Ask the Readers: What do you like about this blog?

Stargazer’s World is now over five years old and our team has written way over thousand blog posts to date. In the last few years we’ve covered several different game systems, posted dozens of reviews, interviewed several industry insiders, and shared our thoughts on roleplaying games in general.

Most of the time I have changed things around as I saw fit, sometimes I have experimented with non-RPG topics including a few posts about my personal health. We’ve got great feedback in these five years, and I am pretty sure that without the support of our readers, the blog would have been shut down ages ago.

So why am I asking this particular question at this time? It’s basically just curiousity. And perhaps I can use this information in the future to decide where I should put more focus on, especially in times when I am not able to churn out posts on a daily basis.

So please tell me what you like about Stargazer’s World. What makes you come back regularly? Do you eagerly await my “blog update” tweets or have you subscribed to the RSS feed? Are you more interested in reviews and interviews, or do you prefer the more personal thoughts on the hobby? Please share your comments below!

Michael Wolf is a German games designer and enthusiast best known for his English language role-playing games blog, Stargazer's World, and for creating the free rules-light medieval fantasy adventure game Warrior, Rogue & Mage. He has also worked as an English translator on the German-language Dungeonslayers role-playing game and was part of its editorial team. In addition to his work on Warrior, Rogue & Mage and Dungeonslayers, he has created several self-published games and also performed layout services and published other independent role-playing games such as A Wanderer's Romance, Badass, and the Wyrm System derivative Resolute, Adventurer & Genius, all released through his imprint Stargazer Games. Professionally, he works as a video technician and information technologies specialist. Stargazer's World was started by Michael in August 2008.

15 comments

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Joshua Macy

I like the RPG stuff, and would like to hear more about your personal gaming experiences. Not that interested in reviews, unless it’s personal impressions as you’re trying something out… there’s already a glut of formal reviews of stuff on the internet, so unless it’s reviewing something particularly obscure that I’m nonetheless interested in or the review is so entertaining that I don’t care that I have no interest in the item being reviewed I’d rather find those by searching when I’m curious about something instead of because I’m following all the posts on a particular site.

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    Sunglar

    Al kidding aside, thanks for that Joshua Macy. I can’t speak for Michael BUT I know that sometimes when I write about my gaming experiences sometimes I doubt whether people will be really interested in it. I do a LOT of writing an planning for my campaigns, and play once a week, but sometimes I wonder if people want to read about the shenanigans around my table.

    Thanks for the feedback!

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Sunglar

I like post by handsome Hispanic bloggers… And in the future you should consider setting up a remuneration plan for your contributors…

Wait let me check my private messages a moment…
Oh, well this is not the topic for THAT discussion! I get it… Never mind!

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Jim Alcala Sales

I like it when you notify us of some new cool rpg thing you’ve found. Such as BBF.

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Jim Alcala Sales

Also new games are cool. More on Gear Box would be great! Lots of potential there esp. we get some samples of major and minor talents.

    comments user
    Stargazer

    New games are always cool, but also a lot of work. And sometimes the creative juices are not flowing as they used to, so please bear with me.

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Sean

I agree with Joshua. I like hearing about a lot of different systems and settings, and while the difference between an impression and an actual review can be subtle, I like hearing the impressions. What you’re playing, what you’re reading, and even just what you’re thinking about.

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johnkzin

All of the RPG talk. I’m not big on interviews, but I’m not bothered by them either. I could see talking about books or movies that are game-setting fodder (and I think I’ve seen an article or two that were along the lines of how to do a particular setting with a particular game). As long as the main meat of things is: RPGs.

It’s the RPG talk that draws me here, and keeps me here.

The personal stuff? That’s not _why_ I’m here, but I think of the people here as more than just distant reporter-like voices. You’re people, people in my larger extended family of gamers. So, it’s not why I’m here, but I welcome that side of things, as well — the parts where we reach out as people, which makes this seem like a more human and personal venue than, say, Engadget (in the tech world, as opposed to the gamer world).

So… RPG talk, and a connection to other gamers. That’s what I like about this Blog. Oh, and that you’re a FUDGE and FATE fan, and you wrote WRM 🙂

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    Stargazer

    🙂

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Ralf Wagner

I like the news from the rpg sce and interviews.and I’m especially interested in reviews or playtest reports.

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nerogrimesNero Grimes

Three little words that mean so much: “Free Sh!t Friday!”.

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    Stargazer

    Oh. we haven’t had this in a while.

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      Nero Grimes

      My recent success with SKETCH has me interested in 1D6 mechanics.

      (With a nod to Warrior, Rogue and Mage.)

      The Ladder at Zozer Games looks promising.

      http://zozer.weebly.com/free-rpgs.html

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Tony

I like the way it is now. No need to change anything. It’s an elegant mix of RPGs, personal stuff and anything else you feel compelled to write about.

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Mike

Hi Michael,
I have found many cool new indie games by reading your blog. WRM included in that list of course. I rate that as my top reason for reading Stargazer’s.
I wouldn’t change the format if I were you. It’s a good mix of game news and your views on gaming which are insightful.
To answer the technical question, I’m an RSS subscriber. I don’t do social networks.
Keep up the good work, and thanks!