It’s been a little bit since New Year’s, and many people have already declared and attempted their various resolutions. Personally, I didn’t make a resolution this year. I rarely do. I don’t think they’re bad, or too mainstream, or any of that nonsense. I just choose not to do them.
However, while I may not have an official New Year’s Resolution, I do have some goals for this year. I have things I want to accomplish with Adventure Rules, so today we’re going to talk about those goals and the steps we can take to accomplish them together.
GOAL #1: Reach 100 followers
I’ve never been one who cared for networking or for making a ton of friends. I have the kind of personality where I care more about having two or three people that I know deeply instead of ten acquaintances that I can hang out with but not really talk to. However, to succeed in pretty much any medium of life, networking is a necessity. You need to be able to interact with other people – and by you I of course mean I.
So as a standardized measurement of the growth of the blog, I want to reach 100 cumulative followers. What do I mean by cumulative? I mean 100 unique followers across all four sites: WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. I don’t want to only count WordPress followers because that’s unfair to the people who follow on social media. I want the whole crew of adventurers to be working together towards this goal.
I chose the number 100 because it is a stretch while also being something that I do think is feasible. I don’t want to set a ridiculous goal of getting hundreds or thousands of followers when my current number is nowhere near that. 100 is a realistic number because in 2015, over the course of only four months of blogging, I managed to accumulate between 30-35 followers. That’s about 1/3 of my goal, in about 1/3 of a year. So mathematically speaking, 100 followers by the end of this year is totally feasible. IF we hit that 100 crazy early – only after four months or something like that – then I will set a new follower goal for the rest of the year. But 100 seems to me to be a good starting point.
How do I intend to reach 100 followers? Well first of all, posting every day is a good way to keep attention on the blog. The more I post, the more tags I post in, the more unique content I provide, the more people will find and follow the blog. So I’m going to take the current 7 day schedule and stick with it. Next, there’s Multiplayer Week, a week dedicated to sharing the blog on social media. Last year we only had one Multiplayer Week ever. This year, my plan is to start every month with seven days dedicated to reaching out to other people. This is perhaps the best way for you as adventurers to play a role in meeting this goal – the more you share during Multiplayer Weeks, the more people will see Adventure Rules than can be reached by myself alone. Of course, that’s not to say that you can’t share any other time of the month. But Multiplayer Week is the time when I as an author will be really focused on encouraging everyone to share posts.
Currently, I don’t have any ideas for what to do once we reach 100 followers. But I do want to do something special. If any of you have suggestions, I’m open to hearing them.
Goal #2: Create TWO tabletop RPGs
As my regular readers know, I am currently working on a project to create a Myers-Briggs inspired tabletop RPG. I am building this game from scratch, and my goal is to have the rulebook completed by the end of the year. However, if you don’t follow on Twitter then you may not know that I am actually beginning work on a SECOND tabletop game. Now where the Myers-Briggs project could potentially lead places as far as publishing the playbook, this second project is totally for fun. That project is the creation of a Paper Mario tabletop.
I already have some plans for it. I want to focus on the Glitz Pit, one of my favorite areas from Thousand Year Door and the part of the Paper Mario universe that I think has the most potential for a tabletop game. My plan is to have multiple “game modes,” so to speak, some that are suited for one-offs while others are more suited for campaign play. Like the Myers-Briggs RPG, it will have a cooperative goal; however, they’ll be different in the sense that Paper Mario RPG will also be highly competitive. PvP will be incredibly important, so much so that this tabletop may not even need a GM. Of course, I have barely started conceptualizing this project, so there’s plenty I still have to decide for certain. But I’ll keep you posted on this project just as I have been with Myers-Briggs RPG (yes, I am going to create a better title).
This goal is a pretty easy one to celebrate – releasing the games so that people can play them. This aspect of the goal may not happen in 2016 for Myers-Briggs – since this game is made from scratch, totally original, I may attempt to actually publish it on a small scale. But I have to finish the game first, so talk about that is still far in the future. For now, my goal for the year is to make these games and playtest them.
