Extra Life

Solo Saturday Part Two!

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Dorklord_Canada_Logo_Wht_BG_Lo-Res.jpg-01This past Saturday was Solo Saturday the First! By every metric I care about it was a rousing success: folks came by and engaged, I had returning viewers, some of the creators dropped by at various points, money was donated to Extra Life, I got new followers, and I played four excellent games. It was a great day!

It was also my first stream as a newly minted Twitch Affiliate, which was fun. I still have to poke around my channel and figure out all the bells and whistles. But that’s something for me to pull together over the next several weeks.

But it definitely went well enough that I’m going ahead with Part Two this coming Saturday, November 26, at 10am MST/Noon EST.

Games!

Finishing out my Extra Life Game Day line-up, I have four games on the schedule (all times MST):

In between games I’ll also talk about Extra Life, chat about TTRPGs in general, and talk with chat. But while I am talking with chat there will also be…

Prizes!

This is the one thing I forgot to do last Saturday! Every two-hour block I’ll run a giveaway for a $10 gift card for DriveThruRPG. You must be in chat to win, and if there is no winner in a block, I’ll add $10 to the next block’s gift card. No purchase or donation necessary, just be in chat and be willing to share your email address with me so I can send your gift card.

That’s it! Swing by and enjoy some great games next Saturday, follow the links and pick up the games and play along!

Solo Saturday!

/ Renaissance Gamer / 1 Comment

Tomorrow, starting at 10am MST/Noon EST, I am playing eight hours of Solo TTRPGs in support of Extra Life! There will also be chatting, and prize giveaways, and stuff.

“Oo, stuff! Tell us more about the Stuff, Brent!” I will, I promise, but let’s take things in order.

Games!

Picking up from where I left off in my Extra Life Game Day line-up, I have four games on the schedule for tomorrow (all times MST):

In between games I’ll also be talking about Extra Life, chatting about TTRPGs in general, and talking with chat. But while I am talking with chat there will also be…

Prizes!

Every two-hour block I’ll run a giveaway for a $10 gift card for DriveThruRPG. You must be in chat to win, and if there is no winner in a block, I’ll add $10 to the next block’s gift card. No purchase or donation necessary, just be in chat and be willing to share your email address with me so I can send your gift card.

“But Brent, what about the Stuff? We want the STUFF!”

Stuff!

20221029_142353As promised, let’s talk about The Stuff. A few weeks ago I cleaned up all of my loose dice and put them back in a large candy jar I use to store them, pictured here. There are a lot of dice in there, in fact there are…actually, why don’t you tell me? Check out this post on Twitter for entry details and the Prize pack. Some pretty sweet indie TTRPGs up for grabs, so don’t miss out!

That’s it! I hope to see you tomorrow on stream and as always, feel free to drop an Extra Life donation if you are so inclined.

New Plan!

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Logo for Extra Life fundraisingOkay, so last Saturday was Extra Life Game Day and my plan to stream Solo TTRPGs went amazing!

For the first six hours. Then a migraine showed up and ruined the party for everyone.

Obviously this bummed me out for a bit. But I am not one to roll over and give up. So I have come up with a new plan! I’m going to break up the remaining 18 hours of streaming I promised to do over this Thursday, and the last two Saturdays of November, with the usual Thursday night shenanigans thrown in. It’s going to look something like this:

Thursday, November 10

Thursday, November 17

Saturday, November 19 (all times MST)

Thursday, November 24

  • 6pm MST/8pm EST: TBD

Saturday, November 26 (all times MST)

That’s the new plan! Hopefully spreading it out will make it less likely another migraine intrusion will occur. And I think it gives more folks the chance to stop by and catch games they want to check out. And of course, hopefully donate to Extra Life, which is the reason I’m doing all this in the first place.

I’ll tweet out the games and times much like I did last time. I hope you’ll stop by if you can!

Solo Plans for Extra Life

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Logo for Extra Life fundraisingWhile my summer plans for Extra Life faltered, my fall plans are going strong! As I laid out in my plan, September and October I am streaming evenings of solo TTRPGs. Some games I have played before, some are new to me, but it’s just going to be me, the game, and chat. I plan to keep things pretty relaxed so I’ll have time to talk and answer questions.

What games am I playing? Well, September’s lineup looks something like this:

Right now I’m shooting for every Thursday at 6pm MST. That may change depending on, well, life. Streams shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours; a little chatting to catch up, welcome folks in, then jump into the game for a bit, say my goodbyes and get. Not only will these be my first streamed solo TTRPGs, but this will be my first solo livestreams ever. To say I’m a little nervous is an understatement, but I had a good teacher so I’m confident I can pull these off with no more chance of calamity than any other new streamer.

