Welcome back, friends, and welcome to the new year! Things got pretty quiet around here the last couple of months. I could list all the things that kept me away, but it’s easily summarized with: life.
That said, a great deal of life has been sorted out and I have new structures in place and new goals on the horizon. Things got unfocused in 2022. Necessarily so, I think, but my goal for 2023 is focusing on the people and projects in the TTRPG space I think you need to look at and talk about.
What does that mean for my articles here? My plan involves making these three types of article the core of my writing here:
- Interviews with creators and creative teams, written or video
- Talking about and reviewing Indie TTRPGs that have caught my eye
- Talking about and reviewing 3rd-party content for non-WotC games, again with a focus on Indie TTRPGs
Let’s talk a bit about these. Interviews with creators are something I started doing relatively recently and it’s quickly become something I love. Not only do I get the enjoyment of asking questions that hopefully unlock passionate and expansive answers from the creators. But I then get to share that, and all of you get to “meet” and discover someone new, or something new about a creator you already followed. So yes, whatever I was doing this year was always going to involve more of these. I already have some interviews lined up; I can’t wait for you to meet these folks.
Talking about and reviewing Indie TTRPGs will involve two different articles: the discussion which will go up Mondays, and a review which will go up later in the week. Either of these could be videos instead of blog posts, as I experiment with and develop my video filming and editing skills. But there are so many games entering the Indie TTRPG sphere all the time, I think it’s valuable to take a closer look at some of them.
The third type, talking about and reviewing 3rd-party content for non-WotC games, may seem like an overlap with the point above it. But if Indie TTRPGs, in general, don’t get a lot of attention in the space, how much focus has there been on content created by Indie creators for other Indie creators’ games, or even some of the larger non-D&D systems like Pathfinder 2e, FATE, Wanderhome, and so on. And yet there are creators who do only that, quietly making cool things for other game systems. So I want to bring attention to them, get more eyes on their work.
I hope it goes without saying at this point, but within these three article types I’m devoting the bulk of my attention to marginalized creators in the space. It’s something I try to do regardless, but I find it helpful to reaffirm this for myself every time I chart a new path ahead. Not only are there so many marginalized creators who deserve to be more visible, but you, gentle reader, deserve to have them in your gaming world.
That’s just what I’m doing here, of course. I have personal projects I am planning for 2023 as well, and very likely some of those will spill over and intersect with what I’m bringing you here. So this year will bring a bunch more cross-posting between my site, dorklordcanada.ca, and here. It’s my fondest wish that, between the two, you’ll get a big bite of the Indie TTRPG scene.
For now, though, I hope 2023 brings you what you need. Stay tuned for my first true article of 2023 next Monday, and my first game review of the year coming soon. Stay curious!
