Cross-Post: GURPSDay Summary and Reflections

It's that special time of week again, comrades and countrymen. It's GURPSday.

What new blogs we have?

• Lost in Technology Again - Mostly an IT blog it looks like, but there is a post about GURPS. Gotta reserve judgement for a bit before I can fairly gauge what this is all about. I recognize the Dokuro-Chan avatar though.
• cathuria Game Stuff - This wasn't in the blogroll, but I really want to remind myself to do a deep dive later. The one post has a tremendous amount of pre-made content, and some of it looks promising, but I haven't had the requisite time to give it all its due. Not sure if the author was only dumping stuff for now, or will continue posting.
• Cadiz Redemption - A blog of a few months, capturing the progress of a 5000ish AD sci fi campaign. It uses a lot of prose and reads like a story, but is a decent read. The content is pretty divorced from mechanics, so even a completely GURPS naive visitor can read it without question, but even from the little I've seen, I feel inspired by plots presented. Gotta spend a minute (or a few hours) when I get the chance.

And that seems like it for this week (so far?)

What Else?

It's still GURPSDay recruiting month, so if you read this, and you want to write some stuff about GURPS, go ahead and let the right people know, you don't have to even post only GURPS content, or post it on the regular.

I'm finding the fairly new Set Adrift on 3D6 a fun casual read, and I got a lot of downtime at work for a lot of casual reading, so lucky me! Peter Dell'Orto is teasing a new Dungeon Fantasy installment, so that is exciting. Also continuing the review of retro Conan solo adventures. I also enjoy the Ravens N' Pennies dissection of the Clairsentience advantage. The Magnificent Samurai campaign also has an interestingly mechanic dense presentation of session recaps which makes it a unique reading experience.

I might need to update this later if the post roll gets another update.

Self Reflection

Traffic has been really good this week, and I've been coming out of a rut I feel in terms of thinking up content. I've been getting a lot of comments on my blog recently too, which is really encouraging. I mean, raw hits mean I have people visiting, but even seeing someone correct a mistake or even just saying "Nice Work," does a number for my enthusiasm.

I get really stressed when initiating new players. I wonder if I'm giving them enough information or too much information, am I asking them enough questions, the right questions, too many questions? There's so many different ways to play RPGs, and so many different ways to GM them, and so many different systems, it's really hard to tell if you are on the same page with expectations and the social contract without a lot of communication, or just rushing into session 1. And I like things working before session 1, because I don't want to "fix" the game afterwards. Guess it's just a clash of personalities.

My big post this week which got a lot of traction (relatively speaking) on Tumblr, was my editorial on relative versus absolute improvement. It's funny because I feel like I don't have the chops to be posting interesting editorial content. My meta-summary from last week was also popular. And, although they haven't had a full week to percolate yet, my review of Swashbucklers and the two racial templates are getting up there.

The kinda work I do, as a software engineer, is somewhat "feast or famine" depending on if I'm doing brand new work, maintenance, or waiting for a project to start, so right now I got a lot of time to devote to blogging, so I've been hacking away at some slightly ambitious posts, dunno when next and for how long it'll be nose to the grindstone, but I best make the best of the time I have now.

Also, do people like reviews of Pyramid issues? Should I review those?