2025 Review

And that concludes my 2024 gaming review… hold on, what the fuck? You mean it’s the end of 2025. Sorry, I must have blinked and missed it. Seriously where has that year gone. It’s not like nothing has happened, it’s been a busy year with family, gaming and work, but it’s just flown by so quickly, and I guess and end of year roundup drives home how swiftly that time has passed.

Overall it’s been a great year of gaming with regular weekly sessions and a smattering of events, and as always it’s the fun at and around the gaming table that really mattered. The laughs, the friendships, the socialising and the gaming good times that bring it all together.

What happened to my 2025 Gaming Plan?

• The brilliant Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow using OSE wrapped up as anticipated in early January. What an adventure! If you like old-school modules with lots of threads to pull, three busy hexes and a handful of dungeons then this is for you. A particular wisdom learned from this game was to never walk beneath a precariously balanced boulder…

• Dolmenwood has continued throughout 2025 with a session every other week (20 sessions in all) and it has been a real highlight with an immersive setting and simple rules.

• My plan to start the Secrets of the Dragon Emperor campaign for Dragonbane kicked off with weekly sessions in February and has run throughout the year - I reckon we’ve still got some way to go and should finish it in 2026.

• Shadows of Yog-Sothoth didn’t get anywhere, I couldn’t decide on which system to use and other games took over. It’s taken a back seat for now.

• Despite the Mythic Bastionland delivering a beautiful book and game I never did get to run it, but I hope it’ll see some table time in 2026.

• Lastly, I did run a WEG Star Wars 2e one shot at Grogten in January and it was ok. Despite the great rules and setting it just didn’t pop for me, so I’ve buried it for now.

Overall, I consider it a successful year. I wanted to get deeper in some games and that happened with both Dolmenwood and Dragonbane and there’s still plenty more to explore with those.

Stats

You’d think I would get tired of recording game sessions, but it’s a strongly ingrained habit now and I’m sure it’ll continue.

• The 429 total hours played is up slightly up on the 419.5 hours of 2024 and the 427 hours of 2023. I suspect these hours being in the 419-429 range across the last 3 years is pure coincidence, but it presents a picture of a steady amount of gaming.

• Another total coincidence is the total 181 sessions played which is exactly the same as 2024.

• Average session length: 2 hours 22 minutes, up by 1 minute on 2024s average. The 2023 average was 2 hours and 25 minutes, so it’s fairly steady. I’m surprised the average isn’t closer to 2 hours as online games I GM tend to run 8-10pm, I find the 10:30pm finish a bit of a push these days.

• Longest session: a 10 hour marathon at The One Ring Road Trip in October, with GM @orlanth.bsky.social‬ putting in a sterling session of The One Ring 2e. It beats 2024s 7 hour session of Pendragon Mythic Greece at Grogten by 3 hours!

• Shortest session: is tied between two 45 minute sessions of Harn Master with GM Steve W and the first Dragonbane session which was mostly a session zero. Not a short as 2024s 30 minute session of Delta Green. The convenience of online gaming means it’s perfectly reasonable to do this.

• Number of systems played: 29 (27 in 2024, 29 in 2023).

• Number of systems GMd: 9 (6 in 2024, 5 in 2023), this is the most systems I’ve run in a year since I started keeping these records.

• Most sessions as GM: 35 of Dragonbane (compared to 26 of Old School Essentials in 2024 and 27 of Worlds Without Number in 2023). I guess this reflects my preference for running campaigns over one shots.

• Most sessions as player: 28 of Helvéczia with @chrisesharp.bsky.social‬ as GM (compared to 24 of The One Ring 2e in 2024 and 23 of Call of Cthulhu in 2023). Call of Cthulhu was a close runner up with 23 sessions, 16 with GM @viscountjonkeer.bsky.social‬ and 7 with GM @davepaters.bsky.social‬.

• Games with most hours played (player and GM): 68 hours of Dragonbane, 55 hours of Helvéczia, 51 hours of Call of Cthulhu and 41 hours of Dolmenwood.

• GM I’ve played the most with: at 31 sessions it’s a draw between @chrisesharp.bsky.social‬ (all Helvéczia) and @orlanth.bsky.social‬ (a combo of Forbidden Lands, Savage Worlds, Heart and The One Ring 2e), however with number of hours as the decider @orlanth.bsky.social‬ takes it at 86 hours vs @chrisesharp.bsky.social‬’s 61 hours. @orlanth.bsky.social‬ was also the GM I played most with in 2024 and 2023 with 52 sessions for both years.

