Beyond 2021

What to look forward to...

The start of a new year and its promise of good things to come is an aspect of winter months here where I live that makes the shorter periods of sunlight a little brighter. And, crowdfunding doesn't exactly "promise" anything, but it certainly can lead to expectations. Looking ahead to 2022, I am anticipating the arrival of a number of FRP game products which started life in crowdfunding. On my list of eagerly anticipated games are the following:

Savage Worlds Pathfinder

Combining the mechanical aspects of two major role-play system traditions, this game intrigues me more than most. Savage Worlds is a popular "generic" game system that has been successfully adapted to run the Palladium classic game Rifts as well as many others. It is perhaps best described as giving a "pulp" game feel and describes itself as "fast, fun and furious". Okay, sounds promising and I have purchased a couple of editions of SW, but have not yet played the system. Pathfinder, however, has been a favorite FRP game and I have logged many hours playing at that system. The SW PF leverages the first edition of Pathfinder in an attempt to offer the game community something new. The classic adventure path Rise of the Runelords is adapted for use with the new system and it accompanies the release of SW PF giving the hobby what promises to be a complete ready-to-run package.

Level Up Advanced 5e

Although the 5th edition of The World's Most Popular Role-Playing game is not my very "favorite" edition of that system, it is the FRP game I have played most frequently in 2021. As this 2021 draws to an end, I find myself currently running one campaign as its DM using 5e, and as a player in two (soon to be three) other 5e campaigns, but there are a number of things about this edition that I am not completely satisfied with. One solution ay be The Level Up Advanced 5e system which consists of four volumes and is essentially what the name implies, an "advanced 5e". Level Up is a complete FRP game. You do not need a copy of 5e to use this system, but at its core are game mechanics based on 5e, so it can be described as a "leveled up" version of the basic 5e standard rules. 

In Level Up Advanced 5e there are even more spells, more classes, more heritages and cultures and backgrounds, more monsters, more magic items, in other words the usual "more of everything" one often finds in a new "advanced" book and it's all 5e compatible so you can mine Level Up for homebrewing your own version of 5e. Rather than just a player's cornucopia of tricks and treats, Level Up is also more options for the DM/referee to use. If you are like me, there are things about your 5e that you would like to "fix", and Level Up may provide answers for us thereby making our 5e more satisfying to run and play than standard 5e -provided that is what you seek. Personally, I appreciate game complexity or "crunch" (unless I want a fast and rules-lite game!) and  Level Up Advanced 5e promises to be a game, that while resembling bog standard 5e in many ways, offers me more complexity in other ways. Level Up gives me an opportunity to experience fresh enthusiasm for a rules system that is at this point wearing a bit thin, and it has been for me.

(If you are a fan of 5e and desiring "more", but would rather stick with just the official products designed and released by the wise wizards on the coast, there is an expansion set up for preorder and should drop early in 2022 so that you also have something to look forward to.)

Hyperborea

For something new in old school goodness, and a FRP game that is centered around perhaps the best fictional setting I have personally seen in any game, try Hyperborea! It is the new name for a fresh looking two volume 3rd edition of Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea. I really am sorry to see that wonder of a mouth-filling, fun to say aloud title retired, but I think I understand why the name change is happening. Hyperborea (borrowed from Clark Ashton Smith, Plato and others) is a key selling point for Jeffrey Talanian's old school sword & sorcery version of what is an Open License version of our favorite old game system. I have been a fan of AS&SH since I first acquired the 2012 version which was published in a box (which includes some nice sharp-edge old school dice) and although I have only briefly ran the game for a short time after acquiring it, and I have only been an AS&SH player at conventions, I really am fond of this game and count it as among the best in its genre. The AS&SH rules deliver a proper feel for the Sword & Sorcery genre and as I implied, its inherent setting of Hyperborea is simply a masterpiece of world design. Of course you may disagree, but this is me writing this post!  

The One Ring 2nd edition

Another edition to update a FRP game, The One Ring 2e promises to improve on what I already consider to be a very good system for gaming in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. The fictional setting of Middle-earth has arguably been a significant influence on popular culture in general and upon all literature and games, especially of the fantasy genre since its rise to popularity in the 1970's. Various FRP games have attempted to use the setting by name, but most have fallen short of achieving a good fit - at least in the eyes of its many fans. Having played quite a few of the published Middle-earth games, I find TOR and by extension its 5e adaptation, Adventures in Middle-earth, to offer perhaps the best adaptation to role-playing of what most gamers seem to feel are the essential characteristics that define Middle-earth and does so while also keeping faith with the particular narrative styling of J.R.R. Tolkien's work.

Having received digital versions of all these products in 2021, I feel reasonably certain that the physical books may be delivered in 2022. Anticipating good things to come is its own sort of enjoyment. 

So here's to anticipation and hoping for a Happy New Year!