Nerd Watching: Why I Hate Blogs
The Reason
I know that’s a bold statement in the title. I can explain it very simply though. Self-importance and an inability to gain perspective.
As much as I’d love to leave it at that and call it an early day, I think Yax would get mad at me. Therefore, I will explain further. Most blogs are written by folks who think their audience cares about the minutiae of the blogger’s character, campaign, weekend plans or cats. The truth is the audience only cares about one thing, is it interesting? Campaigns, cats and all the other stuff bloggers write about can be interesting but many of us lose the ability to distinguish which personal stories are interesting and which are self-indulgent. There’s a simple reason for this.
Expy the dragon’s hot link of the week:
E at Geek’s Dream Girl has produced a fantastic five-part series of character seeds using ideas our of Arcane Power. Check it out!
The Problem
If you put any piece of work in front of a large enough audience something interesting will happen. There will be a small portion of them who think that your work is the greatest thing to grace the world in the whole of human history (Lets call them Group A). There will also be a small portion of them who think that your work is the worst thing wrought by human hands and purged before you pollute the gene pool (We’ll call them Group B). That is just something that comes with the territory of producing any creative work. To get a fair appraisal of your work, you need to throw away these outliers and judge the more moderate opinions of the remainder of the group. Sadly, this is much easier said than done.
There are two main tools I have available to know my audience. First, the little box on the side of the website says that we have 4315 readers at the time I’m writing this. Second, the comments left on my articles. The most commented one has 45 comments, not exactly a huge chunk of that 4315. Additionally, most comments don’t address the article directly but rather talk about their own experience related to the article. So if a blogger like myself wants to know what his audience thinks about his work he or she ends up listening to those most vocal about it, Group A and Group B.
If you listen to Group B, you are not going to be a blogger very long. It is very hard to stay motivated to continue working on a free blog if you listen to the people who trash your labor no matter what you do. So you should listen to Group A, right? They will provide you warm fuzzy feelings that inspire you to keep going. Well, there is a flaw in that plan. If you keep listening to Group A, you will quickly become convinced that your audience gives a toss about you. They don’t. Your audience cares about interesting things, which personal stories and rants might be but often are not. The more moderate audience you have doesn’t care about how high your sorcerer got the will save DC on his enchantment spells or about the bagel you had this morning. If you keep listening to Group A, who tell you that all your work is great, it will make your audience happy. It will also make Group A your entire audience.
The Solution
So basically when you blog you do so in the dark. When someone tells you that your writing is sad that it makes puppies explode, you just have to take it in stride. Likewise, when someone tells you that your words are potent enough to cure blindness and bring about world peace, you can enjoy it but don’t let it go to your head. You need to trust your intuition about quality and your audience. Personally, I believe my audience wants something interesting and helpful that they can read through one bloodshot eye over their morning coffee. So why I am writing all this?
I want to hear from Group C!
I want to hear honest criticisim and hopefully some honest praise. There are thousands of you quiet lurkers out there. it is time to make yourselves heard. What do you want from the blog? What do you like and not like in gaming sites? I even want to show the bad bloggers how it is done and hear some interesting cat stories!
So how about it guys and gals? It is time to talk back!
loading...
Arete
*claps hands*
Balls man, balls hahahah!
I agree to a point. It depends on your blogging goals, some people keep blogs as a personal journal, others blog for influence, others money, others just to share. So if you’re blogging for money or influence then yes I agree, if it’s for fun as a personal journal or just to share ideas once in awhile then anything goes, you become your own audience and if you can find like minded fans then kick ass, bonus!
But as I said I agree, one thing I hate to death is the dreaded rant, edition wars specifically…. At least personal stories and the like are easy to ignore but rants are there purely for bait. This post is borderline ranting but the difference is you offer a solution. A rant followed by a solution is a rarity.
I guess I fall into group C, and I’m a very new member!
I started playing D&D about 2 months ago, as a direct result of reading someone else’s blog (Wil Wheaton’s). I went out and bought the books and set about persuading my friends to play. They figured that I probably had the best handle on it all, and I quite liked the idea so I became DM.
Rather than buying a published adventure and reading that to them, I set about writing my own. Because I’m a kind of obsessive perfectionist, I started reading. A lot.
So, from my point of view, what I’m looking for here is a kind of mixture of different things.
