2023 was a wild ride, y’all! This post is a self-indulgent one, so strap in. I’m going to do the Year in Review first, so if you don’t want to hear me talking about myself, click here to skip to the inaugural Nova Awards!

Nova’s Year in Review

It was a great year! Twitter’s death seems to have transitioned a lot of the sauce to Discord, which, while a dangerous platform for similar reasons G+ was, has been a fun place to be. I got to play a lot more this year, including playtesting a bunch of my own stuff (Hiss and Bridewell got a lot of hours of play this year), playing in Trophy Gold sessions run by Alex, and joining a few PBP’s run by Amanda P. Thanks generous referees!

Despite it being the toughest year of my life health and finance-wise (sorry all the kickstarters I didn’t back), it was the year where I overcommitted in terms of projects!

Hell on Rev-X, an intense depthcrawl in a space hulk for Mothership, I collaborated with HODAG on and released. I’m so proud of how this merged my aesthetics and style with a more traditional module structure.

Hiss, I released agnostically and re-released for Cairn. It’s a village with all the social complexity of a city, with a dungeon and secrets inspired by Against the Cult of the Reptile God. I’m working on a physical releases via Lulu, but will need some bonus material and art for that, and I don’t know which artist I’ll be forking out for, but I’m collaborating with Marcia B I hope for that second edition, which hopefully will be a hot fully-arted pocketbook in the style of rubbish Steven King paperbacks.

I’m working on the Tragedy of Grimsby-Almaz, a murder-mystery module for Mothership as well as a bustling space station you can base your campaign around. This is a hugely ambitious project in terms of scale, and reminds me more of a science-fiction Fever Dreaming Marlinko than of a Pound of Flesh. This is a place you’ll want to spend time in and get to know. I want this so much to be fully illustrated, but that will entirely depend on how much cash I can earn by the time it’s finished, edited, and playtested. I am so excited about this one folks.

I’m also working on Rats in the Cellar, a dungeon crawl adventure that’s also very ambitious, but in a different way. It’s inspired by the classic “there are rats in the inn’s cellar” low level encounter, but once you get down there, you uncover multidimensional horrors, intergalactic refugees, and a multilevel interloper-devouring dungeon. Every cellar in the town is connected to the dungeon, which means it’s ambitious from a mapping perspective: You can flee a pursuing nightmare from outside on the streets, through their cellar into an area of the dungeon you’ve never been, and then back out again. This is entirely written, but that ambitious dungeon design is proving challenging. It’s not worth releasing, though, unless I get that level design just right.

I’ve published 43 Bathtub Reviews, my regular module review series. I’ve actually written ten more, that are scheduled out for next year to ease my load: Look forward, there are some absolute bangers coming up! These are so much fun, and are such a learning opportunity for me, I just dread the day when I run out of money to do them regularly. I really don’t have any regrets about any of the reviews I’ve run, because it’s pretty easy to find redeemable elements in most modules. I don’t think I come across as profoundly negative in these reviews, even the ones I wouldn’t choose to play. A plug: If you want to spread the word about your completed module, send me a copy of your stuff! I won’t promise a positive review, but I promise I will review it, and I’m happy to schedule around your releases if you’d like and you give me time and a finished product!

I’ve published 8 I Read A Game Reviews. These are less regular, because, to be honest, I buy and read far fewer games than I do modules. Also, two reviews — of the Trophy Trilogy and Black Sword Hack — are in the current issue of Wyrd Science Magazine! I tend to be more critical of games than I am of modules, but if I’m excited about a game, or interested in its conceits, I’ll read it. These are a lot of work, though, so they tend to be at the bottom of my priority list, even though they get a lot of views. I have more regrets about these reviews, though, than I do for my Bathtub Reviews: Particularly the three Gauntlet Publishing games I’ve reviewed, have left me with a bitter taste. My resolution for the new year; No more Gauntlet reviews, even if they seem interesting on the surface. Clearly they’re not for me; and if I continue I’m either a fool or a bully, and perhaps both. I’m not going to refrain from negative criticism, but I don’t need to seek out things I’m seeing a pattern of flaws in.

