New Year, New...sletter

Hello friends! Welcome to 2026, and welcome to the Go Play NW off-season newsletter!

With our online event in the spring, and our Seattle in-person event in the summer, let’s make winter the season where we pull our chairs close to the fire and write each other long letters about how we remember the sunny days of Go Play NW 2025. We’ll promise each other that it will one day be warm again, and that Go Play NW 2026 will be on us before we know it!

And if you don’t feel culturally obligated to complain about the winter weather (perhaps because you live in a different hemisphere) let’s talk about games! We’ve also got a call for volunteer artists and a preview of the Go Play NW events of 2026 and at the end of the newsletter.

Volunteer artists needed!

Are you an artist who’d like to help out Go Play NW with your talents and some of your time? We’ve got a wide variety of promotional and functional art needs, including but not limited to icons of our offerings and attractions, our mascot Go in various poses and activities, and other small incidental art for our website.

If you are interested in volunteering in this way, please check out our Volunteer page—you’ll need to sign in to see the form at the bottom of the page. Select “no preference” for the Preferred Volunteer Role and in the Additional Information field write that you want to help us with your artistic talents. Thanks for considering us!

Awards and Intentions from Our Volunteers

We asked the folks who make Go Play NW happen to give an award to a game or gaming experience from 2025, and write a gaming intention for 2026. Here’s what they said (at least those of them that weren’t too busy running Donut simulations to determine the optimal boarding pass flavors)!

Brendan Albano

Communications Committee

Award

Inspired the most introspection: OVER/UNDER

I’m still thinking about my experience participating (and not participating) in the month-long, play-by-post, megagame/wargame/larp OVER/UNDER. When it launched I deeply wanted to toss caution to the wind, cancel my commitments, and say “this is what I’m doing for the next month.” And then I said to myself, “gosh, it sucks that I can’t do that, I guess I’ll just sort of lurk and feel a great sense of longing watching the game unfold.” And then at the end of the month I remembered that I’m self-employed, have a great deal of control over my schedule, and absolutely could have dove in completely to this thing I wanted to do. There wasn’t a practical or logistical reason that caused me to hold back. So why did I hold back? What stopped me from doing something I wanted to do? I’m still thinking about it.

Intention

Treat GM prep like a solo game

I find GM prep to be more stressful than I’d like. And while there are many games that eliminate GM prep, I like a lot of games that require it. I heard someone make a comment (probably on Discord?) relating to “wasted” prep when a game was cancelled. They said that GM prep was like a solo game for them, something they enjoyed doing for its own sake, so they weren’t concerned about their prep being “wasted.” This is a tantalizing idea! I’d like to figure out how I can transform my GM prep into a solo game that I look forward to playing!

Kona Goodhart

Technology Committee

Award

Favorite play technique: Idle Dreaming

In 2025, I got a ton out of bringing idle dreaming into more of my games. For those not familiar with the term, “idle dreaming” was first introduced by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum in Dream Apart/Dream Askew, and can be lazily summarized as “collaboratively brainstorming about the game.” Which, like, duh. That’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? However, it’s very easy to fall into a pattern of progressing scenes led by what the characters want to achieve regardless of whether it’s of interest to the players. The party started in the tavern, they got a quest, now they’re walking down the road to the dungeon, then they enter the dungeon and so on and so forth. One moment after the other. Idle dreaming is an active invitation and reminder to consider: what are we most interested in seeing? What are we curious about; what haven’t we seen yet? What is the most intriguing version of that? By following curiosity and selectively curating scenes to play out, the rhythm of a game moves away from a moment-to-moment plod and starts cutting to the juiciest parts.

What made me fall in love with idle dreaming in 2025 was applying idle dreaming to more than just games directly inspired by Dream Askew/Dream Apart (known as Belonging Outside Belonging or sometimes No Dice, No Masters). I found it to be an excellent tool for a variety of games, especially as a way to maintain enthusiasm between game sessions. “Hey, these characters haven’t interacted in a while—maybe we can see a scene with them next session?” “This character just did such-and-such, I want to see what happens when that other character finds out.” Idle dreaming has been a very fruitful reframing of how to think about scenes, how to identify what I really want from a game, and how to get the most out of a game.

