This is a State of Rand Roll (and my other rpg endeavours) for 2022. Another in a short series of not planned Rand Roll related articles.
Four Years of Rand Roll
It's been 4 years since my first Creators Interview, with Emily of Fantasy Name Generators.
This time I'm looking at where I'm at in what might be an annual thing.
For new readers this is Rand Roll which is a blog on random tables and tools. It mostly deals in random tables, interviews, tools guides and ways to use random tools in rpgs.
I covered Highlights of Rand Roll in a post earlier this year, soon after moving the blog to a new platform on Ghost.
State of Play
I'm happy with how the blog is going. I'm still making interviewing new creators and discovering new tools.
Older articles are slowly being updated and improved after the Jan move, mostly focusing on the Tools Guides and the Interview images mostly need updating. I've still got an old series on Potions that need finishing off.
Solo gaming is still being explored, mostly via podcasts and there will be a continuation of new articles there. New articles on Using Random tools are also being added, but these are often harder to write than other articles.
Random Tables keep on apace with new weekly tables, mostly pulled from my published pdfs.
New Gen Guides are on pause at the moment until older ones reorganised and in a fit state. I also need to work out a way of keeping them updated without consuming too much time!
PDFs of Random Tables
My main income is actually made from publishing pdfs of random tables, which was made possible after confidence from starting the blog.
So far most of my tables are published on DM's Guild for Dungeons and Dragons 5e. There are others system-neutral random tables on Drive Thru RPG as Chaos Gen. And some of these are also on Itch.io.
Going forward there be far fewer 5E ones and I'll be concentrating on more Fantasy System-neutral pdfs. There will be more larger pdfs such as the recent Collected Encounters.
Part of this will be pdfs of tables focusing on different fantasy environments, starting with Sea, which is already happening with random generators...
Generators on Chaos Gen
Over at Chaos Gen is where I create random generators, mostly as a hobby as they are free for all to use.
If it was practical I'd happily spend all of my time publishing random generators, updating old ones and creating new ones. I'm fascinated by what they can produce.
But they are also made better by the things learned here on Rand Roll in interviews and making articles. And also by making the pdfs of random tables. Setting down and analysing list of data to put into random tables means results in more clarity for what works and often new patterns for the generated results.
Current Plans
As well as continuing to churn out articles, pdfs and generators there are three other things I'm planning on coming soon.
The first is the slow development and release of an RPG. It's mostly by accident and I covered it more on my personal blog. But one of the elements is the heavy use of Random Tables within the game, for character creation and helping to balance other things.
The second thing follows on from the RPG and is a look into random tables and how they have been used in RPGs in the past. Such as the heavy tradition in British RPGs, dungeon building tables and maybe more modern uses such as in solo play and as oracles.
Third is a new discord community for Rand Roll, which will have it's own article when its ready to go!
Finishing Up
So that's hopefully and end to a few weeks of Rand Roll articles! Back to interviews and other articles...
Hope to see you for at least four more years!
Thanks
Duncan
