This post was written for the second annual New Year, New Game blog carnival hosted by Gnome Stew as part of the 2013 New Year, New Game challenge.

Think of it as a gamer’s New Year’s resolution — it’s a new year, and in the spirit of renewal, perhaps it’s time to try a new game. This doesn’t necessarily have to mean buying and running a new system; it could also mean trying new characters and a new campaign. Back in October, much of my gaming group had dispersed — one player was finishing their degree and had no time, another got a full-time job with much travel, and another moved to Texas, leaving just two of us.

When you lose the better part of your gaming group, it’s time to find new players, and that usually means a new campaign… So this New Year,New Game challenge isn’t quite so hard for me as it could be: I have new players and we need new games. We were lucky — we were able to resurrect the group with three new players in the space of a few weeks. It’s a good group, and has a sharply different vibe from the last.  Our previous group was more of the get-together and game as a social activity. This group is more seriously interested in roleplaying — with one of the gamers being a serious immersion player.

One of the games has continued with the new players. It was well into the plot, the “lead” was the remaining player, and first of the new players was recruited within a fortnight of the group implosion and was interested in the campaign. So the Battlestar Galactica game that has been getting attention in the blog survived. The Hollow Earth Expedition game did not. Oh, we might bring back Hannibal Drake, but the rest of the cast is changing. As a result, I have started a new campaign for the new group.

Beyond that, there’s a few games that have been attracting my attention and I would like to run. One is a homebrew sci-fi campaign that might use Cortex, or might use the Diaspora Fate rules — it’s still in the formative stages. I’ve thought about trying to run Jovian Chronicles — one of my gaming white elephants. It’s got a great setting, but in some ways the setting limits the options of the gamemaster, if they stick religiously to the setting and the metastory of the game. I don’t intend to. I also will not use the game mechanics, but instead will probably turn to Cortex.

Another way of breaking out of my comfort zone is to run one-shot games for the local gaming Meetup group. I’m running a Hollow Earth Expedition-fueled pulp adventure called “The White Ape of the Congo” early in February. After I run it, I will post the adventure notes and an after action report. Another I hope to run is a Serenity game that rips off the movie Deep Rising (a stupid but lots of fun flick) but with the monster being replaced by reavers. I may run a James Bond game later in the year…who knows?

It’s a new year, there’s a lot of new product from the indie publishers, so get our and try a new game!