RPG Goals for 2026

Earlier this month I wrote about the RPGs I ran or played over the course of 2025. This post I am listing some of the games I am keen to run or play for 2026. As always, the list is longer than what is likely possible, and is presented in no particular order.

When I write about these games I'll add whether I want to play them as a one-shot, a short campaign (maybe 5-6 sessions), and medium campaign (10-15 sessions), or longer. Of course, these things may change in the course of play, if a game lands or doesn't land, or if a story/characters are particularly engaging.

Ryuutama is a game I've had for a while, and has intrigued me for longer. I had heard many good words spoken about this game, and particularly it's novel mechanics for travel. I haven't read it, but I am certainly interested to see how the game works. I'd be keen to run this for a medium campaign I think.

As a fan of prehistory, this is a game that has piqued my interest. The artwork is stunning, and while I have read that the system is quite simple, it's a unique setting that I think could be a lot of fun to play in. I think I'd only want to run this for a a one-shot or a short campaign.

I owned and played RuneQuest many many years ago, but don't really remember much of the system aside from it being percentile based. I love the idea of the Glorantha setting, bronze age fantasy is something that I think makes a great break from more traditional high fantasy. I have the core book and the starter set, and would be keen to run through the starter set at least, and see how we go with the setting and system. I started reading it a while back, and found the rules a little convoluted on the first pass, but perhaps 2026 is the year I bite the bullet and run this game.

I ran this for maybe 8-10 sessions last year, and came away with the impression that the many stunts were perhaps too many, and the game could be quite railroady. I think the sense of it being a bit of a rail road came from the campaign I ran, in which the characters were passengers on other ships (willingly and unwillingly) and therefore had limited agency. It's not like they could just leave if things weren't going in the direction they wanted. I think running this set mainly on stations, and with the characters having access to a ship, would make for a better experience. We'll see. I'd be keen to run this for a one-shot or a short campaign.

Quite likely to be the game that fills the newly created gap in our schedule (we just finished with Candela Obscura). I've had this game for years, and would love to play in a campaign. The artwork by David Petersen is absolutely gorgeous, and I've heard good things about the system. I would be a player in this game.

Sad space cowboys? I think this could be a lot of fun. I quite like westerns, and I like science fiction, so this seems like a solid pairing in my book. The system seems novel, and the book is well laid out. I think I'd like to run this for a short campaign.

Anthropomorphic animals in a post-apocalyptic future, yes please. I love the setting and art for this game, and the way the book is presented it's like the game system is intended to run through the campaign presented in the book - so if I run it, that's exactly what we would do.

Fate and Fate Accelerated is a game system that both intrigues me, and which I find a little intimidating. From what I've read it sounds exactly like the sort of thing I would enjoy, but I worry about messing up the aspects side of things. Masters of Umdaar is a setting for Fate Accelerated, and reminds me very strongly of 80s cartoons like DinoRiders. I think it could be a lot of fun if played in the right spirit. I'd run this for a short campaign.

Another Fate game, but this time leaning more toward hard sci-fi. I really like the sound of the star system building mechanics in this book, and would love to play something Traveller-esque. I really love the themes behind this one, and would run it for a short campaign with a door open to something longer if it stuck.

Speaking of Traveller-esque (minus the esque); this is the only game on the list I don't own, and coincidently, also the game I have been slowly talking myself into buying for the last month and a half. Traveller is an old game, but holds a revered place in the pantheon of role playing games. I love the idea of the life-path system, and the sci-fi setting is something that draws me in. Perhaps 2026 is the year I will cave-in and order myself a copy of this... Like Diaspora this is one I think I'd like to run for a short campaign with an eye to something longer if it was going well.

Fin

Well that's the list, as it stands right now in any case. Undoubtedly things will change, something new and shiny will come along, or the lustre will wear on something I am attached to at the moment. It's more games than I am likely to be able to run through 2026, even if the list stays the same. Hopefully at the end of the year I'll get an opportunity to look back and see what I have and haven't played, and what my thoughts are on those I have...

