I don't know the ins and outs of how things like Patreon or GoFundMe work, but honestly if there was some way to click a button online and securely send you $20 a month to support your PbP GMing I'd 100% do it. Just sayin'.Ah to live the Dream!Shadow,
Sounds like you need to seriously reconsider being a pro GM for monies.
If each of us players pays ya a dollar per post, well at your current rate, that wouldn't be too much, but hey if ya can step up posting rate with no real world job, that could work out nicely, lolol
Cool, I appreciate that!
At some point when I get my book closer to final I may just set up a Patreon account. That'll be a while from now but one day...
Do this.
There's a ton of us and we appreciate your work. I'd be willing to pay a small monthly subscription to the Make Shadow's Life Easier fund, especially if it lets you update faster.
You might not be able to make a full blown profession out of your crazy GMing habit, but a bit of supplemental income couldn't hurt.
Well, that's just it, I am not sure it WOULD allow me to update faster, in which case I would feel I am taking something and not giving anything more in return than what you've already got!
Though I appreciate the offer from those of you here that would support the effort!
If my book ever gets done, post divorce it is certainly seeming like a project I will dust off at some point, then I'll let everyone know :-)
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Wednesday Night Updates
Reign of Winter
Council of Song
Thursday Night Updates
Eberron - Echoes of the Past - Secrets of Khorvaire
Eberron - Echoes of the Past - Secrets of Sharn
DRAGONLANCE - LEGENDS OF THE THIRD DRAGON WAR
Vampires of Golarion - The Quest for Eternal Night a Second Darkness AP
The Magnificent 7 - All Gunslingers Kingmaker/Iron Gods
Chicago & Milwaukee by Night
Furry Fury
Star Wars Tables I & II.
Worked late last night but have today off so I should have some time to update today!
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Friday Night Updates
Eberron - Echoes of the Past - Secrets of Khorvaire
Eberron - Echoes of the Past - Secrets of Sharn
DRAGONLANCE - LEGENDS OF THE THIRD DRAGON WAR
Completed.
Friday Night Updates
I am running table top tonight but I am going to try and get to these tonight as well as I do not have to wake up too early tomorrow so a late night won't kill me tonight. Some have been languishing far too long so...
Vampires of Golarion - The Quest for Eternal Night a Second Darkness AP
The Magnificent 7 - All Gunslingers Kingmaker/Iron Gods
Chicago & Milwaukee by Night
Furry Fury
Star Wars Tables I & II.
Ugh fading, will try and wake up early and post.
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My fault...I talked to him too much after the table top game. I am sorry...
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My fault...I talked to him too much after the table top game. I am sorry...
LOL, I'm good but even I could not update 7 threads in an hour totally my fault for not getting to them on Friday afternoon. Tonight I will hit all 7 even if I have to drink coffee to do it (and I HATE coffee...)
Saturday Night Updates
Vampires of Golarion - The Quest for Eternal Night a Second Darkness AP - Done
The Magnificent 7 - All Gunslingers Kingmaker/Iron Gods - Done
Chicago & Milwaukee by Night - Both Done
Furry Fury - Done
Vampires of Golarion - Shadows of the Darklands a Second Darkness AP - Done
Sunday Night Updates
Star Wars Tables I & II. (Sorry meant to get to these but even with caffeine my concentration is waning).
Strange Aeons
Rest TBD tomorrow night.
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OK finally updated Star Wars Empire in Exile and the Strange Aeons campaigns.
Feeling a bit beat so I am gong to set up the updates for the next few days tonight and hit the hay.
Tuesday Night Updates
V20 Venice by Night,
The 3 Ruins of Azlant Campaigns,
Rise of the Runelords,
Wanderers of the Waste.
Werewolf the Apocalypse.
Hells Rebels.
Wednesday Night Updates
Skull & Shackles
5E Ravenloft
Shattered Star
Tyrants of Zhentil Keep
Reign of Winter
Council of Thieves.
