RPG Evolution - Looking Back on My Goals for 2021: Ouch

With the year just about over, it's an opportunity to look back on my 2021 New Years' resolutions and see just how much I can disappoint myself.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

Crowdfunding (Success!)​

I pledged to stop crowdfunding anything that caught my fancy and I stuck to that pledge. On Kickstarter, I backed my favorite artist who creates character portraits, my friend's Crafty Quest box to introduce kids to role-playing elements, 3D-printable puzzles and props for cosplay and gifts, and d20 fidget spinners. On Indiegogo, I backed the SCP art books and was happy with the end result. Overall, I backed products because I believed in the creator or would genuinely use the end result, and I'm much happier with my crowdfunding investments as a result.

Diversifying the CAR-PGA (Success!)​

I'm the Chair of the Committee for the Advancement of Role-Playing Games Association, and one of our goals has been to increase our membership. We're doing it, one person at a time, by inviting speakers to our monthly virtual panels, which we record and share on our YouTube channel. We've had everyone from Jon Peterson, author of Game Wizards, to Steve Jackson, of Steve Jackson Games. We're getting there -- we'll be producing an Annual Report to show our growth towards the CAR-PGA's goals.

Finish My Star Wars Campaign (Failed)​

An entire year went by and we didn't make any progress on this, at least in part due to the pandemic. That's a recurring theme.

Print More Miniatures & Terrain (Failed)​

This was a good idea, but when you’re not playing in person there isn’t much point. One of my printers broke and was in the shop for a few months, so that impaired my progress too. But mostly my printers get into gear for Halloween and print non-stop creating gifts for the holidays. Until I have an in-person campaign, I’m not going to make much progress on this front.

Play In-Person (Failed 2x)​

See above. My daughter is vaccinated now so we're making incremental progress, but not as quickly as I hoped. I did play with my kids a bit, but we're all busy these days and I didn’t play with them nearly as much as I would have liked. The one campaign we did play turned into my setting, 5E RPG: Academy Adventures.

Appreciate Players​

It's hard to judge this one. I try to value and cherish my online players as much as possible and send them gifts to show I care for their birthdays and on holidays. I was happy to support and spread the word about Jasper's Game and the Role-Playing Game Creators Relief Fund. Ultimately, I leave that to my players.

My 2021 Score: 30%​

So how did I do? Of my seven goals, I succeeded on two of them. Yikes. A large chunk of this was due to optimism on my part that the pandemic would be over. I suspect I’m not alone on that front.

In my next article I’ll lay out my plans for 2022. They will not be nearly as optimistic this time.

Your Turn: Please tell me you did better on your goals for 2021 than I did!

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I'm still at time in my life where things move so much from month to month that I hardly ever attain the goal I set myself at the start of the year, but I end up in a different and unexpected place with plenty else to show.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I don't remember any of the goals I made at the beginning of the year. But I can see now that I am in a much different place than where I started. And I acquired a lot of new stuff; things I've been holding off buying, or finally able to locate a rare item for a decent price.

And, I finally got one of these bad boys:

It's not a toy if it's Black Series, right? An adult, I am. Thank my wife, I have.

Also, I have one goal ready for 2022: put this monster together/find a place to keep it.)

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Not that anyone in this thread is asking for advice on how to reach the goals they set (and what I’m about to say is not new), so take this with a big grain of salt, but I’ve found I’m much better at achieving the goals I set when I make my goals SMART. So:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time Bound

Doing that makes it much easier to know exactly what you want to achieve and by when. Vague ideas with no deadlines inevitably lead to me not progressing them at all as I can always do them “later”.

The other thing that helped was then breaking the big goals down into small, manageable tasks with their own deadlines. Again, none of this is new or groundbreaking, but it definitely works.

My goals this year were mainly about improving my health and I did a pretty good job of that.