And of course these are all to support Extra Life, so I hope folks will swing by to say hello and drop a few dollars for a good cause. And October will be more of the same, except all of October’s games are horror or supernatural themed, as befits the Halloween month. Who knows, I might even get in costume for the stream nearest All Hallow’s Eve if the spirit moves me. Donations would, of course, get my spirit to move me a great deal.

That’s my plan! I hope you’ll come by and cheer me on, maybe hang out and/or make a small donation. I plan to have fun so I hope you come watch!

Extra Magic for Extra Life

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Logo for Extra Life fundraisingDonate $10 through my Extra Life page and I’ll make that $10 work forever.

Let me explain. (If you want to skip my meandering and hear the plan, scroll down to The Plan, below)

I was mulling over copy for my Extra Life tweets and emails and I remembered those tweets that usually go something like, “…if everyone who followed me donated just $1 I could hit my target of [X] today!” And I totally get where that messaging is coming from, even if I don’t think it’s effective. Partially because I don’t think guilting the folks you ask for help works all that well. But mainly because it isn’t an actionable request.

Look at my case with Extra Life. Sure, if there were some way to get each of my Twitter followers to part with $1, I would blow away my (in comparison) paltry goal of $3500 with ease. But there is no way for my followers to donate just a dollar. The lowest donation my EL page will accept is $5 because they need a useful minimum in order to keep costs down. And even if I could accept it, it doesn’t make sense for folks to donate that dollar since it will cost them more than a dollar on their end, either credit card or PayPal fees, to make the donation. The whole process would feel like a waste of time and money.

And let’s be real about my follower count for a second. I’m certain there are about twenty five hundred of my followers, plus or minus a hundred, who follow me for me. They have an idea of who I am, they’re into TTRPGs or something else I post about, and they are there for me as me, as much as they can be without having met me (I’m not counting irl friends in this, of course they know me for the whirling bastard I am and I love them for it). When my tweet blew up and went viral, initially there were then a bunch of folks who followed because they liked what I had to say in that tweet and followed me hoping for more (hopefully I haven’t disappointed them too much). But then the tweet reached critical mass and I started getting followers because other people were following and they didn’t want to miss out so they followed even though they didn’t really know what was going on at that point. I’m already shedding a lot of those followers and I expect that to continue.

So while it might appear that I have twenty thousand plus followers ready to serve my every dark whim, in effect I have probably a quarter of that number who pay any appreciable attention to me, and half of that number invested in some way in what I’m doing.

Muddled in with that thought, I started considering numbers. My goal this year is $3500. I feel good about that, and as of right now I am at $235, or roughly 6.7% of my goal. On my list of incentives I priced my lowest level incentive at $10, which gets the donor a special/magical item, created by me, for whatever game system they wish. I get a few details about what they have in mind, then I create something to fit their game/character. Extra Life gets $10, they get a cool item for their games, everyone is happy.

But only once.

The Plan

Okay, hear me out. What if, in addition to giving the magic item to the donor, I saved all the items I made for a particular year, collected them together in a single volume, and sold that volume with all proceeds going to Extra Life in perpetuity? My reasoning is two-fold. One, donating $10 once gets you a magic item, which is cool, but then also gets you the option to donate again and get access to the (potentially) 350 other items created that year, which I think is cooler. Two, doing this year after year would yield multiple volumes of excellent items, creating what would essentially be a passive donation stream for my Extra Life fundraising. Every quarter I would calculate the amount generated, post it here for transparency, and donate it to Extra Life.

So every December 31 I would gather up all the special/magical items I created, dump them in a PDF and ePub (for accessibility) and make them all pretty, then sell that collection through Itch. Maybe it’s pay what you can, maybe I set it at fair market value with community copies. But folks can then donate and take home a collection of rarities and oddities for their gaming table. I’m putting a hard cap of 350 on this because 350 times 10 is 3500, but also it seems a high but reasonable number of items to create.

So as I said at the top: Donate $10 through my Extra Life page and I’ll make that $10 work forever. Well, a reasonable portion of forever, anyway. Make sure to select the $10 incentive when you do, and follow the contact instructions so we can discuss the item you want. I am reasonably confident there are enough of you out there, maybe even 350, who would be willing to donate $10 if you knew that donation was going to keep on giving and you got something special in the bargain.

