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It seems the New Year has once again caught us off guard. 2024 has been a tumultuous year, for the Never Say Dice crew and the rest of the world, to be honest. We don’t need to go into specifics of the things we’ve gone through in the past year (feel free to insert your own), but the short version is that our other responsibilities have meant less time: less time for gaming, less time for media, less time for storytelling. As we go into the new year, there’s no sign that any of this is going to be slowing down, and will likely get much worse. None of this will keep us from our annual New Year’s Resolutions post, however - it’s simply a factor to consider, for us and for yourselves. It’s going to be tough out there, dear reader, and we all need to remember that every little thing is a victory. Here are some of the little things we’re going to try to do in 2025. - B

A: There really isn’t a need to go into what's held us back, or what we’ve accomplished, and certainly I don’t expect Bugsy to. Perhaps I didn’t accomplish much, and certainly plenty of things did get in the way of my favored pastimes. However, just as I set out to do, I finished Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, completed Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, and am almost done with Grand Theft Auto IV. I also was able to listen to several Big Finish Doctor Who audio dramas, as well as a few of their Stargate entries. While there were other games and audios here and there, this was about the extent of it... but that's no reason to feel any less proud. Could I have done more? There's no use lamenting, but I did get into a new book series right at the end of the year - which is something to be proud of as well.

As far as 2025 goes, as Bugsy mentioned, I don’t have hope that it will be any easier to fit in more media. Not only are things unlikely to slow down, they may even get busier. While I do feel like goals should be specific and measurable (otherwise how else can you be sure you’ve accomplished them), perhaps we should pull back from that approach to take it a little easier on ourselves. With that in mind, I do intend to finish GTA IV in short order. While Episodes from Liberty City should come next, I don’t dare to think I can accomplish them as well. At the very least, I hope to get these started... and maybe dabble in some other games as well. While I mentioned getting into a new book series earlier, it's completely digital, which still seems odd to me. While Kindles, Nooks, and the like have been around for ages now, something feels different to me about reading digitally. Where does one draw the line? Would listening to an audio book version be considered reading it? It is at the very least consuming it. But then, watching a movie or TV adaptation wouldn’t be the same. Certainly, I’m likely to continue listening to the audio dramas I’ve already started, even though I don’t consider those books. If you know me, please try to keep on my case about these goals. Maybe you, like Bugsy, can join even me in some of these endeavors.

B
: The demands on my time in the coming year will probably be at unexpected and points, and for unexpected durations. That's certainly how it's been in 2024 - I've been reading the same novel since April, and am unlikely to reach my usual goal of completing whatever I'm reading by year's end. Still, it's worth bearing in mind that there's a reason I set that goal for myself many years ago, which is that I want to start each new year out with a new book, and I don't want to stack fiction works on top of each other. As such, I'll probably start a nonfiction work to give me a little room to finish what I'm reading come January 1st, most likely Rick Perlstein's Reaganland, just as I rang in 2021 by cracking open his previous work The Invisible Bridge. That will set the stage for a lot of my media consumption in the coming year - I'd like to make a concentrated effort towards more learning, and, besides historians like Perlstein, learning about the creators I love. I've been amassing quite a library of biographies, memoirs, and histories over the years that tell the stories behind many of my favorite works of media, and I'd like to finally start delving into them. Not simply our of a desire to gain more background and context, but (hopefully) as a way of charging my own creative energies... wherever they may lead.

What direction those creative energies will take remains to be seen. Larger projects are likely out of the question, but shorter forms are within my grasp. My band is finally moving forward again now that we've found a drummer who can put with us is musically compatible, and we'll hopefully be able to finally get down some of the songs we've been working on and gigging again. So I'll certainly be trying to dedicate more time to songwriting and musical collaboration. Fiction, of course, will remain ever-adjacent, and I intend to augment all the aforementioned learning with ample amounts of short stories. (Since Reaganland weighs about as much as a thousand thousand suns, it's not likely to leave the house, so I'll need something to read in the outside world. With luck, exposure to new authors and approaches via the short form will get my own imaginative gears a-turning.

Games will remain an inseparable part of my life - after all, I'll need something to talk about here! My archive of games both electronic and tabletop continues, as ever, to grow at an inconvenient rate. Of course, I'd still like to spend time with the indies of both formats, I also want to try and dig into editions of some larger RPG systems of years past, even if I have no intention of actually running them. A few months ago, I got a weird fixation on getting another copy of the White Wolf version of Ars Magica to stand in for the one still in my parents' basement. And there are many, many more I've acquired in PDF form (someone should really take out a restraining order to keep me from spending any more at Bundle of Holding). I haven't actually run anything since before COVID, though, so I might need something more chill to ease me back into it than the behemoths of the 80s and 90s. And, as anyone who's been following these resolutions knows, I have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to modern indie RPGs.

Whatever I go with, though, will certainly be reported here. Thank you, as always, for taking this journey with us. As we enter a year where open cruelty and bigotry will be both prevalent and encouraged, try to be the kindness and understanding you want to see in others. Help each other out wherever you can, even if it's just reading (or listening to) a story, or joining in a game for those who could use some new context and companionship.

Happy New Year, folks - let's all try to make it through together.

Send questions, comments, and hilarious New Year's Resolution fails to neversaydice20@gmail.com or tweet us @neversaydice2.

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