I’m starting to think I made a mistake.
You see, I had Season 2 of “Ronin Roleplaying” solo actual-play podcast all taken care of, well in advance… but I decided to cancel those shows and re-record every single show, plus the few I had already done for Season 3, in favor of doing something else. Granted, the changed format for RR is much better, in my opinion, but it is also more work-intensive than my previous process.
I will say that the results are worth the extra effort, and it is doing exactly what I wanted it to, which is to slow me down on podcast creation. But it has brought out a few new challenges, which are starting to bother me some.
I don’t want to get into particulars about the updated format, let alone the tabletop roleplaying games I’m playing in Season 2 (starting in January 2022), but I can say this: The new process and format is rather sucking the fun out of solo roleplaying for me. More to the point, my excitement for playing a particular game tends to wear out well before I’m done recording the shows I’ve committed to for that game, which sucks.
Let’s put it this way: I really love playing TTRPGs, even if the only way I have to do this is by playing solo. But I’m finding myself recording the shows for a game, then taking upwards of two months off, before recording the shows for the next game on the list! At that rate, I will not be able to keep up with the weekly release schedule for very long.
Now then, I have been trying different things, to switch things up, and keep me happy with what I’m doing. If I can maintain my enthusiasm with Game X, then I’m way more likely to not need to take a long layoff before recording the next group of shows with Game Y… at least not in theory, anyway.
Luckily, I have some options to work with. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have (thus far) been primarily using only a couple of different tools for solo roleplaying, such as the “Mythic” and “GameMaster’s Apprentice” oracles. But over the last year, I have been collecting a rather diverse collection of other materials, which should help quite a lot with my solo roleplaying.
For example, I backed the “Dungenerator” deck of mapping cards on Kickstarter (where I’ve been getting most of these tools, actually), and by the time you read this, I will have definitely tried this tool out in a live game situation. In fact, I have just the right game to match this tool up with… but as I said before, I’m not going to get into those specifics, until those shows come up next year.
I will say that the one game I have the most new tools to work with to support it is “MÖRK BORG”. In fact, by the time I get around to giving that game a try (for the second time, it was one of the games that got cancelled previously, in favor of the new format), I may not be able to use all of those doodads! I mean, obviously “MÖRK BORG” will show up on the podcast at some point, it’s just a question of when.
Anyway.
I keep telling myself that this is all fine, because once I get used to this new format, and find a way to keep things fun for the entire run of [Insert Game Here], things should be much better. Also, there is one really good thing about the very slow process I’m using to create “Ronin Roleplaying” now: It is allowing me time to keep new games slotted into the schedule in a reasonable timeframe. Not to say it, but…
FOR EXAMPLE!
I am backing multiple TTRPGs on Kickstarter, as one does, and there are several of them I really want to play on the show. Unfortunately, they won’t be in my hot little hands until sometime next year, perhaps not until rather late in 2022. If I were blowing through shows like I was before, you wouldn’t be able to hear me play those games until sometime in the 2030’s… thus the new format.
So, what am I saying here? I’m saying that, should I receive my copy of “Ironsworn: Starforged” in a reasonable timeframe next year, it might not be more than 6-8 months after that that I end up featuring the game on the show. No promises, of course, but this is the plan, at least.
If everything goes to plan, I’m trying to have a four-month backlog of shows ‘in the can’, so to speak. This way I can take breaks, as needed (such as during the holiday season), but still have the ability to slot in new games I get into the schedule, where they fit. Which means not every new game I back on KS are going to get shuffled into the schedule that quickly, but a few will. “Ironsworn: Starforged” is one of those, whenever I finally get my hands on it, anyway.
Regardless, I continue to try to figure everything out regarding the podcast, and trying to keep things fun. Because if I learned anything from my time Livestreaming on Twitch, it is this: People can tell if you aren’t having fun, and then they go watch something else.
