Thursday, September 1, 2016

Cross-Post: GURPSDay Summary and Reflections

This is that thing
Kick down the door, get on the floor, everyone negotiate politely using charisma and diplomacy with the dinosaur. Roll at -2 for scuffing the door.

What's New?

Of Paper Men and Plastic Monsters is a general RPG blog with a lot of GURPS and a bit of other RPGs as well. The content generally centers around what kinda campaign is being run at the time, so it changes gears from time time. Looks like it is going into a bit of a horror direction recently. I never looked at The Horror Dossier specifically, but GURPS Horror is actually a pretty decent book, this coming from someone that doesn't particularly enjoy horror.

The other Blogs

The real big thing is the Dungeon Fantasy boxed set kickstarter, and I've already made a shrine post for that, so no need to clog this page up with those. The Lands of Nandeme have an interesting monster for unsuspecting players. Don't Forget Your Boots has a bunch of neat posts on pirates and rituals. Dungeon Fantastic has a bunch of controversial opinions and reflection. A bunch of the posts look like they are from last thursday. Is this a sn*fu?

Other Thoughts and Self Reflection

This section summarized in two
sentences, probably.
This is the first month I've had with declining viewership. I'm kinda bummed about it. I understand that it was an eventual inevitability, but in a weird way, it feels like the good times are over. Well, last month wasn't a great month for my writing anyway. Very uninspired, so I guess I can get that.
It's amazingly difficult to run a game well and I don't know why. Under my belt, I have run six different campaigns. One has seen a conclusion. two ended due to misunderstood expectations, two have ended because people stopped attending, and one ended because I got bored. I am going into campaign 7 now, and frankly, there are a lot of warning signs already peaking through the foundation work. Oh well, you learn the most from things going wrong versus when things go right.
My review of Sorcery and Martial Arts were at the top of the list this week, but even they didn't get that many views. So did my editorial on why it's important to not make a character in an underground bunker.
Excited about the Discworld game still two months to go. The Dungeon Fantasy box itself seems pretty good, but the stretch goals seem a little milquetoast. I kinda wish that the 3 game set was an option for non-retailers, because there are a lot of people I'd like to give a set to, and that's an awesome price break. Oh well.

8 comments:

  1. Everything ebbs and flows man, its hard to know in advanced what people will want to read. Also given that you have your post a day for a year commitment right now, you might be dealing with some burn out. Maybe come at it from a new angle. Try a new topic that you don't normally cover to try something fresh or maybe you need to do a post you can really sink your fangs into, some "comfort food". Whatever you feel will get the old juices flowing.

    Also, and yes... it is the kids who are wrong heh.

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    1. Yeah, I hope against hope that I can get this campaign off the ground. For me, the biggest most helpful inspiration for a post is running into a problem that I can solve, but if I don't get a lot of campaign time, I don't have a lot of problems to solve. Thanks for reading!

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  2. Don't be too discouraged! The ebb and flow of Internet readership will invariably have its ups and downs, but your blog is a quality source of GURPS thinkery.

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    1. I know that deep down, and a few less visitors here or there is no big thing because that's just normal, but I was really liking that I could ride that streak. Thanks for reading!

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  3. This was the first month I had a decline in viewership as well, so the "problem" might not be you. It might just be august (a lot of people go on vacation, at least here in Europe).

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    1. Interesting thought. It's not especially a big vacation time in America (or, it doesn't strike me that way,) but there are some going-ons that occur like start of school season and the like.

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  4. I wouldn't say my blog was ever intended to be Dungeon Fantasy centric, rather it is about whatever I am running currently which these days is the Iron Gods Pathfinder game (and yes I do intend to get caught up on the session summaries soon!) and The Madness Dossier (with GURPS), as well as designer's support for my published game writing.

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    1. Ah, thanks for the clarification, I made some corrections then.

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