So You Wanna Write a RPG Blog? What NOT To Do

Hi folks! My name is Berin Kinsman, and I’ll be guest blogging here while our beloved Chatty DM is off vacationing in the wilderness. I’ve been a roleplayer since 1978, which officially makes me an old grognard. I’ve been writing about gaming on my own site, UncleBear, since 1996, long before the word “blog” was coined and tools like Blogger, WordPress and Livejournal were available. I’ve been doing this before a lot of what’s now conventional wisdom became conventional. What I want to do is pass along some of the mistakes I’ve made over the years, to help you avoid some of the pitfalls I experienced.

Don’t Lose Focus

Complete this sentence: My blog is about _____________ . At least 95% of the posts you make on your blog should be about whatever you filling in that blank with. The other 5% should tie into that topic. If you’re writing about D&D, write about D&D. If you suddenly want to write about religion and politics, it had better tie into D&D somehow. The most successful blogs avoid topic drift.

* Corollary A: Don’t Make the Topic Too Narrow

If you decide you’re blog is going to be about clerics in 2nd Edition D&D, you may be restricting yourself. You’ll find you want to talk about other things, but it’s hard to do in the context of your chosen topic. Topic drift will happen. It’s okay to expand your blog’s focus as you go along, but it’s better if you start off at the right level of granularity

* Corollary B: Don’t Make the Topic Too Broad

If you’re going to cover all things roleplaying, you had better cover all things roleplaying. Don’t ignore the 800 lb. gorillas in the room. If you spend most of your time writing about [Your Favorite Game] and little else, then you’ve got a blog about [Your Favorite Game].

Don’t Give Rude People An Inch

There is a broad gap between respectful disagreement and a flaming troll, but I’ve sometimes been too nice for my own good and given the latter the benefit of the doubt. Don’t. Not ever. You can set your own rules about issuing warnings, banning people from leaving comments, and so forth, but the very first time someone does something uncool you’ve got to nip it in the bud. Once you’ve got an established community your regulars will often do it for you, but as you’re ramping up one of two things will happen: the jerk will inspire others to imitate his behavior, and/or the nice people will free to politer ground.

* Corollary A: Don’t Take It Offline If You Don’t Have To

If the jerk says it in your comments section, address it there. Whether you’re posting a polite “yeah, uncool, chill” or putting someone’s head on a pike, it establishes the ground rules for other readers/commenters and shows that you’re in control.

I have two or three regular readers who never leave comments on the page, but send me emails taking me to task about something-or-other that I posted. A one-off note to point out an error and help me save face is cool, but these folk want to engage me in private debate. My policy is to not respond to negative comments from people I don’t know (and if you’re a regular commenter, I “know” you for purposes of this rule whether we’ve ever met face-to-face or not). If you want to engage me, do it in public. Often they want to remain in email because they know they’d look foolish in a public forum, or that other readers would rise up to back me. Don’t take the flame bait.

Don’t Blog in an Altered Mental State

This is an extension of the Chatty DM’s Golden Rule of Blogging. My two personal caveats are Don’t Blog Angry (I tend to say things I regret later) and Don’t Blog Bummed Out (I whine. A lot). I’m not saying don’t write it; you probably need to get it out of your system, and you can probably edit and salvage something useful from it later. Just don’t post it until you’re in a better place and have had a chance to think about what you’re putting out into the world.

I’ve extended this to include blogging while under the influence of controlled substances, including prescription medications and over-the-counter cold medicine. I’ve never done it (okay, I’ve blogged on NyQil a few times) but I know people who do, and their posts run the gamut from incomprehensible to painfully embarrassing. You just hurt your credibility and lose readers.

Don’t Stop Playing

Most of you are probably looking at me funny, but this is gospel truth: there was a two-year period where I was neither running nor playing in a game, but I was still writing about it. It was frustration for me, to say the least, and it came across in my writing no matter how neutral or upbeat I tried to be. I became very disconnected from the roleplaying community and started to veer off into my own orbit. Because I wasn’t gaming, topic drift set in and I was violating Rule#1.

