More Progress vs More Projects
Plus: Part 1 of LOPHIN, a system-free sci-fi setting!
DISCLAIMER: Apologies for the delay! Unfortunately, I finally caught COVID and was down and out almost entirely for the last two weeks. I hydrated nonstop and slept as much as I could, and I’m thankfully feeling good now (and raring to get back to all the TTRPG goodness)!
I am four full weeks into my full-time TTRPG work life and two of those weeks were lost entirely to the sickly miasma of COVID. Still, I feel like I’m learning some things about how I can better engage with my creative work now that I have the time to really dedicate more of myself to it.
Before I made the full-time switch, I dreamt of full days of sitting down at the computer and putting five or six solid hours of really productive work into a single project. I kept thinking “Imagine how quickly I could have finished The Bloodfields, if only I’d had more time!” or “If I could do this project in a month, then I can only imagine I’ll be able to do a project like that in just a week now!” In truth, finding my actual workflow has been more complicated and where I ended up is not quite what I expected.
One of the biggest appeals of this work to me is the project-based nature of it. Many of the duldrums of traditional work are avoided because it’s less about doing one thing in one way regularly over years and years and more about jumping from project to project, working with a variety of cool folks, and digging into new types of work and projects I haven’t experienced before. Even knowing that, I came into the work structuring my time around an old form of mostly corporate-minded productivity: speed. When really what I enjoy most (and is likely a big reason I was able to complete as many projects as I was while doing the work part-time) is working for short bursts of time on something while full of inspiration until that fades and then coming back when it refills.
So if short bursts are inherent to my style of creative work, what can I do with the added time? More projects! Based on my Trello (where I track my various projects at all their various stages), I have about 12 projects in the works ranging from wrapping up my KS fulfillment to freelance editing for a pamphlet to an outline of a cool idea I want to be sure to get to eventually. By adding more projects, I simply allow myself to better jump from one to another as the inspiration strikes me and the variety of work often helps keep me thinking and fueled creatively for longer.
I was so focused on how much progress I could make given all the new time I had on my hands, I failed to think about how many more projects I could take on, doing similar work on each as to what I did before but overall seeing a much higher output of work. It’s less about a zine a month and more about ending a year with twice as many cool things out in the world than I was able to create the year before. It’s about the long game - the year rather than the day or the week or even often the month. It’s something I’m still tweaking (since really I’m only in my 3rd actual week of really doing this type of work), but this revelation is a big one for me. I’m already seeing it pay off in some really fun and exciting ways.
On top of that balance between More Progress and More Projects, I have found myself thinking a lot about how I measure my own productivity and success when working in this self-driven creative space. I’ve spent years and years of my life in structured, corporate jobs where regular (and often unsustainable) productivity is not only expected but is given to you in spreadsheet form, and you are held to it closely by the next person up the ladder.
Now that I am my own boss on this front and the work itself is not at all regular or corporate in structure, I find myself mentally having to reframe what I think of as a successful day. Sitting and regularly putting words to paper for 8 hours isn’t a reasonable goal. Deciding when I deserve a break or should get up and grab a snack, etc. is something I have to remember I have the power to set new standards for, not something I’m beholden to by the shadows of those old jobs! Old (even bad) habits die hard, but I’m making progress on how I measure my own success.
MISSIVE EXCLUSIVE
Lophin is a system-free setting for science-fiction and science fantasy universes useable for everything from Mothership to Edge of the Empire that I am going to continue to add over to over the next few months until it ends up as a full gatefold pamphlet.
What I have finished here in the interior wide spread (without either side panel) which gives you an overall summary of the settlement, information on the planet overall, and the map. In the next few months, I’ll be added detailed breakouts for each location, NPCs, adventure and mystery hooks, and more until it’s a full double-sided pamphlet. I’ve got a lot of weird and dark things already in the works for this little town!
Originally, I was going to have this be just a single-spread location (like what you see above, but even more short-form), but I ended up with too many intriguing little bits I wanted to build out further and lost a lot of time to COVID so this is the new approach.
You can download the full-resolution version of Part 1 HERE!
What would you like to see more of from this sleepy little town on this overlooked planet? Leave a comment and let me know!
SALE TIME
All of my Mothership titles are currently 20% off at DriveThruRPG as part of their ongoing Halloween Sale! For less than $13 USD, you can get the entire catalog!
Grab them HERE!
THE BLOODFIELDS OST NOW AVAILABLE!
The final stretch goal for The Bloodfields was a massive 20-track soundtrack by Jet McFin including a theme for the Bloodfields itself and a track for all 19 sectors of the arena! Jet took on this massive challenge and really nailed it, creating an extremely varied and evocative score perfect for your next murder game show.
The soundtrack is included as part of your purchase on both Itch and DriveThruRPG. For $9.99, you get the 40pg zine, a huge digital asset pack, and the full soundtrack!
Additionally, you can stream the soundtrack via Bandcamp and Youtube!
MORE COOL STUFF
The first project I did freelance editing for recently launched! It’s a beautiful gatefold pamphlet by Perplexing Ruins for their game Fallen! I’m proud of my contributions to the text and want to thank Perplexing Ruins for bringing me onboard! You can check it out HERE.
Over on Twitter, I did a read-through thread of Classic Traveller (1981) - Book 1! As a Mothership creator, this is a game with a long shadow over the rest of the sci-fi space so I was happy to get my hands on a copy and start to familiarize myself with the game. There were lots of great comments from folks too!
I also just recently did a read-through thread on Aaron King’s Patchworld World, a playbook-free Powered by the Apocalypse game set an inter-planar post-apocalyptic new world. I really want to play it now! The game was recently made Pay-What-You-Want and you can find it HERE.
Zack of Bammax Gaming recently compiled a great list of free and cheap art and font options for creators on a budget. These kinds of lists are tedious to create but extremely useful for folks, especially those just getting into the space.
“Within the standard realm of elfgames there is a pattern: there is gender. This is not a particularly insightful observation, there is gender in the real world so it makes sense that it shows up in fantasy. Talking about gender in RPGs isn't even new. However, there is one aspect that has always irked me somewhat, the way world-building is often carried out it creates a situation where only men exist. Sure a character can be female but at the end of the day, she is a man.”
Stella Condrey wrote a great blog post recently about how typical TTRPGs approach gender from a masculine-roles-only angle for characters and how this limits both the richness of the settings and the types of actions, characters, and stories players are able to tell.
Work continues on my Liminal Horror mystery: Tunnels in White! The 8-page version felt too undercooked when compared to the mystery it was trying to contain so I’ve blown it out to a 12-page with the chance to go up to 16-page by the end. It’ll have an additionally fully-mapped location, custom fallout to fit the mystery and more. I’m really excited about wrapping it up soon!
ONE LAST THING…
Thanks so much for reading! See you next month!
- Christian
I know the feeling of having a backlog of ideas and half written projects! Can’t wait to see your new stuff Christian!
A lifetime of 8 hour days at the grindstone isn't sustainable. Even if it's something you enjoy. Congratulations on your life's new adventure!