Yes, you read that right, I’m horrendously late in publishing this. My initial delays were due to tight writing deadlines on The Lands Remaining, an upcoming RPG I’ll be talking about in a future post. Given these delays, I’ve also added a brief post-con update on the folks I’ve spoken to.

I’ve attended Dragonmeet for many years, from its place in Kensington Town Hall to the present, where it celebrated its first year at the ExCel Centre. It’s a massive one-day convention primarily based around roleplaying games, boasting games, stalls, demos, seminars and more.

I attended with a press pass, travelling up from Brighton and having my first experience on the Elizabeth Line in order to get there. I’ve been to ExCel for MCM a few times in the last decade, so I’m used to the area and the crowds. Dragonmeet was busy, but not to an MCM level. One hall was open and mostly empty, reserved for the staff checking tickets. I thought it would be difficult asking for my press pass, but it was pretty quick compared to my friend Arthur who had a little trouble getting in on the Indie Games on the Hour booking, as did two other attendees.

The hall felt massive, with high ceilings and occasional pigeon visitors. There was a grid pattern of stalls which was mostly easy to navigate. Things felt spread out quite nicely, even if it was a bit sparse at two of the edges. From what I’ve heard, the booking they had was for a smaller space, but more was provided. I’d much rather it was that way round, personally.

A side entrance made ducking out for a seat and a coffee easy enough, and I bumped into some friends from my local Arkham Horror LCG group around there. 

I only managed to visit a few people, but it was lovely to catch up with folks. Here’s some of what I talked about.

Chris Longhurst

Chris is an easy conversationalist for a games journalist with anxiety psyching himself up to talk to more people. He was on his own stall with his superhero RPG, See Issue XX and having recently released Threadcutters.

At the time, he was trying to fund his science fiction RPG, Gravity, which has since successfully closed. We chatted about Hitman a lot in previous conventions, mainly in relation to Threadcutters (and Outside XBox). This time we discussed Soulsborne games and his plans on putting together a Dwarf Fortress-inspired RPG as a serial duet game. Once complete, it’ll get passed to the player to GM it next. There are some fun chain RPGs like The Machine, I’ll be interested to see how this develops.

Currently, Chris has a few days left on his Lancer campaign, “Myriad Inverse” on Backerkit, which looks interesting: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/chris-longhurst/myriad-inverse-a-lancer-campaign. 

Studio Agate

I saw a giant 7th Sea banner and had to check it out. I love 7th Sea and am on record as one of the few lovers of the second edition. Studio Agate crowdfunded a campaign using that edition and are now in development of the Third Edition. 

I asked them about what they’re planning, as I was concerned they’d throw the baby out with the bathwater given the fan reaction to 7th Sea 2E.

What I’ve been told is that the plan is to still use the much improved setting from 7th Sea Second Edition but to advance it ten years in order to tweak some elements and make it feel like their take on it. They’ve licensed it from Chaosium, so they’ll only be doing the RPG. The system itself will be all new, with some elements from both, but it’s still pretty early days.

One thing they want to reposition is the way in which Second Edition would give you a difficulty and effectively ‘raises’ to mitigate other problems. They want to emphasise that you’re big damn heroes. I liked the previous system but the reframing makes sense.

Unfortunately they were still a bit cagey about things, but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on their progress as it develops.

Studio Agate’s site is here: https://www.studio-agate.com/en

Their Kickstarter pre-launch page is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/agate/7th-sea-ttrpg-a-new-journey

Indie Games on the Hour

I always love playing at the Indie Games on the Hour space at Dragonmeet (and UK Games Expo). The GMs are enthusiastic and provide a lot of odd, interesting games.

This year I played Death Was The Only Road Out of Town, by Grant Howitt & Alex Roberts. It was run by Jim and was joined by three other players, all strangers. It was a fun, noir-ish game in a dream world. The dice mechanic did some fun things with difficulty and trying not to match sets. The story was well-crafted by Jim and he even had some sheets to help get everyone in the right mood. 

