Year 3 (and a bit) in Review

 There years! I have been writing and creating through Welcome to the Deathtrap for over three years now, and I am very proud of what I have created.

And I am going to start this review by saying how much I appreciate my readers. You have kept me excited to sit down and write every single day.

A Rough Year for W2tDT

Behind the scenes, this year was a rough one. There was a lot going on in the background which forced me to slow down posting and cut way back on reviews. Illnesses, including a bout of pneumonia that nearly killed me, COVID-19, and life-altering nerve damage caused by a bad vaccine reaction have all kept me away from the keyboard. My previous landlady facing bankruptcy, evicted us so that she could sell the house at a higher cost, forcing me to spend a month splitting my time between caring for my youngest and packing for two months solid. A year ago, I was treating writing this blog like a part-time job, putting  20+ hours a week into it every week. This year I couldn't do that.

I focused in a lot more on world-building and creating game content.  I wrote fewer lengthy thinkpieces. I didn't talk nearly as much about the industry,  despite being vindicated in almost every prediction  I've made. I cut back on reviews. I was forced to abandon my Hex23 project.

I even had to delay this article by a month.

And it showed in the results I was getting.

A year ago, I was seeing over 12,000 views per month regularly.  Now I can't seem to break 3,000. I have a pretty clear idea now what people enjoy when they come to read my work.

A Great Year for Deathtrap Games

Over the year, I have had amazing output for other kinds of creations:

I have created Wreck and the player-facing parts of the Eternal Ocean campaign setting for which it was made. The third book is continuing at a steady pace.

Two more of my creations: Queen of Decay and Strange Ways were finalized, and different versions were made available on DrivethruRPG and Itch.io.

A playtest version of Deathtrap Lite,  my weird mefium-crunch OSR game got released in a playtest edition. I am waiting to collect more feedback and playtest data before reorganizing it and kickstarting a finalized version with more Art.

I produced a rules-light horror story game called She Who Lurks as a Halloween treat.

I built a fully playable setting, character class, adventure,  and monster collection for my son that fuses Pokémon with Celtic folklore called Feycatchers.  I ran a pretty long campaign in it for him. Compatible with Basic Fantasy RPG. 

I quietly released an Old West wargame scenario set, Vulture Rock as a PWYW title on itch.io.

To show how easy it is to make your own TTRPG out of existing parts in the face of the OGL SNAFU, I created Dragonette, a Kid-oriented OSR game.

I built an on-the-fly setting The Drowned World to showcase a World-Building technique. That will be shared in a zine format soon.

To make an easy-to-play system that uses my classes and ideas from The Drowned World I wrote a lightweight "O5R" style game called QuAD RPG (Quick And Dirty).  You will see it by the end of the week.

Until the whole OGL thing cast the future of indie gaming into doubt, I was working om a re-written and reorganized version of AD&D1e called Ruins & Redcaps. It is on the back burner right now.

Aside from finishing Eternal Ocean at this point,  I hope to get to work on creating more blog content while I collect feedback for a year or so on what I've created, so that I can make what I have already created better.

Moat Read

So, here are the articles I wrote in the last year that have managed to break 400 reads:

• How I Use Rumor Tables to Create a Living Campaign 1189
• 3 Quirks of Player Psychology 1062
• Game Review: Old School Essentials Classic Fantasy 903
• Wayshrines and Holy Sites as "Civilization " 865
• Great Resources for Idea Mining 713
• Tools for Creating Gossip 698
• Game Review: Grok?! 568
• Game Review: Old School Essentials Advanced Fantasy 512
• AD&D Treasure Types from 1e to 2e 493
• Live Adventure Design 489
• First Impressions of One D&D 439
• The Reproductive Cycle of Dungeons 438
• What's in a System? 401

The Pieces I Wish Had Done Better

There are other pieces that I wrote in the last year that I wish I had managed to draw more attention to,  because I felt they were my year's undiscovered gems.

• Idea Generators (Why a Little Backstory can go a Long Way)
• The Lo-Fi Gaming Manifesto
• Using Misinformation in Play
• The Dungeon That Ate Itself  

Plans for The Coming Year

As my youngest son is about to begin school, life is pretty up in the air for me. I will be going back to job hunting, and hopefully working full time come September.  I have  o idea what that is going to look like or what it means for W2tDT.  But I can certainly state my intentions. 

I plan on finishing Book 3 of Eternal Ocean.

 I want to review a bunch of Lamentations of The Flame Princess material. 

I want to finish my three half-done OSRIC modules to get out into the world.

I plan on calling bullshit if the ORC keeps its current vague  morality clauses.

I plan on making two versions of QuAD RPG.

I want to share one gonzo OSR monster on Twitter every week,

Hopefully I will also be able to review Cowpunchers, Atomic Punk, Knave 2e, Deathbringer, ICONS, Scarlet Heroes, Barbarians of the Ruined Earth, Cairn 2e, the WHFRP Power Behind the Throne series,