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| Most popular posts of September |
September, as you may (or may not) be aware was the month I decided I needed to take a mental health break from blogging, for reasons.
It's not that I wasn't enjoying the daily blogging routine, it was behind-the-scenes stuff with Blogger that just brought home how fragile the whole concept of a free bloggosphere was and how easy it would be for a monolithic corporation to pull the plug on almost 17 years worth of work.
Not to mention the material I've been producing for my planned Knight City superheroes RPG campaign, which I fall more in love with every time I write something new (be it here, on the campaign blog, or simply in a Word document for "my eyes only").
Nevertheless, right up to the break, September had been a good month for HeroPress, with a decline in bot infestations (I only needed to play whack-a-mole a handful of times with old posts that were attracting meaningless bot attention).
While several of my top posts (see above) were related to old superhero works, at least they were superhero-related. For instance, I gave the Loki article a bye because while it's referring to the first season of the show the second is about to drop any day now... and so these hits could have been people searching for up-to-date news on the Marvel show. They just chose to ignore newer articles I'd written about it!
One of the main aims of the break - besides alleviating some of the self-imposed creative pressure I put on myself (a hangover from my days as a career journalist/editor) - is to devote more time to working on the upcoming Knight City campaign.
Just ahead of our recent Hollow Earth Expedition game, Pete confided in me that there was a chance the session could run very short (as it happened Pete's fears were unwarranted and my own prediction - that The Tuesday Knights were 'masters of faffing' and he had nothing to worry about - was proved correct).
However, we discussed the idea of a "session zero" fill-in for Knight City, getting people to, at least, roll up their characters.
Normally, this isn't the sort of thing I like to do "on a whim", but I was prepared enough for this campaign that had it come about I was ready to guide everyone through the character generation process.
My plan now remains to launch the campaign - either at the end of this year or start of next (depending on how HEX shapes up) - with a full session zero, not only creating characters together, but also coming up with ideas for a team name, a base, answering questions about the setting, helping the players create characters that are better integrated into the world etc
I have a rough idea for the first adventure, but really want to mould the campaign around the player-characters going forward (as a good comic book or movie focuses upon its headline characters).
In recent days - with a bit of help from Rachel - I've started to assemble "welcome packs" (see below) for the Tuesday Knights, which currently include my introductory booklet, a blank Villains and Vigilantes character sheet, a pad of notepaper, and a pencil.
At the moment I don't know if I'll put anything else in there.
My plan now remains to launch the campaign - either at the end of this year or start of next (depending on how HEX shapes up) - with a full session zero, not only creating characters together, but also coming up with ideas for a team name, a base, answering questions about the setting, helping the players create characters that are better integrated into the world etc
I have a rough idea for the first adventure, but really want to mould the campaign around the player-characters going forward (as a good comic book or movie focuses upon its headline characters).
In recent days - with a bit of help from Rachel - I've started to assemble "welcome packs" (see below) for the Tuesday Knights, which currently include my introductory booklet, a blank Villains and Vigilantes character sheet, a pad of notepaper, and a pencil.
At the moment I don't know if I'll put anything else in there.
My short-term plans for the campaign include writing up The Unity League (the game world's answer to the JLA or The Avengers), villains being treated in the city's secure asylum for the criminally insane, and a host of other villains based on half-baked scribbles in notebooks, fleeting references in other sections of the campaign's website, or updating villains from our old HeroPress fanzines.
On a larger scale I have wild ambitions for the game (which, remember, hasn't even started yet!) , such as restarting my podcast but as a post-game resource (it certainly won't be an 'actual-play' as I find such things generally tedious and uninteresting) and maybe give the game its own Facebook page for interested non-players to keep abreast of developments.
The Fscebook idea might be a step too far, given that we'll already have HeroPress, the campaign blog and possibly the podcast.
The general idea is that the campaign's dedicated blog will be for predominantly 'in-universe' pieces, while HeroPress will serve as a repository for behind-the-scenes (or, rather, 'behind-the-mask') articles, looking at issues raised, what worked and what didn't and so on.
But, of course, the main thing I need to do at the moment is concentrate on that upcoming 'session zero' and then the first adventure.
From there, who knows...?
The Fscebook idea might be a step too far, given that we'll already have HeroPress, the campaign blog and possibly the podcast.
The general idea is that the campaign's dedicated blog will be for predominantly 'in-universe' pieces, while HeroPress will serve as a repository for behind-the-scenes (or, rather, 'behind-the-mask') articles, looking at issues raised, what worked and what didn't and so on.
But, of course, the main thing I need to do at the moment is concentrate on that upcoming 'session zero' and then the first adventure.
From there, who knows...?
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| Starter Packs for the Knight City campaign |
Dang, that all looks and sounds awesome! I'd love to get Monstrous Matters rolling along the lines you describe at some point...a primary project at another site which serves as the main creative work, with MM for commentary and the occasional note on something else I'd like to mention...another little project or an observation or whatever. I kinda thought PermaDeath.net might be that focus, but...well, my brain rarely works as planned. I have some other options in mind but will probably move onto another semi-obsession before they get any traction. :)
ReplyDeleteGood luck with these endeavors; I'm definitely looking forward to seeing Knight City grow!
Thank you, as ever, for the kind words and support. I got the idea for the "twin blog" approach from an old Ravenloft campaign (original AD&D edition) that was well-known about a decade or more ago, but has now, sadly, gone offline.
DeleteThey did the 'usual' write-up of an adventure, then had a fantastic dissection of the session elsewhere, which I found far more interesting and inspiring.
"but...well, my brain rarely works as planned." I can totally relate to that.
Of course, ultimately, the success or failure of Knight City depends on me selling it to the Tuesday Knights and them getting onboard with what I'm trying to achieve.