• Sessions and hours I’ve GMd: 70 sessions and 151 hours, of which 4 (and 14 hours) were face to face and the rest online using FoundryVTT.

Top 5 Games of 2025

Call of Cthulhu

Like 2024 this game was a significant feature - a game that always delivers every time.

• ‪@viscountjonkeer.bsky.social‬ finished running Order of the Stone then moved on to Musketeers vs Cthulhu and Horror on the Orient Express (with a warm up one shot called In the Shadow of the Horn). A fantastic bunch of Cthulhu adventures and as we’re at the start of Horror on the Orient Express I expect that to continue through 2026 and beyond.

• @davepaters.bsky.social‬ ran a one shot adventure from Journal d’Indochine at Grogten back in January, and in September picked up Masks of Nyarlathotep which we’re continuing into 2026. It’s been one hell of an adventure, and while we’ve just survived the scene from the cover of the boxed set, I think there’s much more health and sanity blasting danger ahead. Great stuff.

Dolmenwood

One of the two campaigns I ran throughout 2025, this has been the real GM highlight, just because the game itself is so good and easy to use. The Dolmenwood Campaign Book contains so much content, I could see this campaign running for years; then folding in other OSR adventures (like Barrow of the Bone Blaggards from the OSE Adventure Anthology 2 and The Blackapple Brugh for Basic Fantasy Roleplaying) and looking at the published Dolmenwood adventures (which I’ve not yet used), this one will run for a good while.

Dragonbane

Over the last couple of years there has been a big buzz around Dragonbane, so I wanted to give it a proper go and GM starting with the Secrets of the Dragon Emperor campaign. To start with I wasn’t so sure about the system and the setting (as I kept comparing it to Dolmenwood) but in time I really started to enjoy it. This one will continue well into 2026, and then maybe we’ll kick off Path of Glory after that.

Helvéczia

This wonderful OSR game featured throughout the year and is the game I played in more than any other. The OSR chassis is tweaked for a more picaresque style of game set in the fictional land of Helvéczia in the mid 1600s with a layer of weird occult goings on. As a sandbox, we had free reign to do what we wanted and GM @chrisesharp.bsky.social‬ always delivered interesting sessions with some very memorable moments (the most devious and twisted being a game of chance with a quick death a very real possibility!)

The One Ring 2e

This featured twice this year: the first time as a one shot at Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff, and the second at The One Ring Road Trip weekend in October. The adventure was fantastic, a clever investigative tale with many twists and turns that lead us to some dark places against villainous foes that we ultimately struggled and triumphed against. GM @orlanth.bsky.social‬ ran this across a whole weekend, a total of 23 hours of gaming and did a sterling job.

I’m looking forward to this restarting in 2026 with our heroes on their way to Fornost.

Other games I ran

Into the Dungeon: Revived

A clever variation on Into the Odd with more structure for dungeon crawling, I ran the DCC adventure The Old God’s Return twice for Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff (one a prep session). It’s a cracking system that needs a bit more attention and polish to challenge Shadowdark or OSE for regular table time.

Pirate Borg

I ran the A Crown of Fetters adventure for Virtual Grogmeet and got quite a few prep hours in. The adventure was ok, but didn’t work quite as I’d hoped, however, I believe Pirate Borg is an amazing game with great adventures, and I plan to run it again at the Raspy Raven Borg Season in January.

One aspect of this game that really stands out is the community and amount of material available via the Limithron patreon, if you like this game that is definitely worth checking out.

Ronin

I picked this up as an add on with a Berserkr backerkit pledge and received the PDF earlier in the year. At MORPCon in March I played in John Ossoway’s adventure (which he has since published), The 13 Demons of Akuma Saizo, and was quite blown away by the adventure and the system. I decided to run it at the UK Games Expo weekend and had a great time, so I hope to run it again soon.

Shadowdark

I’ve had my eye on this game for a while, but being right into OSE I thought I didn’t need a similar game. A load of material has come out for it this year and like Pirate Borg it has a great community (and an amazing entirely free FoundryVTT implementation). It’s also been hard to get hold of in the UK in print, but in November I had the opportunity to visit Dungeonland in Blackpool and picked up a copy there.

I ran a one shot for my daughter and her boyfriend in December and we had a blast. The system delivered in every way I had hoped, getting out of the way where it needed to and fast and efficient when it was required. I’m not yet saying it is replacing OSE for me, but it is a strong contender, and I have plans to run more Shadowdark in 2026.

