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Saturday, September 17, 2016
Newest Tutorial Brochures
Friday, September 16, 2016
Map-Printing
I am getting ready for the Edmonton Comic Expo next weekend - and it is nice to have a little spending money (not much, but things are getting better). As such, I just came back from visiting a print shop where I've arranged to have the big map printed as a poster. I couldn't afford it's actual size: that would be 10 feet by 5 and a half feet, according to the printer, which would work out to about $500. I had to settle for 48 inches by 26.
Talking to the print guys was a lot of fun. These are people who deal with businesses all day and 99% of what they see is ordinary - nothing as intricate as the file I gave them. I got wide eyes and impressed questions, plus some great praise as I explained that it was created on Publisher one piece at a time. Since I am never ashamed about admitting that I play D&D or explaining what it is to total strangers, I was sure to tell them what the map was for. And as I have learned in the past, it doesn't matter that I'm talking about a game or something that many people seem to think is silly. The work is the work - it has the strength to startle anyone's preconception, if the merit is obvious.
Startling people is I wanted the map printed: to show people at the Comic Expo how much work I'm putting into my world, so that they'll make the connection to how much work I put into my books. A physical representation is more effective than a computer screen - not because it's real but because it is BIGGER. Even a really big computer screen just looks like the image has been blown up to size. A physical representation on paper can't be. I so wish I could have printed that 10 x 5 foot map; that would have stopped people at the Expo in their tracks, from fifty feet away.
Oh well. Someday.
Talking to the print guys was a lot of fun. These are people who deal with businesses all day and 99% of what they see is ordinary - nothing as intricate as the file I gave them. I got wide eyes and impressed questions, plus some great praise as I explained that it was created on Publisher one piece at a time. Since I am never ashamed about admitting that I play D&D or explaining what it is to total strangers, I was sure to tell them what the map was for. And as I have learned in the past, it doesn't matter that I'm talking about a game or something that many people seem to think is silly. The work is the work - it has the strength to startle anyone's preconception, if the merit is obvious.
Startling people is I wanted the map printed: to show people at the Comic Expo how much work I'm putting into my world, so that they'll make the connection to how much work I put into my books. A physical representation is more effective than a computer screen - not because it's real but because it is BIGGER. Even a really big computer screen just looks like the image has been blown up to size. A physical representation on paper can't be. I so wish I could have printed that 10 x 5 foot map; that would have stopped people at the Expo in their tracks, from fifty feet away.
Oh well. Someday.
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
Such a Little Thing
A few numbers, some names, nothing spectacular. Gawd, it's office work. And while I know that the general reader will sniff the air after looking at this, for me it is the base measure of the world. It tells me the names of the dragon "catches," places where the dragons roost, where they have hollowed out hills or - in the case of Airgead - where they have brought into being a magical floating cloud, resting on the surface of the Loch and providing a protective obscurity against enemies.
It tells me, too, that two thirds of the dragons dwell in solitary groups throughout Dric-dachaigh, most likely nesting in isolated places where ten or twenty generations of dragons have roosted.
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| Negative numbers indicate that Date before the Christian Era. The number serves for calculating the population. |
It tells me, too, that two thirds of the dragons dwell in solitary groups throughout Dric-dachaigh, most likely nesting in isolated places where ten or twenty generations of dragons have roosted.
Oh, and there is the rather boggling idea of 1,813 dragons.
I want to thank everyone for the names. On the whole, the gaelic-angle sound sold me right off, so I tried to pick names that fit best with that pattern. The elevations aren't mountains - but then, this is Scotland, where the mountains don't get all that high anyway.
We can easily imagine the dragons dwelling upon the hills above the towns of Argyll; all those included here on are water, something that I find very enticing - and then I remember it rains in this part of Scotland all the time. I noted that none of the tour pictures feature rain. The photographers must wait for weeks to get a shot of dry streets.
Well, back to other things.
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Kingdom Naming
This is the island of Eorsa, in old Argyll county, Scotland:
According to my research, none of the towns that my encyclopedia includes were in existence in Argyll come the time of my world, 1650: Inveraray, Oban, Campbeltown and Dunoon were all founded later on. Here is a shot of Fraoch Eilean:
When I started mapping the real world, I made a rule regarding the denizens of any region on the globe. If the number of probable humans in 1650 was equal to less than 1 person per square mile, that region would be under the control of a NON-human race. This is why most of Russia in my world is inhabited by orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, ogres and bugbears. It is why northern Sweden is inhabited by gnomes. And it is why the county of Argyll, in Scotland, needs to be occupied by non-humans as well.
