Where March is headed here in the Game Box.

I was very surprised and delighted to hear from someone via the Jeffsgamebox@gmail.com account. It happens very rarely. I am delighted to say it was pleasantly positive and the kind of encouragement I need right now. For confidentiality reasons, I won’t get into what all was said or who it was from, but you know who you are. Thank you!

This is going to be a month of many and varied TTRPG topics. I love fantasy games, but I also like to take a break and explore other genres. There’s also a fair amount of low-key, quieter news in the community right now that I want to chase down. Behind the scenes, I’m also making a random blog prompt generator for those days when the brain fog has kicked in. Work also continues on the Deck of Portals and will probably go up on DriveThruRPG.com sometime this month.

I probably underestimate the power of positive feedback.

Losing my last full time job in not-the-TTRPG-space came with a crapload of negative feedback that I was supposed to internalize personally according to the corporate muck fuppet giving it. (I’m trying to stay PG-13.) Basically, it hit home pretty hard and I’m still very anti-corporate, anti-establishment, and anti-industry-I-left. Needless to say, that whole experience back in 2021 left a very bad taste in my mouth for negative feedback and criticism in general. (Straight up makes me rage sometimes. Other times just pain and sadness.)

So, when a couple of people really have nice things to say to me, I kinda freeze up. For one, it’s not something I hear very often, or on an average day. I’m a Gen X kid, and it’s not something I was used to hearing back then, either. Feelings? What are those?

One person I have heard from recently has been around since I started on Twitter and still puts up with me for some reason had nice things to say about my work. I owe you another one, lady. Another person I heard from at random, who makes pretty decent profit on one of the Roll20 sites had a lot of encouraging things to say. I’m super grateful for that. This was all in response to my article about #RealGameIndustry that can be found here.

I’m still pretty miffed at parts of the TTRPG industry, and I doubt that will change, but I’ll keep going thanks to the encouragement of these two lovely people. That’s probably the best feedback I’ve gotten anywhere in a very long time. Thank you again!

The rest of the TTRPG industry is going through strange times.

2024 is a year of change and maybe some growth in the industry. I say maybe growth because there are so many games coming out. There’s also a lot of economic mopey times to be had by consumers when it comes to non-essential goods. We’re constantly hearing about people getting laid off/fired. The jobs that are hiring don’t seem to be paying enough (around here, anyway.)

I got okay grades in Economics, but I dunno about this. Too much supply and not enough funds to feed the demand doesn’t seem to bode well for the manufacturers. If the new Dungeons & Dragons eats most of the market share in terms of where people are waiting to spend their TTRPG funds, then I feel bad for the rest of the industry between now and Gen Con. Sadly, I know there are so many things coming out before then that might not have as good of a showing.

Conversely, maybe that late in the year D&D release is going to cost Wizards of the Coast. (I can always dream, right?) If 2023’s mistake-per-month attitude taught us anything, it’s that WotC can wear egg on their faces and still somehow turn a profit. Are we all truly waiting just to buy the new Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide? Out of the trio of core books, my only real interest would be the Monster Manual which WotC is dropping in February 2025 (if at all.)

The new 2024-2025 D&D complete set might not be available until middle of 2025 or maybe just in time for the 51st anniversary of the game. That makes total sense, right? Hasbro/WotC seem to have a track record for being able to screw up a wet dream as of late. Watch how they handle the biggest three releases in the last nine years. It should be entertaining.

“Just play Pathfinder” bros unite!

I like Pathfinder 2E. I regret not getting into Pathfinder 1E, but I hitched my wagon to the D&D horse through 4th and most of 5th Edition. For a while all I was truly interested in was ICONS RPG, which has nothing to do with fantasy and everything to do with superheroes. PF1E just didn’t hold my attention as closely after 3.5 D&D. It’s a good game and all, just didn’t hold my attention and PF2E was a good place to get back in at ground level.

My years of craving a solid edition of Star Wars in the rotting Disney era of the movies left me playing around with Starfinder RPG. Now Starfinder is going from a remastered book directly to a second edition in 2026. PF2E already put out two remastered core books in 2023 and two more coming in 2025. All these new books are mostly aimed at stripping all D&D Open Game License content out of the game, but I don’t think Paizo quite grasps how much money that involves.