Thursday Night Updates
Way of the Wicked
Greyhawk Lycans
Dragonlance
Cthulhu
Friday Night Upates
Eberron Tables I & II
Chicago & Milwaukee by Night
Saturday Night
The balance of Updates.
Hopefully I can hit all of these on these dates! :-)
Tuesday Night Updates
Greyhawk Lycans - Done
The 3 Ruins of Azlant Campaigns - Done
Rise of the Runelords - Done
Wanderers of the Waste - Done
Werewolf the Apocalypse - Done
Hells Rebels - Done
Will have to hit V20 Venice by Night tomorrow...
Shifting Wednesday Updates to tomorrow night.
I did update V20 tonight though.
Working late and divorce shit to do. le sigh...
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Sunday Night Updates
Skull & Shackles
5E Ravenloft
Shattered Star
Tyrants of Zhentil Keep
Reign of Winter
Council of Thieves.
Way of the Wicked
Greyhawk Lycans
Dragonlance
Cthulhu
Eberron Tables I & II
Chicago & Milwaukee by Night
A number of busy nights strung in a row but I should be good to go for all of these tomorrow. Don't need to wake up early on Monday so I can burn some midnight oil to catch up.
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Sunday Night Updates
Skull & Shackles
5E Ravenloft
Shattered Star
Tyrants of Zhentil Keep
Reign of Winter
Council of Thieves.
All Done.
Monday Night Updates
Way of the Wicked
Greyhawk Lycans
Dragonlance
Cthulhu
Eberron Tables I & II
Chicago & Milwaukee by Night
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Monday Night Updates
Way of the Wicked
Greyhawk Lycans
Bit tired tonight, will post more updates tomorrow, sorry for the delay.
Tuesday Night Updates
Dragonlance
Cthulhu
Eberron Tables I & II
Chicago & Milwaukee by Night
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Between busy at work and the site upgrade I am going to fall behind so instead of stressing over and rushing posts, updates again on Saturday.
If I am a PC in one of your games, please BOT me for the time being.
Thank you!
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It’s pretty late at night as I am writing this. I’ve been through a significant amount of struggles through the past two years (actually through the past 41 but especially the past 2). I’ve had worse stretches of time before but I believe that these past struggles were due to my own lack of maturity and self-awareness at the time those events took place.
Likely those events were necessary for me to experience to survive the events of the past two years and get through them as well as I have. Physical ailments, getting older and requiring more sleep, bankruptcy, and ultimately divorce. You know life is not going swimmingly when going to work feels like a vacation.
Regardless, when I first started getting involved in PbP on the boards it was a chance to play, finally! I’d been DMing for the bulk of the time that I’ve played table top that I was enjoying being able to be a player for once. Then with so many damn flaky GM’s I just started running games and well, things snow balled from there.
Life was fairly stable at the time the normal ups and downs. Then about two years ago, I started getting into PbP as a way to escape reality. Sort of the same ways drugs were casual and enjoyable for me as a teen and ultimately led me as close to suicide as I ever want to get again.
I am not saying that PbP has made me suicidal but I am saying that I recognize that I was using PbP as a coping mechanism to avoid a bad marriage. PbP did NOT lead to the failure of my marriage but it did contribute to my ability to tune it out.
I make a decent living but between bankruptcy and divorce I’ve little to show for it (well except for this killer book and RPG collection ). I could point the finger at my soon to be ex-wife but when you point one finger at a person, three more point back at you. I could have prevented things from becoming this bad and I chose not to. I did it, ironically, because I believed that if I had the marriage would have ended and ended badly, so much for best intentions. I am not going to second guess myself, what happened happened. As divorces go, this one has been rather amicable as we have put our daughter first and ourselves second.
Being married to someone who makes as much if not more money then you (depending on sales that year) places one in a position to “take it easy” when it comes to being aggressive about making money (well it placed me in such a position anyhow perhaps because making money does not move me).