I haven’t gotten around to trying out the tools, but they look handy (generally, to start with I like to do everything myself from scratch, just so I know I definitely understand how it works). I’ve read a few of the articles and gotten a vague idea of the kinds of things I need to be thinking about and I think some of those have already helped my campaign.
I want to see the odd idea for traps, skill challenges (they are really hard to write!) and dugeons. Tips on how to make my own maps (I used illustrator and was really pleased with the result, but there’s a huge amount of room for improvement). Interesting tactics for mundane monsters, stuff like that.
Interspersed in all that though, I still like to see some of the personal stuff – for me it helps me to connect with the people whose stuff I’m reading, after all, Wil’s blog isn’t a D&D blog, but if he hadn’t posted about the PA game he played, or the campaign he started with his son, my interest probably wouldn’t have been piqued.
One of the things I have picked up from reading various blogs though, is that if you’re not writing the stuff that YOU want to, it gets old pretty fast…
Oh man, I could riff on this all day. However, I will make the following observations based on my patch of the blogosphere before tackling the garden from hell in an attempt to turn it into a gamer’s garden where we game outdoors while the plants provide food, drink and aesthetically pleasing environment. The following has become apparent since I started the blog experiment.
1. It’s never what you think that draws the big spikes in visits. I did a recent post on audio drama and
it’s relationship to gaming – it’s one of the most visited pages so far on the blog.
2. Sometimes it’s OK for your feedback to say nothing. Now this points to one of two things:
a) I am the most awesome blogger ever and people are stunned by my brilliance (hmmm).
b) Readers haven’t felt the need to comment, possibly due to disinterest or time.
3. I’m not writing for huge audiences yet. Right now, I’m working on polishing my writing, jump-off
points for various games and seeing how they tick and doing advice/enabling pieces on stuff
that people find typically difficult. And while I’m not pulling in hordes of readers, I have readers from
Seattle to Palmerston North with readers on every continent except Antarctica and in my home town.
Which suits me fine, for now…
Now, what do I think about what you want to do?
1. Go back to the beginning. Remember why you started this and what you were doing.
2. Look at what’s worked well for you in the past and do more of that.
3. Post about what moves you. Have you been moved lately?
The instant campaign builder made me put this site into my feed reader and thats what I am looking for. Solid advice on efficient dungeon mastering. Maybe a bit less theory (How to organizie yourself etc.) and more actual gaming stuff would be nice. I would love to read about an encounter setup that worked very well, for example.
I personaly could live without reviews of products everyone has anyway (Most of the wotc stuff), it is easy to get a feeling if these books are worth it, but what about 3rd party stuff? I think it’s hard to find honest opinions of those products, as many publishers seem to have fans.
… back to lurking, I guess :)
I think I fall solidly in group C.
I game once every two weeks alternated by a night for painting minis. I have barely begun to get full use of 3.5 stuff I own, much less cracked the spine of 4e stuff I now own. I’ve done research on gaming as well but my career has gone a different track than research academia so even though I love gaming and am a die hard gamer, I don’t have the life space I’d probably like gaming to have in it.
Your ideas about blogs are spot on. I have often thought about starting one focused on games, game research etc. and my take on the gaming world but thankfully I catch myself because I know I won’t keep up on it at this time in my life and I know I won’t have enough things to say about gaming that are interesting without more gaming in my life.
I like your blog for the following reasons:
1. Delivery. It comes to my email making me more likely to read it, but it’s the only one I”ve subscribed to so it doesn’t get lost in a flood of blog update emails. I don’t understand RSS or how they work and so don’t use them.
2. Interesting variety. I like the variety you provide from tips on how to run a game or get organized to reviews of new stuff to new ideas. I find them interesting. I’ve liked some of the recent ones with direct game ideas.
3. Keeps me connected. I don’t game enough or get to talk games enough most of the time. Your blog keeps me in the loop without overwhelming me as I’ve experienced by going to some of the many fan sites and discussion boards.
4. KISS. You keep it simple with short, to the point, articles that get me thinking or are easy to digest. I don’t have to get lost trying to wade through pages of random garbage as in a discussion board.
5. Sense of humor. You have a nice balance of being funny without ridiculous. You don’t take yourself too seriously, but you don’t get lost in hyperbole either.
Keep it up!!!