I ask you, what sort of non-human culture do we put in a place that looks like the island of Luing:
We had a discussion among some of my players and agreed that this would be an excellent habitat for a dragon culture. It is, after all, Briton, where dragons have always played a role. I would posit that we could have a benevolent dragon population made up of relatively isolationist dragons, mostly adult or younger, living off the sea, vociferously demanding respect for their borders, yet occasionally acting as mediators and the voice of reason in a difficult political landscape. After some discussion, we have imagined these being silver dragons.
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I ask you, what sort of non-human culture do we put in a place that looks like the island of Luing:
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Something like Glencoe might make a suitable home for them:
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However, so far, I haven't heard a name for the kingdom/entity that I like. Anyone have any ideas?
Friday, September 9, 2016
Whatever Happened to the Podcast?
My reasons for updating the whole world map as I did yesterday were part of a process of moving the podcast content my daughter and I created this spring from Soundcloud to Youtube:
We were having problems because while Soundcloud is free at the start, at a certain number of minutes it isn't. We didn't foresee that and did not want to spend any money on it, so the problem became how to reformat the content and add an image. We haven't had the means to do it, though in the end it was fairly simple. I needed to be in a better financial situation first, which has happened. I'm still in a lot of trouble, but I have at least a little spendable income. For about five months, even with the donations from readers, I have had zero disposable income. Every dime I've received has gone into rent, utilities, the basest of foods or management of debt.
My daughter and I stopped recording podcasts because of Soundcloud's format. Having solved that problem, I expect we will be getting back to creating new content. It's just a matter of making time to do that. I think we'd do best to call it a second season and perhaps adjust the format a little. We'll just have to see.
At any rate, all the podcasts can now be viewed on youtube.
We were having problems because while Soundcloud is free at the start, at a certain number of minutes it isn't. We didn't foresee that and did not want to spend any money on it, so the problem became how to reformat the content and add an image. We haven't had the means to do it, though in the end it was fairly simple. I needed to be in a better financial situation first, which has happened. I'm still in a lot of trouble, but I have at least a little spendable income. For about five months, even with the donations from readers, I have had zero disposable income. Every dime I've received has gone into rent, utilities, the basest of foods or management of debt.
My daughter and I stopped recording podcasts because of Soundcloud's format. Having solved that problem, I expect we will be getting back to creating new content. It's just a matter of making time to do that. I think we'd do best to call it a second season and perhaps adjust the format a little. We'll just have to see.
At any rate, all the podcasts can now be viewed on youtube.
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Strategy & The Long Game
The DM Tutorial classes have been such a success. As of late I have been thinking and blocking out a book I could be writing in six months to a year - and the basis of that book has already given me enough insight to add another class to the three I have already launched.
Those who have already taken the class may be interested in taking one more lesson from me; others may feel that a sequence of four gives them more bang for their campaigns than three might have. We'll just have to see.
The above class is on strategy: digging in and having a go at making your world more than a some-time thing, something that will sustain itself and help individuals become better persons as well as better dungeon masters. Being able to devise a strategy, having that ability in one's toolbox, goes a lot farther than just making a long-lasting RPG. It can be the tool that sets you, the individual, up for life.
The class runs 60-90 minutes, as all the classes have. I'm confident that I can immerse the student in what one needs to know about strategy making. It ought to be a great course - and quite possibly the one that someone might want to take in order to test the water with me as a tutor.
The World Thus Far . . . Again
Let me begin by apologizing. Up front, this isn't anything I haven't posted before. Twice before, in fact. But it does bring the completed part of my world up to date, adding in the western Sahara and Senegal:
This isn't a very clear map. The world is getting bigger and bigger and it is stripping the hell out of my computer's capacity to save it as a remotely detailed png - at least, one that can be viewed well on Blogger . . . or even my wiki, for that matter.
