Monsters and Manuals - 2023 in Review

No more champagne. And the fireworks are through. Here we are, me and you. Feeling lost and feeling blue...

Oh wait, sorry, I think I've been listening to too much Now That's What I Call Christmas! on Spotify this last month. Where was I? Yes, that's right. The year in review: 2023.

Well, it's been an eventful year professionally, and indisputably this has taken my attention away from the blog a little bit - although, at 105 entries and counting, this actually turns out to have been the most monstersandmanualsiest year since 2019 (when I wrote 143 entries) and indeed the seventh most monstersandmanualsiest year overall since records began. 

This also means I had to put my Three Mile Tree campaign (running weekly since January 2021) on hiatus in September, simply because I just haven't had the time to do it justice. I miss regular gaming, but I have to confess I don't miss panicking about trying to get everything else done each week alongside finding time to run a session. I hope sufficient slack will develop in 2024.

I continue to operate largely in ignorance of what is going on across the blogosphere and the RPG industry as a whole. I increasingly think of my work here on the blog, the stuff I am writing (yes, I am writing), and the campaign I run (when able) as a wing in my monastery of the mind, and to be frank I am less and less interested in the outside world - even the outside world of 'the hobby' as such - impinging on it. Some people might say this makes me sound like a grumpy old fart. Those people would be right. But in the monastery of my mind I am surrounded only by beautiful women telling me how great and wise and sexy I am, so I'm not that bothered what the rest of you think.

As far as my RPG-related projects are going, Yoon-Suin 2nd edition will be out in the coming months after its successful Kickstarter earlier in the year. The Great North will, if all goes to plan, follow. I've also just about finished off typing my notes on Three Mile Tree into a coherent, readable document, so as to form the basis for a book: this will be my first proper megadungeon release (containing nine levels of roughly fifty rooms each on average). Then it's pressing on with Behind Gently Smiling Jaws, at long last - and possibly other more informal projects which I will inform you about in due course.

I will also - whisper it - almost certainly reach 2,000 posts next year, being currently on 1,936. When Monsters & Manuals hit ten years of age I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to shortlist entries for a short book release and failed. God knows how I would fare with 2,000 entries to choose from, but I am tempted to put out a proper 'Best 200 of 2,000' book when eventually I hit that milestone. I expect, indeed, that there will be overwhelming public demand for this and possibly even civil unrest if it is not forthcoming.

The best five entries of this year on the blog are, I think (in chronological order):

1 - Fantasy Japan Through Modern Prefecture Names

2 - On the Satanic Nature of AI Art

3 - Against Being 'Rules Light' and What 'Minimalism' Really Means

4 - Elves = Verbs, Dwarves = Nouns, Orcs = Adjectives (mainly for the comments)

5 - Dragons Reviewed and Ranked

Assessing my output from the past 12 months, I feel like my writing gets better and better (is there a way to say this without sounding big headed?), but I confess to doing too little with it here on the blog. I feel a sense of shame about this, and it weighs on my conscience. But anyway, on that happy note, I wish you and yours the best for 2024. May it contain much dice rolling!