4th Rate Painting

 Am I referring to the quality of my paint job in the title, the miniature itself, or perhaps both...?

I finally finished the paint job for my 4th Rate ship for Oak and Iron. This was a nice model to paint, with a solid amount of detail. I held off for a while on painting this, partly to get my DBA Gauls finished (which I may have started to put off doing the 4th Rate), and partly because I was umming and ahhing over whether to go with a yellow 'gold' style decoration for the circular gun ports on this model. In the end I decided to just do it, painting the hull and surrounding details first, then the ports in white, and then finishing them in yellow, with highlights.

Overall I'm very happy with how the ship came out. In in previous post I commented that these models sort of sit between high quality board game pieces and table top miniatures. On reflection I think the ships have a solid level of detail, and given the scale, once painted, look really good on the table.

I'm sure there are better techniques out there, but I have quite liked the effect of doing the sails in a bleached bone tone, giving them a soft wash with a light brown tint, and then giving them a heavy dry brushing in vertical and horizontal strokes with bleached bone, then switching to a good sized stiff bristled flat brush, and more lightly dry brushing them with bleached bone, and then even lighter with white. Letting the second layer of bleached bone thicken and almost dry before applying it gives a good texture, and the white gives enough contrast to have what I think is a nice effect at a table level quality.

With the 4th Rate painted, that completes the base box, and the Men of War box, for 9 ships painted in total. I still have the Ships of the Line box, and Blackbeard's Revenge, but to be honest, I'm not sure I want to play games of a scale that can include Ships of the Line (at least yet), they look very difficult to handle without fielding ships of the same scale. It feels like the game might be best suited to a bunch of smaller ships and one or two men of war, but that is likely my inexperience with the game speaking.

I'm very pleased to have finally painted these, and have thoroughly enjoyed the few games I have played so far. I'm looking forward to getting a few more games of Oak and Iron under the belt.

You got a lotta Gaul there...

 Or perhaps, not so much Gaul after all, certainly not by the miniature counts of many historical wargames.

15mm is probably my favourite scale of miniature, and one of the games I used to play quite a lot in this scale was De Bellus Antiquitatus (DBA for short).

DBA, by the Wargames Research Group, and Phil and Sue Barker, is a game that manages to wrap a relatively simple game system in an ineffable cloud of nigh-impenetrable language. Why make a single statement when a rambling paragraph will contain the clues required to find that statement! Despite this barrier to entry, DBA is a good, simple, and well researched game, that has a good historical feel to it. I have fond memories of playing it. There are some 300+ army lists for this game, dating from around 3000BC to about 1500AD, so plenty of options from all around the world, which is nice.

Getting back into the painting gig this year, and chatting to a guy at our local game store a month or so ago about DBA had me rummaging through my boxes of stuff for 15mm figures I had bought with the intention of painting and playing, but which instead, had sat in a box untouched for nearly seven years. My 15mm Gauls!

I had already done up a couple of bases of Gauls for a game called Sword and Spear, but since I have no intention of going back to that game (despite it being an excellent game), I decided to rebase what I had done for DBA, and paint up all the other bits and pieces I was missing.

All the following miniatures are from Baueda Miniatures, while the shield transfers are from Little Big Men Studios. The models are nicely detailed, and didn't require too much cleaning up. Probably the ones that needed the most work were the cavalry, but even so it was minor, and not really noticeable at this scale. 

The shield transfers are lovely, and really add some nice detail to the miniatures. I thoroughly recommend them, though they can be a little fiddly. One other thing to note is that the transfers worked fine, even after sitting in a box for seven years.

The bases for the Gauls I cut from some 40mm deep MDF bases I had left over from a Kings of War army. They're a little wonky on some edges, but perfectly serviceable.

The first units I finished were 8 elements of Warband. This is the core of the Gaul army. Under the latest iteration of the DBA rules I could base these either with 3 or 4 figures on each base - each representing either 'Fast' or 'Solid' troop types. But to be honest I couldn't be bothered with this. Firstly, I have a physical copy of the 2.0 rules, so if I do play DBA it will likely be with these rules. Secondly, if I do play 3.0, I'll use some tokens or something to represent the difference. I'm not painting up more than double the figures I need. Third and lastly, these figures were re-based from units I had previously painted for Sword and Spear, with some minor touch ups here and there. 