Thankfully, however, I have found a way of managing a single image at 20% of its actual size in reality. This makes an image file that is 50 megabytes. That's too big for blogger, too big for just about anything: but with a little coaching, I have loaded it onto Google Image. Here is the url:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1X_mF2lcvJ_XzVjSTFfNVV6WW8/view
It will take a moment for the fuzziness to clear on your computer as you look at it. It is very big, after all. Were I to print this in real size, it would be something like 25 feet by 16. Too big for a computer screen.
I trust this will look interesting. If it does to you, please support my Patreon, so I can go on adding to its size.
This isn't a very clear map. The world is getting bigger and bigger and it is stripping the hell out of my computer's capacity to save it as a remotely detailed png - at least, one that can be viewed well on Blogger . . . or even my wiki, for that matter.
Thankfully, however, I have found a way of managing a single image at 20% of its actual size in reality. This makes an image file that is 50 megabytes. That's too big for blogger, too big for just about anything: but with a little coaching, I have loaded it onto Google Image. Here is the url:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1X_mF2lcvJ_XzVjSTFfNVV6WW8/view
It will take a moment for the fuzziness to clear on your computer as you look at it. It is very big, after all. Were I to print this in real size, it would be something like 25 feet by 16. Too big for a computer screen.
I trust this will look interesting. If it does to you, please support my Patreon, so I can go on adding to its size.
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
The Irish Problem
Those supporting my Patreon know that I haven't done anything in the way of mapmaking for a couple of months (which isn't like me). The good news is that for six months or so I have been working on England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. I haven't done any actual mapmaking, but I have done most of the research necessary. I have approximately 400 villages, towns and cities that have been looked at and confirmed as existing at the time of my world, the year 1650. The research also includes what disasters have happened in these places (as I reduce the population of a town if it has had a plague, been destroyed, abandoned or pillaged) and most importantly, who controls the town?
Now, most places in 1650 are relatively stable. Borders change and shift between kingdoms and empires, but large parts of the world have usually been under one government for centuries or longer. Iberia, for example, was easy since everything south of the Pyrenees has been Spanish or Portuguese since the ousting of Islam. There were a few border places in Estremadura (a region that spreads over both those countries), but nothing complicated.
England and Scotland are about the same. In 1650 Cromwell had consolidated his control over the main island of Britain, so that at the mid-point of his authority, it is easy to identify every center as either England or Scotland.
But those who know history, who have heard me mention Cromwell, know that Ireland is a ghastly, horrendous mess in 1650. Cromwell's forces landed in early 1649 and the war that followed was an episode in brutality, atrocity, clumsy military policy and strategies marked by unrestrained activity on both sides. Effectively, the war was an early experience in guerrilla measures, an attempt to win by attrition, both exacerbated by famine and even an outbreak of bubonic plague. Estimates describing the drop in Irish population range from 15 to 83 percent, depending on the source quoted, with as many as 50,000 people transported as indentured laborers (which, in the 17th century, translates as slave labor). And therefore, in my world, who controls Ireland? A party of players could spend three years running there and never be sure.
One thing, it is a hell of a place for adventuring, if massacres, taking a stand on a piece of land and hiring out as a mercenary is the party's thing. To hell with a dungeon; just crossing the landscape would be living day and night in a free-for-all combat zone, potentially heightened by creating armed troops consisting of everything from brownies and sprites to banshees, headless horsemen and demon kings. All the party needs is nerve.
But from a DM's perspective, how do I make the map? Who runs Ireland?
Off hand, it would be easiest to identify Ireland as part of the British Empire. The Brits are in control of most of the major ports, Dublin, Galway, Wexford, Cork and such; the bigger inland places, Athlone, Limerick, the Shannon valley, is hold-out Irish. But there's no central Irish government that can be described as controlling those areas not conquered and garrisoned by the Brits; even local government in the "lawless zone" is run by fiat and the despotism of insurrectionists who are themselves barely organized. The bigger point to be made, however, is what's most "romantic"? What best fits a D&D game?
I like this:
Now, most places in 1650 are relatively stable. Borders change and shift between kingdoms and empires, but large parts of the world have usually been under one government for centuries or longer. Iberia, for example, was easy since everything south of the Pyrenees has been Spanish or Portuguese since the ousting of Islam. There were a few border places in Estremadura (a region that spreads over both those countries), but nothing complicated.
England and Scotland are about the same. In 1650 Cromwell had consolidated his control over the main island of Britain, so that at the mid-point of his authority, it is easy to identify every center as either England or Scotland.
