tl;dr: I intend to reduce my posting to once a month, but I’m getting rid of the paywall on the back catalog. I’ve also made some tweaks to the search and filter function so it’s easier to find the exact thing you need amid hundreds of old posts to fit your game tonight, be it an adventure, an NPC, a plot complication, a piece of worldbuilding, or anything else.
Longer version:
A year ago, I took my first ever break from the Molten Sulfur Blog after six years of weekly updates (having never missed a single one), and when I came back I switched it to every two weeks. A big reason for this was that I’d just taken a job writing full-time for the Nations & Cannons RPG about the American Revolutionary War. Like many creatives, I can only write well and do good research for so many hours in a week. The job, therefore, cut in on my blog writing—or perhaps my blog writing cut in on my job.
Historical RPG writing has now been my real job for over a year, and it seems about as stable as anything in this industry can be. So I’m taking the next step and further scaling back my work on this blog. I intend to cut back to one post a month, and unlike before, I’m not going to hold myself to it. If I go six or even eight weeks without posting something, I’m going to try (probably unsuccessfully) not to beat myself up about it.
But I also recognize that this blog has been my primary means of interacting with the RPG industry—and indeed, with all of you. It’s been largely this blog and not any of my books that has generated the contacts that let me transition to writing RPGs full-time. And I know that as my posts get less frequent, checking the website will stop being a habit for many of you. (Can I interest you in subscribing to my newsletter to receive email updates when I post?) So I still want to provide a reason for you to come back here regularly: my back catalog of old posts.
I’m removing the paywall from the back catalog. 340+ posts about history and folklore and suggestions on using them are now freely available to anyone. I’ve also improved the search-and-filter functionality. It used to return results sorted by recency, so the newer stuff not behind the paywall would be at the top, regardless of how relevant those results were. Now it sorts by relevance. Y’know, the way normal people expect searches to work. (Was sorting by recency a good idea in the first place? Heck if I know.) So when you’re casting about for some cool NPC or adventure hook or whatever, come on back to the search page and search or filter for what you’re looking for.
These changes on the blog feel bittersweet. Some of the pieces I wrote while posting weekly are among the work I’m proudest of in any career or endeavor. But change is the only constant, and I’m excited to see what comes next. Won’t you come see it with me?
With enormous respect and gratitude,
Tristan