Don’t Fear the Reruns

If you’re going to be away from the blog for a few days, rerun some best-of posts. It’s easy when using tools like WordPress; just change the post date, and it will keep the same URL so links to the post won’t get screwed up and all the original comments will remain intact. I usually put a new note at the top, indicating the date it was originally run. Reruns don’t have to be your most popular posts; they may be something you’re proud of writing that wasn’t appreciated at the time, or something that’s suddenly topical again. It’s quick filler, if nothing else. You’re not cheating. No one will pelt you with fish for doing it.

Don’t Lose Touch with Regulars

As stated in Rule #2, if someone regularly posts comments on your blog, odds are you “know” them to some degree. They’re also likely registered on the site, so you have their email address. If they suddenly stop posting, after a few days you should drop them a line and find out why. They may have found some cool new spot to hang that you might also like (or need to compete against, or join forces with). You, or another regular, may have inadvertently offended them. They may have lost interest, and you really want to find out why so you can improve your blogging.

In my case, I had a regular vanish for months and while I thought about following up I didn’t, because I didn’t want to violate their privacy. When they reappeared it turned out they were having trouble, and that I might have been able to help them. I still feel guilty about that. You don’t have to hold a huge fun raiser to help people with their medical bill or anything like that; just letter a member of your community know that you’ve noticed their absence and miss them can have a huge effect when they’re having a tough time.

Well folks, thanks for the soap box. I hope that this was useful to you, and that it helps you avoid some of the trials and tribulations I went through to build a blog and a community that I’m proud of.

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So you wanna write a RPG blog? Part 5: Then What?

In the last 2 weeks, I wrote a primer about starting a new RPG blog. While I knew it wasn’t going to be all that original, I thought that would-be RPG bloggers could benefit from it.  It turns out they did as I’m already seeing a few new RPG blogs cropping up (Here’s one and here’s another).

This last part is about dealing with the future of your newly minted blog.  Let’s fast forward a few weeks/months and discuss what will likely happen with your shiny new RPG blog. I want to discuss a blog’s success or failure as well as likely motivational slumps.  I’ll end this series with links to other people’s articles you might find interesting as further reading and a request for more!

Success!

So you’re getting a few comments per post, you got a few links by other bloggers and the overall feedback is good (or bad, it that’s what you’re after) and you feel full of energy and pumped!  You spend too much of your work day checking your emails for notifications.

Yup, it has started! People read your blog and have started to react. Congratulation you’ve made your first step out of the huge pile of unread questionable content that is 90%+ of the blogsphere.

If growth of your blog is among your goals, now is the time to resist the easy lure of safe comment baiting. Don’t try to mimic what gave you a few comments but think of expanding your range of subjects for new posts.

The cliché that content is king, is true. While the tips I gave about networking and linking to other bloggers will bring about curious onlookers, it’s fresh content that will turn visitors into regular readers.

One reaction I see frequently among bloggers with burgeoning readership is jealousy/insecurity vs other bloggers. I read more than one comment, usually in jest, in the likes of ‘Don’t come and steal our 5 readers’. I also keep seeing bloggers selling themselves short by mentioning how ‘no one reads this post’, or ‘if you feel like loosing time, please read the following’

This is nothing more than those inner demons rearing their ugly heads again. It’s fear of inadequacy, of not being able to cope with success and the good old impostor syndrome (“Oh Noes, they’ll soon discover I’m nothing but a hack that got lucky”).

Please don’t let the demons win.  Any defensive and/or self-defeating reaction on your part (in posts, comments, Instant messages and emails) is a warning sign to readers that you’re not comfortable as a blogger.  Don’t sell yourself short, ever!

Success should not be scary. Humans get used to everything, that’s why we don’t go insane because we hear a clock ticking.  Success is nothing more than getting recognition for the hard work you poured in your website. Take it in strides, you’ll get used to it… eventually.

As the success of you blog increases, it will translate to more and more comments on your posts.  You’ll have to decide how you wish to react to them. Following comments is extremely time consuming (especially trying to respond to all of them) and may very well threathen your day job’s performance.

Let’s be honest here, most readers and your response to comments are done during regular buisness hours. If you have a job that allows you the liberty to follow your blog, fine, but be careful to keep your priorities straight. Unpaid successful blogging can become way more rewarding than your day job and therin lies the danger.

I suggest that you disable email notifications and check on your comments at specific periods of the day, where you can afford to spend time on them (I’ll get to that with my own blog… eventually).

As mentioned in the ‘Who?‘ part of this series, you might also think about leaving your commenters to fend for themselves and visit only a few times a day to read and comment when your input is needed.

