Almost three weeks into 2025 and I realise that I’ve been neglecting the blog. The main reason is that I’ve been so very busy with the actual running of games (in-between the activity of work and personal responsibilities) that I’ve not really known what to write about.

The Nottingham Meetup group continues into a second year, passing the first anniversary of our meeting last session and rolling on it to playing a further Call of Cthulhu investigation today. Fellmyr has been resurrected online bi-weekly while the School RPG Club reached 22 members.

Perhaps the somewhat unexpected rediscovery of one RPG product plus the arrival of five others over the past 18 days is worth commentary. In my mind, these represent 1d6 new possibilities as 2025 unfolds. Interest with players for any of these would offer an alternative to my regularly scheduled gaming.

Listeners to the GM’s Journal will be aware of how I rediscovered GURPS Interstellar Wars on the 1st of January. Re-discovering a book I bought around 2006 and sitting down to read it allowed me to realise that this might just be the SF world book that I have been looking for. I reworked Captain Lance Jamison and messed around solo through the New Year.

On the 7th January, all the way from the USA, GURPS Supers I.S.T. arrived on my doormat. This classic super-hero world book has long held curiosity for me, not least because it’s renowned to be a supers setting which actually takes seriously the geo-political ramifications of there being metahumans. Will this be the supers breakthrough I need?

Having backed Tales of Argosa sometime in the distant past, this packet landed on the door step on 10th January. I mostly supported this to get my hands on the funky “bones” and the Deck of Signs, but I also rather liked the earlier games of the system I had played with Jason Hobbs a few years back. Yes, it’s d20-based but it’s a very well-formed alternative to the default.

A belated Christmas present from the good Reverend D arrived on the 16th and offers me the chance to try the re-worked second 2d20 edition of Star Trek Adventures in the form of the Starter Set. There is some interest in giving this a go with the face-to-face group so it might actually make it to the table before the rest of these possibilities.

The 17th January saw the largest splash: two sets of totally unrelated products in a single day. GURPS Wild Cards is another supers world book based on the highly-acclaimed 1987 collection of short stories of the same name, as edited by G.R.R Martin. Aces Abroad takes the setting global and together they offer me a second reputedly more-plausible approach to super-hero gaming. I am clearly needing to scratch this supers itch in 2025.

Finally, also on the 17th, these two magnificent hard-cover re-issues of The Gardens of Ynn and The Stygian Library give me a chance to try my hand at the so-called “depth crawl” scenario structure. I can’t but wonder if the Library might work well dropped into Victorian London in my Call of Cthulhu campaign. Or is that just crazy talk?

All in all, I seem to be blessed with an embarrassment of riches in my hobby. Oddly, all of this comes at a time when I feel less inclined than ever to shop and utilise published materials. Clearly my past shopping habits are still catching up with me, not to mention my friends willing me to join them in a variety of games.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me find my hobby alive and very richly provisioned for the New Year of 2025.

Game on!