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| TL/DR: Year Two was the lesser, but still fun sequel to Year One. |
Happy New Year, and welcome to 2025! Been a while, huh?
I don’t know how the holidays went in your neck of the woods, but here at the Savage Lair, the theme was plague. Sickness. Misery. (And maybe a bit of melodrama.)
But we’re all better now — even Mr. Murder Hobo, whose blood is 80% bacteria-killing booze, and the holidays were good despite the sniffles and coughs.
So, I thought it was the perfect time to reflect on this blog’s second year. Spoiler alert: it’s been a ride, and not necessarily a smooth one.
Let’s dive into the highs, the lows, and the weird in-between moments of 2024.
The Good
Let’s start with the highlights before descending into the chaos. Shall we?
Top Posts of 2024
It’s no surprise that most of my top posts last year came from my Lessons from the OSR series. This was my attempt to distill a decade-plus of old-school RPG experience into something both useful and entertaining.
Eight, Furious Posts of Fury later, I think I got the core ideas across — albeit in my own convoluted and special way.
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| This kind of special (GIF from GIPHY) |
Judging by the view counts (even if half of them were bots,) this series resonated with readers. The takeaway? I need to write more posts like this. If I’ve united humanity and the machines under the banner of old-school gaming wisdom, I’ll count that as a win.
Fallout D6
Almost mid-year, my brain did what it does best: went rogue. After watching the Fallout TV series (surprisingly decent, by the way), I pivoted from D&D and OSR topics to create a Fallout campaign framework for Open D6. People seemed to like it — it ranked just below the OSR lessons series in views.
The Bad (But Also Kind of Good)
The blog’s direction — or lack thereof — was my biggest issue this year. In Year One (strong, Batman vibes there,) Dungeon23 gave me a solid framework to work with. This year, it was more off-the-cuff, and it shows.
After the over-stimulation of GenCon, I caught a case of Cyberpunk fever and decided to solo-play the Edgerunners Mission Kit as an experiment. The play log write-up turned into RPG fan fiction story. Fun? Yes. Finished? Not yet. Popular? Not exactly.
I also deviated into a couple of rants and even a mini-manifesto. While I don’t regret what I said (cultural wars do seem to be defecating on the hobby I love,) those posts weren’t particularly useful. And isn’t that the goal? To create something practical, like Bat-in-the-Attic’s sandbox advice, rather than just adding to the noise?
The lesson? More Conley-style content, less RPGPundit-style rants, even if they draw cheap views. No shade on the Pundit, though. He's been this way since before the Culture Wars invaded the RPG front.
The Ugly (But It’s Not All Bad)
The tail end of 2024 saw the blog slowing to a crawl. Missed opportunities abounded: no fun holiday posts, no Gygax or Arneson birthday shoutouts, and my horror-themed, Dungeon23 lore series idea never left the draft folder. Cold. Alone. Hungry...
Some of this was due to illness, sure, but not all of it. Honestly? It feels like the blog is drifting. Is this what happens to most blogs? The content flows until the writer runs out of steam, trickling down to an annoying drip?
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| But we'll consume whatever OSR content we can, amirite? (GIF from tenor.com) |
I think it might be time to face facts, and there are more distractions on the horizon.
The Shift
Here’s the big reveal: I’m writing a book!
No, not an RPG book — though who knows? This is a novel. Fiction. The science kind (but not too science-y.) It might even turn into a series.
Writing this blog for the past two years rekindled my love for storytelling, but I’ve realized something that I've known for a long time as an old-school-infected, RPG fan: RPGs aren’t stories. They create them as a side effect, but they aren’t themselves a medium for storytelling, not really. So, while I love RPGs *and* stories, this blog isn’t the place to scratch that particular creative itch.
I’m hesitant to say more — ideas and goals are both common and fragile things. Sometimes, even a whisper can crack the shell and spoil the egg.
Here’s a hint, though: themes of meaning, choice, destiny, love, and loss — those threads that bind us as human beings in the streams of our existence. All of it wrapped in a candy shell of trans-dimensional espionage, action, and thrills. (At least, that’s the vision taking shape in my head so far.) Not new ideas by any stretch, but possibly entertaining.
I hear your groans — don’t worry, I’m not shutting the blog down. However, content will be become sporadic this year as I hyper-focus on the book.
The Future
Here’s what you can expect:
- More Lessons from the OSR posts and similar, practical content on old-school gaming.
- The completion of the Fallout D6 series and the Cyberpunk log — because unfinished business deserves closure.
- Maybe another review or two, since the Lost Dungeons of Tonisborg review was in the top posts as well.
Oh, and that book? Once it’s done and published, I might peddle it here. It could even inspire some RPG content down the line (the idea is game-worthy.)
What were your highs and lows for 2024? What old-school RPG topics would you like to see me tackle here? Let me know! Any projects you’re working on? You can plug those below too. I don’t mind! Boost the signal, and all that.
Thanks for sticking with me through another year. Here’s to 2025, and the good things it may bring!
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