Never Stop Exploring New Games

There are so many unexplored ideas in game design that it would be foolish to think you've seen or heard it all. However, given my many years of dedicated research & review, it can certainly seem like there's rarely something new out there to discover. But those few hidden gems, when found, make it all worthwhile.

I stalk Kickstarter, prowl game stores and garage sales, and consume all of the extra media bits I can. Podcasts, books, blogs, forums - they've all got a lot of people around them excited about all sorts of things RPG related. But the further I go, the further it all starts to blur together. D20s and D6s lose meaning. New books are more often becoming disappointments, as I come across mechanics I've seen, stories I've heard, and settings that remind me of that one other setting.

I'm nearing what I'm tempted to call the "bleeding edge" of RPG design and discussion. I'm right there, ready to devour new content as it comes, while still digging through the heaps of history we have for those hidden gems. At times, both activites can seem fruitless. But I recently finished reading a pile of books I bought a few months ago, and I am delighted to report that I encountered a number of surprises.

First, I read through Wyrd's Through the Breach. They had me at "dark fantasy steampunk", but add in excellent production quality and gorgeous art, and I had high hopes. Unfortunately, their promise of a unique system fell flat, as their card-based resolution system was more than a bit overly complex. That, and their unique take on leveling up each session was - well - not that unique, and once again basically overly complex for what it needed to be.

Second, I found a gem. A fine, rough-around-the-edges gem that honestly just needed a little bit more editing to make it great. Warbirds is a recent Kickstarter game that I found at GenCon. At its core, it's an extremely simple 1d6, three-stat system that has a few fancy tidbits that go with its fun Ace-Pilot setting. But what gets me excited is actually its streamlined rules for aerial combat. Since that's what the game is largely about, it certainly shines bright. I highly recommend you check it out.

Third, I got a cheesy 1920's pulp adventure game, another genre that I was super pumped for. Unfortunately, Pulp Fantastic turned out to be the definition of not special. Apparently the "vortex system" is just a mix of borrowed mechanics from nearly every game you've heard of, and includes a rusty form of character creation and progression.

Fourth, I sat down to dig my teeth into Castle & Crusades' introductory box, Tainted Lands. Turns out I didn't need to though, since it's some sort of bastardized D&D 3.x system. I found nothing new or exciting in here, which was terribly disappointing considering the box's pre-made adventures and character sheets, all ready to go on an old-school dungeon crawl. 

Lastly, I read Abyss, an older game I picked up at some random shop. It's not wonderful, certainly, and you can feel its age. However, it tickled me just in the right spots as it worked to simplify what clearly was an old war game system (not unlike D&D), boiled it down to an easy, probably pretty fun system. It uses a giant pool of d6s, with only 6s counting as a success. It has three varieties of health pools that were both used as initial armor and for fueling special abilities before actually hitting a character's essence (HP). They have a smooth initiative/action point system that, while I'll never use because it violates the Worst Game Mechanic principal, was interesting to think about and explore how it would play out. Overall, it had a more old-school feel than Tainted Lands, while still giving me new meat to chew on. Excellent!

On the newer(est?) side of things, just today, I backed this guy, with high hopes of something both amusing and different: Gobblin' . Not only does it use the best die, d12 (and they understand that it's the best die), it mixes the best fantasy creature with the best setting for that creature. Check it out, and let me know what you think!

Never stop exploring. There's always going to be something out there that surprises you - and when it does - it actually feels better and better the more rare it gets! Each new game brings us new fun, expanding our horizons so that we too can make new, awesome games.