But those who know history, who have heard me mention Cromwell, know that Ireland is a ghastly, horrendous mess in 1650. Cromwell's forces landed in early 1649 and the war that followed was an episode in brutality, atrocity, clumsy military policy and strategies marked by unrestrained activity on both sides. Effectively, the war was an early experience in guerrilla measures, an attempt to win by attrition, both exacerbated by famine and even an outbreak of bubonic plague. Estimates describing the drop in Irish population range from 15 to 83 percent, depending on the source quoted, with as many as 50,000 people transported as indentured laborers (which, in the 17th century, translates as slave labor). And therefore, in my world, who controls Ireland? A party of players could spend three years running there and never be sure.
One thing, it is a hell of a place for adventuring, if massacres, taking a stand on a piece of land and hiring out as a mercenary is the party's thing. To hell with a dungeon; just crossing the landscape would be living day and night in a free-for-all combat zone, potentially heightened by creating armed troops consisting of everything from brownies and sprites to banshees, headless horsemen and demon kings. All the party needs is nerve.
But from a DM's perspective, how do I make the map? Who runs Ireland?
Off hand, it would be easiest to identify Ireland as part of the British Empire. The Brits are in control of most of the major ports, Dublin, Galway, Wexford, Cork and such; the bigger inland places, Athlone, Limerick, the Shannon valley, is hold-out Irish. But there's no central Irish government that can be described as controlling those areas not conquered and garrisoned by the Brits; even local government in the "lawless zone" is run by fiat and the despotism of insurrectionists who are themselves barely organized. The bigger point to be made, however, is what's most "romantic"? What best fits a D&D game?
I like this:
For clarification, The Pale was a part of Ireland directly under the control of the English government in the late middle ages. Gallowglasses were a class of elite mercenary warriors primarily of Norse-Gaelic clans of Scotland. Other Scot colonists (Ulster-Scots) settled in northern Ireland in the early 17th century, led by James Hamilton and Hugh Montgomery. Vikings settled in Ireland between the 800s until the 12th century, in scattered places, mostly in places that would become abandoned and then later occupied by Irish. The Normans were, of course, French in origin (and Viking Norse long before that). All these come together to make Ireland a terrific hodgepodge.
The map is tremendous for making a clear designation for what parts of the island the Brits control (though I am going through a county-by-county historical investigation for better detail); for those parts not Brit, the larger clans can be designated as "controlling" those zones. It is, however, grittier than what I need; I can be satisfied that the McCarthys and O'Sullivans control the southwest without having to keep track of every O'Hurley, O'Daly and Ferris in the region. I can plunder the names and make them small groups in the bigger picture for an actual campaign, but the map can just list the major clans.
Sorting this out will take time - and if you have a particular love for a particular name (your own, perhaps), I'm sorry if you're not included. The map above, though, will tell you what hex your people ought to come from, once I get the map made and posted.
It is reasons like this that I have left England off the world for so long. I began making my world map in 2005 and here I am, 11 years later, with all of Europe made but without the British Isles (or Iceland, for that matter). I knew it was going to be a bitch. I'm going to be glad when it is behind me.
Monday, September 5, 2016
I Always Had My Suspicions
Many of the comments on the video argue that the test enhances the minutest of inconsistencies, so that the actual difference it the die, as it would affect rolling, is negligible. I would tend to agree with that. At the same time, many of the dice shown in this video are distinctly of the cheap variety, the sort whose edges begin to degrade after ten, fifteen years use. Some of my dice are like this, some have gotten to the point where I won't use them for anything critical in a game. Others of my dice are 30+ years old and show no breakdown at all.
I only put the video up because I knew this would be something too interesting to ignore.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Bully Boy
I do not generally post ripped material, but since it is impossible to find this song in any format but this one, I'll go ahead and take the consequences. If the estate of the McGarrigle sisters wants to come after me, I will tell them firmly that they should make their album available in digital. This is from 1964, the year of my birth:
She’s sailing out of Lunenburg harbour,
A legend and a win before her,
She won all the races of her day.
The ghost we see is only time away,
And it’s blow boys, blow my bully boys, blow . . .
Captain Angus Walters met the Prince of Wales;
He rode the seas and fought the gales.