I think it was for this reason that I disabled comments on my personal blog. Sometimes they’re great, sometimes not. I think the best way to handle group B is just to moderate them out. Most of the time they’re just seeking attention and when they don’t get it, they go away.
I really like the blog, my only real complaint is that you never seem to give anything a bad review, making your reviews significantly less useful.
I think you found a way to get group C the most vocative :)
In my case, the two main reasons why I nearly never comment is time and an interesting opinion. A family with two kids and a very demanding job make it difficult for me to start commenting daily on the 7 or 8 rpg blogs that I follow. Furthermore, I prefer not to say anything if I haven’t anything useful to say. That makes it easier for my fellow readers to find worthy stuff in their mailboxes or RSS feeds.
That being said, have you ever thought of adding a voting feature to your posts? That way, you’ll easily see which posts average out to be interesting to your readers, and which don’t. It’s a lot faster and les intimidating for people with serious time constraints or stage fear to give you feedback.
Personally, I prefer to see tips on game mastering (both theoretical and practical), or interesting ideas for encounters, monsters, enemies, and plots. What I dislike are lengthy reports on play sessions (I can get by just fine with the lessons learned from them) or too many product reviews. Especially the D&D 4E adoration that’s going on these days bothers me; there’s way too much 4E focus with respect to other editions or games if you ask me.
@ Nicholas: Good job! This was really helpful. It’s funny how some of my favorite articles have flopped, while the ones that made me go ‘meh’ turned out to be popular. Occupational hazard, I guess. (2d8 psychic damage, save ends)
*silently hits delete on upcoming article, ’5 Ways My Cat Will Destroy You’*
@ Kingtharg – C: I’ve noticed the same thing about my reviews. They are mostly positive. I do try to point out the good and the bad about the products I review. So far I’ve been really fortunate and haven’t gotten a sucky product — but TRUST me, if something sucks, I will call it like I see it. :)
Hrm. I can’t say I disagree, but Kaeosdad had it right: your goals as a blogger inform your decisions on what and how to write.
To be honest, I don’t read most of the articles that come from dungeonmastering because I’m generally out to improve my game. Fluffy, “lighter-side-of” articles generally aren’t going to help me get there. It appears that dungeonmastering is one of the most widely-enjoyed websites of its type around, though, so there are plenty of readers who just want a chuckle.
I’ve also found that posting useful information can even encourage fewer comments—every time I post a critter or a killer encounter on my site my traffic spikes and I see that people are going in and grabbing the PDFs, but I almost never get any comments on them. I’m sure it depends on the type of information, though.
Anyway, I certainly took the bait this time around, didn’t I? :)
I would say that the reason the C group doesn’t comment, unlike the A or B groups, is because while they might appreciate and like the blogger and his/her posts, they don’t have a passion for it like group A or B. A large lurker audience, I would suggest, would better indicate how well the blog is going, because 90% of those quiet types wouldn’t hang around if they didn’t find the blog interesting.
Actually, 100% wouldn’t hang around if they didn’t find it interesting. I’d say 90% find it favorable, and like it, the other 10% probably don’t like what the blogger is saying but hang around just to see what gets posted next.
I’d consider myself group C. And one of the reasons I don’t really comment is becasue I read the content on my RSS reader. Just to lazy to click there to add a comment to it. And really, usually a comment from the group C of course will only come if they have a certain strong enough opinion on what is written or if they feel they have something to add (or correct).
But since you asked so nicely, here’s a reply :)
Nicholas,
The problem with blogging unlike any other “mass” communication medium is that:
1) They’re a niche by default (i.e. no one would come to this blog if they weren’t interested in D&D/RPGs but the same applies to any other topic).
2) Given the nature of the interwebs you’re gonna get a lot guilty-by-association. Very, very few blogs are worth reading. Sometimes you search for a D&D blog on Google and some results come up with blogs that are no longer maintained, blogs from people who obviously failed grammar and spelling in elementary school. So unless someone is really motivated to find a good blog chances are people are going to assume that most blogs in the genera are the same.
3) In brand-based niches such as the D&D world you have to deal with the “mother ship.” In this case have to give your readers an excuse to read this blog as opposed to getting the info directly from WotC.
Now, would I call this blog/site a blog? Absolutely not. IMO, It’s a website in blog format (i.e. with collaborators and writers) which is not that different that, say, a newspaper’s website. Of course, you don’t have the renown or ubiquity of a newspaper, but the same fundamentals apply.
