Happy 2020 (nearly)! Like previous years (2018, 2017, 2016, 2015), I’m taking a look back at the year in Mook, Game Geekery, and GURPS/Steve Jackson Games as 2019 draws to a close.
First, some numbers. These were the most popular posts written in 2019:
The top three of those five posts provide ready-to-use GURPS characters or sheets, so that’s something people clearly find useful. (The fourth outlines an upcoming project for using GURPS for one-shots, and the fifth is a rumination on playing some D&D for the first time in many, many years).
Regardless of year, these are my most popular posts since the blog began (as Game Geekery):
Only the order has changed since 2017, with “My GM Kit” dropping from #3 to #5.
The Patreon continued to be in rough shape in 2019, much to my frustration and embarrassment. Updating and putting more energy into Game Geekery in general, and the Patreon specifically, is at the top of 2020’s priorities.
The unofficial GURPS Discord remained a bright point for this year! We continue to slowly grow the community, there’s always GURPS (and other) discussions going on about this and that, gamers and GMs get together for games — it’s just a great daily hub for gettin’ GURPS-y, and I’m very thankful that so many others have come together to share and help us all have a little more fun.
The server is here, swing on by!
Steve Jackson Games continued to publish a great mix of new and reprinted GURPS material this year, with three particular stand-outs that match my current streamlined GMing style perfectly:
The Dungeon Fantasy RPG (Powered by GURPS) continued rolling along as well, supplemented by excellent licensed products from Gaming Ballistic. It’s great to see licensed third-party GURPS material, especially when it’s this well done.
In addition to GURPS, the year was also strong for The Fantasy Trip, and even Car Wars is making a comeback with a current Kickstarter (still a few days to back it!)
It was a tough year outside of gaming, and as a consequence things inside of gaming took a nosedive as well. The two face-to-face groups I was part of — one, DMing a D&D 5E game, the other playing a variety of systems — both ended. I didn’t run any of my usual Halloween one-shots. The game I’ve been looking forward to GMing for a co-worker has had to be postponed numerous times (over a year at this point). Apart from actually playing, most of my creative and online writing has also fallen off due to all of the above-mentioned, hitting my Patrons and blog-readers the most.
I did manage to make it to two of the three local Strategicon conventions in 2019. At Gamex, I GMed a “Starship Troopers” game that was a lot of fun, but I made some poor choices during prep that kept it from being really great. Lessons learned.
The game I ran at Gateway, however, really clicked. It was set in my pan-dimensional city of Locus, and for the first time we created PCs at the table instead of using pre-gens (with yet another streamlined version of GURPS character creation). The PCs were great fun, the adventure ran differently for all three groups — everyone just had a blast, and the relatively simple version of GURPS I used fit perfectly, to the extent that it’s inspired me to continue exploring ever-simpler iterations of GURPS in some upcoming projects.
I also spent a bit of time fiddling around with the two Virtual Tabletops I use, Fantasy Grounds and Roll20, with an eye towards GMing more games online, but more on that a bit below.
It was a very “dry” year, game-wise, apart from those few oases, and at a time when I could’ve really used distraction.
Predictably, all of the above had a huge impact on (not) reaching the goals I had outlined for 2019, for a final tally of two goals reached out of six.
I’ve cut a few of last year’s goals:
I hope you’ll continue enjoying my GURPS sheets and handouts, pre-made one-shots, pre-gen characters and more in the coming year. Thank you so much for sticking around through such a challenging year. Here’s to 2020 being full of fun, friends, and GURPS!