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Fan Club “Blog” #22: Goodbye to 2025 😪 (Patreon)

Published:
2025-12-20 15:43:38
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

It's me, I'm the Furby

(No, really. I have sent this meme to at least eight friends in the last week.)

Motherfuckers, we DID IT! Thanks to your support and my [gestures limply at everything] we have completed the second year of the Quinns Quest project. 🌈

This post is gonna collect a few things.

First, I'm gonna do a bit of heart-on-sleeveism and talk about my burnout. Second, I'm going to talk about my plans for Quinns Quest in 2026! Third, I'm gonna link a bunch of great podcasts you can hear me on. Fourth, I'm going to fill your Christmas stocking with links to the stuff that isn't TTRPGs that I've been enjoying this winter.

We've got a lot of emojis in this one. Not sure who to thank for that. Maybe... Jesus 🎅

First: Burnout 🔥

You folks will remember that I've been making various references to burnout on this Patreon.

At first I was like "Ha can you imagine, that would fuck this whole thing up" then I was like "It might actually happen!!" and then "I think it's happening" and then one day I woke up and found myself asking Paul, the art lead on Quinns Quest, to set fire to the Campaign Diaries header image.

At the time of writing, I have admitted to myself that I'm exhausted. During my work trip to America in November I got sick, which was to be expected, but what was alarming was that it took me 3 weeks to recover, and ANOTHER week until my sleep schedule got back to normal. I'm usually a shade more robust than that. That's clearly a warning sign from my body and I want you folks to know that I'm taking it seriously.

⬆️ Me, basically

I probably don't have to do this next part, but the Quinns Quest Patreon is bringing in so much funding that I feel an obligation to try and share with you why this is happening.

A lot of the culprits are what you'd expect, like weeks where difficult family stuff intersects with a heavy workload, or just the YouTuber thing of working in an environment where my opinions or errors are put on display in front of hundreds of thousands of people.

But there's something else. I've been writing about games for 23 years, and until this job I've never felt such a demand on my passion for a thing.

This year I feel like I've been sinking more and more derricks and drills into my psyche, searching for new corners where my love of TTRPGs is rich enough that I approach game nights or content creation (or just the stacks of unread books and .pdfs in my bedroom) as not just a job, but with like... ferocity?

Why am I pushing myself so hard? Because there are just so many amazing designers and artists in this space who are overdue some attention. I could rattle off 20 names right now that deserve reviews from decent-sized influencers, but there just aren't many big reviewers right now.

And then here's the kicker- actually playing TTRPGs (let alone finding them) isn't just time-intensive, it requires creative energy from me because that's the nature of role-playing.

⬆️ Candid photo of me during a game night

But it's okay! If 2024 was the year of getting Quinns Quest on its feet, 2025 was the year of discovering my limits.

You'll be pleased to know that right now I'm acting on a great tip from a friend of mine who works in video game development. He told me "The way to recover from creative burnout is do nothing. Just absolutely nothing. Until you get bored."

And so please picture me taking a lot of of naps, watching a lot of YouTube documentaries while lying flat on the couch like a snake, and taking a lot of trips to the gym where between sets I find myself staring into space for a weirdly long time.

And I'll tell you this, Quinns Quest patrons- I'm not bored yet. But I'm working on it. 😘

Second: Plans for 2026! 🗓️

If I was a man of science, I'd say that next year Quinns Quest will remain about 86% the same. I like where the site's at right now! I don't wanna change much.

But if 86% of your brain should expect more of the same, what should the other 14% expect???

Well, without wanting to rush them, early next year I'm keen to finish off the last two reviews of season 2 because I am so goddamn excited to start work in earnest on the aesthetic reboot we're going to give Quinns Quest for season 3.

I will keep my lips sealed and simply say that my team over here is going to have a lot of fun putting your Patreon dollars to work 💸 and we're hoping that our lunatic efforts will result in some increased virality for the brand-new hobby... of TTRPGs.

So that's like... 6% accounted for (gosh, I'm enjoying this very scientific approach to my work). What about the remaining 8%, you ask?