Peace.
I’m absolutely in group “C”, habitually.
I very rarely comment.
For a blog called dungeon mastering some of your articles seem more about being a fan than helping other DM’s do their thing. I’m thinking more campaign ideas. Ideas for rooms/encounters of peril. Ideas for new classes/powers/items, soliciting people for comments/votes on if the new widget is too powerful, too weak or just right… Now THAT would be fun!
The tools are great, but without content they are nigh useless. Let us create and share cards in the tools (this might mess with your premium version, maybe only allow premium users to access the database of cards?)
Your interviews are generally spot on. Funny, entertaining, and asking questions that are relevant.
Bring the whole 4th ed community forward into the homebrew opportunities that 4th edition so generously affords. More straight forward system, easier customization!
You said you wanted to know what we thought!
A brave post Nicholas or are you fishing for comments + ). I’ve always enjoyed Dungeonmastering, it was the first D&D blog I found. However, I’m not 100% sure what the focus of the blog is other than D&D. The topics of the various posts tend to range and on a weekly basis I can’t say I see any continuity with topics.
To use the blog I run with Ameron Dungeon’s Master as an example, we feel we’re addressing a need in the gaming community. We looked at what Wizards of the Coast was providing through Dungeon & Dragon magazines and thought “Hey, we can do that, and we can do it daily rather than monthly.” So that’s been our focus and over the last three months the blog has taken off. Many of our articles don’t get a lot of comments as they are skill challenges and perhaps don’t draw the community into conversation. However, we feel they provide a useful service to the community in the form of a plug and play resource for the DM. We don’t do many reviews, we let the other blogs do that, instead we focus on what we have a passion for. Debating rules, talking about the game and providing solid resources for players and DM’s alike.
Personally I find many of the articles on Dungeonmastering hit and miss. But I also find that with all the D&D blogs, which is why I subscribe to over a dozen of them (plus the RPG Blogger feed). I want the different opinions and the variety. No one blog will provide me with what I need every day and I recognize that to be true about Dungeon’s Master. We aren’t going to address everyone’s needs, instead we’re going to continue to focus on our original goals with a touch of reader feedback added in.
So I guess if I have feedback for you that’s it, stay true to the original goals of the blog and keep plugging away at it. You’ll know it’s good because your subscriber numbers will stay high or grow and as a blogger that’s all the feedback you really need.
While you normally write some pretty good articles, some of them seem to be simply praising the new book’s that are out. Take all sides. There’s still people out there who don’t like 4th ed, or the current direction of WotC, give some time to their views or talk about what you don’t like about this book or that map.
A lot of your articles are also simply listing random facts or monsters from 4th ed. and while that’s fun and all, the site is called Dungeon Mastering, not random D&D lists. Give some more guides to DMing, or talk about why you DM, or how you DM. Lists are great for making the front page of digg, but that doesn’t really seem to be the point of the site.
None of this is to say your site’s bad. I’m subscribed and read most articles (minus those Sunday quizes). Just keep up the good work and most importantly, do what you want to do. There’s no point in blogging unless you’re enjoying it.
It’s also hard to get people’s responses to the article when you end it with stuff like
“Are you eager to get a familiar? Do you think they add to the game, or are they just annoying? Tell us what you think!”
That seems to imply that you want to hear people’s opinions and experiences of the subject, not comments of the worth of the article.
Awesome feedback. I’m loving it.
@ theinternetisbig:
You will soon be able to share monster cards on our tools website and it’s going to be part of the free account features: http://tools.dungeonmastering.com
And everything else will follow after that, shared items, traps, etc.
And there’s a couple of surprise features in the works too.
@ Zif “While you normally write some pretty good articles, some of them seem to be simply praising the new book’s that are out. Take all sides”
:) This was my point a few weeks ago, but you put it so much more eloquently than I did. I made an arse of myself and I apologized to Yax and nick for my unbecoming comment. However, this is a question I always ask myself as a reader, again, not just of this site but ANY other site I frequent.
@ Zif It’s also hard to get people’s responses to the article when you end it with stuff like
“Are you eager to get a familiar? Do you think they add to the game, or are they just annoying? Tell us what you think!”
That seems to imply that you want to hear people’s opinions and experiences of the subject, not comments of the worth of the article.”
