July Schedule

As the reader can see, I have decided to change the pattern of writing from what it was last month to this.  Those three-posts-a-day tasks were just a wee bit too much for me, as were the nearly 40 posts I put up last month.  At some points, I had kept up a schedule of two posts a day for nine days at a time, with more than half those posts being heavily researched and involving additional features for design.  It got to be too much.

So with this, I'm going to try to take weekends off and see how that goes.  Also, because June made it difficult to do side writing, I'm also going to take two full weeks off of writing this blog.  This will be the last post I write here until July 20th ... but as you can see from the above, I will still be writing continuously through that time.  Only, I'll be writing for those persons who support me on Patreon.  I'm sure the rest will understand that while I want to work on a specific book that I've been adapting, I can't skip my responsibilities with people who actually pay me money.  But I can make room for myself here, as I'm not beholden to the general internet.

Rest assured, I'm working, I will be back to write later on in the month and I am always thinking about D&D, role-playing and how to better express to people that they need to study design and human behaviour in order to be better and more popular dungeon masters.

Please feel free to ask me any question on any subject, regarding any post I've written.  I enjoy any comment I've written and I always have time to take ten minutes or so and write out an in-depth answer to a question that a reader might ask.  I should always hope that readers will see me not just as a form of entertainment, but as a dependable, enlightened resource that is ready to help.

[You can read today's post, Beyond Dziwa, on Authentic Adventures Inc.]

June Schedule

I'm going to try something different for the month of June.  Here is my intended schedule for writing posts for three blogs that I'm running:

The schedule may look a little heavy, but I've been writing the equivalent of this schedule for the last month, and more than this for the last two weeks.  Still, its biting off about the most that I can chew.  I will try to get these posts up as early as I can on each day, often the night before, as I'll consider the start of the day at midnight EST (10 pm the evening before my time) as soon enough to publish.  Sometimes, I'm going to be late; hopefully, never later than 10pm my time the day it's due.

I'm going to continue writing for this blog, the Tao of D&D, and for the Higher Path, reducing both blogs a few posts from my pace in May.

Authentic Adventures Inc. is being introduced publicly for the first time.  For the past two weeks, I have been making it available to my Patreon supporters who have given me a $10 donation or more.  I am adding it as a tier at that price, for those interested in the content there.

I will be using the blog to write adventures and story lines for general reader use.  Yes, I know.  This is a departure from my philosophy, and no doubt some will call me a hypocrite.  I still feel that writing your own adventures is better for you as a DM, and that it will improve your DMing more than any other approach you might take towards worldbuilding.  But ... there's nothing wrong with demonstrating how I do it, or the kind of adventures I design.  I certainly don't create the sort of linear adventure frameworks that I've seen in game modules.  I believe that an adventure and a sandbox can exist side-by-side, and not through some nonsense "give the players three options of what to do" rhetoric.  I believe strongly that the players should always have hundreds of options, and that those options should not be limited by what I can invent.

Authentic Adventures Inc. will try to express this ideal, not as an argument that I'm making, as I would here, or as I would on The Higher Path.  I will actually be designing the adventures, twice a week, including battle and dungeon maps where necessary.  My long-range goal will be to complete the adventure on the blog, and then collect and combine the texts, details and images together as a publishable object for sale through Lulu, like other books I've written.

I also hope to have readers correct or challenge my content, as a way of making it better; and because much of the content is the sort that can be dropped into any game at any time, I hope that some will try things out and playtest them, to further add substance and ideas to the work I'm doing.  I will, given the chance, playtest some of the material, but I must say I haven't had an adventure fail on me in more than 30 years, so I'm not worried.  The key is to be flexible in one's expectations, and build the adventure in a way that it doesn't have to be accomplished in a certain order, or indeed completed at all, in order to be a satisfying, amazing experience.

So, $10 a month gets you inside and provides you with weekly content on Mondays and Thursdays, timed so that you can find it, read it and add it to your game on Wednesday or the weekend.