My Goals for 2022 & Beyond

The start of this decade was interesting to say the least. Beyond the globally significant events, I became a first time parent, started a new job, and got in a car crash that completely threw my finances out of wack. Thanks to working from home, I was able to commit a lot of time towards my passions in early/mid 2021. Even though COVID is still very much a real variable, my company has decided to significantly reduce work from home mandates, which means since around the start of the 2021/2022 school year my time to work on passion projects has significantly diminished. Add on top of that my wife going back to work after her maternity leave ended means most evenings and weekends I'm solo-parenting our energetic toddler.

My free-time I can commit to all things related to my gaming hobby are going to be pretty minimal continuing through 2022 for the foreseeable future. That being said, I am feeling reinvigorated and am looking to put more energy into this where possible.

Things are looking pretty positive at my new job, and I might be getting a promotion (and increased pay) sometime in the coming months. If everything goes according to plan, and the pay raise is enough, my wife might stop working (since she really doesn't like her job), meaning she'll have an extra 20-40 hours a week where she'll be home. This will give both of us much more free-time and time together. I'm not sure if it is just because our kiddo was born during a pandemic, but they always want to be following one of us around - meaning solo-parenting takes much more time to get any chores done than if one of us keeps the little chaos gremlin occupied.

If you look back you will see I have been pretty consistent since starting this blog, but almost all of that comes from being able to front load my content before my wife went back to work, and I had to return to the office (meaning I can't work on personal projects when work is slow anymore).

With all of that pre-amble out of the way I've broken my goals into two sections. My base goals that are top priority, and then everything else that I would like to accomplish that will be difficult to keep on top of given my current circumstances.

My Goals:

1. Release one of the TTRPG game ideas I have. Currently I have two ideas that I've been slowly working on the last few months. I would like to be able to release at least one of them before 2023. One is a game attempting to be a "video game TTRPG" that uses (at this point in development anyway) only a d12 for everything. The other is a GMless wave survival game.

2. Publish at least once every two months on my blog.

3. Post once a week on my Instagram.

Extra Goals... In Case Everything Goes According to Plan

1. Create & release more 3rd party TTRPG content. This goal is variable, if I release 12 more pieces of 3rd party content throughout the year I will be happy with that, but in an absolutely perfect world I'd like to release something every week.

2. Publish blog posts at least twice a month.

3. Post daily on Instagram.

4. Start streaming on Twitch.

Supporting the Community

While there are certainly toxic and negative elements to the TTRPG community, there is without a doubt a large number of folks who have a passion for gaming and hearts of gold. It is also true that most money in this space is concentrated in the hands of very few creators and companies.

Since the start of 2020, I have shifted my interest away from the big names in TTRPG space, and I am spending more money on content from smaller creators. It is an unfortunate truth to capitalism that we all need to pay our bills to live, and most jobs out there suck. So, I want to do my part, no matter how small, to support those other creators out there that love gaming, but don't have the resources of multi-million dollar companies on their side.

I can't remember the last time I bought anything from Wizards of the Coast for D&D, but I know that it has been the longest span since I got into the TTRPG hobby in 2017. I will still be releasing content on the DMsGuild and writing about D&D. It might be a pointless attempt, but I am hoping that by mixing D&D content and non-D&D content I can hopefully open more people's eyes to the idea of playing other games.

While most of the money I make from my content (which is really not a lot) is going towards paying off my student loans, I am working on a few ideas that will help me put more money back into our community. For example, once I've released the games I've been working on I'll be putting aside 25% of all the money I make off of them towards paying for art and editors to improve them (as well as for future projects), and paying folks from different cultures and backgrounds to write additional content for the games. One of the first people that comes to mind is Mustangart, who did the combat wheelchair for D&D and worked on the Witcher TTRPG, but I would also like to get other folks that are comfortable in creating content inspired by their culture's mythology, legends, and tales.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog post. If you would like to help support me, you can do so by buying any of my content, or on Patreon or Ko-fi.