My main criticism about it would be the space. It was in gen pop with five tables pressed pretty close together, all right by the thoroughfare. Hopefully in the future there could be another room or some kind of divider to try and help block out some noise.

Chaosium

The Chaosium stand was celebrating its 50th anniversary and after a short time of talking with one of the people there about Pendragon, I was provided with a bookmark, badge and some Pendragon-branded d6’s.

As part of the 50th Anniversary of Call of Cthulhu, there’s a new printing of the slipcase being produced, which I have preordered as I don’t actually own a hard copy of the current edition.

Pendragon had recently released The Sauvage King which sounded at first like a collection of one-off adventures, but I was assured that it’s a series which can continue after The Grey Knight (itself a sequel to the Starter Set).

I had to ask about The Great Pendragon Campaign, as I’m looking at trying to run some Pendragon in 2026. Apparently it’s currently in layout, so hopefully there’ll be a 2026 release.

Since this event, Chaosium have pushed back the 50th anniversary slipcase to April 2026 and mentioned an upcoming GM screen and noble’s book for Pendragon. Personally, Pendragon’s core book and GM’s guide is on my to-read stack.

Patchwork Fez Games

Sarah was tabling alongside Graham Walmsley, the creator of Cosmic Dark. I had to stay away from the physical Cosmic Dark books as I know I’ve got one which should be in the post in the near future from the Kickstarter campaign.

Sarah was selling her system-neutral horror RPG scenario collection Darkened Hill and Dale, which I’d resolved to pick up after seeing her at a folk horror talk at UK Games Expo this year. Terminus was making its debut at the con, with preorders for folks who didn’t want to pick up one of the few copies and carry it home. This is a London Underground-based system neutral horror book which has a gorgeous cover made using tiles. The original even accompanied Sarah to the con.

Since writing this, I received Terminus, wrapped in red tissue paper with a map in an envelope. The book looks gorgeous and the effort she described in making the textured cover definitely paid off. Even better, when I got round to reading the adventure, I did it on a train!

What’s Hot in Indie RPGs?

This is another essential part of Dragonmeet and I’d not been to a seminar yet. I hadn’t seen a stage in the main hall, like in Thought Bubble or even Spiel. Instead, I was directed through some doors and upstairs to a meeting room. The hallways were a bit narrow, but the room had a good size to it.

Richard Williams was there and organising, with Kayla Dice, Lloyd Gyan, Michael Duxbury and Rob Carnell as the panel.

Looking back at 2025

Kayla brought up people’s poorness of time and money as a motivator for more short-form and duet games. Experiences which are easier to finish.

When prompted by Rob, she also brought up the mirror to modern life provided by Psychodungeon. How it draws on her experiences and her family’s of working in and dealing with public services. How to make the problems of privatisation, poor mental health provisions and general reduced quality of public service also a dungeon.

Lloyd mentioned the gradual translation of some non-English RPGs such as the crowdfunding of Sword World and how given the high quality of games like the Japanese Dark Souls & Shin Megami Tensei RPGs, it’d be good to see more of that.

Rob said that the prices for everything has increased at the same time as the economy’s stagnant. That’s providing some challenges and opportunities for RPGs, even though as Michael mentioned, there are also some ‘perverse incentives’ out there being encouraged in gaming. From an indie view, there’s a risk of some conservatism in game pitches.

Attempts to Steal the Crown from D&D

We all know that D&D takes up 90% of the oxygen in the RPG space, which is why I don’t cover it.

Michael pointed out a number of attempts at D&D killers which have been coming out. There are a lot of these games, but it doesn’t feel like a lot of them are likely to get the crown.

