The ENDIES 2025
The Murkdice wrap-up
This article contains affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you make purchases using these links, at no cost to you.It’s the last post of the year! The OSR/NSR blogging community is participating in the ‘Endies’, a new idea where we wrap up our year in pen & paper gaming. I like the idea, so today:
I’ll list what I ran this year with some personal thoughts
Note releases this year that caught my attention
Highlight the most important blog posts (for me) I read this year
Look back a little bit on some big Murkdice milestones
What I ran this year
This year was a funny one for me as a GM. I wrapped up a huge 3 year campaign (see my takeaways) in the spring, then Murkdice has thrown so much my way that I haven’t been able to get deep in a long campaign since.
So this year has been… fragmented. But still fun, and full of lessons.
Murk Hack
I used the ‘Murk Hack’ to wrap up my 3 year campaign, plus a set of custom mass combat rules for the last 5ish sessions. Folks have requested I get Murk Hack out there but I have to be frank… it isn’t happening soon. I have a crazy megadungeon to write and other plates spinning. It will happen though… eventually. Maybe in a few years. Maybe.
Given that the crazy megadungeon Inkvein is made for MÖRK BORG, you can bet I’ve been running it. I also playtested the adventure Odinson and I made, the 2nd Keytower of Grift, which you can grab PWYW by the way!
I continue to love MÖRK BORG. I do have a few house rules I use (when I’m not playtesting), but it continues to be a source of miserable rules-lite joy for me.
I ran Edge of Darkness this year, over a couple of sessions. I think running it really cemented that I have moved on from CoC. Systems like Liminal Horror interest me much more, as do alternative ways to structure mysteries.
I can still see myself using CoC to introduce others to the hobby, it has already proven itself an effective tool in that regard, but other than that I won’t be back.
I ran the Fallen Marsh from the rulebook for a few sessions as a hexcrawl. It lived up to its reputation for weirdness and uncanny vibes. Something it reinforced for me is my preference for dense keying, but it was a great challenge to work with just a few bullet points as a GM.
I used the advanced tomes for this, and ran a few sessions of Willow. OSE… just isn’t right for me. I see the appeal but it just doesn’t fit my GMing approach. Willow was fantastic, it’s a really well designed and compact adventure that deserves its spot on my recommendations list.
Ok… I admit it. I got caught up in the hype following Quinn’s review. I took Delta Green for a spin and ran three short scenarios with it. I wrote up my detailed thoughts in MurkMail Premium Issue 14, but long story short…
Me and my table didn’t dig DG. I can see why folks love it, but it just didn’t hit for us. Me and my table love mysteries, but more akin to real world investigation. We want to be using procedures and evidence processing, rather than the cinematic breadcrumb trail technique. Delta Green didn’t give us that, but for those who want to be X-files agents in a cinematic structure… you couldn’t do better.
My own campaigns aside, this is my favourite thing I’ve run this year. The writing and atmosphere in this 40ish page booklet is just fantastic. I jury-rigged a simple system based on the book’s loose ideas of house rules. We played for 5 sessions before the players managed to make it through a ruin and find the way ‘out’.
One thing I did struggle with in the Vast is the amount of procedural generation. This is going to be gold dust for some, but it gave me insights into my own prep style that I explored in MurkMail Premium Issue 24.
I loved finally getting this post-apocalyptic mecha rpg to the table. It did not disappoint. Salvage Union is fun. Like, just so much fun. Raw, stomp around in giant robots searching for trash whilst blowing stuff up fun. I ran The Downing of the Atychos and followed up with a sub-region of False Flag, both well written adventures. I will 100% bring this back to my table at some point.
This year’s releases
Mythic Bastionland: Yes, I know. I’m the 23rd blogger who’s said this. Mythic B. is a fantastic game though and deserves all the praise it is getting. Best rulebook this year without question.
Coriolis, The Great Dark: This has been a bit of a dark horse this year. I’m finding this game intensely interesting, and the campaign, the Flowers of Algorab, looks pretty solid too.
Blogs
There were some important posts for me this year:
Failure Tolerated, Writing Rooms in Pairs. Sean McCoy put into words something I had been playing with in 2024 and made it clear as crystal. This is the most important post I read this year without a doubt.
All Dead Generations, Most Adventures are Bad. Gus L summarised great adventure writing advice.
Minimum Viable Person, Viridian Void. This inspired the only 12 NPCs you need, and was an excellent demonstration of minimalistic gameability.
Odinson, Joy beyond the walls of the world. Seeing someone so talented be honest about burnout and how life affects artistic pursuits was impactful.
Sepulchral Shenanigans, A Room Containing 1d6 Goblins. Murkdice’s resident postmaster general wrote a retrospective about our discord server’s first Play-by-Post game, and it was wonderful.
Murkdice’s 2025
Murkdice has had a crazy year. I could go on for way too long about the awesome stuff that’s happened but let’s summarise. We…
Announced Inkvein: our MÖRK BORG megadungeon is coming to BackerKit in Spring 2026, courtesy of the magnificent Space Penguin Ink.
Won best debut blog at the Bloggies 2024 (awarded 2025)
Co-created the awesome 2nd Keytower of Grift with Odinson.
Got 2 ENNIE nominations: one for best short form adventure and one for best online content. We went to GenCon last minute and had a great time.
Released a set of 80 d66 dark fantasy spark tables, free for all our subscribers.
Entered the Mythic Bastionland Jam with The Circle Knight & The Ash: out of 100 entries we came 5th overall, got 3rd best Knight, and 2nd best Seer.
Climbed from 1.2k subscribers to 3.2k subscribers and have over 30 majestic premium subscribers who support the newsletter directly.
Which is all to say… 2025 has been a great year. It has also been a tiring year. Maybe I’ll write something on that in a few months. Right now, all my focus is on Inkvein and it will be for the foreseeable future. But before we sign off for 2025…
The Most Popular Article
Despite being released less than a month ago…
This concept has seized the hearts of pen & paper gamers everywhere, becoming our most read article this year in mere weeks and our most liked article ever.
Thanks for a great year folks. I’m sure 2026 will be even madder and we can’t wait.