Now we're moving on to units I actually painted recently, 3 elements of Chariots, and 1 element of Psiloi, in this case slingers (and everything that follows).

The chariots were a pain in the arse to assemble, and I painted the charioteers separately, then glued them after everything had been painted and sealed. Despite being annoying to put together, I think they came out well, and look very nice!

Every army in DBA has a base, and this is my Gaulish version. A tent, some tables, a few sacks, and some camp followers, what more could an army on the march require? I think it looks really cool. Pretty happy with how this came out.

The last elements I assembled and painted were the cavalry. I ended up basing them after painting them, because I felt the proximity of the figures to one another would make it difficult to paint. I didn't enjoy doing it in this order, perhaps next time I'll try painting them already based, we'll see.

I had to modify some of the decals for these figures, as the shield sizes didn't match up very well, but the end result was solid I think. I really like how the figures came out.

And that's that, the entirety of my Gaul army. DBA is played with 12 elements (bases) per side, and most armies have some different options (Gauls can take chariots or cavalry for example). I now have all the options for the DBA Gaul army painted, based, and ready to rumble (well, all the options for the version of the rules I have).

I'm really pleased with how they've come together, and what they look like on the table. 15mm has a pleasant balance between aesthetics and scale. The bases have lots of figures, which have a great table presence, they are small enough to paint with relative ease, and still large enough to have some nice detail and definition. I'm looking forward to playing! 

Speaking of table presence, I also made a board for DBA (as seen in the last few images). I'll do a post about making it at some point in the future.

Endies - RPG style

 

The Endies, Endie Endie Yum Yum...

Ok, I stole this from the Lady Tabletop Blog, so here is my version... Not quite awards, but a look back at and brief thoughts about the role playing games I have played or run this year. Here they are, in alphabetical order (fancy), just because that was how my folder sorted them when I went to upload the images.

None of the rambling thoughts that will follow are likely to delve too deeply in analysis or mechanics, or what have you - I'm going to try and focus on what I remember most about the games, and whether I would be happy to run or play them again.

Agon

A role playing game of Greek myth and legend, by the myth and legend himself, John Harper. I'm not sure how many sessions of this we ended up playing, perhaps somewhere between 8 and 12. Agon is quite a system focused game. Normally this might be a bit of a turn off for me, I prefer light games that 'get on with it', but Agon is different. Here the system is carefully designed to reflect the themes and stories the game centers: the epic tales of Greek myth and legend, and as it happens it also does a good job of 'getting on with it', as it were... 

As someone who grew up listening to audio books of (Sir) Tony Robinson reading Greek myths, and who has a shelf of such books, the thematic focus of the game, and the clever mechanics designed to bring these to life were a delight. I thoroughly enjoyed Agon, and would be keen to play it again.

Candela Obscura

Candela Obscura, by Darington Press is a sort of steam-punk-ish, Cthulhu-ish, Faerie-ish setting, built around a Forged in the Dark system. We have played maybe 30 sessions of Candela Obscura this year, nearly one a fortnight all this year. The game is good, and I have enjoyed it a lot, despite the horror elements not really being something I am normally drawn to. It helps to have a good GM, and a well crafted and well run campaign. We were lucky enough to have both in Megs, who has run us through a number of Candela campaigns, including the most recent of her own design:

Click above, and find yourself an excellent Candela Obscura game.

Candela Obscura has been a thoroughly enjoyable game to experience, and I'd highly recommend it. I am keen to continue playing (though my character has a habit of straying too close to danger for his own good).

Corsairs

Designed and published by me. I won't go into too much detail here, as it feels self-aggrandizing. Corsairs was the first RPG Zine that I designed and published. This year my game group and I dusted it off, and ran it anew, we've played maybe 20 sessions so far, and have just passed something of a turning point in the campaign. It's been a lot of fun delving back into the world of the floating islands, and I am keen to, at some point, revisit and expand on the system. My first self-published game, and still one my favourite of the games I've designed. 

