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https://beyondthebundle.com/2026-01-01/2025-review/

I'm not affiliated with the site at all, I just always find the year end reviews interesting. I appreciate the transparency he brings to the posts.

Sounds like 2025 was mostly business as usual for the site and the sales numbers, except for a news spike with the "Punch Nazis" bundle and a slow December. OneBookShelf lowered their cut to match the other two bundle companies that host their own offers on DriveThruRPG, which is cool.

If you're itching to grow your RPG collection I highly recommend signing up for the newsletter. My own collection is huge at this point because of all the great bundles, and I love reading through rule books and adventures even if I never plan on playing them.

I know there are other bundle sites out there, but I like supporting the little guy, and the owner seems like a cool dude.

See the title. What have been some of your top RPGs? Would love to hear any and all thoughts you have about games as well.

Happy new year! 🎊

I’ve been in the ttrpg space for about 4-5 years now. I had finally gotten into it after years of wanting to play, with a 5th edition that felt amazing at first, but it was a sort of honey moon phase that went away after the first amazing group disbanded, and as online groups kept falling apart, I got more jaded on the system as well.

Then I learned about pathfinder second edition. I was amazed by how much content there was, how promising all the improvements were. I loved that I could finally play a real Gish that wasn’t just hexblade for example, and on top of that play a skeleton! Not to mention, player to GM communication seemed leagues easier, and it’s the system that gave me the confidence to GM myself.

But as with 5e I started to get more jaded on it as I got more experience with the system.

I only have theories for why both of these systems have grown sour for me.

1. Bad groups. Self explanatory, but maybe I really never found the right group? Even when I have, which I do have an amazing group mainly playing pf2e right now, there’s other issues like a slightly too big party size at about 6 players

2. Crunchy gameplay and alongside that, Rolling dice. I figured that maybe since I came into 5e with the expectation of “Game where I can do anything” maybe constantly having to deal with a crunchy set of rules that I had to adhere to and rolling low all the time

But both of these theories have been disproven I feel, because of the next three ttrpgs that I actually got to play.

In fabula ultima, I still love rolling dice

In Draw Steel, I love the tactical combat and rules

In Vampire the Masquerade, while it is crunchy, it isn’t brought down by the crunch for me whatsoever.

In each of these I’d say i’ve had imperfect parties yet still loved every second of it. I’m just not sure what’s dragging the two big league ttrpgs down for me and it’s driving me crazy due to my main group preferring and loving pathfinder second edition. Not being able to fully enjoy it and not even understanding why has been detrimental for me, because I really like playing with my friends despite the group being so big

My last theory I have is just the character concepts I like to play. They are either powerful from the get go, or just normal. I think I may dislike the inbetween that it feels like the d20 games are.

VtM is very much a depowerment fantasy, while draw steel and fabula ultima both feel like much higher power fantasies. But as I said the d20 games are just inbetween. It’s middle earth fantasy to start with then an attempt at higher power fantasy as you go higher, yet it feels like they fall short no matter what.

I just don't really know. I've been struggling with this dilemma for quite awhile. I understand that no one here can read my mind, but if any could offer insight into anything i've said here i'd greatly appreciate it.

I have DND 5e and Daggerheart books and play both regularly.

I love fantasy but some of the SciFi settings look interesting.

Should I get Draw Steel, Cosmere RPG, Neon Run, or Cyberpunk?

The party in my current fantasy campaign may soon take a trip along a river that will last almost a week. It will act as a bridge between adventures in my campaign. I’m looking for inspiration for some adventures that they could encounter along the way.

Can anyone recommend any river based one shot adventures or encounters that could add some interest along their journey? Any system as I am happy to convert.

I need to choose between 3 systems - any thoughts on these?:

1. Dicey Tales (Barbarians of Lemuria system)
2. Outgunned Adventure (Director's Cut system)
3. Temples and Tombs (Year Zero Engine)

We're aiming for a 10-12 session campaign.
Players like advancement and choosing new abilities, fast and intuitive gameplay (not looking stuff up mid game or rules arguing), and being able to do over-the-top stuff.
The dice pools of Outgunned and T&T are high points for my group, they worry rolling 2d6 each time in Dicey Tales could get stale over the course of the game.
I worry the advancement in Outgunned may not be strong enough for the group.
We've played year zero games and barbarians of lemuria games and we liked both, but haven't played outgunned yet.
I know outgunned is still kind of in the new-hotness phase, so I'd like to try and get past the shiny-new-thing for some real feedback on it if possible.

So, with the new year, I've decided to start work on another campaign. I've been dming for about seven years now and have been having an absolute blast. I have a few finished campaigns under my belt with a group of friends, and I think my players are awesome!

Long story short, I've DMed a bunch of systems, such as D&D, Savage Worlds, Cyberpunk, and Call of Cthulhu. For this new campaign, I want to run a pirate adventure with a lot of sea combat and exploration finding out what's out there.

However, I'm feeling a bit of burnout from 5e, and I know it doesn't handle sea combat well. That makes me wonder: are there any other systems you guys recommend for a fantasy pirate adventure?

I've tried a couple ttrpgs that seem to have pretty okay survival mechanics but none of them have scratched the right itch. Any setting works but I was hoping for one more modern survival, with heat and food being issues to keep track of.

I've had this idea for a while. Context: I run games for lots of different types of players, often including new players.

My favorite oneshots to run are carnivals. I love them. Harvest festivals, spooky evil carnivals, fun fairy ones, city festivals, weird cultural carnivals, carnivals with nemeses who try to sabotage you.

I think the thing I like most about them is that they're a very contained sandbox. New players know what the interaction points are. Tying attractions to each other is very easy because it's not abstract. It's THIS guy in this tent wants to steal something from THAT lady in that tent who is USING the thing for an IMPORTANT reason.

It's the same reason I really like Curse of Strahd and modules like it. It can feel more gamey, but having apparent Points Of Interest really helps players along. It feels on rails but open at the same time. It's really changed the way I think about building campaigns.

I'm wondering if there are other GMs like me who have taken the mechanics from a tiny piece of their campaign and expanded it to a whole campaign. Is there merit in "carnival style" worldbuilding?

A while ago, I made a thread elaborately covering an overview of Deviant: The Renegades' Black Vans, a technically third-party (but still by the game's original main author) supplement: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1psa0ad/deviant_the_renegades_black_vans_for_urban/

Well, the book is out, now: https://www.storytellersvault.com/en/product/550535/black-vans

Again, I am not being paid or sponsored to promote this book in any way. I am just very fascinated by it, and indeed, I already ran a mini-campaign using the playtest material.

I really like this supplement and the sheer degree to which it expands the scope of Deviant, allowing it to cover all sorts of genres and campaigns.

His Wikipedia page.

He was a big deal for D&D in the TSR days. Tim was the first employee and did the editing for the earlier publications. He was a real veteran in the hobby.