This post is brought to you thanks to Lady Tabletop, who prompted folks to write about their own gaming experiences of the year and give out their own fun awards. I like the idea a lot, and as it turns out I actually have a lot of games to mention and talk about and give accolades to. I still plan to write up my usual X Years of Cannibal Halflings on the 31st to look back on the year, but this seems like a fun idea that focuses more on the games than the writing about them. So, let’s see what I played, what I thought about them, and who won what!

Total Games Played: 18

Of which I ran/facilitated: 6

Of which were solo: 5

Of which were one-shots or convention games: 14

• The Librarian’s Apprentice – A truly excellently designed solo game that also introduced me to the Firelights system, so that’s a great two-for-one deal.
• Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast – The Wash Cycle got run during PAX East and then The Witch’s Missing Shadow was cast during a weekend hangout/gaming marathon. I’m more comfortable being the Concierge now, and it’s been an excellent experiment to have the book move from group to group. Also, Rag-and-Bones just keeps showing up, and no one is resetting his journey…
• Transit: The Spaceship RPG – I could probably run this one into my sleep, and yet my players never stop surprising me.
• Pathfinder 2e – My meatspace group jumped ship from D&D5e at about the same time as the OGL debacle – without any prompting from me, actually – and have been playing this ever since. As the rest of this list may let you infer, Pathfinder doesn’t do much to light my brain on fire, but it is fun and I can appreciate the mechanical differences a lot.
• Our God Is Dead – Very wacky no-prep fun, one of the highlights of my PAX East this year.
• Cyberpunk RED – In retrospect maybe I should have done an Adventure Log of this, but the campaign I’m running is two years old. Ah well. We’re firmly in Act III, and I’m getting a taste for what happens if the players start to try to be movers and shakers in Night City
• Wildsea – So. Much. FLAVOR. Aaron commented while running that the silver platter of ways he could mess with us was too big, but the platter of lore and worldbuilding and character options is even bigger, and I would like a chance to eat the whole thing please.
• Wanderhome – I wasn’t quite sure of Wanderhome. I mean, I could tell it was well-written, deeply thoughtful, gorgeously designed, but I wasn’t certain what the actual experience would be like. The answer is: “Worth the wait.”
• Rememorex – it was a little hard to tell when playing whether this was a slightly janky 80s game or a slightly janky modern game with 80s vibes – turns out it’s the latter, granted from seven years ago. Interesting, something I’d play again, not something I’d do the work to run myself.
• DIE– with a fourth game on the scoreboard, this is cemented as one of my favorite games ever. Aaron wrote about the most recent experience here and made some table fiction of his own, while I’m still chewing on it; I went all-in and my bleed/feelings are complicated.
• Stewpot – gosh I love to get proven right, this was exactly as good as I thought it would be. The Owlbear’s Nest was a lovely place full of newbie adventurers, ghost cats, and less-than-trustworthy merchants. I want to go back.
• The Mecha Hack – I took this one out for another spin with an entirely different scenario and an entirely different group, and it was another success. Maybe next year I’ll find  a third group, maybe I’ll bring my own scenario…
• Shadowdark – Very neat bit of OSR, with the real-time torches making dungeon delving a very high-pressure activity. Plus, unlike that time we played Dead In Space, I wasn’t the canary who proved how deadly things can be!
• HOME – This was really fun as a solo game and I think it would be even better as a group one. It’s got a really neat creative element to it that sort of puts it into a duology with…
• Two-Hand Path – Solo dungeon crawling is all well and good – no, really, this game does a good job of it – but the creative act of drawing tattoos, scars, and accessories on the hands of your mage was a lot of fun. Actually now that I think of it, it’s a trilogy with…
• SPINE – Reading the game and playing the book, one of the most unique games I’ve ever played. I just need to find a stapler strong enough for the booklet I printed out so I can leave it as a trap in a library for someone.
• Fetch My Blade – A fun little canine game with a neat form factor – you’ll be reading more about this one shortly.
• Force & Destiny – Just a Session Zero so far, but it’s great to be going back to the system – all the more so because we’re going to be playing on Weik, and there’s going to be an Ewok with a crossbow. I’ve actually never GM’d F&D before!

