The year Daniel (@dungeondive) went part-time on the channel — three days and about 30 hours a week — across 180-plus videos averaging half an hour, which he notes is more output than any TV show short of a soap opera. Solo RPG Friday launched, the Alone Together conversations with Perplexing Ruins began, and interviews ran with the creators of Ghost b’twixt, Dungeon Crusade, Dark Venture, and Silver Tower.
The countdown is explicitly experiences, not 2022 releases. Familiar Tales opens at ten as Jerry Hawthorne’s best. Broken Cask, Wayward and Mork Borg with Solitary Defilement follow. Talisman Adventures at six is the surprise — a game he expected to be a D&D also-ran, whose light/dark fate system inspired his own oracle. Explore! Domain of Mirza Noctis at five marks his return to the series after Sands of Sheerak.
The best entry is number three: playing Shadows of Brimstone as a solo RPG using a hex crawl, which he calls the most fun he’s ever had with the game, arguing its cards could simply be tables and little would be lost. Popper’s Ladder takes two. Lands of Galzyr takes the top spot as “the pinnacle of effortless fun.”
For 2023 he wants to write more — two supplements and progress on his own game.
When a board game plays better as a solo RPG, is that a triumph of the components or an indictment of the rules?