They sold his ship to carry freight;
The queen sailed off to meet her fate,
And it’s blow boys, blow my bully boys, blow . . .
Now in the memory of other times
She rides as the tail on the back of a dime;
She follows the wind then answers the call,
As seagulls cry to the sea and all,
And it’s blow boys, blow my bully boys, blow . . .
She’s sailing out of Lunenburg harbour,
A legend and a win before her,
She won all the races of her day.
The ghost we see is only time away,
And it’s blow boys, blow my bully boys, blow . . .
Captain Angus Walters met the Prince of Wales;
He rode the seas and fought the gales.
They sold his ship to carry freight;
The queen sailed off to meet her fate,
And it’s blow boys, blow my bully boys, blow . . .
Now in the memory of other times
She rides as the tail on the back of a dime;
She follows the wind then answers the call,
As seagulls cry to the sea and all,
And it’s blow boys, blow my bully boys, blow . . .
Ready for Class
Just getting ready for my class today in my present digs. Looks more like a traditional vlogger's chosen background than I've ever had before - but fact it, the background belongs to my daughter, not to me. My stuff is mostly in storage.
Saturday, September 3, 2016
Shot to Pieces
It has been explained to me that this blog is a necessary and critical complement to my wiki; since this comes from one of my strongest and most honest patrons, Scarbrow, I am inclined to believe him. I do use the blog to promote the wiki. I do that because if I write rules on a wiki page, I'm 99% certain that no one who reads my blog is ever going to see it - and because I'm stoked about what I've just written, I'm geeked out about it, I want to share it and be sure others do see it.
Phil DeFranco, who I don't listen to but whom my daughter loves, tells me that I shouldn't just copy content from one platform to another. I should invent individualized content for each platform that I touch on - twitter, pinterest, facebook, whatever - because the people who choose to follow me on those platforms deserve it. And because it is good for promoting myself. Truth is, DeFranco gets millions of views for his videos and that's hard to dismiss. I'd find it easier to embrace that advice if DeFranco didn't sound like a smug, weedy, insincere asshole in the recent internet tradition where every popular channel creator sounds like an overblown parody of a 1965 sports/news announcer. My daughter and I have had vicious arguments about this delivery pattern, as it applies to people like Markiplier and Jacksepticeye, both of whom make me want to dig out parts of my brain with a melon-baller. They're equally popular to DeFranco and likely to be equally full of good, wonderful advice about how to be popular on the internet, which may be because of their content or perhaps because they speak in frequencies that resonates with my daughter's age range. I have no idea.
I've been puzzling through this "how to popularize yourself" problem for some years now, not especially fooling myself about it. James Maliszewski, who wrote nothing but brain-dead pap on his blog for years, mostly regurgitating other people's work by holding it up to the light and saying, "See? Shiny!", remains more popular that I will ever be as a D&D blogger despite his sordid disappearance and apparent failure to produce the content promised for the money he was given (a personal fear of mine). I continue to read links to his shit on other people's blogs with a sort of "ooo! ahh!" vibe that fails to make itself clear to me. Why, precisely, was this guy so popular? Is it - as many people around me have postulated - because he was so bland and tedious that he was beyond threatening anyone with his opinion? If that's the case, I can think of about fifty RPG blogs on the net that deserve the sort of notoriety and deep, passionate respect that Maliszewski got.
Don't misunderstand me. I know precisely the hole I dug for myself from the get-go. I started this blog with the refrain, "This is shit and this is shit and this thing over here? That's shit too." I wasn't holding back at all, I was expressing decades of frustration and disappointment that I had felt combing the shelves of game stores looking for rules that were worth my money, that I had felt listening to people gush about game modules and such that left me cold and staggered at the level of juvenile effort and design that went into their creation, that I had felt sitting at game table after game table for years run by assholes who goose-stepped their callous superiority over players in a desperation to prop up their inadequacies - in a world where I had had few ears towards which to voice those feelings. I leapt onto the blogger page with an idea to finally find someone that would relate to my feelings about the disaster that D&D had grown into over thirty years.
I should not have underestimated, however, the sanctity with which people held most of their nostalgia memories about when they started playing D&D as little children. More than anything, I have come face to face with the notion that D&D is never as good playing as an adult as it was when we were nine. As with most things, I do not remotely understand this. Maliszewski's popular schtick drips with it. "See? We were only nine!" could have been his tag-line.