This in addition to all the Extra Life shenanigans already planned for this year, of course. As an update to those plans, there will be no public event on July 22, though I will encourage folks to donate that day as a birthday gift to me. Everything else is still in place. I’ve just added this extra little twist to help encourage donations.

Thoughts?

Planning for my Extra Life

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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

Extra Life Notebook

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!

Catching my Extra Life

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Logo for Extra Life fundraisingTen years ago I decided to take part in my first Extra Life. I didn’t consider it a huge step at the time. I had taken part in local fundraisers for various children’s charities, I figured doing something with games to help sick kids was a natural fit. That first year was a bit rough; EL wasn’t yet set up to include tabletop games so it took a bit of work to fit in. But I exceeded my modest goal of $250 and felt good enough that I did it again next year. And the next. And the next.

At some point I realized Extra Life was my new fundraising focus. It married two things I am passionate about: TTRPGs and helping sick kids.

Okay, quick story time. The year I started Grade 7 I came down with pretty severe Bronchopneumonia. It got its start during a canoe trip the summer before when I lent my rain gear to one of the other kids who hadn’t packed any. I was a big strong lad, I could handle canoeing in the rain, no harm done. Turns out, plenty of harm done. It started out mild and everyone attributed the symptoms to a combination of a summer cold and growing pains. Jump to a month into the school year when I had to go to the hospital because I passed out very suddenly during a volleyball practice. Woke up to a doctor telling my concerned parents that I would need to stay home for three months. Like, ‘indoors for three months’ kind of stay home.

I know, considering the isolation we’ve gone through the last two years, that doesn’t sound like a lot. But for 13-year-old Brent it was torture. Sure, I’m an introvert. But at the time I was a “go find a quiet place in the woods to read” sort of introvert. Plus, my friends’ parents were nervous about letting my friends come visit me, so I didn’t even have D&D and my other games to break the monotony. I read books, I kept up on my schoolwork, and I was oh so very bored. But I got better.

That in a nutshell is why I have a passion for helping out Extra Life and throw support to my local children’s hospital, The Stollery. I have been a sick kid and it absolutely sucks. But it would suck even more to not have the resources available to get better, to carry out necessary research into childhood disease, to receive long term care for much more serious conditions. If I can do something to help, if even one kid has a better outcome because I took some time to play games one day out of the year? That’s all the reason I need.

That’s they why, let’s talk a bit about the what, when, where, and who.

What: This is my tenth anniversary with Extra Life and I am going big! I have set an ambitious goal for myself. I’ve been happy to get around $1000 the last few years. This year I would like to reach $3500. Yes, you read that correctly, three and a half times my normal goal. I have some things planned to hit that goal, and you may get sick of hearing from me on social media. But I believe I can pull it off.

When: There are two big dates coming up. Official Game Day is November 5, and that’s the day I’ll be gaming for 24 hours. It gets a little tougher every year but I wouldn’t miss it for anything. But sooner than that, August 19-22 is Extra Life’s Tabletop Appreciation Weekend. I’m still working out the details, but IExtra-Life-Tabletop-2022-1536x864 would love to run some sort of BrentCon online that weekend, with myself and others running and playing TTRPGs on Discord. At the very least I would like to run a 12-hour streamed RPG-a-thon on the Saturday or Sunday. Stay tuned for details!

Where: Pretty much everything I have planned is going to take place online. I am still not in a position to produce anything for streaming, but I would love to connect with someone willing to do my tech for a few key events, just so I could raise my visibility a bit. And as I said earlier, you all are going to get sick of hearing about Extra Life on Twitter and Instagram. I make no apologies for that, but I do hope you’ll stick around and maybe take in some of the fun things I have planned.

Who: Well, me. And I plan to spend my Game Day playing games with Team Knifeshoes, as I have for so many years. But the most important “who” in all this is you. You and everyone else who donates, retweets, and helps spread the word. If you’ve given in the past or are planning to give for the first time or again this year, you have my deepest thanks. Without your generosity and the generosity of folks like you, this could not happen.

So that is a bit of my plan for Extra Life this year. If you would like to help me get a jump on things my donation page is live and has some fantastic incentives for a wide range of donation levels. I plan to add a few more in the coming weeks, trading editing work for various donation amounts. But I think what I have there is a good start. And if you aren’t in a position to donate quite yet, sharing this article or the tweet you found it in will help me out immensely and is appreciated.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ll help me get my Extra Life this year!

The Rat Hole for April 5

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Logo for the RPG Blog CarnivalWe’re into April and so it’s time for another RPG Blog Carnival! You can find details and my first post over at The Rat Hole today. Stay tuned through the rest of the month, both there and her, for more magic item goodness!