After a certain point (more than 10-20 comments or so), the discussion often becomes self-sustained and you can enjoy the ride without the fear of insulting your readers by not showing up all the time.

Bottom line: Success is fun, take it in stride and make sure you won’t lose your job because of it.

Failure

So you’ve been spending a few weeks writing your heart out. You comment on forums (with a link to your blog in your signature) and on other people’s blogs and no one ever comments on your blog.

That’s not fun for sure.

Try to find a reason for that, chances are it’s not because the RPG blog readerships is made of tasteless jerks, it isn’t.  They’re an interesting, spirited, opinionated, but usually nice bunch.

There’s a good chance you’re doing something that keeps readers from “getting you”:

• Is it because you make too many mistakes or post huge walls of texts with no paragraphs?
• Is it because your ideas are all jumbled up and the text is hard to follow?
• Is it because you are an emotional person and you post vehemently about things that bug you about RPGs (This can work, just not all the time and with limited amounts of venom)?
• Is it because your subject range is to restricted or you revisit the same subject too much?
• Are you the blogging equivalent of that guy that always talks about his character?
• Is it because your blog is written in pale blue over a yellow background?
• Is it because readers have to register and fill unreadable Capchas to comment?

If it’s any of these reasons, you should try to change a few things to make the experience better for the readers. Chances are, they’ll eventually start coming.

However if, after all the effort, you just don’t have that much to say about RPGs or writing is just too much effort for you, maybe blogging is not your cup of tea.

As I said before, that’s okay too, you can always try later when inspiration hits or if you develop your creative writing skills through other outlets.

Bottom line: If no one will read you, don’t blame others, check what you may be doing wrong and change.   Maybe blogging might just not be for you.

Hitting a slump/Blogger Burnout

Somewhere in the first few months of blogging you will hit a wall.  Blogging will start feeling like work.  You’ll feel you have to post something new.  You’ll feel all your posts end up saying the same things.  Worse still, Writer’s block will set in.

Much like a gym membership, you’ll start to rationalize why you’ll skip the next post and you’ll feel guilty about it.

When this happen you need to pause and reflect on the reasons why you blog and the true goals you set for yourself.  Ask yourself some questions like:

• Do you have to post that often?
• Do you post to please a crowd?
• Have you ventured in a series or a blog project that does not interest you anymore?
• What would you need to do to make blogging fun again ?

If you forge on through this without some reflection you’ll eventually go through blogging burnout and most likely quit for an extended period of time.

One good way to get out of the slump is to take a short break.  Don’t worry, your readers will come back, that’s what RSS feeds are for  (I’ll take good care of them…. he he he).

During that break, revisit your blog’s theme and plugins.  Brainstorm for some new types of posts.  If you focused on campaign logs, how about posting some house rules (we all have them) or giving your players some questionnaires to post online?  If you are artistically inclined, start a RPG themed webcomic or post some of your art.

One thing you should not do during a slump is posting about how sorry you are for not posting or how down you feel.  While you can occasionally share your feelings when life takes a turn the wrong way, your readers’ tolerance for melodrama is not infinite.

I mean, I used to love the Megatokyo Webcomic, but I stopped reading the artist’s Angst-ridden ‘woe is me’ posts a long time before I stopped reading the strip.

A slump is a signal that your motivations are no longer aligned with your original reasons for blogging. Heed that signal and see what needs to be changed.  If you do, you will likely bounce back…

I did, at least twice, in the last year.  As you can see, I’m still here, on a nearly daily basis.

Bottom line: A slump is a signal that something’s wrong.  Stop and reflect. Change something and bounce back!

Where to go from here?

My work here is mostly done, like Yax said, I made a one post idea into a 8 000+ word epic.

If you want to learn more about blogging in general, I suggest that you give a visit to some of the blogs that focus on writing.

My good friends James and Harry at Men with Pens and Bob from The Writing Journey have written many posts on the subject.  Here’s a Chatty’s special selection:

Men with Pens

• The Art of Blogging: Starter Tips
• 20 Resources For Better Writing
• Never Write Alone
• How to Write About Old News and Be Original
• 7 Decisions to Make About Your Posting Frequency
• Feed Reading and RSS for Dummies (Like Us)

The Writing Journey

• The 8 Most Common Internet Writing Mistakes
• Why Writers Fail

Finally, during my writing of this Series, Trask, of Living Dice wrote an interesting post about Search Engine Optimization for RPG bloggers.  Ninetail of A Butterfly Dreaming also chimed in with a very useful post about hosting your blog on a hosting service.

