2015 in Books
by Ramanan Sivaranjan on January 02, 2016
At the start of the year I had a goal to buy no more than one RGP book a month. This is less about money and more about actually making sure I have the time to really sit and enjoy the books I buy: it’s easy to collect RPG books for the sake of collecting. Anyway, I didn’t really come close to my goal. (I actually did worse than the previous year I tried this experiment.)
The bulk of what I buy continues to be books from the OSR for use with D&D, but there were a few exceptions. I grabbed Ryuutama’s PDF when it was put up for sale, and then quickly upgraded to a hardcover. The game looks like an SNES manual, and doesn’t remind me of any other RPG I’ve played. I backed The Warren on Kickstarter because I thought Bully Pulpit’s previous game Night Witches was well done. That book arrived at the end of the year and looks to be the game about rabbits I didn’t know I wanted to play. I finally bought Dungeon World, after enjoying Perilous Wilds so much.
There are lots of cool zines and small modules being put out by individuals in the OSR now. A Pernicious Pamphlet and In the Woods are stand out examples of this sort of work. I am hoping to make a zine from bits and pieces of my Carcosa game this coming year.
I only bought one book from Wizards of the Coast. The stuff they put out isn’t really of interest to me. I wish they had an indie-imprint doing more interesting work. Out of the Abyss is an enjoyable read, but it’s also large and cumbersome, and I can’t imagine actually using the book to run a game.
If you were curious what books are in the running for The Ramanan Sivaranjan Awards for Excellence in Gaming for 2015, here you go:
| RPG | Date | Category | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Beyond the Wall | January | OSR | |
| 2 | Sol | February | ??? | |
| 3 | The Stygian Garden of Abelia Prem | February | LotFP | |
| 4 | Yoon-Suin: The Purple Lands | February | OSR | |
| 5 | Infernal Realms‡ | February | P&P | |
| 6 | The Pale Lady¥ | February | LotFP | |
| 7 | Kingdom | March | Indie | |
| 8 | Microscope | March | Indie | |
| 9 | Fire on the Velvet Horizon | April | OSR | |
| 10 | Perilous Journeys | April | DW | |
| 11 | Ryuutama | June | Japan | |
| 12 | A Thousand Dead Babies† | June | OSR | |
| 13 | Hark! A Wizard!† | June | OSR | |
| 14 | Neoclassical Geek Revival† | June | OSR | |
| 15 | Rampaging Monster† | June | OSR | |
| 16 | Scourge of the Tikbalang† | June | OSR | |
| 17 | Trail of Stone and Sorrow† | June | OSR | |
| 18 | Gem Prison of Zardax† | June | OSR | |
| 19 | Beyond the Wall - Further Afield | July | OSR | |
| 20 | The Warren | August | SG | |
| 21 | A Pernicious Pamphlet | September | OSR | |
| 22 | Out of the Abyss | September | WotC | |
| 23 | The Hell House Beckons | October | OSR | |
| 24 | In the Woods | October | OSR | |
| 25 | The Price of Evil | October | OSR | |
| 26 | False Readings | November | OSR | |
| 27 | Cthonic Codex‡ | November | OSR | |
| 28 | Obscene Serpent Religion | December | OSR | |
| 29 | Dungeon World | December | DW |
‡ Gifts from authors
¥ Bonus Kickstarter reward
† I won all of Zzarchov’s modules, including the then unreleased Gem Prison of Zardax, which I own as a giant pile of paper
Add me to your circles and we can discuss post on on google+.