I almost forgot to write this year’s blog-iversary post! I’m usually better about that, but I’ve been so preoccupied with some writing deadlines that I just now noticed that it’s That Day again. This has been a very different year in my freelance writing, as I’ve shifted away from a larger number of smaller projects to a few medium-size ones.

It’s been a tough year for both this blog and Tribality. The rise of streamed games, streamed commentary, and podcasts has taken a bite out of traffic for every blog-shaped kind of thing. The community has also decided that it can’t trust rules content that doesn’t bear at least the stamp of the DM’s Guild, and by preference an official hardback release, so the kinds of content I release are in much reduced demand. I’m deeply grateful to all of you who do read my work, of course! I’ll be trying to pivot into adventure writing over the next year.

On the plus side, the Tome Show has been kind enough to call me their resident class historian in their class study series. That’s been great! Now to con a few more shows into wanting to hear what I have to say, or maybe inviting me on as a one-session guest player.

Games I’m Running

1. Aurikesh is still going strong. Six years, 88 sessions.
2. I ran a handful of sessions in Forgotten Realms for Kainenchen, Tyger, and Tygerbf. I think we all want to get back to it, if scheduling gets easier.
3. I’ve committed myself to running at least a session or two of Ars Magica, 5th edition, by GenCon of 2019. I have players lined up, but we haven’t scheduled a session or settled on a covenant location yet.

Games I’m Playing

1. Altera Awakens has finished its first full season. I’m enjoying my character a whole lot and I look forward to Season Two.
2. Kainenchen’s Liel campaign came to the conclusion of its first major arc and has begun its second (in my estimation, anyway). I’m excited to keep playing.
3. Stands-in-the-Fire’s Planescape game has had to end, as he’s moving away. I had a fantastic time with it while it ran.
4. I’ve recently joined a space-opera Fate Core game. My character is a Virka (uh, space tiefling?) doctor on the run from the teracorporations that he used to work for.
5. I’m still playing Pokémon Go.
6. I’ve started playing ReCore on the XBox One. It’s great! It’s a game I didn’t know I needed.
7. I’ve played a bunch of different things on my iPhone 6, but Alphabear 2 is the only thing that I come back to after the first couple of days of play.
8. Aeon’s End is my favorite new-to-me board game. Cooperative deck-builders, like this and Shadow Rift, are absolutely my jam.
9. Illimat is a wonderful card game and I would recommend it to almost anyone.
10. We’ve started a Charterstone campaign – that is, one of its 13-game legacy playthroughs. Haven’t gotten to the second game of it yet, though.

Games I’m Observing

1. Critical Role – I’m up to episode 76 of the Vox Machina campaign, and I get through about two episodes per week.. which means I am juuuust barely keeping up, rather than falling further behind.
2. How We Roll Podcast – I’m almost caught up to their latest release.
3. The World Tree Burns – I’m listening to the podcasts when The Tome Show releases them.
4. Dice, Camera, Action – I listen to their YouTube videos from time to time while I work, but that’s especially slow going.

Thanks for reading and supporting Harbinger of Doom for another year. If you want to support the blog financially, well, you’re a wonderful fan and I salute you. There’s a Donate button on the left-hand side of the page there, or you can pick up any of my products on DriveThru RPG. Even better, rate them, review them, and tell your friends!

PS. If you’re not already following me on Twitter, I’m @BrandesStoddard. As of today, I’ve passed 250 tweets in a mega-thread of cool things from 4e that haven’t yet been ported into 5e. It’s not too late to Like or RT to make me write still more tweets in that thread. I honestly don’t know if I can find 500+ things to tweet about, but we’ll find out together!

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