Edit:

My good buddy Bartoneous just linked me to another blog doing a similar series, only she’s tackling Niche blogging as a whole, have a look.

Reader Ravyn, owner of Exchange of Realities posted about dealing with the crunch we feel when we get too close to a writer’s deadline.

Your turn, the E-Book project

Seeing how popular this series became, I’m thinking seriously about making it into a free PDF book.

In order to make it more useful, I would love for your RPG bloggers to chime in with posts on RPG blogging of your own.  Maybe you think I missed something or that something could be expanded upon.

Post the articles on your respective blogs and tell me about them. We can then discuss how to make them into chapters of the book (With credits and links top your blogs).

The book would be built shortly after Gen Con and I’d love to get some nice art, professional layout and editing.  I’m going around you guys by email asking for help.

Thanks so much one and all for reading and commenting!

Now time for a vacation!

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So you wanna write a RPG blog? Part 3: What?

I started this series to share my views on starting and maintaining a RPG blog.  I first explored the “Why” and then the “How” of RPG blogging, both of which applied, more or less, to all blogs.

Today I want to delve in the specific aspect of RPG blogging which is the “What” of our beloved blogging niche.

In a break with my usual tradition, I’m writing this series nearly back to back, mostly because I got near-instant feedback that the timing was right and also because I feel that a lot of Role Playing Blogs start in Summer (as mine did).

Hope you’ll enjoy this one too.

Content

All right, what is there to talk about in a RPG blog?  Actually, more things that a mere blogger can list.   Still, here’s a starter list to get your gears going (I apologize to my fellow RPG bloggers for borrowing from their content):

• Campaign logs: You tell the story of your game as a:
  • Player: Either as an in character narrative or straight up as a player of the game
  • GM: As a narrative or as your point of view as GM (discussing players, rules calls, etc) or both
• GMing tips: Sharing your system specific/neutral GMing tips
• Player tips: Character tips, playing with various groups, etc
• Adventure Preparation: Sharing how you prep your game sessions (be careful of spoilers… your players will read your blog)
• Slice of life: Journal-like entries of your gaming experiences
  • You chronicle your gaming sessions you host at home
  • You chronicle your learning steps as a GM and/or Player
• Industry News: Hunt gaming scoops to post and/or comment on
• Reviews: Reviewing RPG products, including books and other websites
• Editorial/Pundit: Comment and criticize the hobby’s health, main trends and theories
• House Rules for specific games
• Campaign, Adventure and/or Encounters: From seeds to fully fleshed out
• RPG tools: Tools (online and otherwise) to make the life of GMs and/or players easier
• Forum: Not a blog per say but you can create a RPG community with them and ‘blog’ in a reserved board
• Character Concepts: From one sentence NPCs to 3 page D&D 3.5 antagonists
• RPG Tropes: Sorry, you can’t touch that one… Nah, go ahead I’d love to have a fellow RPG trope blogger
• RPG Art: Either visual or audible art you create or links to other art sites of interest to RPGs (be careful of Copyright)
• Reference Material for RPGs/Fiction: Discussing real world/Fiction elements that can be used as inspiration in RPGs and associated litterature
• RPG Webcomic: Hey, they work, when done properly!
• RPG Theory: Very popular topic in some circles
• Player Psychology: Discussing what makes players ‘tick’
• RPG themed Quizzes: Always popular also
• A RPG Digest site: Where you link and comment on other RPG posts and news

I’m forgetting a lot of subjects, I’m sure, and I invite readers to submit some more in the comments.

I initially wanted to provide links to examples of each of those types of posts, but that would be too time consuming. I therefore invite you to visit my extended Blogroll or my series and  ‘Categories’ in this blog’s sidebar for examples.

As you can see, the field of RPG blogging is a rich one and is wide enough to accommodate multiple bloggers, each with their unique styles and take on things.

Don’t feel constrained by the format you choose initially.  You’re definitively allowed to explore any or all of these themes.  You can also use your blog to write on other subjects if you feel like it.  Just as long as you realize that not all your readers will follow you when you veer off the path (especially if you do it for a prolonged period).

