer which added so much immersion.
  3. Orbital Megastructure: Evlyn's sub-procedures in this sytem are so fun such as each player getting to draw a single line to break up how a node is organized and what's inside it. It's a fun minigame of map making that broke up the equipment management side of things.
  4. Cloud Empress: I ran Cloud Empress as part of a Halloween One-Shot series, and Warren had another player turn himself into a bunch of cockroaches. The party of 3 fled on a 2-person thopter with warren swarming the body of another player as roaches. They all successfully fled the Strange House.
  5. Mothership: Year of the Rat: One of my sessions of running this, a player said to the party rather than exploring this ship from end-to-end, let's hop back in our shuttle and enter from all the other entrances instead. Brilliant usage of the shuttle they had, I thought, and no other party I encountered chose to do it.

Facilitator Shout-outs

People who run games don't get enough credit, in my opinon. Much like I did with the Hexmas map and gave a verbal Stocking Stuffer to participants, I want to do the same here with a handful of GMs who welcomed me at their table in 2025.

  1. Jess (BadgeQuest, Crash Panads, Call of Kid-thulhu): A bestie. Thank you for bringing more story driven and horror games to our table. I love all of them and appreciate all the prep you do.
  2. Jason Thompson Bradley (Dreamland): I am SO excited to continue seeing the work you do on this. I hope to join another playtest this year if you're still running them. Such a neat take on language and clocks.
  3. Evlyn Moreau (Orbital Megastructure): I keep thinking about this game and its structure and as soon as you tell me I can run it, you bet I will be. Keep up the great work!
  4. Ken (Wares Blades 1989): The prep you did for this singular session was phenomenal, and I appreciate you bringing a game I had never played into my world. I hope to be at your table again soon!
  5. Amanda P. (Cairn Adventure): It was lovely to meet you, and I am making a concerted effort in 2026 to run more of your stuff! Your writing is concise and descriptive, and I look forward to more games with you. :D
  6. Warren (Project Wayward): What a beautiful evening with delightful folks. It was magic, and I hope we can all gather 'round a table for something like that again. <3
  7. Aaron (Mothership): Last but not least, a close friend that's always scheming with me to run a one-shot or a campaign because why not? Thanks for always runnin' stuff and willing to jump into any kind of session at a moment's notice.

All the Data

If you're a data fiend, here are the numbers from everything above I said in a nice, condensed form!

Most X

Total Y

Favorite Z

Other

Conclusion

The data supports how much I love the opportunity to run a one-shot. With enough experience, I'm looking to run 1-2 mini-campaigns, specifically an open table of Cloud Empress.

Doing research on all the systems I've played last year reinforced for me how I want to focus on playing games from a more diverse audience. I knew it was a problem, but seeing the numbers after playing a myraid of systems highlights the importance of it. If you're a woman/non-binary/genderfluid ttrpg creator, please reach out to me as I'd love to explore what you've created.

With that, I'm off to write about how my playtest for my first game (wow is this real???) went.

Happy New Year!

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