Insert Witty New Year Title Here

It's that time again, when a new year clicks over and change in the calendar makes us feel like we should be changing too. When the pressure to improve, to cleanse, to change our lives looms over us.

Last year we attended a talk, or rather a stage show that was part lecture. In Ruby Wax's "Sane New World" tour I talked about in an earlier blog post, she discussed the part of the brain that's always trying to push us, to get that Dopamine hit of chasing for more, doing more, achieving. Hell, it's like your brain is programmed by video game designers and you keep wanting that little bleep-bloop of an achievement.

And at the change of the calendar, the turn of the year, the reminder of the lack of achievement in the previous year, makes us want to do more in the next.

Looking back on the previous year, I spent a lot of time procrastinating. Wasn't an easy year. Priorities changed, and stuff happened. I spent most of the year feeling unmotivated, uninspired, and limping from week to week.

RPGaDAY2015 happened, which seemed to be a moderate success. It spread across the world, got people talking about tabletop roleplaying, and sharing some of their likes and stories with others. I managed to recruit the help of some amazing and awesome people who joined in with their own videos that I edited into mine, so that the audience wasn't bored by looking at my ugly-mug for a whole month.

The involvement of these fantastic gamers and designers from around the world made the whole thing worthwhile, and I hope it showed just how cool our hobby can be. Of course there were the expected negative reactions - a daily disliker on the videos who just seemed to click "dislike" as soon as the videos went live without really watching them, and people who took the positivity of the campaign and twisted it to add new categories like "worst game". Kinda defeats the purpose.

RPGaDAY2015 left me burned out, and I limped towards NaNoWriMo in November, getting to 10k of my target 50k, before I was sidetracked by another project. Hopefully, this other project will lead to something incredibly cool and it'll all be worth it, but nothing's concrete yet.

In the middle of that, the wonders of working a dayjob in retail, especially the chaos of the festive period...

Wow, that was all a bit miserable wasn't it?

I can see why people want to do something new and different for the new year.

So, what's ahead, and how can things improve?

--

I had a weird moment of clarity a few months ago. It was weird. The nominations for the Origins awards, and the ENnies, are always ones I look forward to, and in the past few years projects I've worked on have been nominated, which has been awesome. This year, I realised I hadn't actually done anything this year. In fact, I hadn't done anything for a long time. 

I've spent a few years now working on the WILD RPG, and while I love it, and love the setting, it doesn't seem to be progressing very fast. The game I started running of it revealed the bits I was missing in the rules, though it may be that I just need to get my head around a freer and more interpretive way of gaming. 

Then there was the moment that I managed to talk my way out of writing for Titansgrave, what a dumbass. "The next time someone asks if you're a God, you say YES!"

So this year, I going to write more. 

The first thing I'm going to do is stop playing video games on my ipad. I got hooked on Star Trek: Trexels, but I'm still playing the darn thing. 

If finished all the sectors and seem to be just waiting for the next update, I've generated so much Command, Research and Power that it's given up keeping track above a million...

...and the main crew (and usual landing party) are maxed out...

I should see this as a sign to stop wasting my time on it...

Second thing I need to do is stop wasting time on Facebook. After RPGaDAY2015 finished, I checked Facebook a little once a day, but didn't actually post anything for a month. I've managed cut back on my posting a lot now, and I just need to stop that horrible cycle of "I'm just clicking refresh to see if anyone's posted anything new". God, what did we do before the internet? I should read more, get back to reading books, both fiction and rulebooks.

Third thing I need to do is write.

Write more, and more often. Even if it's blog posts.

There are possible things on the horizon, but if they don't play out I need to finish WILD, finish the second draft of the novel (although it could be terrible), finish the first draft of the second novel, and get more involved.

I have other ideas for other things - I'd still like to do that "Roll Your Own Life" webseries, though maybe in a different way to that which I'd planned. I may still do a third year of RPGaDAY, but I may think differently as the year progresses. If I do a third year, it'll be less involved and I may just do the questions and take part, but not look at the responses, not look at the negativity.

