Okay, let’s take a step back, for a moment.
As you may know, I’m doing a solo actual-play roleplaying podcast here on the site, named “Ronin Roleplaying“. I really enjoy solo roleplaying, and have gotten a bit ahead of myself, when it comes to said podcast… like over a year ahead, so far. Actually, I’d be even further ahead by now, if it weren’t for a couple of, let’s say “mishaps” along the way.
You see, currently in Season 1, we are changing games every two months. This is fine, but it feels a bit awkward. So, I decided that with Season 2, we should change things up. Specifically, I moved us over to changing shows quarterly, or every three months. This means less games being featured every season, but more time allowed to really explore each game. I then dove right in, and recorded the first quarter’s worth of episodes for Season 2, playing “D13 RPG”.
Now I felt that this went really well overall, but after getting all that work done, a problem had arisen. Specifically, I noticed that I have way too many games, and featuring only five games each season (four games each quarter, plus a Halloween special) meant that I would never be able to play them all. Not even close.
I decided to change games every month, instead.
So, I saved the shows I had created thus far, because it would have been too much work to edit them to remove references to the quarterly format I had planned for the show while recording them. I then recorded another set of shows for January 2022, again playing “D13 RPG”. Oh no! Don’t make me play “D13” again!… That’s sarcasm, if you can’t tell, I really enjoy that game! Anyway, I got those games recorded, updated all the draft shows on the website to account for all the different games I planned to play for Season 2 (which was now up to thirteen, from the previous five), and even made plan for several seasons beyond that.
I actually planned out every season through 2026. Every single one of them.
Did I mention that I really enjoy doing “Ronin Roleplaying”?
Anyway, after I got the new “D13 RPG” shows done for January 2022, and the Mörk Borg” shows done for February 2022, I ran into another problem. It wasn’t a huge problem, not really, but enough of one that I felt like I had to change plans yet again.
I ran into “Fireborn”.
Look, I have a rather extensive collection of TTRPGs, collected over 40+ years in the hobby. Some of these games are very good, some are great… and some are, well, outright bad. My plans at this point were to play all of the games I owned, but had never played before, and that actually had me worried some, because I knew that there were bound to be some stinkers along the way. But hey, it would just be a month worth of shows, how bad could it really be?
Turns out, pretty bad. Like “I can’t even figure out how to make a damn character in this game!”-bad.
Now “Fireborn” appears to be a nifty tabletop roleplaying game, on the surface, anyway. You play a scion of an ancient dragon, finding your place in a version of modern London, in a world where magic has returned and everything is going sideways, as a result. I actually bought this game for My Lovely Bride™ years ago, when it first came out, and it seemed like it would be fun. We just never got around to playing it back then.
Yeah, well, we dodged a bullet, it seems. This game it just plain hard to read. You have to bounce from one section to the next, just trying to figure out how to make a basic character. The character sheet itself doesn’t include space for many very important bits about your character (have the devs never heard of a second page on a character sheet?), and the game suggests you just write it all down on some scratch paper. What?!
Eventually, I just gave up, and changed plans yet again.
I scrapped the reworked monthly schedule, but saved the two month’s worth of shows I had produced for them. I then decided that the best course of action would be to just… return to Plan A again.
Seriously.
I took the three months worth of shows I did with “D13 RPG” originally for Season 2, and slotted them back into the show. I then created a whole new schedule for Season 2, using only games that I know I want to play, and will work out great for the show. I then did then same for the next eight seasons, all the way through 2030. And I have enough games on hand to cover at least a couple more season on top of that, without much risk of playing a single stinker along the way!
Seriously.
Anyway, I will start recording shows for the second quarter of Season 2 (2022) soon, playing “Ironsworn”. In a couple of months, I should have all of 2022’s shows done, and perhaps by the end of the year, I will be maybe 4-5 years ahead on “Ronin Roleplaying”. No, that’s not exactly a healthy way to create content for a podcast, but I’m having fun, and if that means I can while away the pandemic and get content made at the same time, then that’s a complete win in my book!
But seriously, don’t do this.