The Books of 2017

I played far fewer RPGs in 2017 than I have in previous years. In the beginning of the year I ran a couple sessions of World of the Lost, and I played in a few random games locally and online, but I can probably count all the RPG’ing I did on two hands. This is something I hope to fix in 2018.

I did get into war gaming in a big way, starting with Warhammer in the summer and ending with Kingdom Death by the end of the year. These two games have kept me happy and entertained over the last 6 months. I expect that both Warhammer and Kingdom Death will remain regular fixtures in my life this year—if only because I’ve spent so much money on them both. I’ve found it much easier to meet and play both games, as neither requires anyone prep anything. (Well, besides all that modeling and painting, I suppose.) I still want to figure out how to mix up my Warhammer games with my RPG elements.

My RPG purchasing is still dominated by OSR books. This year many of those books came from individuals new to publishing, or whose imprints are quite small. I’m continually impressed by what people manage to produce. Daniel Sell went from making small zines to publishing two (really nice) hard cover books. Jacob Hurst also transitioned from zines to fancy books with the release of the two books that describe the Hot Spring Isles. LotFP only produced one new book, but what a book it was: we got Veins of the Earth! The indie scene puts the big publishers to shame with what they manage to accomplish.

If you were curious what books are in the running for The Ramanan Sivaranjan Awards for Excellence in Gaming for 2017, here you go.

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