And keep your eyes here for some exciting Extra Life 2021 announcements! Thanks to everyone’s generosity I was able to raise just over $1000 last year, which is amazing! Never one to rest on my laurels (they really aren’t as comfy as you would hope) I have set my 2021 goal at $2500. That’s going to take a some work, so I’ll talk about what I hope to do to achieve that soon. Enjoy the day!

Another Solar Orbit Day

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Yep, today is my solar orbit day, or “birthday” as you huma–us, us humans, haha, call it. It’s hard for me to gauge how the past year went, as a global pandemic tends to skew the results. All in all I would chalk it up a win on points after a thorough review of the game tape. Working on Uncaged Anthology and other projects were definite high points and I would like more of that, please. Streaming with the folx on Clockwork Vines is a high point of every week. Not only does it mean a regular game (wealth undreamed of!), but the world Honey has created and the stories we get to play out in it are an absolute joy.

I am taking the rest of the week off to relax into my next solar orbit. But I wanted to take a moment and talk about ways you can wish me a Happy Birthday, if you are so inclined. First, you can just hit me up on Twitter and wish me Happy Birthday, I would love to hear from you! There are so many folx I have “met” through Twitter that I wouldn’t have otherwise, so always good to hear from you.

The Renaissance Gamer, his beard blue.

Second, I am raising funds for Extra Life again this year and would appreciate donations to that. Hitting the $200 mark this early in the year was amazing, and resulted in the blue beard you see, pictured. What will I do as the number goes higher? Who knows, but I would love to find out! Plus there are donation milestones and bonuses you can get for donating; all the details are on the page.

Lastly, and related to the second point: I want to do more streaming, specifically charity streaming. I have realized that my current laptop, while good for playing on streams, isn’t going to cut it if I want to host streams. So if you have a few bucks and want to help me get a new laptop for charity streaming, please visit my KoFi page and buy me a coffee. Or in this case, a percentage of a laptop. Who knows, there might be a session of Bluebeard’s Bride in the future…

That’s it for me though! Going to pour myself a libation and enjoy the rest of the day. Take care, all!

Extra Life All Year!

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I have been pretty vocal about my support of Extra Life over the years. I have taken part in the 24 hour game day every year for the past seven years, and I have been successful at hitting my fundraising goals. Last year I stepped things up a bit and created The Hedgicorn as a continual fundraiser for Extra Life. I also offered editing services for donations, which was surprisingly successful and something I plan to do again later this year.

But this year I plan to do even more. I would like to extend my fundraising efforts throughout the year, because I believe that children’s hospitals in general (and my local children’s hospital, The Stollery, in particular) deserve attention and support year round. I’ve set an Extra Life goal of $1000 this year, and it would be amazing to come up to game day already well within site of that goal; it would be a situation unlooked for to have actually surpassed it by then.

As part of this, I am going to go a bit outside my learning curve and comfort zone, and live-stream some fundraising events through the year. This will mean figuring out the technical side of streaming, as well as recording those streams. Luckily there are plenty of resources to help me navigate the process so it will be difficult but not impossible.

And thanks to my friend Amber, I already have a great idea for a stream. I waffled on Twitter about whether to keep my beard, and Amber suggested I not only keep it, but dye it blue and run a charity stream of Bluebeard’s Bride. Brilliant! Once I clear that cosmetic change with my employer, I think this will be one of my first streams, though I may do something a bit simpler first in order to test the waters.

So stay tuned, folks! Over the next year you’ll see me popping up on Twitch a bit more, and I’ll post links here when I am ready for players and the like. If you’d like to support my efforts in charity streaming you can do so in three ways. First, you can drop by my Extra Life page and make a donation, which will qualify you for some incentives listed on my donation page right now. Those are good all year round, and you can get an incentive for as low as a $5 donation.

Second, though I rarely mention it I do have a Ko-fi page, and right now I am saving up to get a better camera and proper lights for streaming, so watching these charity streams will be as entertaining as possible. If you have a few spare bucks and would like to support these efforts, consider buying me a coffee.

Thirdly, if you don’t have the cash to spare for donations or a coffee (and I get it, it’s rough out there) then please share and RT when you start seeing links to the event go up. Heck, even spreading the word about this post will help get the word out, which will help us be successful later on. And don’t let a low follower count stop you! Twitter’s algorithm  doesn’t care how many folks you RT’d to, it just cares that you did it. Trust me, it will help.

Have a great day, folx, and watch this space for more to come!