This year has been another tough one for everyone. Playing and writing for D&D has been a big help in getting me through it, so I thought I should write a blog post looking back at some of the fun things that I’ve been up to.
On 2nd January, the Southlands Kickstarter ended, with an amazing 2,701 backers and reaching a total of $265,726. The books and PDFs are now available to buy from your FLGS and look stunning. This is the biggest Kobold Press project I’ve worked on and I am so happy with how the Southlands Worldbook and Player’s Guide have turned out, and to hear about all the games everyone is running in the Southlands. I was also delighted to be able to write an article on more wondrous locales in the Southlands for Warlock 27 which came out in July.
Back in March, I took part in Kobold Press’ 15th anniversary celebrations on Twitch. It’s been brilliant to have been part of the Kobold Press team for many of those years. The original d20 Empire of the Ghouls was the first project I was involved in, and my first design credit appeared in Six Arabian Nights, the very first Southlands project!
I got to return to the world of Eberron and the Oracle of War campaign this year, writing the Tier 4 adventure DDAL-EB-17 The Final Tribute. This was great fun to write and to playtest with my regular Oracle of War group who got a glimpse of their future selves when they bumped their characters up to 17th level for the game. Our group has just finished the Epic EB-EP-02 Rolling Thunder and I am looking forward to playing EB-08 Parliament of Gears which the designer Ian Hawthorne is going to run for us in the new year.
In April, I finally sorted out the problem of having two out of date blogs by creating a third shiny new one! I’ve been enjoying writing about the games I’m running and working on here on richardgreengames.com and have been pleased to see the number of visitors and subscribers steadily growing. I had some time back in June to write a series of posts on using Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft with Empire of the Ghouls – these posts were great fun to write and have been very popular. If you enjoy reading these posts, please do join my mailing list – there’s a sign up form on the home page.
Speaking of Empire of the Ghouls, my monthly campaign has reached Chapter 4 as the characters explore the Catacombs of the Ghul King. After many months playing online on Roll20, we were able to get back in person for our most recent session. Fingers crossed we can carry on playing face to face going forward! As a games designer, it’s great to read about how people have been using – and hopefully, enjoying – your stuff in their games and it’s been an absolute pleasure to take part in the discussions on the Empire of the Ghouls channel on the Midgard Adventures Discord.
In October, I started running Scarlet Citadel and am having a blast! So far, no PC has died, but the group have learned the importance of running away as they explore this most dangerous of dungeons!
One good thing to come out of the current situation has been the opportunity to take part in online conventions, including GenCon which we last went to in 2014. This year, I’ve played Swords & Wizardry and Zweihander (both set in The Midderlands) at Virtual Grogmeet, The Yellow King and Spire at Virtual GenCon and Lost Things, the prelude to The Wild Beyond the Witchlight at D&D Celebration. I’ve also played Trail of Cthulhu and Numenera online with my regular groups.
As good as online gaming and conventions are, it was brilliant to meet up with old friends and play the Alien RPG face to face at Dragonmeet earlier this month. I am very much looking forward to UK Games Expo next Summer.
In the past few months, I’ve written a couple of NPCs for Jeff Stevens Games’ forthcoming Potbellied Kobold’s Guide to Villains and Lairs and have been working on some very exciting stuff for Kobold Press which is yet to be announced. Watch this space….
I’m looking forward to writing and playing more cool games in 2022. What have been your gaming highlights in 2021?
Main image by Marcel Mercado
Richard Green | Game Designer 