For over a decade I wrote the (now defunct) Rather Gamey blog over on Blogger. I wrote about my gaming past and the games I was currently playing. My fellow players were often a source of inspiration. I enjoyed talking to the blog’s readers and the other bloggers who stopped by. The process could be very fun.
Blogging had its down-side. Attaching self-worth as counted by views was, for me, unavoidable. I spent a lot of effort trying to increase the audience, from writing cringe-worthy headlines to making an ass out of myself in the edition wars.
It has been a few years since I wrote anything. That downtime has made me realize a few things. Writing a gaming blog helped me focus on what I was interested in, and why I was interested in such things. It reminds me of what Socrates supposedly said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”
People have argued what he meant about for over two millennia. But I think it comes down to the importance of looking into ourselves and understanding why we like the things we do, why we do the things we do, and we believe what we believe. Multiple times in my life I’ve changed my views completely because I realized I was operating with wrong data, blindly following a bare-faced messiahs, of just plain full of myself. Garbage in, garbage out.
Running Rather Gamey helped me dig into what I really enjoyed about RPGs. It also helped me see my players in a new light, and focus more on creating an enjoyable game for everyone. That self-introspection caused me to love more and hate less. All in all, blogging was pretty good therapy for me.
With the reincarnation of Pen and Paper Games, I think it’s time to shake off the pandemic haze and social media craziness that’s been infecting my brain. Blogging sounds fun again - and it might be some good, cheap therapy. I might accidentally entertain someone as well.
But whatever the case, it’s only a blog. I should really just relax.
– Ark