For example, this blog is mainly about GMing tips, the games I play, some opinions and Vox Pop pieces and the reviews I make.  However, I sometime discuss Geeky non-RPG things or I’ll actually tackle a Real World pet peeve of mine (Heck I even tried my hand at Webcomics, too much work).

Not all readers follow each of my sub-themes and that’s all right. I like to think I go through each often enough to keep the interest level constant.

Bottomline: There’s tons of subjects, you don’t have to feel any constraints.

On Originality:

RPG websites have been around for a long time.  RPGs have been dissected and discussed in Newsgroups, Forums, blogs and social networks for years. Chances are, if you write a post, someone, somewhere posted something similar before. Especially in the realm of GMing tips, some things have been threaded multiple times.

Writing original material requires some serious research mouse work…

You know what? Who Cares?!  The thing about a blog is that it’s a personal discussion on subjects you really care about.   While you should definitively do a Google Search about what you intend to write about, you should build upon what was written before instead of abandoning an idea others already visited.

Better yet, link to the other material in your post to present to readers what was discussed on the same subject.   In such cases however you need to add your personal touch to the post. You need to share your ideas on the subject and add material to what was said, even if it’s only your personal experience with said subject.

Content is important but your personnal style makes it cool even if it’s to re-visit a familiar subject.

One thing though, Just linking to other sources and repeating what was said, unless your theme is to be a repository of Cool RPG links, is called the Echo Chamber effect (repeating what has already been said) .   Websites on Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan are good at that, yours doesn’t have to be.

Bottomline: Originality is the twist you put on subjects, even if they were tackled by others previously.

Fighting the Inner Demons:

I discuss blogging with a lot of readers (no not just you) and a theme that keeps coming back is the Self-Defeating litany of:

• But I don’t know what to write!
• My writing sucks! (Often coming from English Majors)
• No one wants to read what I have to say!
• That seems like too much work!
• Everything I have to say has already been said! (see above)
• It takes me too long to post because I need it to be perfect!

While I understand where this all comes from (Insecurity mixed with perfectionism), I’m willing to bet that these attitudes are the prime responsible for failed blogs.

Yes some bloggers don’t have the chops to become popular. They lack sufficient imagination, the basic communication/language skills, or the willpower to put in the effort of writing.  However you won’t know until your tried and push through that first barrier that is your Self-doubt trying to hold you back.

Writing IS hard, it’s made especially hard because we constantly see other people being so good at it (making it look easy) and we compare ourselves to them.

However, as I keep hammering in this series (and this should be the one take home message of it all), you blog for YOU first and foremost.

It’s been shown that Blogging is an excellent therapeutic tool (I speak from personal experience). You do it to prove to yourself that you can do it.  You do it to slay the demons of self doubt. You force yourself to press ‘publish’ knowing it’s not a perfect masterpiece of prose (it never is and people won’t notice).

Readers may or may not come. Chances are, if you are enthusiastic/passionate about the hobby and you can string sentences in logical order, you’ll get a readership.

In my next post I’ll give out tips and hints to actively go and get readers.

If you don’t manage to get readers, you have to ask yourself why and resist the urge to blame others (readers, bloggers who ‘stole’ your idea, etc). Chances are there’s something with your writing/website that prevents people to understand what you have say. If such is the case, you should check how to make your content more accessible/readable.

Bottomline: Shut those demons up and write!  Writing is a form of self-help therapy for our neuroses.

What if it’s not gonna work?

If you do try Blogging and can’t get the hang of it, or lose interest or just abandon it, that’s okay. You tried and that’s a lot more than what most internet users ever do. You can always try later or move on, saying that it might not have been for you.

That does not make you a failure. I’d be lying is I said successful Blogging is accessible to all.  It’s not.  What I’m saying is that everyone can try it, learn from the experience, and be surprised by the results.

All right, up next is the ‘Who’ of RPG blogging.  I’ll discuss the potential target audience of such blogs and the fine art of getting readers through networking.

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So you wanna write a RPG blog? Part 2: How?

A few days ago I started a series where I share my views on starting and running a (hopefully successful) RPG-themed blog. Last time I tackled the “Why” which covered the reasons to start a RPG-Blog. Today I’ll tackle the “How”.