I’ve aired thirteen episodes of Dungeon Regular, my podcast where I read and try to squeeze practical learnings out of every module ever published in Dungeon Magazine. This is a lot of fun, although podcasts are a lot of work (Yochai, how do you and Brad push an hour-long out every week? And still sound better than my six minutes? This is absolutely unfathomable to me!). If I had any idea how, I’d love to do a girls-around-the-watercooler-of-TTRPGs podcast, but between timezone problems and the insurmountable challenge of production, that feels like an impossible goal. Warren, I’m there, though, if you ever want to actually do Hot Blog Time Machine, which is the best idea for a new DIY elfgame blog since…well, ever.

I published two issues of Dungeons, Regularly, my zine full of fantasy maps that are commercially licensed so you can use them in your games or products! These are just really cool zines, and they come with a bunch of tables to help you fill them as well as high res pngs of the maps if you pay the full price. These are just so pretty, ya’ll.

And of course, Bridewell lurches towards publication and a potential kickstarter. This is an absolute monster, ya’ll. Dense as a triple chocolate mudcake, oozing with horror, with adventure hooks wherever you step and whoever you speak to. Feedback from playtesting, both from referees and from players, has been incredibly positive for something that takes the idiosyncracy of Hiss or Hell on Rev-X, dials it up to eleven, and expands it to an entire region full of dungeons and castles.

Gosh! That’s so much now I list it! As many of you know, I’ve been achieving a lot of this because I’ve been unlucky enough to have been quite unwell, but lucky enough to be same to take time off work for treatment and recovery, but that will be ending soon as I return to regular work, so next year I’ll expect to be reducing my output a little to compensate for that. I’ll start with a week off over the holidays, where I won’t post a Bathtub Review or publish a Dungeon Regular episode. I’ll be back in January. Hopefully I won’t reduce my creative output by too much, though, as I really enjoy it! I just need to look after myself as well.

The Nova Awards

I’ve read and played a lot this year, so here are the (inaugural) Novies for 2023, based on opaque criteria of what I thought was cool.

Best Game Design Take

I was going to give an especially bad take a Wildest Shit award this year but decided the better of it, so instead, I’m going to give the most self-indulgent award to myself, because it was the only good game design take this year: How we play doesn’t reflect on our moral failings or strengths (if there are such things), and neither do our opinions on game design. This post was about a specific bad take, but y’know? It keeps coming up. Now maybe can we stop being judgmental assholes about game design next year?

Cleverest Random Table

Technically I think Pirate Borg came out last year, but I didn’t back it, so I saw no trace of it until this year. It has this absolute star of a multi-use table in it:

Like, just read the final paragraph for all the ways to use this table. Absolutely bananas work, author of Pirate Borg (Limithron? Are you a person, or a group of people?).

Most Funnest New Game

Fivey: Tabletalk Fantasy is Marcia B’s system for playing Fifth Edition adventures, which attempts to preserve the sense of silly fun and customisation in 5e while reviving the complexity. I am the target damned audience for this game, it is fire. Neat high fantasy, elegant rules, it’s a powerful blend of DIY elfgame and trad ethos, which carries things in the opposite direction that Shadowdark and Five Torches Deep carry mechanics to great effect. It appears to be on haitus while Marcia works on her retroclone FMC Basic, that just means it’s pretty stable. I’ve played a few sessions in it, would recommend.

Most Immediately Influential Blog Post

Flux Space by Nick LS Whalen is something I apply to so many areas in play and in design because so often you want to design a huge and sprawling space, but not in the same kind of way a dungeon sprawls. It’s perfect for labyrinths, ventilation mazes, dimension-warping spaces. I incorporated concepts from this into my depth-crawl for Mothership, Hell on Rev-X, and I’ll be using aspects for ventilation spaces in an upcoming release. Very cool and exciting stuff! Nick just kickstarted Sanctimonious Slimes and Expired Epicures, to whet your appetite for Dungeon Moon that he wrote system for!

Most Anticipated Thing

I got to read the first level of Nightwick Abbey recently (thanks Miranda!), and that shit treads the line between innovative design and classic play in a way that is just wildly exciting to me. A moving megadungeon, that’s fully keyed and full of horror and danger. The combination between player knowledge and unexpected dungeon movement responses brings roguelite vibes to a mega dungeon resulting in a really creative and playful environment, that is always surprising. Anyway it isn’t out and I’m not sure when it will be, but you can support the project and play in the longstanding game here. It’s absolute fire, y’all. I might write something longer form on this soon.

