The Undeniable Value of Communities

Being a part of great communities is the easiest, and most impactful thing you can do to improve your creative life.

It’s been a little while! I had a thoroughly wonderful experience honeymooning in Amsterdam and Belgium, a thoroughly miserable experience being laid off from my job and starting to job search again, and, well, have become thoroughly addicted to the new Factorio Space Age expansion. Damn, it’s so good.

On top of all that though, I have still been trying to keep my creative work flowing. There hasn’t been much, to be fair, but what I am currently lacking in output I am more than making up for in input. I have been devouring more content than ever, reading more books, visiting mind blowing museums in Europe that gave me all sorts of devious ideas to throw at my players.

But most importantly, I’m a part of a few fantastic communities.

His Majesty, The Worm

This game is remarkable. It’s innovative, it’s fresh, every system within is meant to bring joy and it fully accomplishes that goal. Check it out here!

I’m a member (and volunteer administrator) for the Discord server for this game. It has been wonderful to see this community grow. For a new, niche game, it is a large, vibrant community that is always willing to help, always willing to contribute, and very collaborative.

One of the best things about Discord servers (or really, communities in general) for the TTRPG space is the amount of collaboration that tends to go on. I have heard wistful romantic retellings of the days of Google+ in the TTRPG space, and how much compelling work was done there and eventually published, and I am eager to proclaim that Discord is just as viable a place to collaborate. Members of this discord are creating new dungeons, new creatures, new character features and spells, and new items and toys to play with like a veritable Santa’s Workshop. They are also collaborating to convert other megadungeons and content from other system into His Majesty the Worm’s system specifics.

The creative output of the members here honestly brings me joy, and some other, less intuitive emotions - some kind of gratitude for being present for it, optimism for the future where these people are doing good work, even a strange sadness that there is a limited time in this world to see these things happening.

Come join us, it’s worth it.

The New School Revolution

The other community that I make the absolute most use out of is the New School Revolution Discord. Similar to the OSR, but more inclusive of different types of gaming, the New School Revolution encompasses too many types of games to be strictly defined. What is clear, however, is that it is a collection of some of the most prolific and talented creators out there, including Yochai Gal (who originated the server), Chris McDowall, the creator of the wide-spanning Bastionland and Into the Odd and it’s various Oddlikes, Joshua McCrowell of the aforementioned His Majesty the Worm, and so so many others whose works I am not yet cool enough to have consumed and been consumed by.

But apart from these giants of the hobby, every member of that Discord is eager and willing to answer question and help you create new experiences in the hobby. There are channels for all sorts of types of games (although nobody is too much a stickler about what goes where!), they have channels where cool links and blog posts are shared (an invalauble resource for me, a gold mine),

Find Many, Make Some

Go forth and find communities to participate in for this hobby. It will make you better, and you can make it better. You will, I am certain, find the joy and value in it that I have.