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November 2, 2018

[Questing's Musings] The Fate of the Questing GM blog...

Questing's Musings is a column where I give my disorganised thoughts about gamemastering, timely topics happening in the gaming community and gaming in general. Part of my wish for this column is, at worst, for it to be a place for me to rant, rave or speak out my random thoughts, and, at best, spark discussion and exploration of new discourses in gamemastering and gaming. Other than that, it is also most likely where I will put up posts that are not suited for any of the other columns on this blog. The posts here are mostly an unfiltered capture of my thoughts on the topic at hand and should be read as an opinionated soapbox, rather than one that tries to further any sort of agenda. As such, feel free to ignore this column if my personal thoughts on gaming does not interest you in the slightest.  

I started this blog around 2008 when I was in university and at the birth of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. Since then, I consider myself to be from the time of the explosion of the RPG blogs where I once again expanded my contact with the community and seeing RPG players from around the world.

Even though I rarely contributed to the RPG bloggersphere and seeing some of the same bloggers I started out with have successfully moved on to be bigger players in the industry, I realized that times have really changed when the RPG Bloggers Network met its death knell. As a result, the majority of my hits that I got thanks to the aggregated site, has now plummeted to the very small minority of those who actually followed this blog.  

Times have also changed for me as well since I graduated and having to mature as a responsible (and dreary) working adult.

The edition that inspired the blog went by me without barely scratching the surface of the system. Not only has life put me in a gaming hiatus in all but name for several years, it also effectively put me off from being able to find time to even write for this blog. Despite having turned writing as my only means of income and a career, returning to this blog has been an arduous task, as I desperately try to realign my passion, time, energy, and motivation with the direction of this blog's continual survival and presence.

That, if any have been following my numerous attempts, has failed in spectacular fashion, with me popping up with one or two posts in a year, promising for a comeback, and subsequently going silent in the next.

I don't want to make this sound like an excuse. But what I have found is that it has been mostly impossible to balance my working adult life with maintaining this blog. That, and also the the type of content and quality that I initially planned to push out for this blog, but would be detrimental to my professional well-being. It was either I continued to develop my craft to comfortably squeeze my professional writing and my passionate writing together which could take more years (or decades), or I had to find another way to do what I had wanted to do with this blog.

And now, I think I have found another way. With the rise of streaming and video platforms that have improved remarkably since the days of the RPG bloggersphere, it has become a strong alternative for many content creators to deliver RPG content to the masses. It takes less time to speak in front of a camera for 10 minutes (and even less time to edit, with low expectations for video quality) than it takes to plan, self doubt, draft, and edit a 1,000 word post that may or may not be read, if the writing itself is done terribly.     

Thus, you may see where I'm going with this. I've decided to change my outlet of pushing out the content that I want to deliver on a video-based platform (YouTube being my weapon of choice for now), and I have already started with an introductory video of it.

What does this mean for the Questing GM blog? Is this the end?

It may certainly sound like I'm all ready and hyped to jump on the streaming bandwagon altogether, but I do believe that this blog still has a purpose to serve yet, but not in a primary role as it used to. Though my plans are not concrete (based on past actions when has it ever been), I will still use this blog as a supplement to my content on my YouTube channel. Perhaps some topics or videos that I discuss there could use a supplement in a written format that could make the content more useful/helpful, or to place addendum/expansions of my thoughts that is more organized after the video post has been published.

That's all I can see the Questing GM blog for now, and only time will tell of its eventual fate or demise.

But until that time comes, I would like to sincerely thank everyone who has followed me along this journey that I did not realize has been 10 years ago. For the ups and downs that I have put you through for reading this ever inconsistent blog, you have my deepest appreciation and sincerest apologies.

If you can ever find the heart to actually see my face and hear what I have to say, rather than read what I've written/blabbered here, you can now find me at: the Questing GM YouTube Channel.    

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