Projects and Progress

We’re officially at the tail end of July and I’m still going with this blog! I’m not as prolific as I was hoping to be when I launched it in December of 2018 but we’re moving in the right direction. So what I’d like to do today is talk a bit about where I’m planning on taking the blog the rest of this year and my goals for next year.

2019

This year I have two major projects I want to finish working through before the end of the year. AD&D 2e Learning Project and the 2019 Great Blog Roll Call. I also want to start the D&D 5e Learning Project around October or November so that I can begin running a deeper discussion of the system and how to tweak it in 2020.

AD&D 2E Learning Project: Slow and steady progress is being made here as I continue to work my way through the combat chapter. Combat is very streamlined compared to D&D 3e and so I’m often finding myself overcomplicating the process. This tends to explain why I’m slow here.

After this we move on to making characters as we’ll have all the basics for how to build a character, equip them, and use them in combat. There’s a bit more when it comes to magic yet to get though but a lot of this I won’t be able to discuss directly on the blog as it moves from rules discussions to flavor. As a result, I’ll be brief on magic and then we’ll be moving on to the DMG! That will mark the halfway point of this project! I’m so excited!

2019 Great Blog Roll Call: This evening I made it through the 220th active blog I’ve reviewed this year. That number is deceptively small as I’ve also made it through an additional forty blogs that have now been moved into the dead blogs column. Many of these had dropped off their production over the years to such a small number that losing them didn’t feel like such a loss, but other have felt like I’ve lost friends. I quit keeping track of them after I found out Gorgonmilk had ended. Greg is still around, but the blog is gone.

Doing this after largely stepping away from blogging back in 2016 has been hard. I miss a lot of the good people I routinely read. There are new ones out there who are inspiring and that I like, but I miss the old ones all the same.

For those of you wondering how big the list is going to be I have about 400 + more to work my way through before I’m done. My goal is to review 10 a day which should allow me to publish the whole thing sometime in September or early October depending on how many I end up adding to the list. I’m trying to find some more blogs that cover the following systems: RIFTS, GURPS, PATHFINDER (either edition), 13th AGE, NUMENERA, D&D 5e, and CALL OF CTHULHU. If you have any suggestions please let me know because I would really like to add more blogs that cover these systems.   

2020

Weekly Best Reads: If everything goes according to plan with the GBRC I’m going to begin doing the Best Reads again in January of 2020. We’ve seen the death of blogging called for again and after making my way through the first third of the 2019 GBRC I’m convinced that the people saying that are simply refusing to look for new blogs to follow. I want to showcase the best in our community so that people can be reminded that these blogs matter – even if the Ennies no longer think we’re worth being included in their ceremonies.

2020 Great Blog Roll Call: I’ll begin working on the new year’s review in late January, early February with a goal towards publishing around the same time as 2019. As always I’ll be looking to add more blogs to this list but I want to make this an annual thing again instead of how sporadic it became. We’ve lost so many great touchstones in this hobby to help us connect that we need to make an effort to connect us again. Hopefully this project will help.

Warlords of the Accordlands: I recently petitioned AEG for permission to do a deep dive of the Warlords of the Accordlands setting and campaign that was published in 2008. I’ve been fascinated by the setting since I picked up the Campaign Guide a couple of years ago. Last week I received permission to move forward with the project. I’ve got a lot of research to do before publishing begins in the spring of 2020 but I have set a manageable schedule and should be able to accomplish it so I can met my goal.

D&D 5e Learning Project: The goal is to have the core three books completed by August 2020 so that I can begin doing deep dives into the various adventures and making my own mixtapes so that people can plug in changes to the game that might make it more fun for them. At the very least I’ll have fun.