[THOUGHTS] Six Thoughts in September

Starting the month with some thoughts

Hey, hi, hello.

Furthering the article I wrote a few weeks back, I wanted to jot down some ideas that I’ve got rattling away in the trap. Some of these are evolutions of what I had mentioned in that previous article; others are brand new.

Let’s get into it:

1. I’ve been running “D&D” at the local library for kids in grades 4-7 for the past year. It’s been… insane and exhausting yet hilarious and some of the best gaming I’ve done in a long time. I’ve got a seed of an article on how to run games for kids and what specific differences (and similarities) there are between that and running games for adults.

   1. I say “D&D” because while I have been pitching it as 5E, it’s far more straightforward than that. I’ll go more into the process in a future article, but suffice it to say that it starts like most things should in tabletop roleplaying games—with a conversation—and aims to get started as quickly as humanly possible.

   2. As an aside, something tickles me to the core about a 10-year-old suddenly getting very serious, raising their hand, and asking me to do something the rest of the group vehemently opposes. The shit-eating grin on their face as every other kid gets to their feet and starts shouting at them is a canon event in growing up with ttRPGs—everybody’s been that kid.

2. As I’m finishing the Starlit Spire adventure I’ve been writing for my crowdfunding campaign earlier this year, I’m thinking a lot about the products I provide as a publisher and what direction I want to take with the half-started products. There’s a metric shitload of content that I’ve started that is slowly ripening on the vine and, pretty soon, will be ready to pluck.

   1. Some of the ideas are really solid if I say so myself. Most have initiated as reactions to ideas I’ve read or heard on the podcasts / YouTube accounts of luminaries and working on them has been really fun. But, because of my goals with why I’m doing… *gestures broadly* … all this is building a community and creating a shared “maker space” (I hate that terminology, but you get the idea), I have to think about what projects are best suited for me and my brand.

3. Some of the big news lately has been the transition from D&D 5E (2014) to D&D 5E (2024). Even if you haven’t kept up with this—for whatever reason, that is, I won’t judge—there’s something here that’s worth writing about from my own perspective that isn’t just blind fanboying nor bitter grognard hatred.

   1. For instance, I have an ongoing campaign that started in 2018 as eight players in a pseudo-west-marches type game, which then morphed into a five/six player traditional campaign, then suffered from a 3-year hiatus, then was reborn as some of that same original group, and now is a very focused two-player game. That’s a lot of change to expectations, desires, and tools used in my prep.

   2. Additionally, I ran paid games through the StartPlaying.games platform last year and met some fantastic players. One of them contacted me this past weekend and asked if they could hire me to run games for them and one of their other friends through the Drakkenheim world. Unlike the other campaign I mentioned above, this game went from two to four to possibly six or seven players in 3 days. One of the big questions on our minds was: do we play 2014 or 2024 rules?

4. I received some wonderful reactions to my post, reiterating my goals for writing, creating ttRPG materials, and community-building that were shared in various places. It feels good to have an impact, even if that impact is someone saying you’re a cool place to hang out in the hobby. I’ve also been thinking about online communities and some downfalls one finds when a community has outlived its benefit to the group.

   1. I have many theories on fostering professional communities through online platforms—some cynical, others realist, and a few optimistic. Regardless, I think we can agree a professional community forms in two ways: attempting to react to an internal need (desiring like-minded colleagues, improving one’s skills, creating a network for broader opportunities, etc.) or attempting to react to an external influence (a bad experience or bad-faith actors, fandom around a particular IP, responding to someone else’s internal need, etc.).

   2. I’ll spoil this one slightly because I think it’s a bit of a hot take: you need to be hyper-selective about your community and who’s “allowed” in. This is the core difference between a “community” and a “fandom.”

   3. Take a step back and think about it: this is hardly any different than creating a new campaign and recruiting players—not everyone is a good fit for the objectives the majority are working towards. And it’s okay—more than OK, it’s basically a necessity—to admit that.

5. I’ve long used music in my campaigns, and it’s one of the top compliments I get when people play my games. I recognize it’s not for everyone, but there are a number of benefits (particularly online) that pop up once you create a workflow for finding, playing, and controlling music in games.

   1. I’d be willing to bet that most people who don’t enjoy having music in their sessions are either a) physically unable to listen to the game and music at the same time or b) have had a bad experience with it / find it unwieldy to use during the session with everything else you’re doing as a GM.

   2. That being said, I use a bunch of tools to make it practically seamless. Gone are the days of poor connection from the Discord music bots of yore—you can easily set up your own (mostly) local music bot that allows you to use any platform with a web player, from YouTube to Spotify to Soundcloud.

6. A specter in the ttRPG space floats around new projects, crowdfunding, and getting paid for your content called “value.” Almost everyone I know has a poor grasp of what it is. From a design and marketing perspective, I’d like to do a deep dive into this soon.

   1. The core thesis is this: value is a practically unquantifiable concept, and by acting as though your content isn’t of “value” diminishes not only your work but the people who may think your work is their literal lifeline.

   2. I can’t tell you how many people have messaged me praising my work or telling me, “If you make it, I’ll buy it.” This used to baffle me quite a bit, but with time, I’ve learned that it makes total sense—your individual sense of value is subjective, ESPECIALLY when qualifying your own work.

As with the last article, I don’t know when these seeds will flourish and bloom into full-blown posts (if at all). With that said, I’m curious:

Q: What things have you been thinking about lately?

Share your thoughts and let’s chat.

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