Some of you may have noticed that I started to blog more regularly again, and that I’ve slightly changed the focus of the blog. Over the last year and a half – probably even longer – I have been struggling with several mental health-related issues. I’ve had to deal with anxiety attacks, depression, etc. which not only affected my work but also my personal life as well. For a while even the thought of running a roleplaying game caused bouts of severe anxiety. As you can imagine this also affected my ability to write about my favorite hobby.

Luckily things are way better now. I feel much more relaxed, I am basically symptom-free, and I’m actually running two games for two different gaming groups at the moment. Scheduling is still an issue, but things are way better than half a year ago. This also helped me to write more. And while I still plan to post reviews and interviews with industry insiders in the future, I want to focus more on my personal experiences and thoughts on roleplaying games.

Stargazer’s World has always been – even after I opened it for other authors – not just a roleplaying blog but also my personal blog. From the feedback I’ve gotten over the last months I know that our readers are not only interested in hobby news, reviews etc. but also in a more personal look at the hobby. Over the last weeks I have often pondered about the games I’ve run in the past and what really is important to me. I love to run and play roleplaying games and it’s a joy to share my passion for the hobby with people all over the world.

I also realized that I am a gamer and blogger first and a game designer second. It was a lot of fun writing WR&M, Arcane Heroes, and the other games but especially the success of WR&M put a lot of pressure on me. For a long time I felt as if I had to churn out new games and supplements regularly and felt depressed when I wasn’t able to get anything done. This year I made the concious decision to skip NaGaDeMon (National Game Design Month) or force myself to work on unfinished projects. Game design should always be a fun activity for me, not another burden. There’s a reason why I don’t want to work as a professional game designer.

So, how much will the blog change? Probably not much. There might be slightly fewer reviews and more posts in which I muse about certain aspects of our hobby or share my personal experiences with gaming. At least when my posts are concerned, Stargazer’s World will focus a bit more on Stargazer. And I think this is a good thing.