Well. I mentioned above that this job is making a lot of demands on my passion for TTRPGs, right?

In order for me to stay interested and invested, I'm finding myself naturally drawn to different niches within TTRPGs. Which is good, because those corners need some love too! All we're trying to do is get people to try different games from Dungeons & Dragons, right?

This splintering of my interest is gonna take Quinns Quest to some places that I don't think will be a surprise to you- I'm interested in reviewing Draw Steel, a game trying to usher in a new qualitative tier of combat in TTRPGs, and my friends and I are already exploring deeper into the "old-school revival" movement than we ever have before. But I'm much more excited for the places we're going that you're not expecting.

Like, I don't want to alarm you little chickadees, but 2026 is the year that I'm going to get you running chamber LARPs in your own home.

"Oh, that's a shame," you're thinking to yourself. "Maybe other viewers of Quinns will be excited by that, but I couldn't be less interested in LARPing."

You've been following my work for years, and you still doubt me? 😘 Just wait.

Third: Not sick of me yet? I can fix that🎤

Let's talk about some podcasts you can find me on!

Do you folks remember that at the end of last year, I guested on the excellent Yes Indie'd indie RPG podcast for a special episode where we reviewed "the year in RPGs"? The accompanying blog post I did was very weird and made a lot of allusions to Thomas being my "best friend" (we have met like twice).

Motherhubbard, this year Thomas only went and invited me back to do it again!! This week he released the "2025 in Rearview" episode where we once again struggle to fulfill an extremely difficult remit, but at least succeed at enjoying one another's company. I'm thrilled to say that we've agreed to make this a yearly tradition. That's best friend behaviour, if you ask me.

If you're a dweeb about TTRPG design, you're probably already aware of the Dice Exploder podcast. It's a show with the kind of simple high concept that I love- each episode the show looks at just one mechanic from a single game.

You'll never guess who's on the latest episode! ME!!

When Sam asked if I wanted to come on the show, he gave me a list of different mechanics that we could talk about, and I didn't hesitate before tapping a spindly British finger on the words "Mausritter's inventory Tetris".

I was super amped to talk about this feature and the design opportunities it represents for future games. I get quite worked up.

And then I've got a couple of recordings from my recent visit to Auburn university!

The trip was all organised by scholar Dr. Emily Friedman, and here you can watch a recorded conversation between the two of us that was for sure the deepest and richest interrogation of my work with Quinns Quest I've yet experienced. Emily pushed back on some of the things I said and I loved that a little bit. The audio quality is pretty dire, but if you leave the video playing for a few minutes I expect you might get used to it?

And then I also dropped in on the college radio station, and you can watch that interview here.

Fourth: A Christmas stocking 🎁➡️🧦

HO HO HO! Come sit on my lap. Don't worry, I assure you that there are enough people watching that it shan't be sexual for either one of us. Besides, as we established up top, I'm basically a furby right now

Did you know that I am a well-rounded individual with interests besides TTRPGs? Have you been good this year? Would you like a gift? Okay your gift is a selection of links that may bring you joy this Christmas.

What I've been watching on YouTube:

What books I've been reading:

What podcasts I've been listening to:

  • Origin Story (start with any episode that interests you, but Martin Luther King is particularly great)

  • RTFM (my favourite TTRPG podcast, start from the beginning)

  • three bean salad (my favourite comedy podcast, start from the beginning)

That's all, folks. See you in the New Year.

-- Quinns

Comments

Lojaan

Also, how delightful is that Yes Indie'd ep?

