Sunday, May 3, 2015

Real Gaming Life, Yo... and Blog Challenges

Oh Mother Nature, we have really ticked you off!

After seventeen years of bitter Winter, we were given two awesome weekends of reprieve in April, only to have that snatched away by more bitter cold and torrential rain when it wasn't.  The basement got flooded.  Not too bad, maybe three inches.  The sump pump was just working overtime overnight and by lunch the next day, 90% of it was gone.  The damps spots disappeared with the beautiful weekend weather.   Let us complain about cold no longer, and focus our derision towards allergies.

Mepacon looked to be a success. The Radisson in Scranton is more spacious, the social media posts from it spotty, but the traditional Friday night reception was conducted in a room that made the assembly appear to be the United Nations of Nerdom.

Not that that's a BAD thing in this example. I'm disappointed that I needed to cancel a con event for the first time since '97.   I plan on supporting Mepacon Fall all weekend in November, hopefully volunteering for the kids track, so I can keep an eye on Maja and run some games.

It looks like my FLGS will be participating in FreeRPGDay on June 20th.  I've not only volunteered to run Kobolds Ate My Baby with the free adventure provided in the pack, but I got a partial reprieve from Maja's dance recital (I'm either leaving early or coming late) on that day.  Time to brush up on KAMB.  ALL HAIL KING TORG!!!

On the podcast front, I'm catching up on the Pagan boys at the Unspeakable Podcast.   Their podcasts, especially their forums at conventions, have granted me a plethora of ideas to use in not only Delta Green, but future steps in my Masks campaign.  Good stuff.

I've also become a full-time adherent to Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff.  At the beginning it was far more cerebral than the granola podcast fare I was used to, but I realized not only will I get great ideas for a campaign from them, but I will end up buying all their books, because they are chock full of awesome!

I also need to find a copy of The Lock-In to run as a one shot.  The folks over at the Miskatonic University Podcast posted an actual play and it's beyond wrong and beyond fabulous.

While I was researching the wide world of Gaming Hipsters originated on Fustians so Sublimely Bad., I noticed a link to A-to-Z Blogging Challenge from back in 2012.

I've been known to jump into a blog challenge or two over the last five and a half years.  I've fiddled around with the tweaking the themes from NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), I did take part in #RPGaDAy, and I personally do My Twelve Days of Blogging with only suggestions from my gnomies.

Most of these, scratch that, all of these, including the interesting concepts, are conceived to increasing your monthly posting on your blog, as well as expand your readership.  Nowadays, they're gimmicks that drive me crazy.   Back when I first started blogging, the whole idea of posting everyday seems like overkill.  Over time, has grown to where, in the first quarter of 2015, two out three months averaged OVER a post per day. 

These challenges, if taken seriously, make people feel they need to shoehorn their topic into their blogpost.   If you need to hone your writing for writing's sake, great.  If you don't, keep up with your minimal blog, but make them count!

A standardized format can be a great thing.  I was so worried about posting around the holidays, that I set up the 12 Days of Blogging.  One little secret... it's not an everyday job to do that, some of those I conceive and at least write a rough draft of well before it even turns into December!

That all being said, I am interested in another concept such as #RPGaDAY or a Wargaming Survey to help gauge my likes versus nostalgia.  Any suggestions would be appreciated

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