Andy: It is hard for me to not select "The Matt Mercer Effect" as my favorite post that I did this past year. It's been the most popular post on the blog by far. Was it serious? Was it a big satirical joke? Do we have an unpaid intern named Jeff that got the wrong Matt Mercer in every single photo (even though the minor league baseball player is much harder to find pictures of than the voice actor and Critical Role star)? I’m so pleased at all of the discordant discussion it caused. (And no, I’m not answering questions about it.) My favorite co-post of the year was probably "To the Pain!" Not only is it a great reference to a classic movie, it helped me get through a lot of my own physical pain at the time. It also has some pretty great thoughts on pain in TTRPGs. To round off my list, I found Bugsy’s post "Fun With Murder: The Narrative Ethics of Assassination Games" very interesting. I hope we can include more thoughts behind player action in coming posts.
Bugsy: One post this year that really coalesced my thinking of late was "Star Trek v. Star Trek: The Starship Enterprise's Fifty-Year Confusion." It tied together a lot of the subjects I want to explore within this blog about the nature of interactive narrative and shared imagination. And, judging by the number of reads, I'm guessing a lot of you are intrigued by those same things. I'd like to expand that out into electronic and tabletop tie-in games (both licensed and... "unsactioned," if you will) and the ways they use the available tools to make the player feel they're taking part in a world they already know. In a similar vein, the research I did for the retrospective section of "Our 100th Issue!" really makes me want to delve further into the relationship of player, character, and game and the way it was defined in the earliest days. I'm thinking this might involve going back and finishing some of the computer RPGs I had as a kid, such as The Bard's Tale, the SSI Gold Box Series, and, of course, The Temple of Aphshai. (Andy, could you turn the "Days Since Bugsy Mentioned Temple of Apshai" counter back to zero? Thanks!) Some later games, such as the original Fallout and Deus Ex titles would be worth exploring as well. Ultimately, I plan to continue using the blog as an excuse to play old video games exploring the approaches these games took, and what we can learn from them. I'd also like to call attention to Andy's "The Gaming Parent" and parenting sections of our co-post "Gaming Out Stress" for approaching a potentially touchy subject (that I couldn't possibly begin to address) with care and honesty. Andy, there's no one I'd rather take this adventure with, and I still delighted, three years later, that we undertook this goofy project together.
And now, what you all really came here for... the pie puns!
FanTARTsy
Learning the dances of all the upper-crust courts made an idyllic childhood for Mincer. Her dance card was always filled… until her family was sliced out of her life by a band of Orcs. All alone, Mincer was forced to become a thief and assassin, her blades a terror of the town. She was rising to the top, until her latest contract…on her missing father!
Crumbshoe
Being a private eye had been Sam Syrup's dream since he was a little flake. A few years into the business, though, Sam really kneads a big break. Things just hadn’t been the same since Sam’s partner Johnny Dough got burnt. But when a real dish named Cherry steps into the Dough and Syrup Detective Agency, she’s got a case that might mean an end to sifting through lost puppy ads and protection jobs… as long as they can handle the heat.
Pie-ld West
With the Granny Smith Gang behind bars, and Sheriff Ribbon headed back east, it might finally be safe to be a card hustler in Bakersville again. After all, it had been too long camping out in the stiff peaks and you could use some dough. As long as you don’t fold too often, you might even score a crew. If the heat ever does come back to town, you could always roll out for another panhandling place.
Call of CRUST'thulu: That is Not Bread Which Can Eternal Pie
Jethro was a fine young lad until they took him into custardy. But when he returned from the Drury Lane House, he was a different man. Sometimes, he would just stare off into space, slowly chanting the same words over and over: macerate…puree. Nobody really knew what it meant until he started exhibiting strange powers. He may be able to make things rise and fall using his mind now, but can Jethro Baker ever win back his panity?
Post-apiecalyptic
Bloom is one of the crustiest, toughest survivors eking out a living on the edge of the Sheet. But when raiders sent by warlord Immor-Tin Jake starts rolling in to take over the region, he needs to mix up a group of other freaks and outsiders to pin them down and push them back out to the Rack.
Pieberpunk
Two years ago, Crisp was one of the best hackers in world... but then he stole recipes from the wrong people, who left him a state where he'd never be able to slice again. But one day, a mysterious benefactor names Blancmange offers to fix the damage in exchange for cooking up one of the strangest data heists in history... if he can pull it out within a certain time limit. With the timer going, can Crisp uncover his employer's motivations while evading the most dangerous ICE-ing on the Grid?
Andy: What will Never Say Dice fill your year with until the next Pi day? First of all, we have every intention of continuing to put out the same level of posts you see from us each and every week. We still haven’t gotten to a point where we can post multiple times a week, but we’ll keep trying to fill up a backlog to eventually make that possible. What would you like to see from our posts? More classic video Games? More classic D&D monsters? Interviews and guest writers? Drop us a line and let us know! Reach out to us on our Facebook and Twitter. Keep following us and interacting. Your support is what makes us able to do this. If you want to help keep us covered financially, please shop for gaming gear through our Affiliates Page or you can drop us a tip here. No matter what, we hope to see you again each and every week. Enjoy all your tabletops - now get out there and break some dice!
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(from the classic Paranoia adventure "Clones in Space.")