Time flies, and this is deeply overdue! Time for a review of POCGamer in 2024!
The Big Picture
2024 was a wild year. The Twitter-pocalypse of 2023 hit the whole tabletop RPG industry like a hurricane, with creators having to pick between ethics and food as Elon’s reforms rolled out. It’s a no win position, and I was lucky I was in a space that was stable enough to start the process of rebuilding. So the process started in late 2023 and went through 2024.
Purely in numbers, 2024 slightly exceeded 2023 for unique visits to the site, at 36.4k to the last year’s 36.3k. That’s lower than the 52.8k high of pre-Elon 2021, but I think it represents a level of stability developing. Losing Twitter sucked, but the recovery process is happening.
Social Media Decisions
I can’t stress enough how important social media presence is as both a content creator and freelance creative. And after a long year of testing the waters, I think Bluesky is the winner. Threads is too slow to grow, Mastodon doesn’t fit the needs and has too small a population, and less said about Spoutible, the better. I’m still legit upset Hive is a mobile only app though.
So moving forward, the main social media operation will be on Bluesky. I’ll be on other platforms, but not to the extent I’ll be on Bluesky.
Top Posts!
2024 was an exceptional year for posts and releases, and these were the Top 5 articles:
#1 Day 1 Review! Cyberpunk Edgerunners Mission Kit
It’s safe to say that Cyberpunk Edgerunners was a whole phenomena unto itself. High production values, pitch perfect voice acting, deep respect for the material, this anime series won its awards fair and square. It also brought Cyberpunk and Night City to a whole new audience on a scale that the game has never enjoyed before, to the point it completely revitalized Cyberpunk 2077. So when R. Talsorian Games announced it was making a boxed set to act as a bridge between Cyberpunk RED and 2077, using Edgerunners as the link? People lost the plot. This post was the clear winner in 2024, without any actual competition.
Shadowrun is a problematic fave for a lot of people, and for a lot of reasons. But it’s a game with such a compelling world and setting that it’s been more or less continuously published since 1989 and is currently in its sixth edition. This article was a broad overview of the game and its setting, and the various issues it faces in the modern ecosystem.
#3 Day One Review: Pathfinder’s GM Core & Player Core
This was a 2023 article remained popular into 2024, and for good reason. Paizo took the OGL 1.1 scandal from Wizards seriously, and revamped their 2nd edition of Pathfinder to fully break it away from anything Wizards could legally affect. The result was ELECTRIC. The remastered 2nd Edition was a triumph of design and information accessibility, and fully broke Pathfinder away from its D&D roots.
#4 Fantasy AGE 2e! The Review!
This one was a surprise to me, because Green Ronin’s Fantasy AGE 2nd Edition is a definite sleeper hit that doesn’t get nearly the love it deserves. I love this game, and wish more people would check out the AGE system in general.
#5 Stacked Oppression in Shadowrun
Heading back to the Sixth World, this article cracked the Top 5 and tackled the complex web of layered levels of oppression and discrimination in Shadowrun. My argument was that there was too much of both, and the tones and normalization of both detracts from the “punk” aspect and can lend itself too easily to games that celebrate and encourage discrimination.
Building and Developing
A reality I need to face is that over the years, I’ve invested in platforms and sites and not used them to nearly enough, or even dipped into their potential. I’m changing that this year. This includes Inkarnate, Roll20, Obsidian Portal, World Anvil, Canva, Podbean, and Streamlabs. So I’m hoping to have a more multimedia approach to things moving forward.
A Big Thanks
Finishing this off, I need to thank all my Patreon and ko-fi supporters. You’ve all been great, and your contributions have been hugely important over the last year. Your patience during the disruption of life that was moving my family over 450km to a new home, and all the usual challenges has been amazing and I’m thankful everyday for what you’ve been able to do for me. Thank you.
Now let’s have a great 2025!