Echo Tango

Re: Mausritter's inventory and item-conditions: When I first found Mausritter and didn't have a group to play with, I found a home-brew module that actually played a bit with the inventory. If I'm remembering correctly, it had a fungal infection that gave you an armor, but took up your body slot. It also had a couple items that were weird shapes, like a harp that's three dots in an L shape. I'd also like a version of Mausritter with a larger backpack and more complicated item and inventory shapes, but I don't think it'd necessarily need to make you hold *more* items, which would make it too difficult to think about what items to use in a situation. Like, if the items were larger, but weirder shapes, they could still take up the same proportion of your inventory as basic Mausritter, so you'd have at most one weapon, one armor, and six small items in your backpack. They'd just be shaped like the letter T, L, P or whatever. You could also take it one step further, and have both small and large inventory slots. So a belt zone on your mouse could be three or four small-slots wide, and earrings would maybe be one or two small-slots on either side of your head; Your paws, body and head could all be large-slots. Then most of the time, weapons and armor go into the normal locations, and smaller items would go into your accessory slots. But if you wanted to, you could have a few items that are two small-slots wide, tall or both, that you could sneakily hold in your paws or body. Like, they'd need to be in two adjacent squares as normal, but they'd just take up two *large* slots, using up more space in exchange for the little bit of flexibility. Mundane items would have boring shapes, to sell the fact that these are just piles of rations or torches shoved into your backpack. A silver harp would be a 5-large-slot P shape, and an ornate chest of drawers could be a wide six large-slots with a single extra square on top to make it extra awkward. A magic amulet that you need to retrieve for the royal clerics could be an awkward 5 small-slot X shape, that cannot fit into any of your equipment slots - selling the fact that it's a holy relic that's not meant for normal mice to wield.

Echo Tango
>>197448738

I forgot one more thing about complicated inventory - there were two videogames released around the same time that did that, in a heroic fantasy. The first was Backpack Hero, and I can't remember the name of the other - not because it is a worse game, but because it came out a couple months later, and I'd already seen let's plays of Backpack Hero. ^^; One of the games actually had adjacency bonuses on top of the weird shapes - a fire-crystal that enhances your arrows or sword, or a crystal snake that gives venom or something.

Spencer St. James

Tell ya what, Quinns, slide me some of those RPGs that you think deserve credit but don't have time to cover and I'll start a separate YouTube channel just to help raise awareness. I'll call it "Threatening Your Free Time for (Mostly) Fun and (Emotional) Profit." The title will never be allowed to be shortened.

Ben Galbraith

Avid board-gamer, occasionally D&D player here. Aside from entertaining me for many hours, QQ has opened my eyes to the possibilities for RPG with my friends and family. I’m enjoying your reviews so much! My wife, who has zero interest in character sheets and traditional dwarves and goblins settings, leapt out of her chair seeing the mini-review of Better Strangers. Such a great idea to cover the box games and point us towards “gateway” RPGs. Rest up and keep the content coming! It’s all so good.

Dreamingoftheforest

Please after you recover from burnout- do less. We like you and don’t want you to burn out again next year. Less is good. Less means you will be around longer and be happier. A happier you is what we want.

Tim
>>198148435

THIS. Burnout is, in my personal experience, a permanent character-changing condition. Nobody can sustain the creative output that we would of course greedily absorb from you. Keep safe and be aware of the Delta Green mechanic about connections. DG is all too much on the money there.

Clark Olson-Smith

"The way to recover from creative burnout is do nothing. Just absolutely nothing. Until you get bored." This is amazing advice. I'm eager to follow it myself.

Артём Слободчиков

Careful reading Master & Commanter series — you might want to run another marine campain, but with proper galleons and such. Rest, reset, das good stuff

Skivx

I hope everyone and all of their loved ones (and all of their loved ones) have a fun, happy, healthy, and safe 2026! Genuinely and sincerely wishing everyone nothing but the absolute best! P.S. Would love to hear Quinns' opinions (or reviews) of: God's Hunt, red markets, base raiders, ryuutama, hard wired island, and wetrunner

Lee Banyard

As someone who's worked in the games industry their whole adult (and slightly before?!) life, I understand burnout - not merely 'overwork' but the kind where you're emotionally and creatively invested in the thing that's burned you - more than most. So rest the fuck up and keep whack-a-mole-ing anything that makes you feel bad for feeling bad. You at your rested best is far better than you at... well it's just better.

Danny Tallon

Omg! Master and Commander! I love love love those books.