Wednesday, May 4, 2016

I Survived the 2016 A to Z Challenge...

but just barely.



I had known for a while what I wanted to do this year and as far as posting goes I got it.  It was fun to share my thoughts and read others thoughts and remembrances of this old (and some new) adventures.  While I focused on the top 30 Best, I also looked at others.  In the end, they are all adventures I will either run or have run in the past.  I had a great time.

There were also a lot of great blogs in this Challenge, and I didn't get anywhere close to visiting them all.  I didn't even get to visit all the blogs I had really wanted to visit.  Lots of reasons for that, but mostly it was work related.

Next Year

Every year I struggle with the questions "Do I do this again?" and "What should I do?".
I have done "Witches", "Vampires" and "Demons" already. I have considered "Undead" and have many of the creatures already picked out.  That could be fun and I have this old red notebook full of undead creatures I created back in the 80s that have never seen the light of day anywhere else.

One of my own goals for this Challenge is to spread the word of our little hobby here.  I don't have to guess, I can look at my analytics and I know my audience shifts in April.  I get a lot of new people coming in from the Challenge.  This is my time to speak to people outside of our little corner of the internet. I want to evangelize our hobby.

I think doing a month where I focus on different OSR game might be nice, but I had done something like that in 2012.  Are there even enough OSR games/products with all the different letters?  Can't think of "Q" at the moment unless I cheat and do something with "Queen" again. Though I do have X and Z figured out, so that is something.

The point of that sort of posting would be to get someone that is new and put them on the path to a game they could play.  I buy and hand out copies of "Basic Fantasy" all the time, but I can get so many more people here.

I suppose the criteria for me would be these would have to be complete games and OSR ones are preferred.  I guess I could start a list.

What would you all like to see?
You are the reader, what would bring you back each day?




7 comments:

Pun Isaac said...

Honestly, whatever you blog about, I'm going to be here reading it.

I think doing an OSR showing and being an ambassador to non-gamers during A-Z would be cool. 2012 doesn't seem like that long ago, but I think enough time has passed to justify doing it again. I'm sure that you can find enough products/games out there. Though if you want complete games, that might be a bit harder. Perhaps if you did games and supplements to said games.

You could also focus on one game that has a free rules set, say Swords and Wizardry or Labyrinth Lord, and focus on that one game and supplements and adventures for it. Heck you could do the same thing with something like 5E.

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Maybe FREE games are the way to go.

That's a good idea.

Thanks! And glad you are reading. ;)

Jonathan Linneman said...

I really liked the bits of history you brought to the challenge this year, but I can understand that it doesn't work as well for someone who lacks familiarity with the game itself.

What if...you designed an uber-simple, microlite set of RPG rules that would take someone who's never played an RPG before through the steps of making a character and moving through encounters? A for attributes, B for background, C for codename, D for dice (I dunno...maybe things have different die values like in Savage Worlds or something), E for equipment. W-Z can be encounters played solo, so you can call them whatever the heck you want. And in between...game rules, I guess? Not sure.

It's probably more complicated than it seemed when it first came to mind.

Timothy S. Brannan said...

I like your idea here. Thankfully I have some time to mull it all over.

Cross Planes said...

Congratulations on finishing. I thought your theme was something to educate both visitors outside our hobby and those in our hobby.

I think the free games idea is something to heavily consider.

Pun Isaac said...

Another thing to think about if you can talk about a full free game, there are tons of quickstarts. Hell, that could be your Q.

Random Musings said...

Congrats on completing the challenge :) I don't play RPGs so I really wouldn't know what to suggest as a topic for next year!
Debbie