I really enjoy doing the film reviewing and news stuff for a couple of sites, but the cool preview screenings and press conferences are a cost I cannot afford. Everything happens in London, a cost I can't fork out for except on extreme cases.

Also, 2015 saw me gaming again for the first time in ages. A Buffy-based fantasy game, WILD and then Star Wars: Edge of the Empire and X-Wing. Hopefully, 2016 will bring more.

Okay, that's me braindumping onto the blog. It was a bit chaotic and all over the place.

No matter what happens in 2016, I hope you all have a great year.

May you "Live Long and Prosper" and remember, the Force will be with you. Always.

- D

#RPGaDAY2015 - How Was It For You?

I've had a few requests on Twitter from people asking if I was going to do a summary post about #RPGaDAY2015. Well, I wasn't going to - in fact, this is really breaking my "month off from social media" plan that I had instigated to recover from the frantic posting that probably bored everyone throughout August. But, I never want to let anyone down, so here goes...

So, how did I think it went?

Okay. I think it went okay. It seemed to reach a lot of people, seemed to go to a wider audience, but I'm not sure how well it was received. The same people who put in the effort and enthusiasm this year were the ones who openly embraced the concept last year. There were some who were new to it and joined in enthusiastically, and I hope everyone enjoyed it.

What was better this year?

I loved having guests on the videos. Thank you everyone who got involved and joined in - a lot of those people who joined me on the videos were too busy to join in with every day posting, and that was a great way to get them involved. Not only that, it meant that those people who watched didn't have to sit through 31 boring videos of just my ugly face - they could watch segments with far more interesting, exciting and attractive people than me.

Active participation?

On the whole, the basic concept is to get people talking on social media about the positive things that tabletop roleplaying can do. The thing that spawned it (#BookADayUK) was basically just a photo of a book as a response to the question, so getting people actually talking or blogging beyond that is a massive success.

I've heard from people saying that the questions are a great source of encouragement to get them writing blog posts and more, which is fab. Thanks everyone.

It's great to also see so many people joining in with the daily videos, recording their own and posting them. I know it's a huge effort - hell, mine took months of planning and I was relieved when the last one was uploaded. Thank you again.

Feedback?

Feedback on the whole has been mostly positive. I'd say around 90% of the comments I saw on the various medias were positive, encouraging and from people enjoying it. There's always the people who didn't, of course. Those who didn't like the colour of the image, or the choice of questions - they weren't interesting enough, detailed enough, too vague, or just plain boring to them.

And, of course, I had my daily disliker on Youtube who, regularly, about 9am every morning would click Dislike on the video. On one occasion it was disliked before I could even post the video on Facebook/Twitter/G+... Someone was very keen, and spent an awful lot of energy to make sure that the videos got that little dislike. It wasn't all of them, but it was enough to be noticed. Each dislike was like a stab in the back.

A few people didn't get the point of the project at all - #RPGaDAY2015 (and its predecessor) was about positivity. I noticed that a few follow-up questions appeared on various media. Thank you for trying to join in but you missed the point entirely. You can do what you like, but I won't be joining the dark side with all that negativity.

And next year?

At this moment, I honestly don't know. I think I was a little too invested in it this year, and took all of the responses way too personally. If I do it next year, ALL of the questions will be submitted by other people. Frankly, I think I've run out of ideas.

Of course, it does take up lots of time when I could be writing.

Saying that, the biggest benefit of #RPGaDAY2015 was that it has got me writing again. After a massive drought of words that hit about Easter, WILD's game system is pretty much sorted, and the writing is progressing...

...that is, until I get distracted again.

Above all, thank you all for taking part. I hope you got something out of it, and it reminded you that our little hobby is a great one that makes great friends.

