It’s not exactly the middle of the year, I know that. But in February (after my unintentional gaming break in January) I decided it would be great if I could get up to 100 game sessions in 2025, and then upped that to 104. 104 is 2 per week, and that seems to be a good number. Previous years I’ve managed 90 (in 2024), 116 (in 2023), and 86 (in 2022), so I’ll be pretty pleased if I can get the 104 with only 1 January game. Expected games total currently sits at 99.7, so I need to step it up!

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What Have I Played and Run?

A bit surprised to see horror and sci fi so close to fantasy (and no, I’m not sure about the “historical” genre – I’ve got lots of slightly hard to categorise games in there).

In terms of games most run, I’ve got The Between at the most frequent at 5 sessions (a full weekend of gaming at Longcon, which I’ll no doubt blog properly sooner). The One Ring and Call of Cthulhu both clock in at 4 sessions each (Chaosium Con helps for the latter, and a just-started up ongoing game for the former). Slugblaster and Lovecraftesque both saw 3 plays (ah, there’s the horror).

And there’s loads of games I’ve played once. Counting 2024 D&D as ‘new,’ I’ve run or played 20 new systems this year – there’s a nagging feeling that I ought to revisit more of these, but I’m happy with the diversity.

Standouts in terms of game sessions that exceeded expectations include a one-shot of The Beach from Yazeba’s Bed and Breakfast, a fascinating GMless cosy game with hinjinx and a real sense of collaboration – and a breakthrough moment that means I maybe ‘get’ Belonging Outside Belonging games now. And it was great to revisit an old classic 13th Age Glorantha scenario of mine, Sting of the Scorpion men, at Chaosium Con.

On Sunday, I played in my 52nd session of 2025, running Daggerheart at the excellent MORPcon in Manchester. It’s a one-day, one-session meetup at Fan Boy Three, that has risen out of the remains of Go Play Manchester. It runs bimonthly, and I think there were around 20-30 punters there, despite an Oasis concert making the city very busy.

I’ve got a game tonight as well, running Shadow of the Weird Wizard for Unconventional GMs – and I’ve been updating Rats of Rothsea, one of my D&D one-shots on here, for it. I’ve broken up for 6 weeks now, and I always look at this as a chance to get ahead with my prep.

BCF – will it work?

So over the summer, I’ve set up a system which I’m calling B / C / F. Every day, I’ve got to do something relevant to the Blog, something for the Channel, and some gaming stuff just for Fun. Drafting this is my Blog thing today – the game tonight is the Channel – and I’m going to patch together some easy-to-play 3rd level D&D pregens for Fun later. It’s not much, but it should keep me out of trouble.

So, all in all, pretty happy with 2025 so far. Watch this space for more!