Early on in my career I had an opportunity to become a premiere M&A Financial Services Tax Attorney in a Big 4 Firm. It’s a big deal and potentially a lot of money but I did not really want it because I knew I would be working a lot and traveling a lot. My ex agreed that I should turn it down as she did not want to be married to a workaholic and that was not who I wanted to be anyway. Nor do I want to be that person now. (In yet another twist of irony, she has become a workaholic, funny how things turn out).
I do not regret the decision though I do lament the loss of income that such a decision would have brought to me.
All of this rambling nonsense is leading to the point of this post, I need to work more. Not at my current job nor do I want to get a new job, I actually like being there as odd as that sounds (to me). I need to get a second and perhaps a third job, side gigs. At 41 about to turn 42 with no retirement and no savings for my daughters college, I can no longer hope that the ex’s business will come through as an investment plan. Even if it does, I will not be the beneficiary of that largesse. I need to make up for 11 years of being “comfortable” simply working.
Thus, it is with heavy heart that I am announcing that I will need to close down a number of the threads I run and withdraw from a number of the games I am a PC in.
I suppose this decision will not be a surprise to many of you as my posting rates have been abysmal since these events took a turn for the worse (in some respects the better to be honest) since Thanksgiving of 2017.
I am not generally a person that feels remorse or guilt but I do feel a level of disappointment with having to make this decision. I apologize for disappointing many of you who put work into PCs relying on my consistency as a GM/DM over the course of the past several years.
My plan had always been to run a hardcore dose of RPG’s until my daughter was a teenager and then, spend my free time writing the novel I had been working on since before she was born. I had hoped that over the next 9 years or so I could wrap up most of these campaigns and the few that remained would be more manageable.
Life has not worked out that way.
The good news is that I will still run several games but the current load is too much for me to handle in this transition. The further good news is that I believe this will allow for those games to move along much more quickly.
By tomorrow I will have made my decision as to which games I will keep and which I will shut down.
Thank you all for taking the journeys with me despite the lack of length or resolution of so many of them.
I will still be around just in a diminished capacity so this is not goodbye just a “be seeing less of you”.
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I am sure your many players will understand...and if they don't screw them...do you really want to Game with those people Anyway?
If you want to talk about stuff I am mostly free.
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I am sure your many players will understand...and if they don't screw them...do you really want to Game with those people Anyway?
If you want to talk about stuff I am mostly free.
Thanks Selene.
Well, even if I don;t want to play with them, whether I want to screw them would certainly depend upon.... uh. Nevermind :-)
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Hey Shadow,
Life comes first my brother and you must do as you must. No one determines the course of your fate but you, and God. Steer the ship my friend, and enjoy the show. What else is there? I look forward to what ever time as a player perhaps GM that I have with the quality guy you are.
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Ok, I'm going to get pushy for a sec.
Set up a Patreon.
Today. Now.
I will give you money. I want to. I wanted to before I found out how much you need it. I know others do as well. You deserve it.
The one thing stopping you is that you have not done it before, so the initial learning curve seems daunting.
The amount of time and energy you put into entertaining your players deserves to be rewarded. Even if you are running fewer games you could still be using your hobby as a small source of supplemental income. It sounds like that is exactly what you need right now.
Please do this. It will take a few hours of your time and immediately start helping to correct the problems you are facing.
Let us help.
Tell that little voice in your head that is telling you not to accept "charity" to shut the f~+& up. This isn't charity. It's fair trade for services rendered. Now Google up how to set up a Patreon page and don't post a damn thing else until you can drop a link to yours in this thread.
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I, too, would happily pitch in if it would help you any. And agreed, it ISN'T charity, it's payment for services. Good GMs are hard to find.
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Take care of yourself. Do whats best for you. We your players understand, and support what you need.
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That's a point well made, Mordred. Thanks for that.
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Agreed. Take care of yourself, Shadow! Only come back when you're in a better spot.