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 31: Favourite Non-RPG thing to come out of gaming...

This is it - the final day of #RPGaDAY2015 - and possibly the final #RPGaDAY post ever (we'll see).
It is "Favourite non-RPG thing to come out of RPGing".

In my video I mention a couple of things - how I got my first job thanks to gaming, and meeting my lovely wifey.

In addition to all this, I must also mention my old gaming group. The Eight as we used to call ourselves (even though there were more than eight of us at many times).

We started gaming as two different groups and came together over the years. Through many years of school and beyond, these guys have always been a huge part of my life. I've mentioned them many times on this blog, and although we're divided by geography, we always know that we're keeping a look out for each other... ready to rally to support if any of us are in need.

So, without RPGing in school, not only would I have never got that job in the council, working for Nature Conservation and Archaeology, which lead to me going to University, and meeting my wife who is also a gamer. But also, I wouldn't have had the amazing friends and support that I needed.

-

I guess that's why I started RPGaDAY to begin with last year.

Playing roleplaying games may seem like a sad and nerdy thing to those unfamiliar with it, but it changed and shaped my life for the better.

When I keep going online and finding such negativity, I just wanted to do something positive.

But, of course, someone didn't even like me doing that. Yes, daily disliker - you troll - I had noticed you systematically disliking my videos every day. It's that sort of behaviour that made me want to do something.

-

As to whether RPGaDAY returns for another year will depend upon a few things...

If the RPG playing community want to do it again?
If I can come up with some new questions that people actually like (and won't complain about)?
If I can justify the amount of time and effort it takes to do this.

RPGaDAY inspired me to get back into writing WILD, right at the moment when I was feeling the most unmotivated. And I'm really glad about that. But I can't help but feel that the last two months of video making, editing, planning, scheduling, and so on, could have been spent writing!!

We'll see...

If you want to do it again next year, comment!
If you have ideas for questions, comment!
If you think it's had its day, let me know...

Until next post - which may be a while, I'm going to spend some time away from the interwebs to recover and do something productive - be good to each other... and stay multi-classy!

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 30: Favourite RPG Playing Celebrity

Today's topic was a bit of a fun one - inspired by a news item online listing gaming celebrities, I just thought it'd be cool to hear if people knew of any others, and to discuss the coolest gaming celebs out there.

My choice was an obvious one, mostly as his love of D&D had inspired one of his most popular characters. And the dynamic of his D&D group playing had influenced the way the group worked in the Fast & Furious movies.

Vin Diesel is a bit of a legend as well.

Until tomorrow, for the final day...

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 29: Favourite RPG Website / Blog

Today's RPGaDAY2015 entry is Favourite RPG Website / Blog. I used to go on RPG.net almost every day, just to see what the news was, what people were talking about, but that has all kinda fallen by the wayside.

I just don't get much chance to surf, when I could be writing!!

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 28: Favourite Game You No Longer Play

(Oh, to the tune of "Love Story"...)

Where do I begin?

There's such a long list of games that I don't play any more. Most of the time it's because I don't have a gaming group, or the time, but some games really stand out from the others as being sorely missed...

Kult, Mage: The Ascension, Star Wars D6, WitchCraft, Ghostbusters... the list goes on. But I decided to go for a different game for my choice.

Special guest on today's video is the awesome Cat Tobin who has picked, not one, but three totally amazing games that she wishes she could play, or play more of. Great choices too.

Ho well, three more days to go!

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 27: Favourite Idea for Merging Two Games Into One

...which really was pushing the boundaries for how many characters you could squeeze into the little box on the image.

Today's question was mostly the "what game system would you like to use with another game's setting?" type question, though I've loved some of the other responses I've seen.

Here's today's video. Just me in this one, so you'll just have to put up with my boring face this time...

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 26: Favourite Inspiration for your Game

Day 26 is all about inspiration - what inspires your gaming? Is it something specific, like me being inspired by a few movies, or something broader - looking at the wonders of nature, the weird things that really happen, real life X-Files?

