Well a Happy New Year to all; we seem to have decided there is still life after the Mayan calendar, which is good to know, as it means more gaming time! 🙂

Anyway, as I mentioned in my last post, we’ve looked back, so now it’s time to plot the course forward at TolrendorDM’s Blog for 2013. I’m sure it’s a common aspiration to say: “I want to post more, and increase readership!” The question is: how to achieve it!? 🙂

Well, last year, I used my five regular columns as a way to plan my posts and get a regular 4-5 posts per month. This certainly worked to a certain extent, but I did find a few issues. For example, I perhaps became constrained a little in thinking about posts in terms of the columns, so if I was struggling to complete a particular column one month, the end was result was I didn’t post at all!

So going forwards, I’ll looking a bit more flexibly at this. The columns have been going well from a content perspective, so will certainly continue, but I’ll be less concerned with fitting a post ‘idea’ into one theme – if it fits, great, if it doesn’t, just post 🙂 The goal is more posts, not just more columns!

Some other ideas include:

More Maps! The Map of the Month column has been going strong, with a mixture of my own work and highlighting the awesome work of other fantasy cartographers. Of course, this will continue!. But I want more! 🙂 Every year, I subscribe to the excellent Cartographer’s Annual from Profantasy, but it often takes me a long time before I use any of the monthly styles. So I’m setting myself the Annual Challenge: To produce a map related to Tolrendor using each month’s pack for the whole of 2013! So look out for something using the January 2013 pack in the coming weeks … hmmm.

More Midgard! This blog is a major fan (and patron) of Kobold Press’ Midgard Setting, and my ongoing series reviewing the Campaign Setting book have been some of my most successful posts. In 2013, there are more Midgard products arriving, such as the Legends of Midgard, a whole series of adventures for the setting, so I’m sure I’ll be taking a close look. Expect also some posts on how the setting is providing ideas and inspiration for my own home-brew world of Tolrendor.

More Content! I mentioned in my review of 2012 that I was a bit disappointed in the relatively small number of Content Corner columns I achieved. With hindsight, I think I set myself topics which were too large to achieve design, writing and layout in the couple of weeks available if I were to achieve a monthly post. So in 2013, I’m going to concentrate more on smaller snippets that will amalgamate over time into a larger ‘publication’. The main theme will still be the the ‘Havenscoast Project‘, but other topics will also crop up!

More Gaming! This is definitely a New Year Resolution! I mentioned in a November post that, especially in the second half of the year, gaming sessions were scarcer than hen’s teeth! Well, the holiday period certainly helped rectify that, and I mean to continue! Scheduling problems have been the main issue, but if I’m honest with myself, I also wasn’t keeping up with any regular prep, which sometimes meant an available slot didn’t get capitalised on because I wasn’t ‘ready enough’! I’ve been making some changes to my campaign notes and session planning, so I hope that helps!  Of course, more gaming hopefully means more ideas for my DM for Kids column!

Wow! All those plans, and many more to come I hope! I’m certainly looking forward to writing for Tolrendor DM’s Blog in 2013. You’re all welcome on the ride …. 🙂