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Happy New Year
1January 2, 2012
Even though I am still on vacation I wanted to give you a short update on what I’ve been up to lately. For the most time I have celebrated Christmas with my girlfriend’s and my family which means we had a lot of great food and spent hours talking, laughing and playing games.
My girlfriend and I played a lot of Star Wars: The Old Republic recently, which is a lot of fun. It’s the most immersive MMO I’ve played so far and Verena and I are enjoying it immensely. The game also makes me want to run some Star Wars pen & paper game, but at the moment, I have neither the time nor the players needed to start a new campaign.
On New Year’s Eve I’ve run a Call of Cthulhu game for a couple of friends. I picked the first episode of the Age of Cthulhu campaign by Goodman games, which has an interesting story but has some issues that made it harder to run than I expected. But we still had a lot of fun.
And there’s something else I want to tell you about. I got a very special gift this Christmas. Some of you probably know that I am interested in astronomy that’s why I picked the nickname Stargazer a couple of years back. I own a small telescope but I don’t go out watching the skies as often as I would like. So my girlfriend thought she gave me some incentive to do so. She gave me a star as one of her Christmas gifts! One star in the Draco constellation is now registered1 as “Stargazer’s World” and I have the documents to prove it. So, next time you look up into the sky, look out for “Stargazer’s World”.
1) Yes, I know that only the IAU can actually name stars, but I don’t mind. And the deed really looks great on the kitchen wall. 
Taking a break
2December 21, 2011
The holiday season is upon us and outside it’s already looking like the proverbial winter wonderland. Today will be my last day of work for this year and unlike last year I decided that the blog should take a short break, too.
In 2011 the team of Stargazer’s World has posted over 300 times. Considering that we usually don’t publish posts on the weekend this is quite an achievement. But the holiday season is usually used as a time to look back on what you’ve done and to relax. And trust me, especially my creative batteries are almost dead, so some days without thinking about what to post next are in order. But fret not, we’ll be back in January 2012!
Until then the team of Stargazer’s World wishes you happy holidays and a happy new year!
A word on comments
5December 12, 2011
Today I had to delete a comment on my blog. That’s something I don’t do that often and I actually don’t like doing so. As I said in one of my articles on RPG blogging I stated that RPG bloggers have to grow a thick skin. Sometimes discussions can get a bit heated and when you allow comments on your posts you sometimes have to live with replies you don’t actually like.
But sometimes there are times when deleting a comment is necessary. I delete everything that looks like spam or that could be considered illegal. I don’t tolerate racism, hate speech or misogyny. And if you think you need to attack one of your fellow commenters or the author of the article of the post without adding anything meaningful to the discussion, you don’t have to be surprised when I delete your comment.
If you can’t accept these simple rules, it’s perhaps best you refrain from commenting here. Everyone else is welcome to share his or her thoughts. The community around Stargazer’s World has always been a nice and open one and I hope this is not going to change in the future, even if there’s some controversial topic to argue about.
What was, what is and what will be
0November 23, 2011
After a few days being sick, I finally went back to work today. I think this is a perfect opportunity to give you an update on what’s going on at Stargazer’s World at the moment.
What was 
Sunglar has been very busy in the last few weeks which has had a great impact on his post frequency. Yesterday he posted about his hopeful return to a more active presence in the game community. He also reminded me that I’ve written my 900th post recently. I wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t reminded me, oops.
This is a good segue into the next thing I want to talk about. As you all may know I had a great idea for NaGa DeMon that is much harder to design than I anticipated. And since the end of November is drawing closer I doubt it will be finished in time. But I don’t want to abandon the project entirely. I want to continue to work on it and I think I will try to get some more help and advice from the community. Later this week I will start sharing what I have done so far here on the blog.
Our new feature “Ask The Stargazer!” started last week and I hope I can answer another of your questions later this week. And if you haven’t done so feel free to send in your question. Details on how to contact us are in the sidebar to the right!
What is 
A lot of my free time is currently occupied by both Minecraft and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim. As some of you may already know I am running my own Minecraft server. A few days ago I moved the server to a new host. We used that opportunity to start a new world. Minecraft recently left beta status behind and the release version brings a host of new features I have to try out ASAP. Interestingly enough Minecraft turns more and more into a sandbox RPG, which I like a lot. Aside from mining and building, you can fight monsters, get XP, craft potions and even enchant your items. Cool stuff!
