State of the Square: January 2021

Wow – is it really 2021 already? Has it really been over five months since I posted the initial launch of Five Foot Square?

Unfortunately, life has been busy for everyone – myself included. I apologize for that; I’ve made lots of attempts to get going and never managed to get anything that clicked. So, my hopes from the end of that introductory article – that timeline of six months – will likely go unmet. My resolution for 2021 is to change that though and get this site up and going.

So, what does the future hold for the Five Foot Square?

To begin with, we’ll be releasing content fairly consistently – or that’s the aim anyways. What we’ll be releasing for everyone covers a range: battlemaps for virtual table tops, adventures, encounters, NPCs, tools, the list can go on. Our focus to begin with will be battlemaps with encounters and adventures to accompany them. We intend to continue building out this type of content for the foreseeable future and hope you’ll find a chance to use it.

To accompany this, we’ll be doing a monthly theme to support a focus on the content. For the month of January 2021, that theme will be winter, ice, and snow. Like many, I’m currently running a campaign of Rime of the Frostmaiden. While the campaign is quite superb, it does have a few holes that some people have come to expect in a lot of their D&D games. To that end, the Five Foot Square is going to be releasing several of the battlemaps I’ve created to fill some gaps. In fact, the first of those battlemaps are already available for you to download and make use of! As the month progresses, expect more battlemaps and optional encounters to support them!

Next, I’m hoping we’ll finally get around to starting up reviews of products – I’ve been wanting to get some in for awhile but things got in the way (as they were apparently wont to do for everyone in 2020). I’ve got a small queue of books purchased out of my own pocket over the past six months or so and I’m hoping to start giving some thoughts on those later this month. Some of these reviews will be for modules and accessories available from larger publishers while others will be smaller scale endeavours by indie authors.

Additionally, I’ve been slowly typing away at a series about getting started with roleplaying in general and more specifically certain games. This is going much slower but I hope to eventually start getting at least one article from the series up a month with the most hopeful outlook being biweekly articles focusing on various parts of getting going with the wonderful variety of games available for you to try!

Lastly – and not necessarily what we’re working on but still possibly important – I’ve setup both a Ko-Fi and a Patreon account for the Five Foot Square. I hear you saying now – “Woah, woah, woah, Rian – aren’t you getting ahead of yourself?” And perhaps yes, we are ever so slightly – but I want to emphasize right now there’s no intent to lock any content behind a paywall in the foreseeable future; these are merely ways to show some support to us if you like what we’re doing. For those who do choose to show us support on Patreon, we offer a hearty thanks and want to let you know we’ll be posting polls to help guide us when it comes to the monthly themes of the future.

So, 2021 has started – let’s hope it’s a better one than the last.

We hope to see you soon!