Here’s our best and worst of 2012 in RPGs. Enjoy and a have a happy New Year!
Tabletop RPGs
Best Adventure: Streets of Zobeck
Burglary, mad science, demons – really, it’s all covered in these 7 awesome adventures for the anti-hero.
Best Setting: Midgard
Wolfgang Baur’s home campaign brought to life over the years but most substantially with this year’s RPG campaign guide of the same name. Seemingly inspired by old school campaign guides and real world mythology (Norse, fey) there’s great depth and world variety here especially with the pantheon (love how Midgard handles clerical domains), status rules, dragon kings, Leylines, unique takes on races – really, what isn’t there to love?
Best Supplement: Gamemastery Chase Cards
Another great example of Paizo innovation, these cards help expand on something that’s normally poorly documented in RPG rules (surprising considering chases are common happenstance in play). These cards help make the chase scenes more dramatic, more interesting for players, and easier for game masters to run. Well done.
Best Tabletop RPG Innovation: Google Hangouts
Networking and play seem to be growing online due to this not so recent tech – it will be interesting to see if this continues to grow or fatigue out.
Best RPG Kickstarter: Monte Cook’s Numenera
Funding new IP that traditional publishers would skirt past is exactly what Kickstarter is for, and Numenera is a perfect example of the fans and a creator coming together like peanut butter and chocolate. It blew past it’s initial 20k goal hitting half a mil and many stretch goals, and without Kickstarter fans may not have the chance to see this upcoming campaign setting in all its glory.
Best RPG Hobby Mashup: Crochet and RPGs
This:
And this:
Quite possibly the best mashup of all time.
Best Beta: DnDNext
Love it or hate (and there’s many on both sides) Mike Mearls is certainly getting buzz aplenty and players invested in the latest iteration of the classic game.
Best RPG Craiglist Ad: The Infamous DnD Bachelor Party Ad
Requirements from the actual ad:
- Dungeon Master experience in Dungeons and Dragons (preferably in 3rd or 3.5 Editions)
- Must be able to provide a picture including the face and body…
- It is preferable that cup size be at least C or greater.
- If books are needed it must be stated ahead of time however it would be preferable if the DM had her own.
“I ensure you that nothing else is expect of you other than an exciting adventure.”- Uh huh. Catch the original here:
Board Games
Best Board game of the Year: Lords of Waterdeep
Finally an approachable Waterdeep, a Waterdeep even the geekiest among us can share with glee with friends who didn’t spend their adolescent nose deep in a Forgotten Realms module. A simple, strategic and competitive game with high quality components and great art that even your non-geek friends will like playing. Thank you WotC.
Biggest Board Game disappointment: The Lord of the Rings: Nazgul
All the potential (a co-op game where you can play as Nazguls, I mean come on) and all the power and popularity of the biggest RPG franchise behind it. Sadly it seems more money was put into licensing than the game art, components, rule writing or into playtesting this awkward co-op cube pulling experience – and it’s by no means the worse LOTR game ever printed.
part 2 coming shortly…
[…] might want to look at the “Best and Worst RPGs of 2012″ from Wandering Monster Studios (part 1 and part 2). These lists include not only RPG products, but computer games, novels, movies and […]
[…] might want to look at the “Best and Worst RPGs of 2012″ from Wandering Monster Studios (part 1 and part 2). These lists include not only RPG products, but computer games, novels, movies and […]
[…] Wandering Monster’s Best and Worst RPGs of 2012: Part 1 (wanderingmonsterstudios.wordpress.com) […]
You are welcome – the crochet is simply awesome – can’t wait to see how you top it in 2013 🙂
Wow! Thanks for including some of my crochet work in your ‘best of’. 🙂 That means a lot! There’s gonna be some awesome stuff this year~