So, this thread is to talk about what we thought were the big hits of the year, and why. What was really good?
What surprised you?

RPGPundit

I didn't buy that many current products this year, mostly ebay'ing some old and new classics.

Artesia really rocked my boat.
Iron Kingdoms: Five Fingers is one of the best citybooks I ever got.
Book of Nine Swords put some spirit back into the D&D fighter.

Hmm.

I have to agree on Book of Nine Swords - it really pumped up the fighting class end of the D&D game, giving interesting 'powers' to fighters instead of relying on the feat system as the Fighter class does.  Beyond that I'll have to think - aside from D&D, I didn't really buy a ton of recent stuff this year.

Did Pulp HERO come out this year?  No?  Hmm.  I got some Hero books, but I think they were all from last year, actually.

Book of Nine Swords
Madhaven, for the cover alone
Ptolus

PHB II jazzed up both my D&D games rather nicely.  Was that one this year?

Hmmm... I wanted to like Book of Nine Swords, but it just says "power escalation and outshining the core fighter" all over it to me.

Fiendish Codex Volume I was a sweet treat for me. Well written, loaded with adventure ideas.

Looking for others to round out my list, I find myself only halfheartedly crowing for many of my remaining purchases. I've gotten some use out of a lot of them, but nothing makes me say "I couldn't live without this."

Rappan Athuk Reloaded has me jonesin' to run a game. It's a rehash, but one that was nice to see.
Shades of Gray is a campaign adventure. A bit long, but pretty cool. I am having trouble findnig a hardcopy.
Ptolus is the pretty product of the year, but I could really live without it. It's setting assumptions keep me from using it to my satisfaction without a little rework.
Bards Gate is a good city book that fulfils a lot of long waits and it really pretty well done.
Complete Mage is working pretty well for me. I like that it has no new core classes, but it squanders entirely too much time on the warlock.
In the non-D20 realm, Burning Empires is a nice acquisition, with innovative yet eminently usable takes on a lot of things, but the chances of me actually using it are slim.

Overall, there are lots of products I consider "good" but few that "wowed" me. I don't think 2006 is an especially good year for me gaming-product wise.

Quote from: jrientsPHB II jazzed up both my D&D games rather nicely.  Was that one this year?

Yeah. I almost listed it, but I disdain all the new core classes coming from WotC, so I didn't list it. The feats, spells, and some optional rules are pretty snazzy.

True 20 would be my pick, and it really surprised me that I liked it, since M&M was a little too Hero-ish for me (I love Hero, but if I wanted to play supers that way, I um, play Hero, not some attempt to shoehorn it into the d20).

But True 20 seemed really nicely done to me and I ran a great campaign for it during the writing of my Excalibur conversion.

Chuck

Ptolus is hands down my favorite gaming product of 2006. The layout is awesome, the hypertext style indexing is awesome, the setting is awesome, the maps and player handouts are awesome... And it is very pretty too. One of the best RPG books I've bought in a number of years actually. And I'm making good use of it too.

Definitely agree on the Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords it's a fantastic product for D20.

True 20 is another product that I think is extremely well done and in several areas outshines D20 as a more usable game.

Shadowrun 4th ed.  Is a great revamp to a broken system.  It fixes a lot of mechanical issues and also by putting decking into a more usable manor fixes a lot of the issues that decking previously created.

WFRP Realms of Sorcery and Tome of Corruption.  Both flush out areas that were missing from the original Core book and bring in plenty of new things for GM's and players to enjoy.  They did what they promised to do and brought a wealth of knowledge to the WFRPG.

Given that the True20 I actually love came out last year, I don't really count it.

What I'd put on my list would be mostly Warhammer books; realms of sorcery is great, as are pretty well all of the books of theirs I've gotten (I forget which were this year and which were last). I don't have the Tome of Corruption yet, but I'm sure its very cool too. Ditto with the Border Princes and the WFRP Companion.

I think that In Harms Way is also awesome as a general game, and will probably end up being a very very successful small press game (well, it already is, but I mean as in "spawn sourcebooks").

RPGPundit

IMO there wasn't much of interest this year.  

I'll vote for the True 20 core book and Bestiary, as well as the first release for Rolemaster Classic (the cleaned up & reogranised version of RM 2nd edition).

Beyond those two items, nothing new caught my eye.  :shrug:

Though a "story" game, I think Burning Empires would be the jewel of my 2006 pickups.  First there is the quality of the book (art, layout, print quality, etc...).  What I really like about the game though is that it allows the GM to emulate the graphic novels using the system, which is the point.  So instead of having a "party" of characters travelling together and performing tasks, you can have characters acting seperately to achieve the group goal (stop the Vaylen).  

It would also be my first choice of systems to run a Warhammer 40,000 campaign.

For me it would be True20 all the way. Core book and Bestiary mainly, but True20 Cybernetics is also a great resource for plugging chrome into a sci-fi game. Nice simple, yet functional rules for cybernetics free of setting specific material.

Both True20 and Shadowrun 4E came out last year no, so technically not 2006?


I really liked both myself myself. (Sans True 20's settings)

In Harm's Way
Questers of the Middle Realms

about all I can think of for "this" year..