Intention

Play Luke Jordan’s Grand Guignol and Harvest—i.e., explore what Belonging Outside Belonging can do

Following my award to idle dreaming, it might seem like I'm a Belonging Outside Belonging enthusiast. In fact, BOB is a format I've struggled with; the structurelessness has left me floundering on more than one occasion. Which is precisely why I’m so interested to explore variations on it, and Luke Jordan's two new takes on BOB in particular. Among other things, Grand Guignol adds “occurrences,” scenes-as-minigames that will feel familiar to anyone who has played Meguey and Vincent D. Bakers’ Mobile Suit Zero: Firebrands or its many descendants. Meanwhile, Harvest adds a three-act structure and limited token pool that gives to or takes from the Island, infusing symbolic meaning into a token economy that can sometimes feel arbitrary. I was lucky enough to get a one-shot of each to the table in 2025. In 2026, I’m looking forward to really opening them up and seeing what they have to offer.

Andi

Commscom

Award

Beloved gaming accessory: rocks

If you've ever joined us at GPNW’s in-person summer event, you might remember the pleasure of playing games outside. You might fondly recall the long days, sunshine, and warmth. And perhaps you also recall the hilarity of trying to secure your paper gaming ephemera from the wind.

It happens each year.

This past July, on my way to Go Play, I remembered to rummage up some neighborhood rocks. I used them all darn weekend as paperweights. A perfect solution. I couldn't ask for better. Those rocks are currently on the window sill, patiently waiting for July.

See ya this summer—remember to bring your rocks!

Intention

Doubling down on rocks

Let’s stick with the achievable: Come July, I want to bring my trusty rocks to GPNW. Maaaybe I’ll go on a little adventure beforehand and find a few more rocks.

Philip LaRose

Organizing Committee

Award

Indulging My Personal Stereotypes Game: Samurai Goths of the Apocalypse

I am neither a samurai nor a goth, although I am at least goth-adjacent. But a game in which I get to play a Matrix-style badass goth who’s in a band, and winning the battle of the bands—against the band of my ex, Richard (said in tones of utter disgust)—is probably more important than fending off the monsters bringing the world-ending apocalypse? A game where I can call on my familiarity with the music scene and propose one of the many band names I’ve made up over the years for our group? That, my friends, is a game for me, and was a highlight at the Go Play NW 2025 summer event.

Intention

Prepare the Thing (number x of y Things) I’ve been thinking about running, 2026 edition

The thing about intentions is that it’s easy to have them and hard to do them. Especially because there’s a common human trait that if you talk about the thing you intend to do, often your brain feels like you’ve done the thing you intend to do, and then you never actually do the work. So, I have two or three different “I should run this at Go Play NW” ideas I’ve been carrying for the past few years, plus a new thing I have in fact put some work into developing but I can’t tell you about it because then I won’t do it. Anyhow, this year I really should bring something to the table and Go Play.

Share Your Awards and Intentions

Join us on Discord and share your awards and intentions!

Awards: give an award to a game or gaming experience you had in 2025! Make up the award category! Here are some example categories, but you are encouraged to make up your own!

• Made you laugh the hardest
• Sexiest
• Kept you thinking long after you finished playing
• Most beautiful move
• For sickos only

Intentions: these can be anything from abstract gaming intentions for 2026 to a specific game you’re excited to get to the table to goals for game projects you are working on.

2026 by the Seasons

• Winter: The Off-season Newsletter
  • Right now! You are here!
• Spring: Go Play NW Online
  • March 14 & 15, 2026
  • Join us for two days of online tabletop games on Discord
  • The online event is open to anyone on the Go Play NW Discord server—no ticket required!
• Also Spring: Membership Drive
  • February 13–March 20, 2026
  • This is the best way to get tickets to our in-person Seattle tabletop gaming con!
    • Your membership is your ticket! We’re a 501(c)(7) social club! If you crave more knowledge about what this means, stay tuned, because you’ll be hearing more about it soon!
• Summer: Go Play NW Seattle
  • July 24–26, 2026
  • Join us for three days of indie-focused tabletop gaming in Seattle, Washington. Make new friends; play new games!
• Fall: Resting and patting ourselves on the back for a job well done!

Are you still here? Incredible! Because this newsletter was a doozy! As a reward for your intrepid journey through this massive missive, Brendan Albano will give you a prize at Go Play NW Seattle if you remind him that he made this promise!

Our mascot Go waves an adorable, mittened hand to welcome you to the new year!