I started this as sort of an R&D space and ready source document for games I was running using Basic and Expert over Skype. In time I started reading more, writing more, playing and running more, and as I started sharing things on G+ I started kind of writing to a specific audience and voice. I was never as active on Hangouts as I wanted to be but being in those wild world-hopping games that grew out of Hangouts cross-play meant that I started to prioritize different things in what I designed. I think most of this was innocuous enough and I don't really regret the people I met and the opportunities the Work afforded me. But it's a pattern I'd fallen into before, where unconsciously I was holding myself to an impossible standard of a character. Holding my potential future against my present, and holding some perception of how I thought people thought of me against how I was actually feeling at any given time.
When I had to quit my job and lose my house and move and lose my autonomy it caused a lot of pain and I handled it so badly that I damaged pretty much every relationship over it. Like when my grandfather died I suddenly had this unhealthy drive to make the time I spent making and enjoying my pastimes "count," "matter." This sucked a lot of the joy out of it and made it harder than ever to persevere to finish something, which meant I'd never really achieve a goal I didn't fully realize that I'd set for myself.
In the, what, five or six years? since then I've tried to rally and get back to recapturing the feeling of the Work from before I let things sour. There have been times when I've rallied, maybe even made some decent stuff. But it's not coming from a place of heart, discipline, or inspiration. As I've played less, run less, read less, bought less, as the social webbing I took part in for this hobby disintegrated for one reason or another, I have gotten myself pretty thoroughly removed from everything.
It's been rewarding to get into this hobby right before it was set to explode into a global phenomenon eclipsing even the early 80s, with more diverse creators, products, and viewpoints than ever. I can only imagine what it must be like for those of you who were into this shit since you were young. But I don't think my voice has value in this conversation. I won't claim a place in that transformation.
You could argue that I "left" years ago, to be sure, so yes I do feel stupid writing this now. I'm not walking away entirely, or forever, and in fact I'm actively creating material and running a game on a consistent basis for the first time in about a century. But without wishing to annoy anyone reading this, this just doesn't entirely feel like me any more. I'll be taking the best of it with me - or at least, the stuff I care about most. The Adder Entertainment and Dungeon Mix articles may find a place if I start a new blog, probably on a different platform. A few articles might go away. Someone else will have to host the linklist I collected for the FRACAs, probably someone from the Discord. This place won't go anywhere, though. Not until Google takes it down. I'll put the rest of it under one of the CC licenses which I'll post here next, and finally. I'll also organize and streamline this site a little whenever I get drunk.
Comments won't do much good but you can shoot me an email, my address to the right doesn't show up in mobile mode but that's....good. This should be the place on Discord I hang out in. Questions, comments, concerns, requests, hit me up. And if I have a new place to show off I'll mention it here.
When I had to quit my job and lose my house and move and lose my autonomy it caused a lot of pain and I handled it so badly that I damaged pretty much every relationship over it. Like when my grandfather died I suddenly had this unhealthy drive to make the time I spent making and enjoying my pastimes "count," "matter." This sucked a lot of the joy out of it and made it harder than ever to persevere to finish something, which meant I'd never really achieve a goal I didn't fully realize that I'd set for myself.
In the, what, five or six years? since then I've tried to rally and get back to recapturing the feeling of the Work from before I let things sour. There have been times when I've rallied, maybe even made some decent stuff. But it's not coming from a place of heart, discipline, or inspiration. As I've played less, run less, read less, bought less, as the social webbing I took part in for this hobby disintegrated for one reason or another, I have gotten myself pretty thoroughly removed from everything.
It's been rewarding to get into this hobby right before it was set to explode into a global phenomenon eclipsing even the early 80s, with more diverse creators, products, and viewpoints than ever. I can only imagine what it must be like for those of you who were into this shit since you were young. But I don't think my voice has value in this conversation. I won't claim a place in that transformation.
You could argue that I "left" years ago, to be sure, so yes I do feel stupid writing this now. I'm not walking away entirely, or forever, and in fact I'm actively creating material and running a game on a consistent basis for the first time in about a century. But without wishing to annoy anyone reading this, this just doesn't entirely feel like me any more. I'll be taking the best of it with me - or at least, the stuff I care about most. The Adder Entertainment and Dungeon Mix articles may find a place if I start a new blog, probably on a different platform. A few articles might go away. Someone else will have to host the linklist I collected for the FRACAs, probably someone from the Discord. This place won't go anywhere, though. Not until Google takes it down. I'll put the rest of it under one of the CC licenses which I'll post here next, and finally. I'll also organize and streamline this site a little whenever I get drunk.
Comments won't do much good but you can shoot me an email, my address to the right doesn't show up in mobile mode but that's....good. This should be the place on Discord I hang out in. Questions, comments, concerns, requests, hit me up. And if I have a new place to show off I'll mention it here.