One Month in!

Eclectic Dragon's One Month Update

    At this point I have been writing this blog for about a month's worth of time. In this short period of time, I have managed to turn around five substantive blog posts averaging over two and half thousand words, for over ten thousand words total. I am pretty proud of all of this, but I realize this rate of production is unsustainable. Moving forward, and as my schedule stabilizes at my day job, I will have less free time in large uninterrupted blocks to work on entries for the blog. In order to maximize both my enjoyment and the longevity of this blog, I am going to be working with continued focus on games and products that speak to me in some fundamental way. This means you will never see me review something that I don't have some sort of personal interest in. For example, I will very likely never review a modern 5th edition Wizards of the Coast product, or anything recently published by Paizo. Both companies' modern products tend to not resonate with me. That being said, I will continue to be honest about the independent/ niche games and products I do talk about. If they have flaws or quirks, I will mention them and it will color my final judgement of the game/ product. I just will be polite about it and try to, 'not yuck anyone else's yum' as it where.  

    I am deeply enjoying writing about a topic I love; TTRPGs! I am, apparently, also learning a fair bit about myself as well. I am learning that art and layout in TTRPGs is something that is crucial to my enjoyment of a TTRPG book/zine/product. I am finding art/layout go a very long way towards establishing the prevailing tone and mood of a product. I have also come to realize that my vocabulary and base of knowledge for expressing my opinions about art in TTRPGs is limited, and that it is something I need to improve on moving forward. Regardless, of where I need to improve, I am slowly but surely developing out a distinct voice for myself as a writer - it is an interesting process to observe happen with your own work in real time. 

Upcoming Reviews and Articles

    Regardless, I suspect the very few people that are reading this will want to know what I have next on my docket for reviewing! The next two games I am working on writing posts about are a 'first impressions' review post on Chain X Link by Glyph Tide Games / Plus One Exp, and an 'actually played' review of the Shadowdark hack DarkSpace from DMing the World. The Chain X Link impressions review should come out some point in June and the DarkSpace one in July after I run it. 

    I am also thinking of doing a recurring series where I review and write about my favorite entry from Plus One Exp's RPG Zine club each month. Furthermore, I am thinking about doing a monthly review of an adventure or two from an old issue of Dungeon Magazine - of which I have enough to last for... years. 

    I am slowly but surely building out ideas and thoughts for two large essays: There are some TTRPGs I Own but will Never Play and that's OK, and TTRPGs and the Importance of Art. The first essay I think I can write in one feverish evening just by looking over my collection. The second essay is going to take substantial time, research, and work to figure out - it might not be out for a few years to be honest. 

One Final Thing...

    For those very few of you that have made it this far, I do have a favor to ask of you. If you have enjoyed any of the reviews, I have written please take a few moments to leave a comment or share links to the articles or even follow me on Blue Sky - I would appreciate it!