New Years Resolutions

Not the usual resolutions regarding Health, Family, Work etc. that everyone tends to say they'll do and only sometimes half achieves. Instead, today I want to talk about my Hobby and Gaming resolutions. I wasn't going to do this by I was inspired by Mirke and Evil Jeff both putting out interesting episodes covering there resolutions. And then half way through drafting this post, Joe announced the Anchorite APA which aligns really well with the goals I was setting for myself. So what are my plans and aspirations for 2025?

Anchorite APA

But first, a quick comment on the APA. First, if you don't know what I'm talking about go and watch the episode that Joe recorded with Jason where they discuss what its all about or visit the website.

Now I believe that I was the spark that started this, and Daniel from Bandits Keep would have to confirm, but back in February of last year I recorded a call in in response to an episode of Daniels patreon only podcast. In this episode he was reviewing a product which had a very DIY Zine feel. Given its along time ago I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I believe there was a comparison between this zine and a lot of the zines that you see now that are very high production value, with professional art and printing etc. In my call I shared the same sentiments, and suggested that it wouldn't be too hard to set something up where people would submit DIY work on a regular basis, and it would be collated and sent out to all the contributors. My suggestion was something like a group effort, all doing something like the Gygax75 challenge each submitting a double sided page for each issue.

Well Daniel had apparently started thinking about doing something like that, had been talking to Joe, but got busy with work. Joe has since taken the reigns and run with it. Despite my call mentioning it would be “fairly simple” (I have a habit of generously underestimating effort and time) I imagine its been a monumental effort by everyone involved. Given, that I at least was in some small part responsible I feel obligated to contribute - and so onto my aspirations.

A General Theme

I might as well get this out of the way as it pervades everything else. As I've mentioned elsewhere my partner and I are expecting our second child in late April, that will bring lots of joy, and also disruption to my aspirations - so there will be lots of talk about that.

The Blog/Podcast

Basically I want to keep up with regular content, and engaging with the community. I want to keep building my tools for producing things, to reduce friction on this and to keep consistent. With that in mind:

  1. I plan to continue the move to self hosting and building tools to help me create and manage the blog and podcast. I've begun a rewrite of my current blogging tools to Rust (mainly just to learn the language) as I've found my current solution doesn't nearly do everything I need it to. The main issue is simply organising posts in draft and publishing, the second is that I need to create an RSS feed which the organising will help with. I'll continue to add quality of life features beyond that when I have the time and energy.
  2. I also need tools to help me manage the podcast, and callins. There are a few avenues that I want to invest time in to here. I think the most ambitious is creating a podcatcher with some call in or note taking functionality, I find myself having meaningful things to call in about whilst I'm listening, but I'm often driving or doing other things - which means the opportunity to call in gets delayed and by that time I've forgotten and feel like I'd need to relisten. More reasonably, similar to organising my blog, some tools for organising my call ins both outgoing and incoming would be nice.
  3. How about content? Well I'd love to say I'd keep up with regular content, but at least for the podcast that might be difficult. I'll try my best to use the free time I have efficiently, but I expect there will be some more blog only content coming up. I want to continue my regular series of content though with as much frequency as I can manage and find joy in. So expect “Updates from DA”, “OD&D Deep Dive” and anything else that takes my fancy.
  4. Lastly, I started this both as a creative outlet but also for the community, so trying to keep up with other shows and calling in.

Creating Useful Content

One of the goals with me relaunching the podcast as s2 and starting the blog was to actually produce content that was useful to people, that could be used in their games. So:

  1. Produce content like adventures, setting information or house-rules/advice. I've already submitted an adventure to Commodore's Adventure Site Contest and whilst I technically did that in December, in doesn't get reviewed until this year, which is when I'll release it after some tidy up. Anything I do will be DIY and Free. My current plans are to create a few more adventure sites (mainly for the practice, aiming to submit again next year) and create a simple set of wargaming rules (currently in progress).
  2. Create a setting, I'll have plenty of downtime and less gaming this year. And one of the things I've struggled with running games is not feeling like I know the setting that I'm trying to portray. So I'm going to make my own very generic Sword and Sorcery setting, which is where I'll set future games.
  3. Contribute to the APA. I'm really excited about this, and I've already got an idea. The current plan is to submit some version of my Six Turns Down Under idea. I'll talk to Joe once I submit something and see how I want to share that more broadly if I do at all.

Gaming

Yep, I'm going to be pressed for time:

  1. I'm already in 2 really great Play by Post games as a player, PbP was really great for me when my first kid was born so I'm looking forward to this continuing. I plan to start running my own game to replace the GMing I'm currently doing as well. No plans what that'll look like just yet, it'll certainly be DnD though.
  2. Wargaming, I think I can get a good amount of wargaming done this year. RPGs are hard because you tend to need regular consistent sessions, but wargames are easier to fit in whenever I can get some free time or baby sitting. I have another Bolt Action event in March - and then I'll try and get as much gaming in as is reasonable. This is fairly important to me, as I think it'll be a rare opportunity to get face to face time with friends as well. And of course modelling, painting and terrain making I should have some time for that in the wee hours of the morning. In terms of games, I hope to create a few 'gaming sets' where I have everything needed to play a game (opponent doesn't need models etc.) current plans are Frostgrave (or generic fantasy skirmish game), Gaslands (hacking together hotwheels sounds fun) and Bloodbowl (I really want to make a cool stadium diorama).
  3. Solo gaming? Probably not, with all the content creation that I aim to do I think that'll scratch the lonely fun itch.