I managed to go from 95kg at the end of August 2020 to 68kg by April 2021. Since then I’ve maintained that weight while gaining muscle and losing fat by joining the gym and lifting weights for the first time in my life. I managed to rock up consistently 4-5 times per week for 9 months. So I’m pretty proud of that.

This coming year I’d like to see if I can get a 6-pack (just to see if I can) and build more muscle.

Gaming-wise I’d like to become more engaged as a player in our current campaign. I’ve felt like I’ve been phoning it in the last few months, so I need to stop doing that and get fully engaged again.

I’ve just got a 3D resin printer, so I want to print and paint some minis with that.

I also want to play or run a few different systems and run some games for my kids.

So nothing too big, but still goals to aim for nonetheless.

 

[jasper]

46 in person sessions success.
over 100 books read success
over $2k spend on gaming fail

 

[Superfreak666]

I succeeded, because I am still alive. I am fighting stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer. As long as I am alive I am succeeding. I suppose for 2022 I am looking to play in a long term D&D campaign. Also, surviving 2022 is on the list too.

Good luck to you in your continued fight against cancer, and thank you for posting and sharing this about yourself. It really helped remind me to put things in proper perspective at just the time I needed it.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

Good luck to you in your continued fight against cancer, and thank you for posting and sharing this about yourself. It really helped remind me to put things in proper perspective at just the time I needed it.

Yep, stuff like that makes a lot of other stuff fade into insignificance very quickly.

Keep fighting Rafael.

 

[talien]

I succeeded, because I am still alive. I am fighting stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer. As long as I am alive I am succeeding. I suppose for 2022 I am looking to play in a long term D&D campaign. Also, surviving 2022 is on the list too.

Thank you for sharing your story Rafael, it really puts things in perspective. Sending good thoughts your way for 2022!

 

[overgeeked]

My goals for the year were:

Survive. Success so far. I think. Unless this is all a simulation or overly-elaborate LARP. 1/1.

Get vaccinated. Partial success. First two done but boosters are weirdly hard to schedule and get so far. Assuming 3 is the right number of COVID shots to have now 2/3.

Take care of my family. Partial success. My wife works at a hospital. Ex-wife works at a hospital. Kid has issues. Brothers and their families are scattered and weird. One parent down, one to go. 1/2.

Not go crazy. Iffy at best. 0.25/1.

Total: 4.25/7. So about 60%. Not bad considering how basic the goals were.

 

[Henry]

I succeeded, because I am still alive. I am fighting stage 4 metastatic prostate cancer. As long as I am alive I am succeeding. I suppose for 2022 I am looking to play in a long term D&D campaign. Also, surviving 2022 is on the list too.

Rafael, bless you and stay strong. I hope 2022 continues on the same track for you.

 

[pogre]

Well, here is what I wrote for gaming goals on December 28, 2020:

• Build more impressive terrain.

Success! You can see my latest over at Pogre's 2022 Miniature and Model Thread

• Finish painting the load of historicals for the French and Indian War game I bought (Musquets & Tomahawks). Mostly fur trappers and French regulars left.

Mostly a success, but I was gifted a large number more models to paint and have not touched those.

• Do more creative stuff than just painting - do more sculpting, fancy hand outs, extensive fantasy maps, etc.

Mostly a failure. I did do some calligraphy for some handouts, but mostly failed on this goal.

• Paint the last few figures of historicals for Dark Ages - just a few Vikings left.

Yep - got 'em done.

• Have a D&D campaign ready - so I can hit the ground running when we can play in person again.

Yep, every Sunday for four hours.

• Keep my weekly Zoom WFRP campaign going.

Not really. We switched over to Traveller and have been playing that weekly.

• Expand my gaming circle. I have a great group of friends, and I am blessed with a good pool of players, but I like meeting and getting to know new people. Obviously, this one will have to wait a bit until face to face gaming is much safer.

Obviously, I pretty much hang out and play with the same group of folks due to Covid concerns. I am scheduled to go to my first small convention at the end of January. However, if they do not shut it down I don't know if I will be brave enough to go with the current surge.