What do you anticipate most for gaming in 2018?

On a personal note, I’m excited by the prospect of more and regular gaming. The groups I play with and DM for have become much better at scheduling, which means a regular gaming schedule overall, which means more games getting played every week. Currently I DM for two groups and play in two others, which averages out to three games every two weeks. I have two other groups for Pathfinder which I need to get back on track, though I might be switching at least one of those groups to another game system. That would get me up to two games a week with a nice balance between running and playing. That would leave me room to run the occasional one-shot game for systems I like and want to try out.

As for RPGs as a whole, I’m looking forward to seeing how the industry will continue to change in 2018. Live-streaming games continues to be popular, led by Critical Role and Maze Arcana, and that has had a huge impact on the popularity of Dungeons & Dragons, and other games to a lesser extent. I’m curious to see if that popularity continues through another year, and what effect that will have on the industry. Paizo just released Starfinder, and the response has been strong so that seems poised to impact the industry. But sci-fi games have always been a harder sell than fantasy RPGs, so how big that impact will be depends on how well Paizo develops it going forward. And digital tools and supports continue to develop for tabletop gaming, so I look forward to watching how that affects my hobby in 2018.

In the meantime, I have the rest of 2017 to get through. This is the final post for RPG a Day 2017, so we return you to our regularly scheduled 2+ posts a week. So stay tuned!