I've always tracked my gaming progress like the US Federal fiscal calendar (October through September). Don't ask why, it's always been like that, I'm not going to change now.
The Blog in General:
The Top Ten Blog Posts Over the Past Twelve Months
The Top Ten Blog Posts Over the Past Twelve Months
- Savage #4.1 - The Relief of Lake's Wharf (Pulp)
- #RPGaDay2025 - Day 16 - Overcome
- #RPGaDay2025 - Day 22 - Ally
- #RPGaDay2025 - Day 27 - Tactic
- Historicon 2025 (Conventions)
- Historicon with Tiny Painted Heroes (Conventions)
- #RPGaDay2025 - Day 29 - Connect
- (Painting) Loh'khar (Twi'lek) for Star Wars
- Fall-In 2024 After Action Report (Conventions)
- Almost As Much As I Hate Fish (Gamma World)
It does put a minor blemish on the fact that community-based activities for the year did really well. The Character Creation Challenge in January pulled good numbers and good communication, but RPGaDay2025 went gangbusters, even without the the Internet Gods of Singapore meddling with my numbers.
Like Ice Cube repeating "Find the Dealer, Find the Supplier" in 21 Jump Street, my mantra needs to be "Conventions, Reviews, Pulp Games, Gnome Games" if I'm just worried about traditional views. Doing these community events for over a decade has told me not to expect this year's results every year, and to do them simply for fun.
#RPGaDay2025 - I was rather uninspired by the prompts this year, but it was extremely popular, and that was the consensus of the other bloggers (bot traffic notwithstanding) I may even be downplaying it, because this years numbers exceed those of 2020s first-month numbers (the last "great year"), and comparing year over year, my previous years 2021-2024 saw a total uptick over the past year of over 50% , on average. We're well over a decade into this activity, and to see seven posts crack deep into my annual top 20 posts, four of those getting into my top 10, warms my Grinch-like heart.
#ZineQuest - February was a tight month financially, but I still was conservative with a few campaigns. Despite feeling particularly picky this year, I promoted 24 ZineQuest Kickstarters, compared to 21 last year.
Project 350: I follow this too closely over the year, so I should label this a Triumph. Last year, I ended with 514 posts hiding behind the scenes (323 drafts, projects, ideas and 191 scheduled posts, including a LOT of holiday stuff into the future). This year? A measly 453 (281/172). My original plan of 350 overall was back when I kept under 100 scheduled posts, so maintaining at 450 and lowering should be a more realistic goal. What can I say, I love my gnome art for the holidays, even if I have Merry Christmas art posts scheduled for the next 20 years.
TRIUMPHS:
Retro Mousling Dynamite - I may have a dozens of Reaper mouslings from all the Kickstarters, but when one finds the OG Mousling (and Verminites) from the mid-90s on eBay, and not at Noble Knight prices, I pounced... and got some painted up.
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| Some Original Reaper Mouslings |
I'll mention it a couple times later on, but it was a good year for painting, and projects I loved were part of that growth.
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| Let's not forget Maja's future career as an awards judge. |
Gamma World: We celebrated the 100th episode of the campaign with the big wedding between Lathar and Thunnelda.
The Kemper Episcopalian Medical Militia - Not even an inkling on my list of projects for this year last October, an episode of Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff inspired me, I snagged up extra from Brigade while I was absent from Cold Wars, and by the end of May the unit was complete! Slow as molasses for some, but in a world where my projects linger for years, it's a great achievement for me.
The Frickin' Zulus are Finally Finished: It took four years since the finale for season three of The Savaga Saga of Maja Millie, and a comedy of errors, but the box of Warlord Zulus I bought eons ago were finally assembled, painted, and made what currently is their only expected appearance on the table.
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| The Defense of Carf - Notice the unique water tower in the foreground |
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| The Third Battle of Santo Poco |
CATASTROPHES:
The Move - The kids moved with their mother to upstate New York. The house is sold. It's been mostly Dad-Ubers and Instagram memes for awhile now, but even those are done now, and most sporting events are now over four hours away.
Another Job Loss - I knew working for a start-up had it's potential for disaster, but I didn't expect the lack of financial planning on the executives. I made more commission on two months of the my final quarter than other three full quarters (which were more than acceptable), so I know it wasn't entirely me.
Cold Wars - I really can't call Cold Wars 2025 a disaster, because I didn't go and only got reports secondhand. HMGS returned to the Ike in Gettysburg after many years, and much earlier than normal in the calendar. Pictures showed a lot of empty space and small games.
A good slate of candidates for the board (including me) had mentioned getting Cold Wars back on the schedule, and the "hell or high water" contingent got in, and, like many board new members with dreams and schemes, learned that reality is cruel mistress.
While I pride myself to be one of the first ones on TMP with a convention AAR, I was shocked to find no blog recaps and less than a half-dozen YouTube videos. Like a YouTube creator looking for cheap views by compiling things, I threw together a blog post linking most of these videos (and one blog post at time), and it still stayed in my Top Ten for most of the year.
Like the current Federal administration, these guys are double downing on Cold Wars, setting up con dates and the Wyndham (Formerly HOST) for the next three years.