Cosmere was a big hit as a crowdfunding campaign but feels like a more confined unit, with backers who mainly seem to be fans of Brandon Sanderson and mechanics which are more like D&D Third Edition. Lloyd was more positive on Cosmere, although he did ask people to put their hands up if they’d read Sanderson and almost nobody had. He mentioned that the setting is really interesting, but it shouldn’t be a level-based power system. It’s a weird way of presenting a roleplay-focused world.

Draw Steel has a smaller, but dedicated audience. Mechanically it’s closer to a D&D 4E like experience and is open about being a ‘tactical cinematic fantasy’ RPG. It had 

Daggerheart is more interesting and has some good names involved, it didn’t go to crowdfunding. There are some serious “D&D for theatre kid” vibes and some third party support.

Rob added that Nimble is supposed to be ‘playable 5E’, and left it at that.

Lloyd mentioned that this was all done because of the fuck-ups with the Open Gaming License. These are all still variants of D&D and much respect to any of them for doing their own thing and seeing if it sticks.

Michael said he had some concerns about whether they’ll just make some money and go back. If Brendan-Lee Mulligan can’t run Daggerheart for Critical Role, why should he?

Kayla brought some optimism by saying that hopefully people will learn a new system if there’s a name like Sanderson attached and a sign of a bit of a culture shift. 

An audience member mentioned that they hadn’t seen Cosmere or Draw Steel at the convention, just one copy of Daggerheart. Michael wasn’t surprised, after all, how much D&D sold today?

Audience Questions

An audience member asked about the nostalgia for older indie RPGs, like Apocalypse World: Burned over and Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts. Is this nostalgia or evolution?

Kayla says that it’s nice to re-engage with material later, like with Monsterhearts 1 & 2. That it’s interesting that indie RPGs are developing their own canon.

Rob brought up the recent BackerKit campaign about Dog Eat Dog and Mountain Witch, where an institution is preserving gaming culture by reprinting some of these old games.

Another audience member asked about discoverability which led into some questions about whether Itch is still garbage to search (yes – C). Kayla said that she’d be a big star if she knew and that it’s an active process unless you’re already wealthy. 

Finally, someone asked what folks are feeling about the future? Kayla mentioned that she felt FOMO was dead on crowdfunding and there’s often an assumption that some campaigns will overfund. Lloyd said fewer books, more boxes and that his game of the year was Daggerheart, in his regular insistence in not choosing something all that indie.

Michael agreed that trends are going towards boxes and they’re useful to the hobby as books look like homework, a box looks fun. 

Black Armada Games

It’s not a games convention without checking in with the Black Armada folks.

The Ex Tenebris crowdfunding campaign went well and Josh Fox told me that he’s reviewing scenarios. He also started telling me about how Becky Annison’s currently writing “Carnival Tenebris”. He was excited about it and Becky came by to provide details on the game:

Carnival Tenebris is set in the universe of Ex Tenebris, on an undeveloped world with performers travelling a route which is actually a protective sigil. The tone felt very much like Carnivalé, with the circus having its own playbook. The character playbooks are also compatible with Ex Ten itself, which means you can have a performer in that game or a broken ex-lawman in this one. It was in playtesting and people who are good enough to be on the Black Armada Patreon can read more updates about it pretty regularly. 

The crew were also celebrating their recent appearance on Quinns Quest’s episode about boxed RPGs where he played Lovecraftesque Second Edition.

Black Armada’s Patreon is here: https://patreon.com/blackarmada

Conclusions

I had a good time at Dragonmeet and the new venue was a joy for someone with impaired spatial awareness to wander around. I got to see a ton of friends from various gaming groups and had easy access to get coffee.

The space for seminars felt a little distant, being up a few flights of stairs in some meeting rooms and Indie Games on the Hour was difficult to hear as it was in the thoroughfare. I’m curious to see if either of these things change as the convention has another year at the ExCel Centre.

While I have fond memories of Kensington Town Hall and of the Novotel, it’s a better sign for the hobby to have to move to a larger space than a smaller one, and a fairly painless commute back to Brighton.