Star Wars

As I mentioned earlier, I ran this at Grogten and it didn’t work quite the way I had hoped, despite putting quite a bit into preparation - I guess that’s how it goes sometime. I’ve put it back on the shelf for now.

Tales of Argosa

Another OSR game that I’ve read a great deal about over the years. It has a bit more to it than your average OSR game and a swords and sorcery flavour.

For Grogmeetish I picked an adventure from the Appendix N Jam, Agents of the Gilded Palm which is a reverse heist. The adventure was ok, I’m not sure I picked the best adventure for the system, so it’s one I’d like to explore more of in 2026.

It’ll be competing with Shadowdark as my go-to OSR game as it also has a great community and FoundryVTT implementation.

Other games played

The great thing about gaming events is the opportunity to play different games and 2025 offered the opportunity to play some new games and old favourites: Cosmic Dark, Delta Green, Forbidden Lands, Gran Meccanismo, Heart, Knave, Maelstrom, Mothership, Pendragon, Ruttigers Almanac, Sanction, Savage Worlds, Savage Worlds Pathfinder, Tales of the Old West, Trophy Gold and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay all featured as either one shots or in shorter series.

The Events of 2025

Overall it’s been a great year for cons and gaming weekends, long may it continue!

MORPCon

I was only able to attend one MORPCon this year, but it was a great one. I played in John Ossoway’s Ronin game (see above). Hoping to get to a few more MORPCons in 2026.

The VTTs of 2025

As in 2024, FoundryVTT has been the dominant VTT both as a player and GM.

• v12 - 81 sessions (167 hours)

• v13 - 58 sessions (116 hours)

It seems more GMs have moved to v13 now, and it’ll be interesting to see things develop when v14 comes out in 2026. IMHO, FoundryVTT is the best VTT out there taking cost, support, community, features and functions into account and I believe the steep learning curve is well worth it.

Roll20 takes 2nd place with 20 sessions as a player (46 hours), up on 17 from 2024. I’m still gobsmacked people are using it as there are much better alternatives out there. Even if a GM didn’t want to deal with the complexity of Foundry there’s the very competent Owlbear Rodeo and Role.

I played one session on Owlbear Rodeo and one Discord only (using a dice roller and chat for images). Both lite options worked really well and are what I’d look at if I didn’t use Foundry.

Twenty sessions were face to face for a total of 94 hours compared to 16 sessions and 60 hours in 2024 - so face to face gaming up by 50%!

The 2026 Gaming Plan

Even more than 2025, I want to get keep to regular gaming and enjoy the games I have on my shelves.

• I’d like to continue fortnightly Dolmenwood throughout the year. As I said earlier, we’ve really only just scratched the surface, and with a ton more hexes and a load of adventures to explore I think we’ll be playing for a long while.

• Dragonbane will feature until we complete Secrets of the Dragon Emperor, then we’ll see. I would like to run Path of Glory, but…

• I’d love to run a total sandbox, free-wheeling OSR campaign, pulling in all of the world building tools and books I have. System-wise I’d like to run Shadowdark, and Tales of Argosa is also a contender. I’ll use books like The Monster Overhaul, Table Fables 1 & 2, Cairn Warden’s Guide, Shadowdark (which has loads of random tables), A Folklore Bestiary, Sandbox Generator, The Tome of Adventure Design, The Dungeon Dozen and whatever else I have on my shelves or can find online, such as the amazing Auto Roll Tables.

• If the sandbox thing doesn’t work out I will try to get the brilliant Ave Nox to the table, it’s an itch I’ve wanted to scratch for a while.

• I didn’t run any Mythic Bastionland in 2025 so I’d like to give that another go, either as a short run of 6-10 sessions or as a one shot.

• I’m hoping to get to the same range of events as last year. If it all goes to plan it’ll be Grogten and the Raspy Raven Borg Season (at which I’m running Pirate Borg) in January, The One Ring Road Trip in March or April, Virtual Grogmeet in April, UK Games Expo at the end of May and Owlbear and Wizard’s Staff in September. Fingers crossed I’ll get to a couple of MORPCons and I hope there will be another Grogmeetish in November. I’ll be looking to run Pirate Borg, Ronin, Shadowdark and possibly Berserkr at these events.

But who knows, I’m sure like every year my plans will change as my interests and circumstances dictate. Whatever happens I hope 2026 will be a great year in gaming and in life!