To help with today's video, Andrew Peregrine recorded a piece from the place that inspires him - a particularly cool backdrop for a video!

In a related note, the writing on WILD has picked up since RPGaDAY2015 started, which is kinda what I was hoping would happen. Though, it has inspired me to stay off-line a lot more, possibly taking a holiday from the internet in September... We'll see...

Stay Multi-Classy!

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 25: Favourite Revolutionary Game Mechanic

Day 25 of #RPGaDAY2015 - Don't worry, it'll be finished soon!! So, day 25 is Favourite Revolutionary Game Mechanic. It's an odd one, because there have been many times reading through new rulebooks when I've gone "Wow, that's a brilliant idea!"

Hero Points, Escalation Die, Health levels instead of Hit Points, Diceless gaming, FATE dice, GM-less play... Where to begin?

Today's video features special guest Gareth-Michael Skarka. Meanwhile, I yatter on about the wonders of Hero Points.

LLAP.

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 24: Favourite House Rule

Final full week of #RPGaDAY2015 has begun, and today we're on Favourite House Rule. I must admit, while I spend a lot of time on rules in the writing, when it comes to gaming there are a few rules I sometimes ignore - usually in the heat of the battle!

I mean, in the middle of a shootout with alien invaders, are you really keeping track of how exhausted you're getting at the stress of the fight?

Sometimes, house rules make things more exciting - and the special guest in today's video is Grant Howitt who has written many games and some particularly cool and enlightening blog posts about running games. You really should check out his site...

http://www.lookrobot.co.uk/games

The rather excellent Raising the Stakes document, mentioned in the video, can be found here:
http://esix.pbworks.com/f/RaisingtheStakes.pdf

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 23: Perfect Game For You

Perfect game... wow, that's a difficult one. So may times I've thought "this is it, this game is perfect" only to discover, over time, that there are elements I'd change or do slightly differently. But, as I discuss in the video, maybe it's not so reliant upon what you actually play, more who you play it with and finding that perfect level of engagement.

Special guest on the video is Ole Peder Giæver, and my sincerest apologies for my awful pronunciation of your name dude! Since chatting to him online, I've had my eyes opened to a whole new world of gaming that I never knew existed - some of it weird, some of it enlightening, and all of it very different from my gaming experiences. Seriously worth listening to what he has to say...

Tomorrow sees the start of the final week of #RPGaDAY2015 (well, the last seven days, if you include the bank holiday Monday final day)... Onto the final stretch.

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 22: Perfect Gaming Environment

Day 22 is the rather odd question, "Perfect Gaming Environment". Where do you like to play?

When I was young we did all our gaming around a table, but then, a lot later in life, I discovered the delights of gaming in comfort. Sitting on the floor, bean bags, piles of cushions, or on the sofa... Oh, yes...

Today's video, the awesome Shanna Germain from Monte Cook Games is the special guest, who tells us how the environment can be changed to add atmosphere and effect to the game.

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 21: Favourite RPG Setting

Cutting it fine! With only an hour left of day 21, I've been uploading tomorrow's video, watching the last couple of episodes of Person of Interest (Season 3), and then just remembered I need to add a blog post.

But, the Matrix Reloaded is on TV!! How am I going to concentrate now?

Thankfully, in today's video, I have help from Josh Fox from Black Armada Games...

Before you say "Oh, you're bound to say Conspiracy X, you wrote it!"... well, I didn't. I may have worked on it for a few years, but I didn't create the setting. I loved it so much I wanted to write for it, and convert it to Unisystem, but I just played around in the setting for a while - I didn't make it.

Right, agents are coming. I gotta split.

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 20: Favourite Horror RPG

Day 20, the 20th of August... just so happens to be H.P. Lovecraft's birthday. And you thought no planning went into the days and the questions! Day 20 is Favourite Horror RPG, and I've chosen a game I've spoken about many times in the past.