Blogging Platforms and Hosting:

The very first things you have to decide are what blogging software to use and where to host your blog.

A blog is nothing more than a website whose content gets added to in reverse-chronological order (i.e. newer entries come before older entries), with a more or less important number of side features (like links, ads and various webpage gadgets).

I won’t be talking too much about platform choices. First, because I know relatively little about them, and secondly, because Wikipedia does it better.

However, in order to write about your Risus campaign, you need to adopt a software that fits your needs and your tastes. The last thing you want is to use a blogging interface that makes you waste time or energy fighting with it, time that would be better spent writing!

It’s therefore not a good idea to rush through this part and settle on the first platform you find. Chances are you’ll be spending hours working with the software’s interface so make sure you don’t hate it.

For my part, I started out on Blogger (real simple, hosted by Google) and later moved to a self-hosted Worpress blog (harder to use, way more flexible).

What about self-hosting then? It’s a matter of choice and resources really. You can now “rent” space and server resources for a few dollars a month. This gives you your own web address (URL), private blog email account, and tons of space to store images, create forums, host your own picture galleries, etc.

I really like the liberty it gives me, but paying for 2 years upfront (about 250$) can be a barrier for newish bloggers with no revenue.

Alternatively, platforms like Blogger, WordPress, and Live Journal all offer free hosting albeit minus the email accounts and unique URL (your blog would be, for example, blogname.wordpress.com).

Bottom line: Chose the software you feel comfortable with and start posting your 1st article pronto!

Layout and Design:

While new bloggers want to dig in and start blogging right away about their latest house rules for D&D (as well they should), some time must also be spent creating the blog’s layout and design.

This can be really simple, monstrously complex, and/or expensive depending on your vision, skills in coding, “friends in the biz,” and time to sink into this.

A successful blog does not need a special theme or awesome plugins, but they can help readers recognize you and feel “at home.” I invite you to experiment with themes and layout in the early stages of your blog, while no one is watching you.

What it definitely needs is ease of reading and making the life of your readers/commenters as easy as possible. You blog because you want to be read by people, right?

In that sense, I strongly encourage you to keep things dead simple. Take a neutral background, either pale (white, or a soft color like my background) or black. Use a text color that is VERY visible on the chosen background (like white on black or the inverse). Many potential readers have impaired visibility and having yellow over a navy blue background is very bad!

I also guarantee you that you’ll go crazy with plugins and widgets (those counters, doodads and whatnots in your blog’s sidebars). I won’t tell you not to use them, but I now believe that most are useless. You want to bring attention to your content, not the sideshow freaks populating the surrounding real estate.

Consider trimming them to the bare minimum once you stop playing with them. Focus on plugins that encourage readers and commenters. Keep things like “Recent Comments” and “Subscribe to RSS Feed”, which are very useful things to have on a blog.

One of the dangers you’ll meet in this phase is that you’ll grow used to how the blog looks and you’ll stop seeing its imperfections as barriers for readers. Worse, you might even resist honest feedback by thinking that the blog’s look represents your artistic expression.

This is not a painting people, it’s an electronic newspaper!

Also, a short word on ads: Don’t.

Even at my level of readership (500+ subscribed readers), Google Ads pays peanuts and I only get a few cents a day from Project Wonderful. I’m currently having more success with Text-Link Ads, but I don’t know how long this will last and I had to wait 6 months for the 1st ad to show up.

I therefore strongly suggest that you save yourself the work (and the temptation to click your own ads, something widely frowned upon) and establish your credentials as a blogger (i.e. get readers) before you go that way. Later, if that’s a goal for you, start exploring monetization techniques by talking to the other bloggers you’ll have networked with. You can also try reading some of the gazillion “make money online” blogs, but I don’t recommend this since most are run by charlatans.

One thing that might be worth considering is to go for a unique banner to identify your blog. This is the first thing that newcomers will see and that can set your “brand” as a blogger.

Depending on you skills as a Photoshopper you can grab some RPG-themed clip art (check for copyright!) and create your own.

Once I decided to move the blog to WordPress and since I was skill-less in the graphics department, I emailed an artist whose webcomic I liked and commissioned her to create a banner. Best 80$ I ever spent if you ask me… I even got a bonus avatar!

If you feel like you need help and have a few dollars to spare, I invite you to ask help from professionals.