All this comes back around to what I'm doing here with this blog and with my perspective on D&D. The message on the blog has steadily changed from what's wrong with the game towards what could be right with the game - but I'm digging out of a deep hole with regards to my potential audience. The wiki is evidence that the work can be done on a world, the rules can be created and they can be easy enough to make sense and solve problems rather than create them. The trio of books I wrote about gaming continue to sell and I feel that most of those readers have gotten a lot out of them. And for those people brave enough to take the classes, I'm providing a content-rich experience that isn't just blowing smoke up the ass of someone who's given me money (unlike everything that's ever come out of the WOTC).
None of this makes me popular. I have some amazing, driven, wonderful people who feel a deep attachment to what I say, that I owe the world to and that I find myself thinking about with every word I write; but this blog will never be as popular as lotfp, whose every post is just an advertisement on what's being sold this month, or ddwps, whose every post more or less comes down to, "Look at this thing I shat out today - isn't it pretty?"
Even as I have softened over the years, I'm still threatening. Or I ask too much. Or I write too much. Or it's just all too much to incorporate seriously. Or it's my bed and I've got to lie in it. There are lots of good reasons for people to see in me the same thing they saw five years ago and hated - because I am, fundamentally, still the same intolerant person that hated everything popular back then. I have made my bed.
The fantasy book, The Fifth Man, that's supposed to be my doorway. I'm shot all to pieces with the gaming community, for the most part, but I haven't managed to destroy my reputation with everyone who has ever bought a fantasy fiction novel, not yet. I have my fears and concerns about the success of the book; or even that I can be successful. I have the same feelings that any writer or artist feels about their eventual success. They'd like to have it. They'd like to know that all the effort wasn't wasted. They'd like to think that some kind of fame and respect is still possible. Those who give up hope in those things give up working.
Whether I use the blog to promote the wiki, or copy the wiki into the blog, does not really matter. The main thing is to keep working, keep evolving, keep hammering as I said a few days ago, keep changing minds when I can and always, always, produce the best content I can. Using the blog as a frontpiece for the wiki sounds important, but I already know that the audience here is the same audience there. You reading this, you're part of a small group who, like me, are willing to keep moving forward. You've gotten through all this post so far, when most of the people who foolishly came round to see if I was still here or if I had changed stopped reading when I insulted Maliszewski.
(When I really want to see what people think of me, I look my name up on Reddit).
That's what I meant when I wrote the post about quitting the blog at some point. Not any time soon, just the understanding that as the world changes and people stop coming around to read the blog, it will be more practical to just put the energy elsewhere. Who knows what time will bring? I'm fairly convinced right now that my surprising jump in page views that started about six months ago has come about because of feeder sites like Feedly (where people read me but can't/won't comment) or from bots. Feedback matters to me - when I'm not getting it here any more, I'll move on. And it won't matter where, because I'll still be me and I'll still write things like this.
Phil DeFranco, who I don't listen to but whom my daughter loves, tells me that I shouldn't just copy content from one platform to another. I should invent individualized content for each platform that I touch on - twitter, pinterest, facebook, whatever - because the people who choose to follow me on those platforms deserve it. And because it is good for promoting myself. Truth is, DeFranco gets millions of views for his videos and that's hard to dismiss. I'd find it easier to embrace that advice if DeFranco didn't sound like a smug, weedy, insincere asshole in the recent internet tradition where every popular channel creator sounds like an overblown parody of a 1965 sports/news announcer. My daughter and I have had vicious arguments about this delivery pattern, as it applies to people like Markiplier and Jacksepticeye, both of whom make me want to dig out parts of my brain with a melon-baller. They're equally popular to DeFranco and likely to be equally full of good, wonderful advice about how to be popular on the internet, which may be because of their content or perhaps because they speak in frequencies that resonates with my daughter's age range. I have no idea.
I've been puzzling through this "how to popularize yourself" problem for some years now, not especially fooling myself about it. James Maliszewski, who wrote nothing but brain-dead pap on his blog for years, mostly regurgitating other people's work by holding it up to the light and saying, "See? Shiny!", remains more popular that I will ever be as a D&D blogger despite his sordid disappearance and apparent failure to produce the content promised for the money he was given (a personal fear of mine). I continue to read links to his shit on other people's blogs with a sort of "ooo! ahh!" vibe that fails to make itself clear to me. Why, precisely, was this guy so popular? Is it - as many people around me have postulated - because he was so bland and tedious that he was beyond threatening anyone with his opinion? If that's the case, I can think of about fifty RPG blogs on the net that deserve the sort of notoriety and deep, passionate respect that Maliszewski got.