And when I am not trying to get my Minecraft server running I am playing Skyrim. I have always been a fan of the Elder Scrolls series and Skyrim is in my opinion the best game of the series so far. The new classless system is a lot of fun and my current character is some kind of battlemage fighting in heavy armor and using a bound sword in one hand and a spell in the other. In addition to that I love the crafting system. Hopefully I can get my smithing skill high enough to be able to create Deadric armor soon.
While playing the game I have been wondering several times if an Elder Scrolls pen & paper game would work. I am actually surprised that the creators of the series never released one themselves. The world of Tamriel is highly detailed and is much more unique as most people think. And from what I’ve seen it should even be possible to transfer the rules system used in the game almost 1:1 to the game table. On the other hand Tamriel would probably work with most game systems. Savage Worlds, Runequest or even FATE might be a good fit. The skill perks in Skyrim are mechanically not that much different from FATE’s stunts. When I find the time, I might actually work on an Elder Scrolls pen & paper project if my players are interested in such a game.
What will be 
Some time ago Robert from Ancient Scroll offered to write guest posts for Stargazer’s World. He already sent me a couple adventure ideas that I’ll publish over the next weeks. The adventure ideas will be for various genres and with no particular setting or rules system in mind. We hope you will enjoy them.
Aside from that I still have a few reviews in the pipeline. As you probably know from the Doctor Who RPG unboxing video I posted a while ago, this is one of the games on my list. The other one is The One Ring. Both games by Cubicle 7 look awesome and as soon as I have the time I will post my reviews here on the blog.
I think that concludes my official “State of the Union” … eh … “State of the Blog” speech for this month. If you have any questions, comments or ideas, feel free to post them below!
Update on the status of “Ask the Stargazer!”
1
I just wanted to give you a small update on the new “Ask the Stargazer!” feature I have talked about recently. I’ve got six questions so far and some of these are pretty extensive. It will probably take a while before I can answer all of them, but I’ll try to do my best. I also forwarded the questions to my good friend Roberto (aka Sunglar), so that he can share his replies, too.
In the meantime fellow gamer Symatt (you can follow him on Twitter) is working on a mascot for the “Ask The Stargazer!” section of the blog. I already got his first idea and it is awesome!
I also added an “Ask the Stargazer!” widget in the right sidebar of the blog. If you have a great question to ask, just click on the link and your email program should open. I hope I will be able to post the first replies this week but depending on how busy I am, it may take a bit longer, so if you have sent in any questions, please bare with me for a while.
Ask The Stargazer!
1October 31, 2011
For a while now I have been thinking about starting a new hopefully regular feature on Stargazer’s World called “Ask The Stargazer!”.
So what’s the idea behind this new feature? You can send in your questions and the team of Stargazer’s World will try to answer them to the best of their abilities. You have a question about an existing or upcoming Stargazer Games product? Ask away! You want to know what we think about a recent development in the RPG industry? Send in your questions. You always wanted to know what we think about game X? Send us an email.
Of course this will only work with your help. So please think about what you want to know and send your questions to askthestargazer@stargazersworld.com! Please note that it may take a while until we publish our first “Ask The Stargazer!” post here. And if it’s possible try to keep questions short and to the point.
So what are you waiting for you? Send us your questions!
Three Years of Stargazer’s World
2August 8, 2011
On August 4th Stargazer’s World has celebrated it’s third anniversary. Over the last 36 months my team and I have brought you over 1140 posts. That’s about 31 posts per month! I sincerely hope that you enjoyed reading the blog as much as we did writing it!
A lot has changed over the last three years. When I started out I was the only one German fan who took his first steps into the world of RPG blogging. Without the help of the RPG Bloggers Network, our readers and a few friends I would probably have given up soon. But that’s was not how it turned out. Writing for Stargazer’s World helped me to make friends all over the world, encouraged me to go to GenCon and gave me the confidence to release a roleplaying game of my own writing.
It have been quite tumultuous times but I definitely won’t miss a minute of it. Thanks again to everyone who joined me on that ride!
You have a question about an existing or upcoming Stargazer Games product? Ask away! You want to know what we think about a recent development in the RPG industry? Send in your questions. You always wanted to know what we think about game X? Send us an email.