There was one more game I played, part of the Wheel of Bad Games, but while it was a great cure for Imposter’s Syndrome I’m choosing not to give it any more oxygen here. Suffice to say that it was fun in a drinking trout brandy sort of way.

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Now, announcing the winner(s) for the Seamus Conneely Endies 2025 for…

Game I Wished I Ran But Didn’t Get The Chance To: FIST ULTRA EDITION, specifically the Mandelbrot Set.

I was all prepped to run at least a few loops of this gonzo adventure at Beach Weekend this year, but as it tends to DIE ate up enough time and emotional energy to preclude that. I’ve since gotten the physical copy, though, so I’m hopeful to head into the Fractal Zone some time in 2026.

Game I’m Raising The Parting Glass To… For Now: Transit: The Spaceship RPG.

Truth be told if there’d been an Endies 2024 Transit would have been given this award then too, only to have to give it back during PAX East 2025. It got on the T-shirt, you see, as one of the most-run games at Games on Demand’s PAX East chapter, and it seemed rude to have its name on my back and not bring it to the table for a victory lap.

It’s my greatest collaborative design effort, it’s been a ton of fun running it, but it’s been six years and as both a designer and a GM I think it’s time to let it rest. I’ve got the melancholy about it, because I don’t think anyone else is going to run it at conventions, but I want to play more games and I mostly do my design work solo these days.

Hey, if you’re running it out there somewhere, tell me about it!

One-Shot Game I’d Like To Make A Regular One: Three-Way-Tie between Wanderhome, Stewpot, and Wildsea.

What can I say, I’m greedy. Wanderhome and Stewpot found their way off of the Shelf of Opportunity, and Wildsea got its second chance to do so, and I want more of all of them. Wildsea I want to see play out with a full campaign, Stewpot I want to see complete the entire story of a tavern. Wanderhome I want more of in general, but I also want to see what a more… typical Wanderhome story is like, as the one-shot we played was pretty intense in terms of sharp plot ramps.

Honorable mention to Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast – I’m having fun running it at conventions and assembling a vast array of different players in my guestbook, and I’m going to have more chances to do so, but it’s kind of slow going (only two chapters this year!!!!!) and I’m feeling some kind of way about taking a group all the way through the book.

One-Shot Game Most Likely To Be Re-Run: Two-Hand Path

Well it IS a roguelike, after all. I tend to play solo games just the once – part of that is because of the churn, sometimes it’s because I’m satisfied with the story I’ve created. THP, though, I can see myself taking multiple stabs at. Plus, after I posted my review Hamm put up downloadable characters sheets for free, so it’s even easier to walk the Path again.

Game Most Likely To Make You Think About Your Life: DIE

This should come as no surprise, it’s a game that wants you to bleed all over the place.

Max and Jason were both explorations of a life that didn’t much go to plan… and still turned out pretty great, now having to deal with the dissonance of unmet expectations, satisfying results, and complicated what-ifs. Marisa was a much darker turn, a life that went bad and stayed that way before meeting a… complicated end/beginning and I kind of want to write about it but don’t really know how to? In any case, I think the fact that we’re 2 for 3 on “we can’t play anything else today” for the in-person games we played, and that all of the in-person games and the Now Playing session involved a lot of talking things out after the game was over, says a lot by itself.

Use safety tools, folks.

Most Flexible Game: Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast

Whatever the mood, whatever the player count, whoever the players, I’m able to find a chapter for it that works. I’ve had eager players and skeptical players, I’ve known what I’m going to run ahead of time and winged it completely, it’s been the middle of the day and the witching hour, and people have walked away from the table having had fun.

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So, what do your Endie Awards look like? Like Lady Tabletop said, get out there and post about them, and tag/check out #Endies2025 to share and see for yourself!