I’m assuming they mean what game released or that I noticed this year has “had an impact” on what I want to play, or has had bits ripped off to cram into the systems we’re using right now.

If the first — Tales From the Loop. I’m an early ’80s kid and the movies it’s evoking were the movies I was watching in high school. I love the art, although its art book quality was why I was initially put off until I thumbed through the dead simple rules one day at the local game store. They’re so good, I bought the Bundle of Holding on Mutant Zero, which is where the mechanics evolved from. I’m liking what I’m seeing in MZ, although the nuclear wasteland mutant theme isn’t really my cup of tea, there’s a lot to like there. So Mutant Zero would be another.

I wanted to like the 2d20 system powering Star Trek and Conan, and John Carter and which we were on the initial playtesting. We found the mechanics were overly complex and the writing to describe them so unbearably bad as to be nearly incomprehensible. When you can’t quite figure out the basic resolution mechanic, there’s a problem.

Funnily, all of these examples are out of the Mödiphiüs stable.

As for RPGs that have influenced actual play, it’s the return of d6 Star Wars, which was rereleased by Fantasy Flight Games (whose new SW game has the same annoying proprietary dice thing a lot of games are doing these days, and whose half dozen “core books” are a blatant rip-job on their customers.) I cribbing Hollow Earth Expedition‘s take the average mechanic for the massive dice pools that come with starship combat, rather than buying a gross of d6s and a wheelbarrow.