However, today's video also features special guest Derek Stoelting, who looks after the Unisystem books for Eden Studios, so you can probably guess his favourite straight away!

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 19: Favourite Supers RPG

Day Nineteen of #RPGaDAY2015 - Favourite Supers RPG. Again, I have to admit, I'm not really a supers player. I read a lot of comics, love superhero movies and series, but the only real game I ran of a supers game I did the craziest thing you could imagine for a supers game - I took the superpowers out of it.

I ran Golden Heroes for a few months as a gritty, dark, costumed vigilante RPG. It was mostly nonsense, but it was fun.

My favourite is a different barrel of powered monkeys...

So there's that one.

We're over half way through the month, and the response to the whole of #RPGaDAY2015 has been mostly positive and enthusiastic. The whole idea of it is to talk in a positive way about gaming, and have fun.

There have been the usual negative comments about the questions, the odd one here and there who think the questions are too boring and gone off and done their own thing, and my resident daily "disliker" who has been disliking 70% of the videos religiously around 9:30am.

Most days I can brush this off - there'll always be someone who doesn't like what you do. I know that. You can't please everybody.

Some days, like today, I can't brush it off, and wonder why I'm even bothering.

Still. Tomorrow is another day. And another question.

And I'll hopefully have had more sleep so won't be a grumpy old git.

Until then, be good to each other.

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 18: Favourite SF RPG

Just a quickie tonight as it's game night! Ironically, playing a fantasy game when today's question is Favourite SF RPG.

So many contenders... Star Frontiers, Babylon Project, Conspiracy X... but there's one that will always be the favourite in my books...

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 17: Favourite Fantasy RPG

The question that launched a thousand answers of "Dungeons & Dragons"... the question where I don't say D&D... just to be weird like that.

Must admit, while I've played a lot of D&D, Runequest, and more - and while my only current game is fantasy - I've always preferred modern settings or science fiction. You can blame a very formative experience in my youth seeing Star Wars for that one.

However, when it comes to fantasy RPGs, I did prefer something else to D&D. I'm sorry...

Today's video features guest appearance by freelance writer and designer T.R. Knight.

Right, back to writing!

Stay Multi-classy!

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 16: Longest Game Session

It's really a sign of the times when a long game session for an oldie like me is about three hours. I'm in a game once a fortnight, and find it hard to squeeze in the time to do it. Gone are the days of my youth - when I was a teenager we used to play four or five nights a week, and afternoons at weekends. Just couldn't get enough of it.

It's weird but I can still picture the rooms we used to game in, at various houses... the subdued lighting, the DM screen, the 8pm cup of tea.

We just wanted to keep on playing.

One day we had the crazy idea of playing non-stop for 90-hours to raise money for charity...

Many thanks to Lynne Hardy for helping with today's video!

I've written about our marathon before as part of my "Roll Your Own Life" blog posts, you can read about it here!

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 15: Longest Campaign Played

That's one of the great things about tabletop roleplaying games... They don't have to end if you don't want to. You can do some cool one shots, short adventures, and small stories, but sometimes those adventures string together into a continuing campaign that can go on and on. It's usually due to circumstances outside the game that the story ends.

I've played a few long running campaigns - the longest is probably the Vampire: The Masquerade game that became Mage: The Awakening (and then morphed into Kult, and eventually WitchCraft).

You can find out all about it in the video below, which also features a special guest in the form of gaming guru Robin D. Laws.

#RPGaDAY2015 - Day 14: Favourite RPG Accessory

Favourite RPG Accessory is a deliberately broad topic which allows gamers to talk about their favourite dice, cards, character sheets, screens, maps, apps, and gizmos.

While I love dice... and have far to many to actually use... my accessory of choice would have to be something a little more recent. And, something from a game I'm yet to play. Weird, huh?