State of the Blog (2024 Retrospective and 2025 Resolutions)

It's been a fun year here on weplayinasociety! 

Last year, my resolutions for this blog were:

1. Finish my Red Hand of Doom conversion
2. Finish my Necromancer Class
3. Try to notice structural problems ahead of time
4. Continue my Sandbox PF2 project

How'd I do? Honestly, pretty damn well!

2024 In Review

First off, the resolutions! I did the first one plus some extra credit, I completed the second, I made solid progress on the third one, but I didn't do so great on #4. In slightly more detail:

1. Finish my Red Hand of Doom conversion - Not only did I finish it, I worked on a ton of expansion material for it! An alternate ending, thoughts on sandbox play, the History of the Vale, the Red Hand's Ideology, and even a fully fleshed out Sidequest (The Mad Mage's Manor). 11/10.
2. Finish my Necromancer Class - It's all done! I'm really proud of how it came out, though it was a bit of a bummer that Paizo released a playtest for their own only a few months later - I honestly thought this was more niche than they were gonna go for. I think I still like mine conceptually better, I don't love how their minions work, but theirs is probably going to end up better balanced since it has the advantage of more playtesting and more experienced designers. 9/10.
3. Try to notice structural problems ahead of time - I wasn't perfect at this, but I definitely did better! 8/10, here's to doing better this year!
4. Continue my Sandbox PF2 project - honestly I fully dropped this, it's just too much time and energy for me to design a campaign that I'm not running and this year was busy! 1/10.

I did a whole lot beyond my resolutions, however!

• Stolen Fate: I continued my work on Book 2 specifically The Cards of Kho and The Harrowed Realm
• Strength of Thousands: I finally created a Masterpost (though it needs better organizing) and added articles on Book 4: Raising the Sun and The Golden City as well as Book 5: Downtime Preparation, The Iobane, and The Red Planet itself.
• Game Theory: I wrote a critique of Paizo adventure design that ended up getting a response from Luis Loza (the author of the module I was using as an example), and between his followup and my own read throughs of several of the most recent APs, I am really optimistic about improvement! Felt good to maybe have an impact, and really showed what a great company Paizo is (and what a great human Luis is!)
• Homebrew: I released a few things in addition to the Necromancer!
• Overland Travel rules! I'm pretty happy with them, though I think they'll be a bit too noodly for campaigns where travel time isn't important.
• 4e Minions in PF2! This was a second draft after years of tinkering.
• Brainstorming on Expanding Duels in PF2! Most will be pretty setting specific, but could I think be a neat little subsystem to persist through a campaign or setting.
• I went through some options for simplifying PF2. I don't think it needs it, but a lot of tables might appreciate some of these changes.
• Fall of Plaguestone: I wrote up guidance on How Not To Kill Your Players In The Fall Of Plaguestone, since it's one of my favorite modules but a bit too deadly, given how early in PF2's life it was published
• Gatewalkers: I reviewed Gatewalkers! TL:DR; not great.

That was a busy year!

28 posts in total, 15 of which were in January or February (I was really inspired at the start of last year, and got really busy for huge chunks of this year haha). That's up from 15 posts the previous year (9 of which were in November/December of 2023), and I managed to post at least once in every month other than October.

The viewing stats are even wilder - with over 29,000 views last year! Holy shit. That's up from 8,000 ish the previous year, which I already thought was incredible, but I guess that's what happens when your body of work keeps growing. Unsurprisingly, a huge chunk of those are from Red Hand of Doom (3.3k on the masterpost alone) and Strength of Thousands (1.9k on the masterpost, 2.1k on the Book 2 Remix intro), but my Stolen Fate Chapter 1 remix also got over 1k views, and my Abomination Vaults retrospective was just under 1k! It definitely seems like my older posts on bigger projects are more popular, which absolutely makes sense.

In terms of actually playing, I'm continuing several of my ongoing campaigns - Strength of Thousands with my long term group, Stolen Fate with my partner, and Red Hand of Doom with a new group at work! I'm unfortunately no longer a player in a game, as it fell apart due to scheduling, but I did get to return to another favorite RPG of mine, Scum and Villainy, running several sessions in between our main campaign until it fell apart.

Goals for 2025

I got really busy partway through 2024 in ways that I didn't quite expect, and I think that will likely continue. I definitely want to keep these goals manageable, as I won't have a ton of time to devote to them, but I also want them to inspire me to do more!

My campaign notes (conversions and remixes) are clearly the most useful for folks, so I definitely want to keep going with those. Certain other homebrews also seem to be getting some traction (overland travel and expanded spell schools each got good views this year, and the recently posted Minions seem to be having some good reactions), so I don't want to throw those out entirely. I think guidance, reviews, and critiques don't seem to be as impactful for folks, so I only want to do what I feel really inspired to there, and I don't need to feel pressured towards any of that.

With all that in mind, here are my core goals for 2024:

1. Finish Stolen Fate and Strength of Thousands! I don't know how much I'll have to write here, but I want to try to be proactive in adjusting scenario structures and shoring things up.
2. Finish fleshing out the RHoD Sandbox! Or at least, capture everything that seems useful for my campaign. TBD if I'll flesh out the  Endless Plains or the Hammerfist Holds, because who knows if my players will go there!
3. Start planning what's next! All three of my campaigns are looking like they will probably wrap up this year. What will I run next? Will I run more APs, and if so which ones? Will I convert another adventure like Descent into Avernus? Will I return to the sandbox I'd be trying to plan and actually run it?
4. Finish my RPG! This ones honestly just for me, I'm not sure if I'll even post it. I've been working on a fantasy heartbreaker for a couple years now, and it's at a place where I'm very confident/happy with the core rules, but there's a lot of fleshing out to make it a complete game (especially the Magic system).

I think that's a pretty good mix! Some stuff that will help other people, some stuff just because I want to. Some stuff that's kind of inevitable, and some that's a stretch. Plus, it leaves me room for other, minor goals - like cleaning up the SoT Masterpost - and for following my passions! As an ADHD girlie, that's important. I think it's a great place to start, and I can't wait to see where it all ends up.

Here's to 2025!

xoxo, societygirl