THE ENDIES

Welcome to the Storygames Chicago Endies!!

A few of us wanted to get together and list some of our favorite games that we read and played this year. We have a few categories.

Ryan Lynch has some of the most incredible artwork I’ve seen in the space - and maybe just in general. While I haven’t gotten it to the table yet, reading through Perils & Princesses and The Secret of the Night Market has been a goddamn delight.

A visual delight, Instant Starship is a masterful use of a two tone color palette that really expertly uses every inch of each page. If you’re familiar with the work of DNGN CLUB then that won’t be too surprising. It is incredible, though, how every one of their projects I have had the pleasure to read through has been similarly incredible.

After a few years of just D&D, reading Apocalypse World and some of the games derived from it really blew my mind open as to what tabletop roleplaying was. It took a few more years to actually get it to the table, but all I can say is that it was worth the wait and I couldn’t have asked for a better group.

Honorable Mention: Cthulhu Dark

I haven’t had enough time with it to really get a sense of the system, but the game I played of this with Craig Shipman, Jesse and Ryan was downright incredible. The system felt so clean and Craig was one of the best GMs I’ve played in a game with.

I’ve been influenced by this game and its lineage since the beginning and it was a disservice to myself that I hadn’t ever actually played it until this year.

There’s something about this game. The setting is so evocative: this war-torn, post-apocalyptic landscape full of melancholia and weirdness. Every violent encounter feels so incredibly tense and there is so much room for character drama. I’m so ready for a full campaign of this one!

Honorable Mention: The Between

Our campaign ended right when 2025 began, but it had a major impact on our group. This is a dense, interlocking game full of so many little surprises: from creating the expanse of Hargrave House to the richness of the Man in the Sun Mask. As a TTRPG reader, I’m looking as much for good fiction as I am mechanics. This game had both, and the campaign was one of the best character-driven dramas we’ve had! So excited for the Kickstarter edition.

Over the year I’ve gotten to playtest many incredible games due to Sean Foer’s group Playtest Chicago (if you’re local, JOIN!). This is unfortunately one that I missed! But I had the chance to read through it and I can’t wait for an opportunity to try it out.

Erica Bridges has already released a couple of inventive and exciting games in HIT! and the preview of Nostos. So Bookhouse - an occult library game that mixes elements of depth crawls with some of the best elements of storygames - is incredibly exciting!

We’re planning to finish up our current run, season one, of AW2e then after a break run AW3e as a sequel to what we’re playing now. I’m excited to try out all the new stuff