Don't misunderstand me. I know precisely the hole I dug for myself from the get-go. I started this blog with the refrain, "This is shit and this is shit and this thing over here? That's shit too." I wasn't holding back at all, I was expressing decades of frustration and disappointment that I had felt combing the shelves of game stores looking for rules that were worth my money, that I had felt listening to people gush about game modules and such that left me cold and staggered at the level of juvenile effort and design that went into their creation, that I had felt sitting at game table after game table for years run by assholes who goose-stepped their callous superiority over players in a desperation to prop up their inadequacies - in a world where I had had few ears towards which to voice those feelings. I leapt onto the blogger page with an idea to finally find someone that would relate to my feelings about the disaster that D&D had grown into over thirty years.
I should not have underestimated, however, the sanctity with which people held most of their nostalgia memories about when they started playing D&D as little children. More than anything, I have come face to face with the notion that D&D is never as good playing as an adult as it was when we were nine. As with most things, I do not remotely understand this. Maliszewski's popular schtick drips with it. "See? We were only nine!" could have been his tag-line.
All this comes back around to what I'm doing here with this blog and with my perspective on D&D. The message on the blog has steadily changed from what's wrong with the game towards what could be right with the game - but I'm digging out of a deep hole with regards to my potential audience. The wiki is evidence that the work can be done on a world, the rules can be created and they can be easy enough to make sense and solve problems rather than create them. The trio of books I wrote about gaming continue to sell and I feel that most of those readers have gotten a lot out of them. And for those people brave enough to take the classes, I'm providing a content-rich experience that isn't just blowing smoke up the ass of someone who's given me money (unlike everything that's ever come out of the WOTC).
None of this makes me popular. I have some amazing, driven, wonderful people who feel a deep attachment to what I say, that I owe the world to and that I find myself thinking about with every word I write; but this blog will never be as popular as lotfp, whose every post is just an advertisement on what's being sold this month, or ddwps, whose every post more or less comes down to, "Look at this thing I shat out today - isn't it pretty?"
Even as I have softened over the years, I'm still threatening. Or I ask too much. Or I write too much. Or it's just all too much to incorporate seriously. Or it's my bed and I've got to lie in it. There are lots of good reasons for people to see in me the same thing they saw five years ago and hated - because I am, fundamentally, still the same intolerant person that hated everything popular back then. I have made my bed.
The fantasy book, The Fifth Man, that's supposed to be my doorway. I'm shot all to pieces with the gaming community, for the most part, but I haven't managed to destroy my reputation with everyone who has ever bought a fantasy fiction novel, not yet. I have my fears and concerns about the success of the book; or even that I can be successful. I have the same feelings that any writer or artist feels about their eventual success. They'd like to have it. They'd like to know that all the effort wasn't wasted. They'd like to think that some kind of fame and respect is still possible. Those who give up hope in those things give up working.
Whether I use the blog to promote the wiki, or copy the wiki into the blog, does not really matter. The main thing is to keep working, keep evolving, keep hammering as I said a few days ago, keep changing minds when I can and always, always, produce the best content I can. Using the blog as a frontpiece for the wiki sounds important, but I already know that the audience here is the same audience there. You reading this, you're part of a small group who, like me, are willing to keep moving forward. You've gotten through all this post so far, when most of the people who foolishly came round to see if I was still here or if I had changed stopped reading when I insulted Maliszewski.
(When I really want to see what people think of me, I look my name up on Reddit).
That's what I meant when I wrote the post about quitting the blog at some point. Not any time soon, just the understanding that as the world changes and people stop coming around to read the blog, it will be more practical to just put the energy elsewhere. Who knows what time will bring? I'm fairly convinced right now that my surprising jump in page views that started about six months ago has come about because of feeder sites like Feedly (where people read me but can't/won't comment) or from bots. Feedback matters to me - when I'm not getting it here any more, I'll move on. And it won't matter where, because I'll still be me and I'll still write things like this.
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