When I was in High School, I use to consume RPG books, the way many young gamers go through booster packs of Magic cards. I would buy any game or supplement that I could find. Back then I had the kind of disposable income as well as ample time to not only read but play most of the games that I bought. Fast forward, nearly 20 years, and my disposable income is much less, and my time is far more scarce. Today, I am very miserly about what games I buy, and I have to be much more deliberate about what games I run. Because of this, I tend to buy very few new games, though I will freely buy supplements for games that I am currently playing.

My time for splurging and buying new games, is at GenCon, every August. Leading up to August, I keep current with reviews and articles from GamingReport, and various blogs, on new games that are coming out. Through the course of the year, I keep a running list of games, that I would like to purchase when I get to GenCon. Right now, the list looks something like this….

Dungeons & Dragons version 4.0–When this was announced at GenCon 2007, I swore, just like I did when 3.5 was announced, that I was not going to migrate to this version.  Yes, Mike Mearls, author of my favorite d20 game Iron Heroes is at the helm, but seriously, how many times am I going to buy a Players Handbook, DMG, and Monster Manual?  But as the playtest reviews, and the articles on wizards.com started coming out, I have to admit, I like a lot of what I am hearing.  Then Spenser, in our gaming group, announced that he was going to be running some 4.0 modules when they come out.  So now I am sure I am getting the PHB when it first comes out.  How fast I get the DMG and Monster Manual will all depend on how much I like the PHB.  Here’s hoping.

Corporation– This is a UK role playing game that looks awesome.  It’s a cyberpunk setting, which is always a plus for me.  The mechanics look solid, and the few reviews I have found, speak well of it.  My biggest problem is at this point, is that there is not a US distributor for this game.  The only way to get it, is to order it from the UK.  In addition the Core Book comes in at about $50 USD when you factor in the conversion, and the weakening dollar.  That’s a lot for me to spend on a book that I cannot crack the spine on.

Twilight 2013– As a child of the Cold War and Ronald Regan, I have always had a facination with the idea of limited nuclear exchanges, and the collapse of society.  I cannot count how many times I have watched Red Dawn.  I bought the original Twilight 2000 game when I was in 7th grade, after seeing an ad for it in Dragon magazine.  Sadly, I was not old enough to truly comprehend the rules, and fumbled my way through some character creation and a few failed sessions; but my love for the game never waivered.   Today the Twilight franchise has been picked up by 93 Games Studio and a new version is coming out, with an updated future history.  I could not be more excited.  A few teaser pieces were released, including the last address of the President of the United States, before he stepped down.  All this plus, the revival of the TV show Jericho, I am more and more interested in getting my hands on this game.  There have been some production delays and the release of the game is looking more like Feb or March this year, with Book and PDF versions.  I have some high hopes for this game, and hope that it really delivers.

Qin– This game is out, but only recently have I become aware of it.  The publisher is a French company, and the setting for the game is Wuxia.  I am a fan of the wuxia setting, and have a nice collection of Martial Arts movies.  I have always looked for a game that would give a decent treatment of martial arts combat.  The rules for character creation look very straight forward, and the rules I were able to read on martial arts combat and abilites look to cover all the classic martial arts tropes.  The artwork for the book is very well done.   There is a PDF version available on RPGNow.com, but its pricey.  I have not seen a paper version of the book yet.   After doing some searches on line, I have discovered that there is an abundance of books for the French version, but most of them have not been translated yet.   I am pretty sure I will breakdown and buy the PDF fairly soon.

So those are the games I am currently looking out for.  I have a feeling that some of them will make it into my collection before GenCon arrives, but there really isn’t much of a rush in getting any of them, since I have some time before I will be done with my Iron Heroes campaign.  But a good GM is always thinking about, in some small way, the next campaign they will run.  Right now, one of the above games, looks to be a likely candidate.