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I'd support you, but I'm already at a less than two meals a day myself. Anyway, take the time you need.
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No worries, Shadow. I'm amazed you've managed to juggle so many PbPs for so long - I'm involved in 9 and at times I find it daunting. And that's without any great upheavals in my personal life.
At the end of the day these are in fact just games; if you cut the ones we're involved in, will it be disappointing? Sure. Will we blame you for ruining our lives? I sure won't. Because life isn't just about playing games.
Don't let something that's supposed to be fun bring you anxiety and stress. Do whatever you've got to do to get yourself back on your feet again.
Agreed upon not jumping into Patreon right away too before you're ready (stuff like that also might work as something to focus upon with your novel writing instead of simply just gaming?); there's probably gonna be tax issues associated with that sorta route too- although with your RL background knowledge, it might not be as daunting for you as it would be for others not as familiar with those types of rules and regulations.
Or if it does come to pass that a gaming based Patreon would eventually arise from you, maybe put some caveat about how you'd also have to be a player in some games too- instead of just being only all about GMing full-time. And only after things in the real life start to work out better for you and your loved ones, as well. ;)
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Thank you all very much for the support guys!
I will hold off on the Patreon but will mull it over in the coming weeks. Tonight, I will post within each discussion thread which games I am continuing and which I am discontinuing. Tomorrow night I will update boards as a PC and Wednesday night begin DM posting once more.
F*$@ing snow. Power outage and 3 hours of shoveling have cut into my posting time today.
I'll try and get the rest of the updates up and out tomorrow :-)
There's a lot of that in the North East right now.
F~&$ing snow. Power outage and 3 hours of shoveling have cut into my posting time today.
I'll try and get the rest of the updates up and out tomorrow :-)
I have been to your house....which part required 3 Hours? Maybe I am spoiled by the snow blower...but I have a larger driveway...sidewalks...and I live on a cornor...so it is sidewalks times two...and I did it all in less than 1 1/2 hours. ;)
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Need to update anther night, emergency at work requires my attention
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I have been to your house....which part required 3 Hours? Maybe I am spoiled by the snow blower...but I have a larger driveway...sidewalks...and I live on a cornor...so it is sidewalks times two...and I did it all in less than 1 1/2 hours. ;)F~&$ing snow. Power outage and 3 hours of shoveling have cut into my posting time today.
I'll try and get the rest of the updates up and out tomorrow :-)
You are spoiled :-)
I went out 3 times to shovel as I knew it would be heavy. On top of that I dug two people's cars across the street out of the snow so lost another 40 minutes doing that, people just have no idea how to drive in the snow...
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That is true...people don't know how to drive in the snow...and some cars are really badly designed.
Snow? Heck, I'm in Texas now, and the people here don't know hoe to drive in a frost.
And I really miss the snow, so enjoy some of it for me. :)
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"...people just have no idea how to drive in the snow..."
People have lots of ideas about how to drive in the snow. It's just that most of them are bad ideas.
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Heh dropped games and still stumbled out the gate!
This week will be much better, updates forthcoming between tomorrow and Tuesday night!
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Tomorrow night and Thursday night updates to ALL of my campaigns. Thanks for the patience folks!
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Neverf&%*ingmind... shit went down hill, I'll post when I can.
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Sorry to hear that. We can wait...
If you need maybe just take a two weeks or a month off to sort $%!+ out.
If you need to talk and/or vent give me a call.
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It's not a problem man, take as much time as you need.
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We are patient!
=)
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Tomorrow night assuming things don't go down in flames yet again, I should be able to get some substantial posting in.
Ugh...
Wait does you cutting back mean you won't run that StarFinder game you said you were going Too?
I mean it is okay if you are not...I know RL has to take precedent.
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Think te stress is getting to me, keep falling asleep early.
his week the ex has my daughter most nights so I should be able to catch up.
I am too mentally drained to post tonight else I would.
Thanks again for the patience.