For example, my buddies at Men with Pens are experts at doing just that.

Bottom line: Keep your design and layout dead simple so that the blog is easy to read. Posts are king! Get a nice looking banner if you can.

Writing Environment:

Even if you’re a hyperactive speed writer like I am, you will be spending countless hours writing on your blog. Thus, it’s a good idea to make your writing environment (both virtual and physical) as conducive to productivity as possible.

For example, you should set up your desktop/laptop close to your gaming books so you can reach out to reference them without interrupting your creative flow. You also need sufficient light, a comfortable chair and some way to tune out the sounds of your household (or, heaven forbid, workplace). A soundproofed game room and/or sound dampening earphones are good examples.

From a virtual standpoint, you need to set up your workspace so that all the game references (rules, forums, similar blogs, wikipedia) you need are within one click. Using a browser that supports multi-tabs (like Firefox, IE, and Opera) and putting the websites you often use in your bookmarks simplify things a lot.

Bottom line: Blogging is a lot of work, make sure that your environment fosters effective work habits.

Quality of Language and Editing:

You don’t need to be an English major or even a native speaker to be a successful blogger (I’m neither). You must, however, know how to build a sentence and formulate a thought in such a way that someone other than you can understand.

While spelling is important, you can get help by installing the Google dictionary (assuming you use Firefox) and pay attention to all those little underlined words.

If you’re not used to writing, keep sentences short and simple. You also need to keep paragraph as short as possible.  Nobody likes to read walls of texts, as soon as you said what you wanted to say about a particular topic (in two, three sentences), switch to the next paragraph.

Writing is an exercise and as you do more of it, you will get better.  For instance, my writing style has evolved tremendously in the last year. I’ve seen similar things in fellow bloggers, some so dramatic that they went from “hard to read” to “engagingly well written” in just a few months!

Finally, you’ve got to read yourself, slowly, only once before you post. If you are anything like me as a writer, you build your text as you write and focus on content more than form, leaving behind countless typos and sentences that don’t quite read as you intended. Editing your work is as important as writing it. The few extra minutes spent on this are worth it.

Bottom line: While spelling and grammar are not hyper-critical (and can be helped by online tools), writing clear sentences and ordering your thoughts in a comprehensive way is very important.

Conclusion:

So that was a very rapid (although still lengthy) pass on how to setup and start an RPG blog (or any blog really).

In the next post of this series, I’ll tackle the “What” (Game-related Content) and “Who” (target audience, forming networks and advertising) of RPG blogging.

I hope this is useful to you; it sure is fun to write.

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So you wanna write a RPG Blog? Part 1: Why?

Blogging is a strange beast. There are literally tens of millions of blogs on the internet. I’m sure most are inactive or are nothing more than Bot-driven post-stealing Google Ads strewn smears but it’s still a very impressive number.

Even in the restricted niche of RPG blogs there seems to be scores of blogs (my extended blogroll showcases a few, which, I realize, I must update). It seems to me that they have litterally exploded in the wake of Martin Ralya’s Treasure Tables and Zachary Houghton’s RPG Blog.

I know that many potential bloggers think that the RPG “market” is saturated. I know for a fact that this has discouraged many from trying (or continuing after a few tries).

Well I disagree. Blogging about RPG is probably the best way to check if you have the passion, the interest and (let’s be honest here) the talent to produce quality content for the hobby.

I strongly believe that the game designers and adventure writers of the future are today’s/tomorrow’s burgeoning bloggers.

This post is my first stab at a new series where I will try to share how I built a successful RPG blog and how I encourage people to do the same. This post will be about the “Why” of RPG blogging.

Before I go into specifics I must share a few truisms (repeated a billion times on other writing blogs) about blogging in general:

• Most blogs die within the first 3 months (It’s a lot of work).
• Readership does not appear spontaneously, active marketing is needed (i.e. more work).
• Making money in RPG blogs is possible but unlikely. Very aggressive techniques are needed (yet more work).
• The only way a blog will grow is if you periodically write material that people want to read (yup, more work)
• Blogging is a lot of work (well duh!), possibly even more than your current day job.

Alright, now that’s out of the way, here’s my take on the reasons behind building a successful Blog.

Why do you want to Blog?

I think the first question you must ask yourself before starting a RPG blog (or any blog for that matter) is Why do it?

