My Top Five Games of 2021

In no particular order...

Call of Cthulhu

With my primary online hangout being the Good Friends of Jackson Elias discord server, it's no surprise I've found myself playing a lot of Call of Cthulhu.  While I've never run the game myself, there's no shortage of people keen to run it, and I've now played most of the classic one-shots.  My favourites, however, remain the scenarios written by the Good Friends themselves, mostly set in the modern day and frequently described as 'mind-bending' - although credit also has to go to CJ Romer for his Regency Romance scenario, The Strange Case of Georgina Blenkinsop, probably the funniest game of Call of Cthulhu I've ever played.

Liminal

Liminal remains my absolute favourite game to run.  This year I've continued the adventures of the Two-Tone Detective Agency, the campaign I started by accident, as well as running an Actual Play campaign.  Ideas just keep on coming.  It's simple to run and easy to teach to beginners so ideal as a convention game.  And I had a great time putting together a Roll20 character sheet for it too.

Matrons of Mystery

How could my own game not be a highlight of the year?  I had a fantastic time developing and playtesting this game, with every session bringing new surprises and more delightful old ladies.  I have fond memories of the church being set on fire, the mothers of the brides having a fist fight in the graveyard, creative use of baked goods, unfeasible quantites of tea being consumed, and the fact that I will never hear the word 'bifocal' in the same way again.

Kult

I haven't played much Kult this year but what I have has been exceptional.  I got to play another of the free scenarios, Gallery of Souls, a 'horror starter' adventure with Matt Sanderson, and an original scenario set in the wild west.  And I finally worked up the courage to run it myself, with an adaptation of a Call of Cthulhu adventure, Unland, which fitted as well into Kult's cosmology as it did with its original cosmic horror.  I'm close to being ready to run my first original scenario and with the new kickstarter books close to arriving, I hope there'll be plenty more to come.

Alien

I continue to push the idea that Alien is a perfectly good flexible sci-fi horror game, that doesn't have to be all xenomorphs, all the time, and my 2021 scenario was CSI: Weyland Yutani, a perfectly normal murder mystery on a remote mining platform - or at least, that's how it starts out.  That said, I also had a lot of fun playing in an AP of Destroyer of Worlds which certainly had its fair share of xenomorphs.

Honourable Mentions

A few that almost made the cut were Coriolis, in which I continued playing the Emissary Lost campaign as well as running a short campaign of my own for my home group, Vaesen, where I've now played all the published scenarios and also run an original one of my own, and Forbidden Lands, where I played a short campaign and also helped a new GM run his first game.  Free League continue to produce great products and I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with Bladerunner in 2022.

Blades in the Dark was a highlight.  I played several one-shots with an excellent GM, and I only wish we could have continued them into campaigns.

I did manage to run a short campaign of The Sprawl, with nine players, divided into Team Neon and Team Chrome depending on who was available for given dates.  I learned a lot about PBTA running that, particularly the importance of not doing too much planning as the players and the dice absolutely will derail whatever you had in mind.

It's been in many respects a horrible year, but the gaming, at least, has been amazing.