Happy New Year. It’s the first of the month and the first day of 2026, which means Geek Native’s Patrons, those brilliant people helping to fund indie geeky news, get to pick which publisher we’ll put in the spotlight for February.

This month we offer thanks to; Sean P Kelley, Philippe Marcil, Adept Icarus, Noril of Cold River, R Waibel, Allen Varney, Adam J Rose, Kate, Paul Wilson, and Heike.

The honouree for this month is d20Play. You can see previous honourees on the Spotlight page.

If you’re a patron, you can vote in this private poll.

The candidates for February’s Spotlight are:

• Monkey Business Games
• Surbook Press
• Hero Level Games
• Demons & Dungeoneers Gamebooks
• Monster Mage Games

Need the voting link again? Here it is!.

The Power of the “One Year Later” Time Jump

As we return to our gaming tables (virtual or otherwise) this January, the instinct is to pick up exactly where we left off, be that mid-conversation or moments after the last battle. However, this can miss a potent narrative opportunity.

The start of a real-world year is the perfect excuse to employ a “One Year Later” time jump in your campaign. By advancing the in-game clock significantly, you align players’ sense of freshness with their characters’ lives, allowing the world to breathe and evolve beyond the week’s immediate crisis. Doing the time jump for New Year’s helps it feel real.

The primary merit of a significant time jump is that it allows consequences to ripen. In standard play, heroes often topple a tyrant and leave town the next day, never seeing the power vacuum that follows. A one-year skip forces the world to react. That village you saved might now be a thriving trade hub named after the party, or perhaps a military outpost occupied by a new threat. It also gives characters distinct “downtime” to master new skills, build strongholds, or raise families, effectively soft-rebooting their motivations and giving them something new to fight for in the coming arc. In some games, letting the clock fly can be the only way for wizards and other spellcasters to learn and practice their magics.

However, this technique is not without its flaws. The most immediate risk is the loss of narrative momentum. If your last session ended on a high-stakes cliffhanger, skipping a year can feel jarring or dismissive of the tension you worked hard to build. Furthermore, players can sometimes feel disconnected from their characters if too much “off-screen” development is forced upon them. There is a risk of “blank page paralysis,” where players struggle to invent a year’s worth of backstory on the spot, resulting in a session that feels more like an administrative meeting than an adventure.

To mitigate these risks, the jump must be collaborative rather than dictatorial. Ask your players to define one major project they completed and one new trouble they encountered during the interim. This ensures they retain agency over their “lost year.” Used correctly, the time jump turns a stale campaign into a fresh frontier, proving that the world does not just wait in stasis for the heroes to roll initiative.