{"id":28651,"date":"2020-07-13T23:59:05","date_gmt":"2020-07-13T13:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/?p=28651"},"modified":"2020-07-13T23:41:39","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T13:41:39","slug":"confection-of-compartments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/confection-of-compartments\/","title":{"rendered":"Confections Of Blog-Carnival Compartments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ofdiceanddragons.com\/rpg-blog-carnival\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 2px solid #53411D\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-736\" title=\"rpg blog carnival logo\" src=\"http:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/images\/rpgblogcarnivallogo.jpg\" alt=\"rpg blog carnival logo\" width=\"228\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Blog Carnival for July 2020 is on the subject of &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/ofdiceanddragons.com\/rpg-carnival-what-would-you-like-to-know\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">What Would You Like To Know?<\/a>&#8220;, and is being hosted by Of Dice And Dragons.<\/p>\n<p>I actually find it easier to come up with topics for Carnivals than I do to answer this question. If I had to provide an answer to the question, it would be along the lines of &#8220;Information that I can&#8217;t easily find elsewhere&#8221; &#8211; which I don&#8217;t consider very satisfactory, as an answer.<\/p>\n<p>In an attempt to discern a more satisfactory answer, I did a bit of navel-gazing on past topics and their relative success, especially those that Campaign Mastery has hosted.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s run through them (links are to the the wrap-up post for each topic, and the number in [square brackets] is the number of entries received, divided into those from outside contributors and those from CM shown after a &#8216;+&#8217; sign):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>September 2009: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/game-master-mistakes-carnival-roundup\/\" title=\"Game Master Mistakes Carnival Roundup\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mistakes &#8211; ones you&#8217;ve made in the past and how you got past them, ones you&#8217;re making now and don&#8217;t know how to solve<\/a>&#8221; [6+7]<\/li>\n<li>June 2010: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/blog-carnival-wrap-up-what-inspires-your-games\/\" title=\"Blog Carnival Wrap-Up \u2013 What Inspires Your Games?\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">What non-game media have most inspired your games and how?<\/a>&#8221; [18+1]<\/li>\n<li>March 2011: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/life-death-in-rpg-blog-carnival-wrap-up\/\" title=\"Life &#038; Death in RPG Blog Carnival Wrap-Up\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Life &#038; Death in RPGs<\/a>&#8221; [22+4]<\/li>\n<li>October 2011: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/a-cavalcade-of-posts-about-goodies\/\" title=\"October Blog Carnival Wrap-up: A cavalcade of posts about goodies\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Making The Loot Part Of The Plot<\/a>&#8221; [37+8+ an extra link in the comments]<\/li>\n<li>September 2013: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/locationx3-the-roundup\/\" title=\"Location, Location, Location! \u2013 the Roundup and Wrap-up (for now)\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Location! Location! Location!<\/a>&#8221; [18+10]<\/li>\n<li>December 2014: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/the-final-twist\/\" title=\"The Final Twist: Dec 2014 Blog Carnival Roundup\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">With A Twist<\/a>&#8221; [11+6]<\/li>\n<li>November 2015: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/the-very-expected-roundup\/\" title=\"The very-expected Unexpected Blog Carnival Roundup\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Unexpected<\/a>&#8221; [6+6]<\/li>\n<li>November 2016: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/nov-2016-blog-carnival-wrap-up\/\" title=\"A life less ordinary:  November 2016 Blog Carnival Wrap-up\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ordinary Life<\/a>&#8221; [8+5]<\/li>\n<li>November 2017: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/memory-lane-nov-2017\/\" title=\"Memory Lane: Nov 2017 Blog Carnival Roundup\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Past Revisited: Pick A Post (your own or someone else&#8217;s)<\/a>&#8221; [9+7]<\/li>\n<li>June 2018: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/june-2018-blog-carnival-roundup\/\" title=\"The Love Of RPGs: June 2018 Blog Carnival Roundup\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">For the Love of RPGs<\/a>&#8221; (Why do you love GMing?) [5+1]<\/li>\n<li>March 2019: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/march-2019-blog-roundup\/\" title=\"March 2019 Blog Roundup and Some Musings on the RPG Blog Alliance\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Echoes of Yesteryear<\/a>&#8221; [1+1]<\/li>\n<li>September 2019: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/visions-of-exotic-reality-09-2019\/\" title=\"Visions Of Exotic Reality: September 2019 Blog Carnival\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Visions Of Exotic Reality<\/a>&#8221; [0+1]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The decline of the Blog Carnival is clear to see from the statistics shown. There were extraordinary reasons for the low turnout in November 2015, so the decline in participation seems to have started in 2018. The changing home location of the carnival would not have helped matters, because not everyone would have received the notification; for a long time, before Scot over at Of Dice And Dragons put his hand up, it looked like the whole thing was going to fold. 2010-2014 seemed to be the highlight years.<\/p>\n<p>Two things seemed to do really well back in the early days: subjects upon which people were opinionated, and subjects that provided drop-in content that people could employ in their own campaigns. <\/p>\n<p>I always try to include at least one article on the subject with the anchor post. As you can see, that was the <em>only<\/em> contribution to the most recent blog carnival hosted here. The question that lingers is whether that was due to external factors or is the result of the topic I chose.