Hey folks! Asher here, wanted to share plans for the new schedule for this blog.
Earlier this year I got burnt out on blogging, mostly due to real life difficulties. Now that things have settled (for the moment, knock on wood) I’m going to plan on releasing an issue of Hearthside every two weeks on Monday mornings, starting next Monday June 7th!
I set out to make Hearthside a game design blog. I’ve mostly been talking about Dungeons & Dragons, GMing strategies, fun experimental maps I’ve made, but once I get through a backlog of “classic advice” I plan on branching out more. I announced both Project Unseen and YADN and plan to write-up small articles when serious progress is made.
I also plan on releasing smaller articles out of schedule - likely never more than 1/week - but when I have smaller things like Dungeon23 updates or YADN theorycrafting, I’ll release them separately rather than bulking up the “main series” so to speak.
What have I been watching/reading?
The new sidequest of Dimension20 The Ravening War has been debuting over on Dropout TV. Thanks to Krist I fell in love with Neverafter, A Crown of Candy and Starstruck. The prequel to ACOC has some stellar drama (and terrain!) and makes me appreciate Matt Mercer even more.
I used to be big into CR and Campaign 3 but fell off before the current moon shenanigans dropped. Now more tempted to finally catch up!
I am falling into a new hobby rabbit-hole and have been watching a lot of RP Archive and Black Magic Craft videos. I can feel an impending hyperfixation, now that I’m letting my first set of (terrible) dungeon tiles dry…
I read Pirate Enlightenment by the late David Graeber (as supplementary research for Project Unseen) and was blown away. The rich history of pirates and Malagasy political experiments were so interesting, I highly recommend it to anyone who wants an Anarchist take on anthropology/history of pirates.
Speaking of David Graeber, I also just finished the book he wrote with David Wengrow, THE DAWN OF EVERYTHING! I’ve been reading this book off and on since March 2022, and finally finished the conclusion this morning. My brain chemistry has been rewired by this book, it was SO illuminating and I’m gonna be reading history books very differently from now on. RIP Graeber!
Next week will be an article about the ttrpg Errant (why I love it, how it encourages a GM to flex game design muscles, and share some content I made for it…) by KillJester and Ava Islam.
Until next time, keep being creative!