[Blog Carnival] A look back at my goals for 2009

On January 9th 2009 I wrote a post called “Goals for 2009” as part of that month’s blog carnival. It was about what things I wanted to achieve in 2009, both in gaming, blogging and personal life. In this months blog carnival hosted by Jeffrey from The Bone Scroll we look back at our lofty goals from earlier that year. Is it a look back in shame? Or did we achieve our goals?
Ok, let’s look at my goals from January 2009:

Gaming:

• Dark Heresy
  I initially planned to turn our New Year’s Eve game of DH into a full campaign. But this never happened. I still don’t know why we never even finished the adventure, but perhaps it was just not our cup of tea at that time. But I might be interested in playing in a Rogue Trader campaign. Let’s see, what the next year brings. 🙂
• Call of Cthulhu
  For over a year we tried to find a solution to keep our CoC game running. But the fact that our GM moved to Munich combined with the fact that he now is working on his doctoral thesis doesn’t make things easier. So, I didn’t achieve that goal either. 🙁
• Pirates of the Spanish Main
  My plan to turn our PotSM campaign into a sandbox game didn’t work out as planned. I am not sure what happened, but in the end we decided to play something else. At least we kept playing Savage Worlds.
• D&D 4th Edition
  I really tried to like this game, I tried so hard, but in the end I just had to realize that it just was not the game I was hoping for. It took me several months to finally realize what has bothered me all the time. And it was not the fact that I was not a Warlock guy as I put it back in January.
• Other Systems
  I mentioned a couple of games I wanted to finally play but as will all my other gaming goals, I didn’t even achieve this. But I ran several old-school D&D games, a short campaign using the PDQ system, and a series of Dungeonslayers adventures.

Real Life:

• Weight reduction
  Don’t get me started. I held the weight I had, but I didn’t even lose a pound in the long run. Ok, perhaps next year! *sigh*
• Turn my cave into a proper home
  We had a lot of plans regarding my home, like cleaning out some old furniture, redecorating the walls, etc. but we didn’t come as far as we planned. It seems there’s always something coming in our way. But at least I got a great wall unit for my living room that has enough space for all my DVDs, roleplaying games and board games. And the best of it: it was free. 🙂
• Move together with my significant other
  This is still on the agenda, but it will probably take us a bit longer to achieve that goal.

Blogging/Writing:

• Overcoming the blogger’s/writer’s block
  At least something that worked out. For most of the year I managed to post at least once per workday. That’s quite an achievement! Sometimes I have to force myself to write something, but that’s ok, too. Recently I celebrated my blog’s 400th post and when I am not mistaken, this should be the 430th post so far! Yay!
• More advertisement
  My plan was to do some advertisement for my blog. I am not actually sure how I accomplished it, but I actually managed to get more people interested in what I write. Part of that success is probably Twitter, because I started posting all blog updates to Twitter (and Facebook) approx. a year ago. I also recently created a Facebook page for Stargazer’s World. But the best advertisement for any blog is a) good posts and b) a regular posting schedule. And I hope I’ve achieved both.
• Asecia
  Alas I never started working on my Asecia steam-fantasy setting again. I still love the idea, but I was probably too busy working on other projects, like the Ad Astra campaign and my detective roleplaying game “Thrilling Noir Stories”.
• SF roleplaying setting
  I am quite happy with how Ad Astra, my SF campaign setting, turned out. I even ran a short series of adventures using PDQ rules and released an updated version of my campaign primer document recently. As soon as I have some more free time, I plan to give Ad Astra some more love.

So, 2009 turned quite different than I expected. I didn’t achieve most of my goals, but  when I look back I am not dissatisfied at all with how things turned out. Instead of fulfilling the lofty goals I had in January I achieved things I never had even dreamed of. And that’s a good thing!