Death in Space

Published by Free League, Death in Space is a sort of OSR style cosmic horror sci-fi game. I'm not a huge fan of horror, and to be honest I'm not quite sure why this style of unforgiving mechanics combined with a horror tinged setting is so popular, but each to their own. 

I should say off the bat that we only played a few sessions of this. It is not really my style of game or setting; I love sci-fi, but while there seems to be no-end of sci-fi horror, there seems less sci-fi of other varieties. The game itself however, is well written and designed, and contains a fantastic description of the setting, a heap of useful charts, and is very well produced. If this style of game is your thing - I'd recommend it.

Star Wars: Edge of the Empire

Probably my favourite of the Star Wars RPGs that Fantasy Flight released, and a system that gets a lot of love or hate style reactions. It's janky and comes up with some curious results, but I really do enjoy it. We've played nearly 20 sessions of this so far, and it's been a blast.

I started this with the intention of running one of the campaigns that FFG published, and quickly got sidetracked into an Andor style campaign of the first stumbling steps in a larger fight against the expansion and aggression of a fascist regime. 

I really do like this system, despite it's flaws, and have enjoyed running it a lot.

Feng Shui 2

Feng Shui, by Robin D. Laws, and Atlas Games. I was very exited to give this game a go. We played maybe 5-6 sessions of it all told. The game system is very obviously, and very famously, designed to reflect the beats and tone of an action movie, and at this it excels. I don't think I did a very good job of running this game, and in the hands of a different GM, I think it might have worked better. Certainly as the sessions went on we realised various styles of play seemed to work better than others. In the end it's a game I enjoyed, but just fell a little flat. Having said that, the game is hilariously written, and was worth the price tag just for the enjoyment of reading it alone. I might play this game again with a GM who has some experience with the system, no doubt this would alter my perspective, but I'm not rushing to run it again before that revelation occurs.

Torchbearer

I think we played 2-3 sessions of Torchbearer, very early in the year. It's not a game I feel comfortable giving my opinion on. One thing I do hold against it is that I designed a dungeon crawl that I called Torchbearer before I realised that the name was already in use, how dare they (or great minds think alike, it depends on the day - insert suitable emoji so everyone is clear I am not being serious).

From memory this was an unforgiving OSR style system, which I'm learning is not my favourite style of game (when I want horror, failure, and despair, I'll watch the news thank you). But I honestly don't remember enough about Torchbearers to have an actual opinion - so ignore my thoughts on this one.

Vampire

Not a fan of vampires, zombies, and etc. and not sure why I like this game. Oh wait, the answer is because my good friend and prestigious author extraordinaire RinoZ, ran a campaign he set in Melbourne, Australia, with lots of familiar landmarks, references, and tropes. He did a great job running the game, and was generous enough to put up with my bullshit (my character is a musician of rare skill, and either very helpfully plays the background music to the fight scenes he often instigates and leaves the other characters to sort out, or tries to charm his way through social encounters through the medium of song - the sort of character GMs hate, and are justified in doing so).

With Every Fibre

A game I designed and self-published as a zine. This is a fantasy game, with a system that I think works really well (not biased at all). It hasn't sold as well as most of my other games, partly perhaps because there are many fantasy games, partly perhaps because I did all the art myself for this one, and partly perhaps because I am a fool and the game actually isn't very good... no, not the last one, can't be the last one. Seriously though, I do like this system, and it's one I would definitely revisit.

Fin.

So that's it, a round up of the role playing games I have run or played this year. Probably the favourite of the games I have played were Agon and Candela Obscura, with Agon taking the prize for the game with the mechanics best designed to capture their theme. 

Of the games I have run, I think I have enjoyed running Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, and Corsairs the most, with Star Wars taking the prize as it's not a game I designed, and because the gritty nature of the Andor style campaign has been a great variation to an otherwise well-trod setting.

Perhaps at some point soon I'll do a blog post of the games I would like to run in the future...