If you are thinking about starting a RPG blog, chances are it’s because you:

• Have a campaign you’d like to tell people about but feel unsatisfied with the relative anonymity (or attitudes) of gaming forums
• Are an experienced player/Game Master with knowledge to share
• Have strong opinions about RPGs (Specifics or general)
• Are a fan of a specific/niche/orphan RPG and want to discuss it and/or publish new material for it.
• You are new to the hobby and wish to explore it by posting your musings and questions about it.

Or many many other reasons.

Thing is, I think you need to clearly define why you want to do it. You need to keep this in mind as you start experimenting with the media (the blogging software, the widgets, colors, banners, ads…) so you keep a focus on why you’re sinking time in this.

Not only must you often think about the why, those reasons must be focused on you, not the readers. In the early stages of the blog you have no readers (except your gaming buddies and possibly your mom) so all your reasons must remain self-centered.

Actually I believe that most of your reasons to blog should always be personal and self-focused. Pouring your passion and creative power into things you care deeply about will most likely lead to interesting posts about what makes you tick.

What’s so cool about the Internet is that sooner or later, someone who ticks on the same things will find you (I’ll discuss in a later post how to accelerate this).

Heck, I’m currently seeing a new interest in playing Retro-Sci-Fi clones RPGs. It doesn’t get much more “niche” than that. Yet I love reading about it!

Heres is my list of reasons why I started to blog almost a year ago:

• I love RPGs and being a Dungeon Master more than all my other non-family hobbies combined.
• Instead of posting long RPG-themed emails to my gaming buddies I’d do it online and make reading it optional for them
• I wanted to become a better writer
• I wanted to write about my current campaign, my preparation and how I wanted to become a better DM
• I wanted to learn about publishing web pages.
• I’m somewhat of an exhibitionist and wanted to test if I’d get noticed

Some have since changed, but I still know the reasons why I do it.

Bottom line: Ask yourself why you want to blog, and keep that in mind once you started. Focus the reasons toward your needs and interests.

From Reasons to Goals

When the blog does pick up (if it does), you can revise your reasons to keep blogging.

Better yet: Also set yourself some goals.

Goals allow you to refocus your blog’s content to fit with the feedback you get from the early readers. (Don’t let them set your agenda, but stay alert to their responses).

Goals also motivate you to do a little bit more with the blog.

• You could decide to post your campaign logs “in character”
• Create a new set of House rules for issues that bug you in your pet RPG.
• You could start a series, or a RPG-theme webcomic.
• You could also create whole adventures or encounter seeds.

There are a countless things you can challenge yourself with.

Don’t forget to be realistic, go for goals that will ask you a little more than your actual blogging load, not herculean efforts.

The one thing you must avoid is making blogging feel like a job.

But Chatty, didn’t you say 5 times in a row that Blogging was a lot of work?

Yes I did… but it mustn’t feel like it! At least not for prolonged periods of time. If you set goals that need you to spend more time on blogging than what you want, you’re doing something wrong. If you feel like you ‘HAVE’ to post, you’re also doing it wrong. Check your reasons and goals and see if they still fit your needs.

When I started having readers that weren’t my friends, I decided to give myself goals, here’s a few:

• Post multiple articles per week.
• Create and sustain a series of articles over a prolonged period of time.
• Get noticed and Interact with Game designers/writers.
• Build up a network of like-minded RPG bloggers

I hit all these goals in the blog’s 1st year and I’m currently pondering next year’s goals.

Why you should blog about RPGs.

As I mentioned at the beginning, there is no shortage of subjects to dicuss, dissect, debate, build upon and criticize in the RPG hobby. We need more people talking about them. The community can definitively absorb more writers.

Blogging can be your first stepping stone from being an unknown geek to getting your 15 minutes of fame and get the chance (and the nerve) to pitch for a gaming magazine article or postulate for a job in the industry.

I’m not afraid of the competition, I think it’s a wrong assumption to believe that the pool can become full.

Hell I’m a geek, I want to be blown away by someone’s writing!

Blogging will get you to find and meet people who have the same tastes and passions as you. One of the biggest bonuses I discovered about blogging is that I made new friends. That is hard to beat.

All right, next time I visit that subject (if there is interest), I’ll tackle the ‘How’ of RPG blogging.

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