As we creep towards the end of the year (Patreon supporters) or look bright-eyed at the possibilities of 2026 before us, I’ve been looking back at my “games played” spreadsheet. I could talk a lot about my most played games (The One Ring, then D&D), or some of the other TTRPG fun I’ve had, but everyone knows about lots of these games. 

There is, I can guarantee you, more going on in the hobby than you know about, so I thought I’d highlight five games I played for the first time in 2025 that you probably haven’t heard of, and deserve more attention. I’ve put these in chronological order of when I played them – these are all fantastic games.

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Rosewood Abbey: Monastic Mysteries

First up, a fantastic Carved from Brindlewood (CfB) game where you play 13th century monks in an Italian Abbey investigating strange goings-on, and trying to balance the Church’s view of these with the region’s superstitions. Think The Name of the Rose, or (more easily, I think, since it’s already episodic) the BBC drama series Cadfael. I ran a one-shot of this for Unconventional GMs, so we didn’t get too much into the metaplot, but it was an excellent experience.

The game probably needs a few more mysteries out there (there is a supplement in the works), but it manages to do something different in a totally new genre. The book also starts with a lengthy Replay demonstrating how the game can play – which I’d love to see more of – but if you don’t want to read that, you could just watch us play it instead. Get Rosewood Abbey from the link here.

External Containment Bureau: Forged from Brindlewood? Carved in the Dark?

Next up is a game that does something new with the emergent mystery play of CfB games. As agents of the mysterious Bureau, agents must investigate strange occurrences – and gather Clues in three distinct groups, to help to Identify, Control, and Obfuscate the threat. This extra wrinkle of theorizing adds multiple resolutions to threats and provides a really interesting sideways evolution of the traditional CfB game structure.

If the setting sounds a lot like Triangle Agency, well, it is – but it plays very differently. It uses a really clever hack of the Stress/Resistance mechanic in Blades (you can Redact reality, but might take Resonance) to reinforce the theme, and the threats are loosely-sketched missions with just enough to run them. I didn’t run this; my ref was Mintrabbit, and you should check out her blog to find more games you hadn’t heard of! Get ECB here.

Surge Protectors: Robots in Disguise! (to avoid copyright issues)

Surge Protectors I ran face to face at the lovely boutique Owlbear and Wizards Staff convention. It’s a hack of Agon, and you’ll need that to run it as well, that transplants the action from Greek heroes to transforming robots defending earth from the evil Decepticons, sorry, Empiricons, other transforming robots who seek to conquer it.

Agon hacks are extremely good for heroic action and problem solving, and we had a blast – I even did chargen at the table in a rare convention game moment for me! One thing that people don’t talk about enough in Agon games is that the simultaneous action gives everyone plenty of spotlight – and it worked brilliantly. This is going in my convention bag for future conventions as a pick-up game for sure. Get Surge Protectors (although you’ll need Agon too) here.

R’lyehwatch: Byakhees Ain’t Ready

R’lyehwatch is an innovative concept: Baywatch meets Cthulhu. Ancient horrors menace the beach where your heroic lifeguards are forced to deal with them. It’s got a simple, but nuanced, system, and I played in a great one-shot run by Mike Ferdinando – you can watch it here. Everything in the game is a great economy of system and fun – you can have special abilities (I was a Deep One offspring) but fundamentally you’re all easy to grasp characters. The game comes with two great scenarios, and bundles of random tables – it really is a lot of fun. Get it here.

Vileborn: Dark Fantasy Angst-Monsters

We play a lot of games on Unconventional GMs that are new to us; we don’t really do bad ones, but they range from OK to good to great. This stands out as one that even in the mid-game break, we were all “this is great!” – a system that’s straightforward and surprising all at the same time, with a compelling setting and an exciting combat system. It’s easy to gain conditions, and easy to shrug them off with poor emotional choices – I can’t think of another game apart from Masks: A New Generation that does teen angst so well.

Except in Vileborn, you’re not teen supers; you’re half-demon outcasts in a dark fantasy world struggling to control your powers. You can watch our Actual Play of it here. The setting is compelling, the system is new and great – it made me immediately look at everything else Horrible Guild is doing; Italy is knocking it out of the park with games right now. Get it here.

What are your games played that deserve more people playing them? Or have you played the games above? Let me know, and get more games to the table in 2026!