My Games for 2026

I have my most-played shelves set for 2026, and they could use a few more passes and minor improvements, but they are primarily set up for fun. These are the games on my shelves to start the year.

GURPS. No game does characters right like GURPS. The realistic combat is excellent. There are no classes; you improve your character however you want. The game works for any genre or world, and it is one of the best to play in settings where "you have no game for it."

It does more than that; it can make worlds you dismissed or feel are lacking take on an entirely new feeling once you use GURPS as the rules to run the world. Traveller, the Forgotten Realms, Star Wars, Star Trek, Conan, Star Frontiers, Call of Cthulhu, Vampire, and many other universes can be transformed into a fantastic layer of detailed, gritty, incredible realism with outstanding gameplay once you convert them to GURPS.

So, even if you do "own the game," GURPS will do the setting better. Feel a "step removed" from the setting, like in a 2d6, BX, d100, or other rules-light game? Want to see Traveller in an entirely new light? Switch to GURPS and be instantly immersed in the setting. At times, switching to GURPS feels like putting on a VR headset and becoming immersed in the world.

GURPS does all of my heavy lifting and replaces so many games. If I am not looking for a specific throwback class-and-level experience, I will use GURPS instead and save myself a lot of time and effort by supporting only one game. The character builds make this game worth investing time in, and there are two excellent character designers, one of whom has a Linux-native option.

And GURPS, once you are fluent, is fantastic fun, and a simple game at heart.

Tales of the Valiant is the best version of 2014 D&D you can get your hands on, and by what I see the community playing, the 2014 edition of D&D 5E is the one to stick with. ToV is fixed, patched, easy to learn, clean, and a straightforward version of the game without the OGL. It is 100% compatible with all of my 2014-2024 third-party books, subclasses, classes, adventures, and expansion content. That era is the most important, since the 2014 version was the best supported version of the game by far.

Better off, ToV has incredible support through Kobold Press, and the library you can build with just this one source is fantastic. You can build a library of thousands of spells and monsters, and have dozens of full-length adventures and campaigns to embark upon. Kobold Press supports 5E better than Wizards of the Coast supports D&D.

And Tales of the Valiant does not go out of its way to anger old-school players. Humanoid monsters are still in the monster vault, and all the classics are here. If you need the few "product identity" monsters of 2014 D&D, pull them in if you want, but my worlds are fine without them.

As an added bonus, the publishing licensing is much better here, and I don't have to deal with Wizards of the Coast or support them if I have objections to their direction or business model, or feel like dealing with their censorship in the 2024 edition. A "clean room" 5E is all I want to play the game, mod, and use the books I bought during the 5E heyday.

Also, Shard Tabletop is my character creation tool, and it's very moddable for custom content. If D&D is Windows and Microsoft, ToV is like Linux for 5E.

I am following this game's crowdfunding campaigns. If I want a class-and-level system in a modern 5E implementation, Tales of the Valiant is the best choice for 2026.

Forget most of your OSR games, play Adventures Dark and Deep for the best first edition experience out there today. You get it all, the kitchen sink, the backyard, the den, the basement addition, and the RV in the driveway with this game. We get new classes, classic monsters, old-school gameplay, and it is written by an old-school Greyhawk historian.

If you want to wade through the arcane tables, modifiers, and all the fiddly bits of classic first edition gameplay, this is your game. If you wish to play rules-light? Look elsewhere, like Swords & Wizardry. Weapon speed finally matters! The parts of 1E that Gary wanted to matter are all here, improved, and recreated with a loving amount of grognard attention and care.

All the classic monsters are here, the demons and devils, classic alignment, descending AC, encumbrance mattering, and anything you would ever want in a game that plays exactly like the classic 1E books played. Combat is significantly improved. The Monster book is massive, the size of a phone book! I love this game in many ways, and like GURPS, it immerses me in the first edition. Not the world (like GURPS would), but the rules and the feeling of the original game of the 1980s.

We are getting an expansion book on Kickstarter this month, so the future for this game is bright. Every first edition and OSR adventure is compatible, so you will have no shortage of things to do. This is the other game I am following crowdfunding for.

We also have a fantastic resource on Cthulhu mythos in 1E games by the same publisher, along with an excellent Wuxia expansion. Of all the "mega games" in the OSR, there are three: Adventures Dark & Deep, Castles & Crusades, and ACKS II. Of those, this game offers the best first-edition experience and expands upon everything.

Many are swearing by this game as the 1E to play in 2026, and I would agree. If you feel OSE is drifting away from its original inspirations, feel the OSR is diverging and going off in a thousand directions, this is an excellent home for you. This is a fantastic game, immersing you into a complete first edition experience, and it has everything I remember plus more. 

There is so much to explore and experience here.

My Palladium games are on my most-played shelves, just for nostalgia. I still love these books, and they bring back memories of the 1990s and some of my best games ever. If just for the memories, these games are good times for me.

Rifts and all my SDC Palladium games have a charm to them I can't escape. Are they perfect? No. Do they bring back memories? Yes. Does GURPS do a better job with the genres it covers? In most cases, yes, but I still love them as much as I do any of my 1990s games.

Other games nearby include Dungeon Crawl Classics, my Without Number games, Rolemaster, and Mutant Epoch. Old School Essentials and Swords & Wizardry are also on my shelves. I am keeping my Cepheus games out and putting Traveller away for a while. Traveller is epic, but a bit big for me to play. I would rather drill down on characters with GURPS for hard science fiction, or keep it lighter with Stars Without Number.

The big games last year? Draw Steel, Daggerheart, and Nimble? All lost in the shuffle. They did not grab me, or they felt endlessly derivative of that "too many cooks" fantasy genre. I don't have any of them out currently, and I have seen some critique the "everything and the kitchen sink" fantasy genre these games stumble into. Nimble, I still keep close, but the others are in storage. Still, there is no reason for 5E alternatives when I have so many 5E books and ToV to enjoy them with. I have 10 years of books, why play something else?

SBRPG is also on the table for this year, but not in the form people may be familiar with.