<\/p>\n<p>The challenge that it posed was <em>&#8220;Describe a scene observed around you as it&#8217;s equivalent somewhere or somewhen else, ready to be dropped into a campaign.&#8221;<\/em> &#8211; explicitly an attempt to capture drop-in content, the second of those &#8220;popular&#8221; categories that I noted above.<\/p>\n<p>Analyzing the site traffic for the week in question shows NO traffic heading for a specific page (which is where potential participants would have been led), with a fairly normal level of traffic to the site overall. So it doesn&#8217;t seem to have been a problem with contributors deciding that the topic was too hard; rather, a shortage of contributors interested in the blog carnival at all.<\/p>\n<p>For comparison, I opened up a couple of more recent Carnival &#8211; &#8220;Are We There Yet&#8221;, hosted by Fitz at Moebius Adventures was the first. He seemed to get a grand total of four contributions (for the record, I started an entry and didn&#8217;t get it finished in time &#8211; but I haven&#8217;t thrown it away, and will eventually finish it). Last Month&#8217;s Carnival, provided by The Expanding Frontier was on &#8220;Organizations&#8221; and received a grand total of 3 entries plus two from the host.<\/p>\n<p>Hardly earthshaking numbers, and far removed from those experienced in the heyday of the Carnival.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s my impression that too few bloggers are reading each other&#8217;s content these days. I used to be grateful for the bloggers who aggregated and reviewed blog content each month; not only did I often gain insight into the subjects that I had written about, and site traffic, but often discovered other articles of interest. There have been several of these over the years, but they seemed to have been killed or died out, one by one.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the rise of podcasts and video-blogs is part of the problem. With a web page, it&#8217;s easy to link to something, or to skip to a specific paragraph; that&#8217;s a lot harder with a podcast, you have to make your own notes. Sure, the result is more immediate, but it&#8217;s also more ephemeral and short-lived. And it means that there are fewer people writing blogs out there. As for including a link to someone else&#8217;s content, there are obvious problems! By definition, then, these are insular and less community-oriented.<\/p>\n<p>Another issue that has undoubtedly had an impact is the fragmentation of the RPG community. Social scandals and a seeming unwillingness to make an effort to repurpose content to your own setting or game system have caused a number of GMs to become more insular, interested in content that&#8217;s directly relevant to them and not so much anything that isn&#8217;t. This contrasts sharply with the way RPGs were, as recently as a decade ago. Many people no longer see RPGs as a wider community, they see RPGs as a collection or assemblage of smaller, more isolated communities.<\/p>\n<p>You have to wonder about the impact of Covid-19, too. On the one hand, being stuck at home would give bloggers more time to write, with fewer outside distractions; on the other, not only are there fewer active games taking place due to restrictions on social gatherings, and hence less inspiration (and less need), but there&#8217;s also the problem of screen overload &#8211; simply put, if people are working at home by computer all day, they are less inclined to using that same device for their recreation.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, I remain convinced that the right topic will reawaken the sleeping beast. With that in mind, I thought that a quick analysis of the different types of subject that could be chosen might lead back to an answer to the original question posed.<\/p>\n<h3>A continuum from specific to general<\/h3>\n<p>Topics can range from the very specific to the very broad and general. The more specific a topic is, the more it will attract bloggers who find that subject to be relevant to their gaming. The more general, a subject, the broader the umbrella that it offers for contributions, but the less motivational it is.<\/p>\n<p>In olden days, the broader and more general a topic within the Blog Carnival, the more responses you got. I&#8217;m not sure that&#8217;s still the case. The last three carnivals hosted here at Campaign Mastery, and both of the recent carnivals that I checked out earlier could be considered quite broad.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s the alternative, though? A subject that appeals to a small niche group may be more likely to attract contributions from those who are part of that niche (if they even know that the blog carnival exists), but those contributions are less likely to be of any interest to anyone outside that niche. And every blogger seeks to write to their audience, whether they realize it or not, intentionally or otherwise. So this would seem to be a dead-end.<\/p>\n<p>But it does raise an issue that is directly related to this month&#8217;s topic, and to my whole analysis: is the number of contributions a valid metric of the success or failure of a subject? Should the question be what the Blog Authors would like to read more of, or what subjects would most interest <em>their<\/em> readers?<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s an assumption that we all make, that the two are one and the same. Sometimes, it&#8217;s correct. But it should be borne in mind, for those times when it is not.<\/p>\n<p>To some extent, this is diffused by frequency of posts and breadth of readership. When Campaign Mastery could publish twice a week, I had more than twice as many readers as I typically do now. That meant that a subject could appeal to a specific subgroup of readers and the rest would probably be served by the second post of the week. For any given subject, there were enough readers to make it a viable subject. I have to choose my subjects more judiciously now.