Iron Seer's Lost Year

Inspirobot knows what sort of paperwork to put through.

I'm back on this High Horse again, ready to blog in style for 2020.  Did you miss me, blogosphere?  Can you hear me wailing?

Ugh...so long since a post on this blog.  It's embarrassing, but what happened to my rhythm last year?  Just look at my post history, you can tell something went down.

The good news is, there is no bad news to tell about why I flaked out.  I just wasn't sure where I was going with Iron Seer, and I thought I really needed to do some layout changes as well.  Since we use the site a lot for reference in games, I tried a lot of different builds last year for the user interface and ran a lot of tests of various things on social media and this site. 

After all that, I came to find that I don't really care about a lot of it.  As far as all the internet stuff to keep up with.  SEO's and hits and all.  I'm going to lean back on just making a neat blog to look at.

I had to do some soul-searching as far as the hobby goes.  It's been a rough few years for me and all my plastic soldiers.  I've been pretty well a hermit, and a very crotchety one at that.  Blogging was taking up too much of my Adventure Time.

So, I just had to take some time away from the keyboards and really just get back into my hobby.  For a while there, it felt like the website here was the main hobby I had.  So I stepped away for a moment, and I wasn't sure I was going to continue with Iron Seer in it's current form.  Even so, I kept writing.  I have a ton of articles to get published, but I got tired of backdating them.

I keep two blogs here on Iron Seer Dot com for different aspects of my game groups.  It seems like the best answer to keep our games easy to find and for visitors to peruse, but I update them both irregularly.  I'd like to keep a rate of one post here on Iron Seer per week about hobby stuff and wargames, and one post per two weeks on RAW RPG.  It's just I'm more into wargames, and I get to hobby a lot by myself so I can create more content for Iron Seer's main blog.

I wasn't sure what was going to happen last year.  I didn't know if I would even return or run games anymore.  However, toward the end of last year, we made a fateful decision that brought me back into the hobby and ready to organize games at full force.  I'll talk about that decision in another post very soon, but for now just note that once it was made almost every gamer I knew asked me when they should be showing up.  The CLUB rears itself from the sump anew.

We all have choices and options.  My Lady tells me that's all anyone ever has.  After last Summer, my outlook on a lot of things has changed, boiled down and left me to be ok with it.

I realize that I was asking myself the wrong question.  I kept asking "what would be best for my local community" instead of "what's the best time I can get out of my hobby".  We all have a limited amount of time to do this kind of thing.  We all have work and responsibilities, and we all have the same amount of time.  If you're not into it, then you're out of it.

I've been trying to accommodate all the folks for far too long.  You have to be having fun, and you have to think of yourself first.  You can't run a good game and make a good time for a community of people if you're chewing sour grapes all the time.  So, I let go of a lot of notions I had that carried over from other clubs and experiences I've had with various game groups and decided to shake it up and see what new 'notions' would wend their way to the top.

That brings us to the subject of Iron Seer Campaigns going forward.  Undoubtedly, this is one of my major strengths and I will definitely continue running campaigns.  However, the focus of said campaigns may shift from a general "grand melee" vibe and will run the gamut of things I want to try.  We have lots of games to play, lots of new things to try out.

Currently, we'll be looking at games in three and six-month competition windows, depending on the game.  We'll also have year-long competitions, beginning this year with a massive Frostgrave campaign.

For 2020, our Wargames Schedule will be available on our social media.  You can check out the Ada Oklahoma Tabletop Gaming Guild here on Facebook, or follow Iron Seer on Twitter.  Be sure to join the group if you're close enough to game (that's pretty much anywhere in Oklahoma, North Texas or even Arkansas) and give us a shout out!  If you want to get your group in a joint-campaign with us, send us an email at contact@ironseer.com and we'll start working out the narrative.

So remember next time someone asks if you want to join a game that they may not ask a second time.  Be kind to your game buddies and treasure them for all their worth.  Above all, remember the one other thing that applies to your gaming that you must absolutely accept as an adult human:  You'll never have time unless you make it. 

It's all on you if you game or not.  Only that which you manifest lies before you.  Jump the hurdles, and get to the game...or admit defeat and surrender your models to the nearest Iron Seer.