BLOGGIES 2023 BEST BLOG POST OF THE YEAR
On 31 January 2024, the tabletop-roleplaying-game community voted for the Best Blog Post Of 2023.
Contenders were drawn from the winners of four categories. Links, as well as their very excellent acceptance speeches—more exhortations and manifestos, really!—found here:
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Anyway—you voted. Results were very close; I was constantly worried about a tie. Nevertheless, a winner emerged:
Congratulations are in order, and an acceptance speech follows.
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(Like an idiot, I didn’t plan for, and therefore didn’t have the time to make a bespoke prize for the overall Bloggie winner. So they’ll just get a full quadtych of lino prints. Fortunately these don’t look too bad together!)
PLATINUM BLOGGIE FOR BEST BLOG POST OF THE YEAR:
🔮Re-inventing the Wilderness: Part 1 - Introduction🔮
from SachaGoat
Sacha:
As an (award-winning) blogger who only started 6 months ago - I want to use this “acceptance speech” to share the 5 steps that will start your blog:
1. You don’t need a cool blog name. screenname(dot)blogspot(dot)com is probably available - you can move it later if you think of a cool name. The trick here is to set it up so your ideas can go live as soon as you’re happy (or tired of editing).
2. Post something. Dust off your notebook (or note-taking app) and turn those musings into a structured post with paragraphs and context. Don’t have anything ready to go? Take your latest game session and write a play report or spotlight a specific moment. This will take less time than your ttrpg prep.
3. Share it! With your gaming group, ttrpg friends, community discords, xwitter/bluesky, reddit, forums etc.
4. Don’t worry about the rest. I don’t have a fancy blog template. I’ve yet to compile a sidebar or blogroll. I don’t have a newsletter or patreon.
5. Continue. Your readers will contribute with comments. You will be shared in community newsletters. Peers will write posts inspired by your posts. Your ideas will be used at another gaming table. (And if you’re lucky, you can win the next BLOGGIES.)
If you’ve shared your prep with a fellow DM… if you’ve contributed opinions on a ttrpg discord or forum… if you’ve read a blog post and have a thought that builds on it… if you have any tabletop advice or ideas … 👏 Start 👏 a 👏 blog
This finally brings me to the “thanks”. Winning the 2023 BLOGGIES is such a wonderful welcome to this creative niche. Many thanks to the creators who encourage the community to blog (especially around June 2023, I can actually see the thread that motivated me to start). I also want to thank a community whose collective enthusiasm and support nudge me to release the next post. And finally, everyone who voted for my post over the amazing nominations this year - a huge thank you.
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On a personal note: I am really thrilled at this final result.
The BLOGGIES can come off as clique-ish. Voting is public, but “public” on the Internet generally means a circle-jerk between subculture friends, a popularity contest.
This thing began as a jokey riff on those best-tweet-of-the-year polls over on Twitter. While Prismatic Wastelands grew it into a celebration of OSR blogging culture, it still has NSR / POSR inclinations—the specific community soil it sprung from.
As host this year I tried to extend the BLOGGIES’ reach. Canvassing for nominations outside the OSR space got a couple of indie-RPG designers on the finalists list. Am proud of that; we have much to learn from each other.
I made prizes—hoping that, one day, with enough dangling carrots, these awards will eventually be tasty enough for non-POSR cliques / communities to attempt a takeover? We’ll see.
Ultimately: I am glad to water this sapling and watch it grow slowly. Community is made by growing trees, not building greenhouses.
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SachaGoat snagging the final win is a vindication.
Sacha’s blog is new. We don’t share any Discord servers. We’ve never spoken, hitherto; the first time I messaged him ever was to tell him he’d won the Advice category.
The BLOGGIES fulfils its purpose: to introduce folks to quality blogs; to preach the gospel and importance of blogging. Its shade is spreading.
I’m glad to get to know Sacha and his blog. (Obviously it’s been added to my must-read list!) I am honoured to be passing the torch: Sacha has agreed to host BLOGGIES 2024.
Thank you, everybody. Here’s to growing trees.