<\/p>\n<h3>Courting Controversy<\/h3>\n<p>GMs are an opinionated lot &#8211; we have to be, because part of the skill-set is the ability to appraise situations and formulate a response quickly. There are certain subjects that everyone has an opinion on, and these hot-button topics would probably generate a lot of submissions &#8211; and each would generate a lot of controversy. The current hot-button is racism in RPGs; before that it was Sexism in the RPG industry. Making either of those the subjects would undoubtedly attract a lot of content &#8211; but it would be very polarizing, and divisive, and &#8211; in the long run &#8211; I&#8217;m not convinced that these would be healthy subjects for the carnival. They are too reminiscent of the Edition Wars.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, there is a touchstone there &#8211; a good topic should call on bloggers to crystallize their thinking on a ubiquitous subject, and should be something on which everyone has an opinion. What is to be avoided are topics which are unduly polarizing, in which disagreement with whatever is posted leads to judgments of the author.<\/p>\n<h3>Seasonal Topics<\/h3>\n<p>At least 7 of the last 8 October blog carnivals have been related themed around Halloween. as though that were the only thing that happened that month. The problem is that most bloggers have only so many articles that fall under that umbrella, and once they&#8217;ve been written, that author is no longer a contributor to that carnival. If there was always fresh blood arriving in the parent organization, that&#8217;s all right; fresh blood brings new ideas, after all.<\/p>\n<p>If you have a new slant to offer, a seasonal topic can be a great idea. But seasonal topics require a bit more effort than other topics, or you will end up with people simply rolling their eyes and saying &#8220;not again&#8221; to themselves.<\/p>\n<h3>The Communication of Knowledge<\/h3>\n<p>Something that rarely seems to arise in the Blog Carnival are factually-oriented subjects. In fact, they seem to be rare in RPG blogging, generally. Yet, these are subjects that would be of use to a lot of GMs out there. What do you know about that I don&#8217;t, and how would that knowledge be useful in representing characters who know about the subject in an RPG? It could be leather-working, or how armor is fitted, or the basics of medieval defenses, or how long it takes to clear land, or dig holes, or any one of a vast number of topics. What traits to architects have in common, generally? What&#8217;s the social life of a beekeeper? The working week of a blacksmith, or a computer programmer? <em>You<\/em> may know about such things because you&#8217;ve done them in real life, but I haven&#8217;t, and so don&#8217;t know what you know. Heck, I don&#8217;t even <em>know<\/em> that I don&#8217;t know.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s why I visit sites like Quora regularly &#8211; I never know what I&#8217;ll learn next. That&#8217;s why I watch professionals &#8211; plumbers, electricians, etc &#8211; closely, whenever they enter my domestic orbit; I don&#8217;t know their profession, and the more I learn about it, the more realistically I can portray them in games.<\/p>\n<p>An article on the history or candle-making, or how prospectors identify mineral deposits, might be absolutely fascinating.<\/p>\n<h3>What I want to read more of<\/h3>\n<p>Hmm &#8211; it seems that I&#8217;ve found my way to answers to the question posed by Scot as the subject of this month&#8217;s carnival, as I had hoped.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Drop-in content<\/li>\n<li>Social subcultures<\/li>\n<li>Reference &#038; Educational material<\/li>\n<li>Stimulating subjects<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Heck, I&#8217;d love to see &#8220;Pick a past host of the Blog Carnival (not your own site) and write a review of a past month&#8217;s content when they <em>weren&#8217;t<\/em> hosting the blog carnival&#8221;. We could introduce each other to each other &#8211; and to our readers.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nOf course, it would be poor form for me not to point out a vested interest in the entire subject &#8211; Campaign Mastery is the host of <em>Next<\/em> month&#8217;s Blog Carnival. The subject will be &#8220;What we need is\/are more&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What does your current game not have enough of, and how can you correct that? One answer per campaign, please! Answers can be serious, or lighthearted; literal or, well, not.<\/p>\n<p>Possible examples: &#8220;What we need are more mice. What we need is more plot. What we need are more treasure tables. What we need are more Goblins. What we need are more elephants. What we need is more Magic. What we need are more players. What we need is more tapioca. And salsa. And corn chips. And Dip.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Of course, I&#8217;ll be posting a proper anchor post a little closer to the commencement date&#8230; consider this a sneak preview. But there&#8217;s a relevance to the current subject of discussion that can&#8217;t be ignored, either.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Blog Carnival for July 2020 is on the subject of &#8220;What Would You Like To Know?&#8220;, and is being hosted by Of Dice And Dragons. I actually find it easier to come up with topics for Carnivals than I do to answer this question. If I had to provide an answer to the question, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[74,221],"tags":[322,286],"series":[],"class_list":["post-28651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mike","category-opinion","tag-blog-carnival","tag-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1toiD-7s7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28651"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28651"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28655,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28651\/revisions\/28655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28651"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.campaignmastery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=28651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}