uilt our world, we’ve written our story, our homebrew campaign is ready… but are we? In this post, I’ll be talking about the tools that I recommend you have as a game master for your tabletop campaign. These won’t be specific to D&D, though that’s the game that I typically run. Instead, these are just general suggestions for making your tabletop roleplaying game experience the best that it can possibly be. Some of it is software, some of it is hardware, but all of it combines to make an absolutely phenomenal tabletop experience.

This post isn’t about my favorites, it’s about my anticipated favorites. These are stories—be they books, movies, or games—that I can’t wait to experience this year, in 2022. I think it’ll be interesting to put these thoughts out there and then reflect on this post once I’ve actually experienced these stories to see if I was let down or not.

y review for that book, you know I was a little eh on the book overall, giving it an average rating of three stars. Not because it was a bad book, just because it isn’t really up my alley. I also voiced some expectations that I had for Jade War, which I had hoped would be met. Some of them were, others weren’t, but overall this was definitely an improvement on the first book, in my opinion. I think that’s enough allusion to what this review will entail, so let’s just get into it. This is my spoiler-free review of Jade War.

Today, we’re going to have one last session regarding players and how they can shape your world and story. Specifically, I’ll be talking about character arcs, which are sections of your campaign’s story that focus on one or two of the characters, giving them the spotlight. I’m going to talk about why they matter and give my suggestions for creating effective, impactful character arcs that are just as powerful (if not more so) than the main story.

Today, I’ll be talking about the top three stories that I experienced in 2021. These can be across any medium, books, movies, games, etc. I’ll list off some honorable mentions to start, then I’ll get into the top three. It’s important to note that I am selecting from stories I experienced for the first time in 2021, not necessarily stories that came out, last year. Especially since I had some catching up to do with books and the like, I mainly read, watched, or played stories that were a year or two old, rather than new releases. That said, let’s get into my list, beginning with honorable mentions! Every story I mention will be linked if you’d like to experience it for yourself.

ve been excited to read for quite a while. I often see it mentioned by people who enjoyed Evan Winter’s books, so I came in with the expectation that I’d enjoy it, too. This was a pretty quick read compared to most of the books I read last year—I think I had it finished in a little over ten hours—however, that’s not because of the length, but rather because of just how much I enjoyed it. This was a serious pageturner… but how does it stand up critically?