Thursday 3 September 2020

A Journal of the Plague Year

I am not dead. 

It was never my intention to abandon the blog for an entire year. Last September I took on some new responsibilities at work, and I thought, OK, maybe I won't be posting much of anything for a few months. Then in the new year I got more into miniature painting, which ate further into my free time, but I continued to tinker with half-written posts and to tell myself that I'd get something written up properly any day now. (The perfect, as ever, being the enemy of the good.) And then, in March, Covid hit and everything fell apart. The last six months have been a kind of ghastly blur. I still can't believe it's already September. 

One thing I have done is carried on gaming, because seeing friends over Roll20 once a week and rolling virtual dice together has been something of a lifeline in these troubled times. I've been running my current campaign for thirty-something sessions: it's called City of Spires, and it's basically an adapted version of ATWC suitable for players who've already read the blog. It's set in a ruinous city on the fantasy Silk Road, ruled by cruelty and injustice, and the PCs are peasant refugees turned aspiring revolutionaries. Over the course of about a hundred hours of play they've pieced together an alliance of the fallen, the marginal, and the desperate, and any session now they're planning to launch a coup and seize control of the city. It's been wonderful to watch, and I hope to write a bit about the campaign and what I've learned from it in the near-ish future. 

As things settle into some kind of 'new normal' I plan to resume this blog, by posting at least some of the things I meant to write and never did. More Condensation in Action. More Wicked City. More ramblings on art and art history. More photos of my terrible miniature painting. (It's better than it was.) I expect I will be doing so irregularly, and to a much reduced audience, both because this blog has lost so much momentum and because the broader OSR blogosphere appears to have suffered a massive die-off while I was away. But as long as someone out there gets some use out of the things I write, I'll be happy.

I hope everyone reading this (all three or four of you) has managed to stay safe during what I'm sure, for many of you, has been a very, very difficult year. More actual content should be coming soon!


45 comments:

  1. Glad you're back! It's a huge relief to see one of my inspirations rise from the grave to blog once more. I can't wait to see what's next :)

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  2. Woo!!! Im glad to see your back! Ive always loved reading your blog!

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  3. I only ran across your blog during this "sabbatical" (yech, that makes it sound like a job), but it's been inspirational, and I'm glad you feel you have the time to post again.

    How the ATWC setting material has survived contact with the table sounds really interesting. Looking forward to it!

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  4. I can't believe it had been a year. Welcome back.

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  5. hell yeah give us more posts

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  6. I'm glad to hear you're alright, and I'm excited at the idea of getting more content! I've been reading your blog for a while, more updates would be welcome.

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  7. Always good to see you post, I'm glad you're back :)

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  8. I had never stopped peeping at your great blog. It's grand to see you back !

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  9. If you can get back after all this, there's some hope for the rest of us!

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  10. Good to know you're still with us.

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    1. (By serendipity...
      https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2020/09/black-city-wicked-city.html)

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    2. Thanks, Solomon! Sounds like a pretty good match!

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  11. That is not dead which can eternal lie!

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  12. Huzzah! Bless you Joseph. Glad you're back posting, but gladder again you're just about coping with the chaos.

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  13. Thanks for the kind words, everyone! Glad to see that you're all still around. I hope everyone's managed to keep on gaming through the pandemic, and I look forward to getting your thoughts on future posts!

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  14. To echo other comments, welcome back! Glad to hear you are well, all things considered, and I eagerly await the next post!

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  15. HARK! A RETURN!

    I am super excited.

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  16. You're back! I'm absolutely delighted to see how ATWC has changed

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  17. It's good to see you back dude. I know the OSR is in Ghost Mode but I for one will be reading along.

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  18. This is easily the best thing that's happened all year. It's good to see you back.

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  19. My first response here, only to say I am so very glad you are not, in fact, dead, and will continue to post your ideas. this blog is a great inspiration.

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  20. This is the most cheering news I've had in a while.

    I hope you know how appreciated your writing is.

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  21. Anything you write will be eagerly read. Welcome back.

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  22. Thanks, everyone. It's really touching to see that so many people are still interested in the blog, even after all this time. I'll do my best not to disappoint!

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  23. ATWC is one of the best gaming blogs in what used to be OSR. I've been waiting for your return! Yay, welcome back!

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    1. From my survey of the wreckage of the blogosphere, 'used to be' seems about right. I guess we served our purpose. Most 'OSR' ideas are basically mainstream now.

      Still, some work of noble note, and all that...

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    2. To me it feels that the community got tired of the endless undead sex cannibals and the art-punk and, if anything, went even futher back to the aesthetic roots of D&D. Today the ex-OSR is mainly teachers who play with their kids (myself included), academicians, board game designers and hobby historians. Even the Bastion guy playtests the stuff on his army of eleven-year-olds. For chrissakes, OSR blogs have punctuation now (you may have been the very inventor of proofreading). And when the scary man was exhiled, that seems to have been the final nail.

      Welcome back! Your blog was never forgotten: people were linking to it on Reddit and elsewhere and discussing your old posts all year. In fact, it's as if you've never even left. Personally, I enjoyed your Victorian and WH posts the most, but I have ATWC in my Feedly so I never miss or skip a post anyway.

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    3. Thanks! I thought all the hits the blog was still getting must have just been robots by now - it's good to know that there were some people mixed in there too!

      It does look as though much of the artpunk/LOTFP wing has burned itself out. The fallout from the Zak controversy and the disappearance of Google Plus clearly did a lot of damage, but I also think that most of the key creators had just said what they had to say, and were either repeating themselves or falling silent. It's done now. Time to try something else.

      I'm glad to hear that OSR D&D is having a school-based resurgence, though. My old English teacher used to make us play GURPS. It was terrible.

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  24. I've been checking every few weeks for a year (which explains why there were no new posts until I was too busy to check for a week). Very glad to have you back; you've always been a favorite blogger of mine.

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  25. Welcome back! Great to see you writing again.

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  26. This has made my week! I'm excited to see what you write, this blog has been the biggest influence in breaking me out of a very prescribed D&D 5e rut I had been in early in 2019.

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  27. Thanks again, everyone! And special thanks to Andrew - it's nice to know that people have been reading what I write, but knowing that they're actually *using* it is even better! I can only hope you'll continue to find the blog useful in the future!

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  28. I came back today to grab a link to a post I share often (about romance plots and making romance shaped NPCs) and discovered to my joy that a) the blog is arisen b) my new GM already knew and liked ATWC c) you are alive and well (joys not listed in order of value). Very glad you're back!

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  29. Hello mate, I've stolen so much of your collected WFRP posts for my homebrewed/hacked WFRP1/WFRP2 version of The Enemy Within that there should probably be a rolling banner at the bottom of the VTT screen going "Property of Joseph Manola, LLc"!

    Such a pleasure to see you back, mate. Hope you & yours are safe & well.

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    1. Thanks! I'm always glad to hear that people have found the blog useful in actual games, rather than just online discussion. Good luck with the campaign!

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  30. Glad to see you back. I've enjoyed your "ramblings and nonsense" and look forward to seeing more.

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