I teased some of my goals and plans for Extra Life 2022 in a previous post. Since I have done a bunch of free-range scribbling in my planning notebook, let’s take a slightly more detailed look at what I’m

Everything starts by scribbling ideas and plans into one of these, before I move on to digital alternatives.

thinking for this year. This post (which was originally a thread on Twitter) will help me see if I have everything in a good general order. Maybe it helps you with your own organizing, as a bonus.

The first thing I do when I’m planning is set out my goals. What do I want to get out of all this? What will success look like? My primary goals are:

1. Raise at least $3500 for Extra Life by the end of December 2022. Will I try for more? Of course! I would love to figuratively Scrooge McDuck into my pile of fundraising! But this is my target; if I hit other bullseyes as well, so much the better.
2. Involve a diverse range of creators and players from across the TTRPG community. After money raised, this is my most important goal. I want to showcase games by marginalized creators and I want vibrantly diverse casts of players showing them off. Period.
3. Have fun!! In the end, despite the cause and all the work that will go into this, I and everyone else I bring on board should have fun. That especially includes the audiences watching! Entertained people donate, so I want them entertained!
4. Learn to do my own streaming tech by the November 5th Game Day. I need to learn this stuff so I can set up my own charity streams and be able to host other folks if they need it. My planned series of events will let me become more comfortable with OBS and everything else, so I should be able to handle the tech when the November Game Day rolls around. I may still get some help, but it will feel good to not be reliant on it.

Those are my four main goals for this year’s fundraising drive. One big main goal, a mandate to achieve while working on the main goal, and two smaller, easily achievable goals which support the first two goals. Sound good so far? Cool, on to next steps.

Next I needed the broad strokes of what events to run between now and the end of the year. I have two main dates already set out by Extra Life: August 19-22 (Tabletop Appreciation Weekend) and November 5 (Official Game Day). But I need events in between these dates. If I only ran events on those days, it would take a lot of extra work to build up and retain any potential audience for each. Of course there will be a big social media push around all of my events. But running some smaller, differently structured events can not only help me build an audience, but help retain them between the two major days.

I won’t bore you with the brainstorming and scribbled notes, but in general my schedule looks like this:

• JULY: Brent’s Birthday BASH!! July 22 – single session gladiator-like free-for-all
• AUGUST: 12 hour GMathon, Aug 20 or 21 – three sessions of four players each, GMed by me
• SEPTEMBER: Weekly streamed Solo RPGs – two hour-ish evenings of Indie Solo RPGs
• OCTOBER: As September, but spooky Solo RPGs!
• NOVEMBER: Game Day 16 hour GMathon, November 5 – as August, but four sessions
• DECEMBER: Nap. Like, a lot.

So it all kicks off on my birthday, allowing me the space to run and play an assortment of games (Goal #2), while I build my tech skills leading up to the big day in November (Goal #4). I also have dollar amounts I would like to hit between and during each of these events, which actually make me feel quite optimistic about my chances of hitting the overall goal by the end of the year (Goal #1). And by presenting a wide variety of things for folks to watch, I keep things fresh for me and potential viewers/donors over the six months.

That is my broad strokes plan for the rest of this year. It’s ambitious; it’s more than I have done in past years for sure. But if I am going to shoot for three and a half times the amount I usually fundraise, the folks donating deserve more from me than a wink and a smile (don’t worry, you’ll still get winks and smiles in abundance). I hope you’ll follow along and catch as much of it as possible. And hey, never too early to donate, right? And if you see my tweet linking to this post out in the wild, RTs are welcome and encouraged!

Any questions? Thoughts? Suggestions? Want to tell me I’m a mad fool? Fire away in the Comments or track me down on Twitter!