This bothers me as well. I call them “Cosmo” questions as in “Cosmopolitan” magazine. Not only they are a bit rhetorical but they just sound very superficial.
@Yax Aren’t those tools already available from WotC in some for or another? i’m just sayin’ you guys might be putting in a lot of work on a seldom-used feature of the web site.
@theinternetisbig For those I usually troll Jonathan Drain’s d20 website. That guy can make some nice maps, traps and such.
Peace.
Although our site doesn’t have near the traffic of Dungeonmastering I’ve noticed that a few of the same things.
Group A doesn’t seem to say much on our site (I hope that’s not a bad sign!).
Group B tends to leave a comment or two and then vanish.
I’ve noticed that comments and traffic seem to stem from very one-sided, opinionated posts and not the kinds of articles I tend to write. I’d also say that the majority of blogs out there are just “my opinion” blogs and not really all that interesting to me. There are several though that are not only interesting but truly useful to gamers of all sorts.
For me I’ve just kept the focus on writing about what I want to write about. I use my weekly game to illustrate examples for my topic du jour, and make sure that when I’m expressing my personal opinion I’m clear that it is my opinion only. As far as other blogs go I rarely read them and almost never comment (this being the obvious exception).
I’ve enjoyed your work and especially like your DM Tolls, keep it up.
I like to see IDEAS, personally, which you can find in many blogs? I have never actually blogged but written the odd article for roleplayingtips.com, free and highly recommended newsletter, if you haven’t seen it? As someone commented above, ideas for traps,. spells, plotlines, characters, campaigns etc are always fun? Opinions, unless constructiuve, are less welcome?
This is also one of my favourite sites, by the way; it forms a way of getting into Roleplaying when you can’t always find a game? Although I am finding less use for the Tools than most, as I am an old Reactionary 1e Merchant, or other Old Schoolish games? The site is great though, for Pete’s sake keep it up!
@Toord: I know the tools meet a need because I created them for myself.
@everyone: Thanks again for the feedback!
@zif: It’s true that we always end our articles with a Cosmo-like “what do you think everyone?” Don’t blame the writers for that – it’s something I force them to do. Believe it or not it works. Having a “call to action” increases the number of comments – and comments really make articles more worthwhile.
@Yax: I’ve got nothing against doing that, I think it’s a great way to get people talking about the subject. I just think that’s it’s hard to get people to “address the article directly” if you end with those bits. Regardless, you’ve got a great site going. Thanks for all your work and your desire to make it even better.
I like your site, a lot. However I don’t comment a lot since I rarely get a chance to play D&D during the school semester so I don’t read that much about D&D during that time period. Usually when I do decide to read some articles I do so in large bursts, and I feel pretty silly about commenting on entries that are more than a week old. Since usually by that time the post is either forgotten as the next new shiny post has come along and discussion has all but stopped. Then again some people refer to older posts so it’s not true in all cases.
Keep up the entertaining, thought provoking work. Oh and thank you so much for introducing me to Obsidian Portal.
@Redhobbit: All comments on my posts get sent to my email so I see them no matter how old they are. It is fun to see which articles still draw comments. We still get some comments on the “Share you D&D Knowledge and Win” contest from March 08
New browser of the site.. only just found you yesterday via obsidianportal which I just found during the weekend.
anyhuw back on topic… Often I do not comment a blog as I rarely have much to add. For me leaving a comment “yay nice work!” doesn’t appeal to me just like leaving “dude, that sucks” doesn’t appeal to me. If I’m to leave a comment I want it to be worthwhile to read and maybe even add a perspective to the general topic of the blog. Sharing experiences can provide a new perspective, offering a different view of the topic can do the same. If I find the blog interresting I read it, I don’t neccesarily comment it. However if I find it useful and it helped me with something somehow I am more likely to comment on that.
A rating tool on blogs would actually be a good idea as another commenter wrote above somewhere. Easy to click X stars or wands and you dont have to wrack your brain about writing something that isn’t a total waste of another readers time. Essentially the thoughts you have about writing your blogs, are also the thoughts going thro my mind about leaving a comment, maybe at a lesser scale but the essence is there.
I have no idea what to expect from this site just yet, so what I want I do not know at present time ;)
but am in the midst of browsing the campaign builder pdf and that is something I like to find and browse, leaching on other creative minds :D
cheers