Most Playable Module That Played Best

I didn’t want to give this award to Barkeep on the Borderlands, Ennie award-winner for Best Supplement and on which a bunch of my friends wrote, but you know I love a good social module and this one is just full of joy. It’s a perfect module for the holidays, to be honest, just coat it with snow and decorations. It’s full of cute touches and callbacks to Keep on the Borderlands, like the colour scheme and millions of small notes throughout the bars and pubs, which are cute winks to anyone who is familiar with it. It’s just a wholesome module, and a pleasure to run and play. If by vague chance you haven’t already gotten this, do so now!

Most Promising New Author

The Rumbling Forest and Mangyaw by Benj are absolute fire and two of the freshest and most unselfconscious takes I’ve seen on DIY endgames this year. Reading these is like it would have been to read a draft of Spy in the House of Eth before Zedeck Siew was a household name. I’m not sure how to keep abreast of what Benj is doing, but you should at least follow the itch.io page to keep an eye on what happens next. I don’t have much more to add, maybe read my review of Rumbling Forest here. And tip!

Most Interestingest Podcast

Into the Megadungeon has just been absolute fire this year; every episode packed with inspiration. I think my two favourite interviews were with James and Miranda, but the quality here has just been out of this world. Basically every time one comes out, I start writing a new megadungeon like the mercurial dungeon princess I am. The best podcast in DIY elfgames right now, hands down. Hats off to Ben Laurence for producing it.

Most Best Word of the Year

I still contend that Marcia B coined the phrase DIY Elfgame as a replacement for the proliferation of initials that describe this corner of the hobby; I’m not here for an argument about the history of the term elfgame; nobody is claiming it isn’t co-opting an ancient term. But I love this term, because it’s descriptive of the interactive, self-referential and conversational aspects of this hobby rather than defining our hobby by relationship with the past, or in reaction to the problematic or disgraced aspects of that past (distant, or recent). Honestly, were it not for copyright law, I’d say DIY D&D, because let’s be honest that’s what most of us are doing, and it avoids long discussions with grognards who assume I’m a dilettante about the origins of the term “elfgame”.

Most Irritatingly Retreaded Discourse

Maybe it’s because I write so many reviews, but roleplaying game criticism discourse reared its ugly head at least every month this year I fear, and perhaps more. Even Matthew Colville apparently weighed in at some point recently. It largely revolves around two things: Firstly, that there “Isn’t Enough Good Criticism”, which obviously turns about what you consider good criticism; and secondly that “You can’t write reviews without playing the game”, which with a moment’s consideration regarding how difficult and time consuming playing a game or module to completion is, is a patently absurd bar to raise. Obviously, as someone who writes reviews that are critical, I think that they’re important and that you should be able to write them without bringing a module or game to the table. I would be kind of shocked, to be honest, if anyone who follows Playful Void disagrees with me, given it’s the overwhelming percentage of my output. And regardless: What would we rather in the hobby, a single percent of the reviews that we see now, or an acknowledgement that session reports are damned fantastic and that we as a hobby should focus on how to facilitate interesting and compelling session reports and interesting presentations of campaign data like this one (interesting that Nightwick Abbey unintentionally gets a second call out in this Awards ceremony). That said, one good thing about this discourse is that it produced the word Hand-guy (runner up for Word of the Year), to describe people like Ben Milton who are hugely successful largely due to their long videos of leisurely flipping through the pages of books; thanks to Substitute Adventurer‘s partner for this turn of phrase.

Most Cutest Blog

This year, the two cutest blogs were Traverse Fantasy and Idiomrottning, because neither Marcia or Sandra treat their blog as a sacrosanct elfgame space, and talk about politics, cookie recipes, book reviews, programming or whatever video game is engaging them right now. Marcia’s Cinnamon Cocoa Cookies are fire, and Sandra’s front page is like a work of art and entirely impossible for me to navigate; it feels ephemeral, like a post only exists for the moment it’s in my RSS feed. Also, they’re both great game theoreticians and you can never have enough women’s voices in DIY elfgames. If you don’t follow these two, you should: Just two smart, cool women talking smartly about what they think is cool, and with no pretensions to task-mastery and more excitement and enjoyment manifesting.

That’s the Nova Awards! Please, let me know if you have any best blogs, best games, best modules or best blog posts, please let me know! I’d love to hear your takes! Publish your own awards! Tear awards away from the Tyranny of industry! People love to hear that you love their stuff! Have a happy holiday!

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