All in the first week of February. Not exactly peak tourist season, unless skiing is involved. These mythical vendors lamenting Cold Wars and Adepticon being too close? Not worth my time all year long now.
The Death of Mike Griffith - I discovered this after the fact. One of the old lions of Lehigh Valley gaming is gone, and Mepacon would not be in any of its current form without him.
GENERAL MUCKERY:
Basketball/Volleyball: There's a saying that managers manage, while coaches actually coach. I've come to believe that most adults in youth sports honestly can't do either. After a disastrous summer full of injuries and coaches doting over a mediocre Senior resting her sprained ankle versus Maja's breaking her wrist and playing every minute in pain, Maja stuck with volleyball. She performed admirably on the JV2 team. She nearly had as many assists as the JV1 setter, which says something, because most of her sets ended up getting hit into the net by her teammates. She even played travel ball and ended up in the same situation, with no changes ever. At least for travel, her outside hitter was invited to the main team for a trip to nationals, which was well deserved.
Millie's still chugging along with basketball, although her team surprisingly lost four games, even if they tied for the regular season championship (One of their losses was the tie-breaker). Her travel team she's played on since 4th grade disintegrated into different teams and programs, but she was a positive influence on a team that relegated her to a role-player.
As someone who always stressed to girls to work hard and you'll get your chance, I saw none of that at multiple levels. Maja's Varsity Basketball team that she quit went incredibly far into the state playoffs, but they only played six girls. Even in a 60-point blowout where the coach threw the top five JV players in, the senior starters were still taking 3-point shots deep into the 4th quarter. When you play 28 games, most of the games are 20-point blowouts, and your bench (players 7-15) account for 24 total points all season, is a reflection on the coach. It shouldn't be a surprise this season if they're another sprained ankle away from going .500
Most of that is in the past, as the girls have moved to a new school, new teams... They might even like it better.
MEPACON - (Mepacon 47) Swung by quickly for Friday night for the Fall Convention, I had handled things around my mother's house, followed up by a.... *gasp* date.
Mepacon Spring 2025 (Mepacon 48) was not meant to be, with one child with a basketball tournament and the other with a significant theatre commitment.
A Review of My Plans from last October
- ⏸️Gnomish Space Marines - Luckily I mentioned painting the Star Wars minis, so this one gets positive progress. I did not purge any of the Unprimed Legions still in boxes, and some made a more cosmetic appearance in the Fistful of Lead games.
- ✅Reviews: Reviews bring traffic to the blog. I had two reviews sit in the Top Ten most of the year.
- ❌The Burning Trogs Wiki: Zero progress. We did have some discussions about the the Burning Trogs Redux Hackmaster, and the monthly post for the Georic Gazetteer might be sufficient.
- ❌The Gamma World Wiki: Absolutely no work done, and unfortunately, it's beginning to show in the weekly game.
- ⏸️The Mogens File: Restarting the Cthulhu game got some traction after restarting Hackmaster floundered again.
- ⏸️Mouslings: The OG Mouslings got love, but none of the Bones figures saw the brush this year.
- ✅Pulp Season 4 - The opening episode of season 4 was complete, and I think further episodes will depend on Maja and Millie coming back to visit.
- ⏸️Beyond Gamma World - Despite setbacks with a Wiki and story progression, see #9
- ✅The End of Gulluvia - Gulluvia completed ingloriously, as summertime filler sessions. It was enough for me to close that chapter and focus back on Gamma World.
Kickstarter Status:
KS: d6 System, 2nd Edition - February 2025 - Beta PDF ARRIVED
KS: DAMNIT RPG - PDF and POD ARRIVED
KS: Gamma Zine #4 - PDF and POD ARRIVED
KS: Gone Bee Keeping for 5e - PDF ARRIVED
KS: In the Land of the Sundering Flood - ARRIVED
KS: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness RPG - Spring 2025
Kickstarter is flooded with sub-par pdfs and stls. Backerkit's creator market is even more hit and miss (and more like a pre-order system than KS ever was).
Painting - My most productive year since 2020-21, and we all know how much fun we were having back then!
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| Transnitrian Howitzer Emplacements |
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| The Gnomish "Chimneysweeps" take security (and wanton corruption) very seriously. |
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| Inflatable Discount Mummies |
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| Stanton's Irish Ghost Brigade |
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| Megatron, by WizKids |
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| Reaper Christmas Dragon |
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| Micromachine Ewoks |
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| Christmas Penguin |
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| Rarity (Millie) |
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| Keg Barrels by WizKids |
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| Rusty Steel Pyramids |
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| Mine Entrances? |
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| Yin-Yan, Idiot Rodian Pilot |
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| Even More G1 Nightmares |
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| The Junk Piles of Carf |
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| Star Wars - Alien Students of the Force |
2024-25 Gaming with the Gnomies Awards
Best Kickstarter: DAMNIT
Worst Kickstarter: Smurfs RPG, over marketing - under-enthusiasm
Best Game: Maja running an 10-player "Third Battle of Santa Poco" Gnome Wars game at Historicon
Best RPG Purchase: A legal PDF copy of Toon
Best Minis: The Irish Ghost Brigade, since it was a family project.
Best Other Purchase: Another Star Wars flea market bonanza (and 84 out of 146 are ready for play!)
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