And so it begins, kicking off March with my very first daily 750+ word rant about games, which I plan to make available to all my Ko-Fi supporters soon. It's going to be part of what I'm offering supporters, and a way of keeping myself honest: every day, I will write 750 or more words. About anything- it's a minimum word count, not a topic restriction. So there may be entries like this one that will be a bit more blog-like, and others where I will be discussing the particular mechanics or history or lore of one of my games, or perhaps ruminating on another game's design, or, as likely as not, complaining about Capitalism.
Whatever the topic (though I plan to keep it mostly to the games), I will be doing that bare minimum, every day, and providing it to the folks that are contributing to keeping my creativity alive. Now- this does not mean I will necessarily be writing those 750+ words that same day. I am giving myself permission to take breaks, to write ahead, and to substitute other things for the 750+ words, such as visual or layout designs, artwork and related notes, audio or video content, or full games.
Now, I think this is a pretty good deal. Supporters give me a dollar and in exchange I give them hours upon hours of my time and creative work, which, I am told, is "not the worst". Hell, at that price even if only one thing I post every month is interesting, useful, or fun to you? That's your money's worth, right there.
Also, I absolutely promise to produce as much of my writing, design, and other work here as I can during my work hours at the day job, because after decades sacrificing my time, energy, and health in the IT industry, I am determined to claw back as much of my labor value as I can from this fucking system, and invest it in myself, and the art and writing that fuels my soul, rather than the work that drains it.
I'll be using these daily posts and writing sessions to refine my thoughts for the weekly newsletter (is weekly too much? Too little? Maybe monthly. Yeah, let's do monthly for now and if I find I have more to say then we can bump it up. But for now, monthly.) So, you may see some repeated content if you're here and also getting the newsletter, but hopefully it'll be worth your time seeing the ideas progress from my random "gotta get my 750 words out" ramblings into something that's, hopefully, a bit more coherent at the end of the month.
Mostly, though, these daily posts are a way of cultivating a habit, and of making myself accountable to someone else for keeping that habit going. As someone with ADHD, it can be a little frustrating to try and keep projects going, but over the decades I've found a few things work to sort of trick my brain into letting me create consistently, and one of those is to make it a habit- once I do something regularly for a while, it becomes part of my normal, and then it just starts to flow. Every single person who follows these daily rambles here with me, is helping me achieve that, and for that I have nothing but gratitude. I hope that you're able to get enough enjoyment out of what I create here that my gratitude for that comes through.
Now, we're getting to the end of this very first, inaugural post, so maybe I should also get to the kind of stuff that you, my (potential) reader, really wants to see: what cool game shit am I going to provide? Well, strap in, there's several projects I've got in various stages of writing/planning/rolling around in the back of my head: first, I've been working on something really special for 3 Goblins in a Trenchcoat- while the temptation to go the Munchkin route and just put out 3GiaT: Ninja Edition and 3GiaT: Space Edition and so on forever and ever amen, I feel like the Gobbos should belong to the People.
More on that sooner than you think.
The big long term project I'll be noodling on here as well is the next game in the Last Library series, following up on the worldbuilding done in Hometown Magic and Seeker's Call. We'll be exploring the Cities in that one, and I'm pretty pumped about it.
PS: If you're a subscriber, you're getting al those games, and upcoming ones, at absolutely no extra cost. Nice, huh?
There's also a bunch of little 1-page or short game ideas that I think it's time I flesh out, and I also want to write (and play) more solo RPG's, share that with all of you as I go.
So! Today's target has been hit, and I'm looking forward to doing it again tomorrow, dear reader!
Are you enjoying this bullshit? You are, aren't you? Hot diggity! Well, did you know you can encourage Dan to do more of whatever the hell this is by joining the Uncivil Union over on ko-fi? It's true! Not only is this a signal to Dan that people want more of this, but you'll also get immediate access to The Vault, where you can pick up free copies of every single game he's written, and exclusive access to the in-progress docs for upcoming games.
