The books of 2016

While 2016 might have been one of the shittier years in recent memory, it was seriously killing it when it came to RPG books. I continue to mostly read books coming out of the OSR. My favourite publisher remains Lamentations of the Flame Princess: they had a stellar year. Maze of the Blue Medusa was finally released and it’s so beautiful it’s unreal. Like last year, I did end up buying some “indie” games: Burning Wheel’s fancy new books], and some interesting looking Apocalypse World games, including the original game itself.

I buy a lot of RPGs, but managed to buy nothing from Wizards of the Coast. I feel like they are leaving money on the table by not catering to a wider variety of tastes with their work. They need an indie imprint.

I buy stuff when stressed and it’s clear I was stressed at the tail end of the year. I ended 2016 with far more books than I had planned to buy. My attempts to limit myself to a book a month has been one of my less successful projects.

If you were curious what books are in the running for The Ramanan Sivaranjan Awards for Excellence in Gaming for 2016, here you go. This is going to be a really tough year to pick a winner.