Goal #3: Complete Season One of The Outrealms
If you’ve been adventuring with the blog for awhile, then you know that fiction has been a rough journey here. Fanfic Friday had to take a break for two months because of my work schedule during the holidays. The short-lived long fiction Monster Fighting League didn’t make it past episode 2 for the same reason. The timing was just poor, so something that should have been exciting and new turned out to be a letdown.
Now, we’ve begun a new fiction journey: The Outrealms. This is a combination of Fanfic Friday’s monthly approach and Monster Fighting League’s long-form approach, where the story will be one connected tale over the course of many months, but each individual month will stand somewhat alone as a single chapter. Additionally, the fanfic will feature characters from all sorts of Nintendo worlds, which should make it interesting to fans of many different games.
My goal is for 2016 to see the completion of Season One of The Outrealms. I say Season One because there is potential for future seasons based on what you adventurers think of the series. But for the time being, one season will take up most of the year. I may do half-seasons a la The Walking Dead and place a smaller work in the break, but whether or not that happens the entire first season of The Outrealms will be done by the end of 2016.
Goal #4: Complete the Reading Challenge
If you have a Facebook, chances are somebody you know has shared the 2016 reading challenge. It’s basically a challenge to read a dozen books this year, but with specific conditions such as “a book that a friend/parent/child/spouse recommends,” and “a book that intimidates you.” After helping my wife choose her books, I decided to do the challenge myself. It’s hard to be a good writer when you aren’t an avid reader, and lately all I’ve read are the text boxes on some video games.
Completing the challenge is more of a personal goal than a blog goal, but I can see myself posting about some of the works that I read. I know that historically this blog has only dealt with video games and tabletop games, but if you all as adventurers are interested in seeing book-related content on the blog, let me know. It would never be as consistent as gaming content, but I could certainly incorporate it from time to time.
Goal #5: Improve the Social Media Sites
On the first day of 2016, Adventure Rules debuted on social media. The blog has spread from WordPress to be available on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Part of the promise that came with this was that each page would sport some custom content, exclusives available only through that site. The idea was that Facebook would offer family-related content, Twitter would have exclusive tabletop content, and Tumblr would have exclusive fanfics and behind-the-scenes content for The Outrealms.
So far, only Tumblr has gone smoothly. The problem on Facebook was my choice of content – while I consider myself to be a family-friendly guy in general, right now my son is too little to do activities like playing video games or tabletops as a family. It’s not a subject I can comment intellectually on at this point in my life. On Twitter, the problem is the character limit. I’m a long-winded person by nature, and it’s hard for me to write things succinctly. I mean, I majored in English, the subject where saying the exact same thing six times in a row is an art form that you are graded on with every test. So it’s very difficult for me to take 140 characters and make a significant statement about the blog. Or about anything, really.
So while I will not be abandoning any of the sites, I do need to fix some things and make the sites more effective. For Facebook, this will probably mean a change in the content provided. For Twitter, I’m thinking a change in the medium – you might see lots of my doodles with some text about my latest projects. On Tumblr, I want to take the positive steps already happening there and make them a bit more consistent, perhaps scheduling specific days for content to be unveiled similar to the way it works here on the main site.
This goal is a hard one to measure in a quantifiable way. I’ll probably consider this goal accomplished when the specific purpose of each site is decided, applied, and scheduled out.
These five goals are going to be my focus for 2016. I believe they will have a positive impact on the blog and make it even more entertaining for all of you adventurers. So how can you take part as fans of the site? First of all, be sure to encourage friends and family who might be interested to check it out. Second of all, anytime you have some input, comment on the blog or contact me via social media. I invite feedback from every adventurer so that together we can make the blog better. Third of all, be sure to let me know what you think of having book-related content on the site, as well as letting me know if you have any ideas about how to celebrate 100 followers.
I want to thank all of the adventurers for your support and continued reading of the blog. 2016 is just getting started, so let’s work together to make the blog the best it can be!
Adventure Rules 
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