Apologies to friends at Paizo, but $120 on the new Player Core and GM Core combined in 2023 and another $120 in 2024 for Monster Core and Player Core 2 seems like a lot of money to re-invest in a game I’m already into for more money than I’d care to think about. I’ve been biting my tongue on this one, but it’s almost like everyone, including WotC/D&D Studios, is vying for whatever remains in our wallets in 2024. It’s capitalism at a very ugly level. The competition in the TTRPG space is disgusting and several games haven’t even dropped yet.

2024 is the fullest year of new TTRPG releases we’ve seen in a long time.

I can’t remember a year since 2014 when there were quite so many new TTRPG product releases from so many different companies. Kickstarters aside, it seems like I’m seeing new products hitting the shelves from so many different companies at the same time, it’s hard to keep up. At some point I think consumers are going to hit the brakes. I know I’m pretty much done buying anything for a while because I’m on a pretty limited budget.

Most of the new releases I’m grateful for are still due to arrive in the mail from last year. I back a lot of indie TTRPG products on various crowdfunding sites. I’ll be dropping reviews of some of them as they arrive. The Secret Art of Game Mastery should be hitting my mailbox in the real world fairly soon. Review to come. Not to  mention all of the stuff I didn’t back on Kickstarter that’s going to drop in 2024.

I’m a bit leery of anything 5E or adjacent right now because I think the market just became oversaturated with it in 2021-2023. Uncharted Journeys 5E is a good book that I’ll be reviewing at some point, probably in March. Otherwise, I’m trying to steer away from 5E as it wanes in the public eye.

Then there’s good old YouTube.

First, let me say there’s more to TTRPGs than Dungeons & Dragons. There’s more to TTRPG YouTube than D&D. What seems to get the most attention on YouTube? Yup, it’s D&D. (Old guy barfing noises.)

The sheer disgusting number of D&D shill channels seems to have increased exponentially since 2023. I squawk loudly at this because I keep getting closer to pulling the trigger on my own YouTube content creation journey. Until recently it seemed like a good time to do that. Now, I’m  not as sure.

I watch a lot of YouTube. Recently YouTube released this somewhat toxic video on the official YouTube channel. I guess it’s great if you don’t know any difference or just believe what Hasbro/WotC wants to sell you. It looks like I’m going to be swimming uphill on dry land against the algorithm current because guess which game I’m going to avoid talking about? Yup, it’s D&D. (More old guy retching noises.)

My first video may be coming in the next week or two. I’m planning to drop a lot of quickie 10-20 minutes of unscripted opinions on the TTRPG hobby similar to what I do on the blog here. I expect there will be a lot of overlapping content. I’ve been putting this off for a long time partly due to a fear of failure and partly because every time I turn around I’ve got a kid all up in my grill. It’s very hard to film around an active family of six as many will attest.

Speaking of the rest of March…

I have plans going forward of talking about supers, horror, a couple of post-apocalyptic campaigns, some Saturday morning cartoon stuff, and mecha games. I’ve also got a lot of fantasy projects in the works, but honestly I just want a breather from that particular genre for a few days. There is just so much more to TTRPGs than fantasy or specifically D&D. Now, mecha or Isekai mecha fantasy are hot topics with me right now.

I’ve had a mecha fantasy game in my head ever since I saw Vision of Escafloune many years ago. (Highly recommended, btw if you’ve never seen it.) I want to combine a little traditional fantasy with giant robots and grimdark horror. I know everything is turning up grimdark nowadays, but I’ve been sitting on this one for a very long time. I’ll talk more about it in the days ahead.

I also feel like I’ve ignored Power Rangers RPG for a long time now. We’re overdue to get back to Power Rangers Super Lightning Force again. I want to do more Rangers stories ever since I watched Cosmic Fury. Am I the only one who feels like they crammed two full seasons into half of one season? It’s sad because the old series deserved so much more of a send-off before the reboot. (“Good” job, Hasbro…)

With all that being said, thank you for stopping by today. This might have gone a bit longer than I originally intended. Thanks for sticking around. I appreciate it. Please embrace the things that bring you joy today.