Today’s interview is with Martin Ralya of Treasure Tables, a blog about game mastering of all types. We wrote previously about Martin back when he joined 9rules a few weeks back.



– Tell us briefly about yourself

I’m 28, and I require caffenie to function. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah with my wonderful girlfriend, Alysia, and our neurotic beagle, Charlie, and I’ve been blogging for about 5 months. I was born in France, grew up in New York City, moved to Michigan for college, and relocated to Utah for my job (I manage parking garages).

I’ve also been a freelance writer for the RPG industry since 2004, and I just completed my first solo project and my second major print project (neither of which will be out until 2006).

Read the rest of the interview after the jump….

– Tell us about the Treasure Tables?

It’s actually just “Treasure Tables” — the name comes from an old fantasy gaming standby: long lists of treasure, called treasure tables, that you roll on to find out what kind of goodies your characters acquire.

I picked it because it stood out, and because as a single-author blog its content is necessarily a bit of a grab-bag, Much like the treasure tables in a RPG, you never know exactly what you’re going to get (except that it will — hopefully! — be interesting).

Enough about the name, though! Treasure Tables is a weblog for game masters (GMs), the folks who run roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons. TT’s focus is on providing tips, ideas, advice and other resources for GMs. I’ve been GMing since 1989, and writing about it has turned out to be a lot of fun.

It’s also a way for me to combine two of my passions, GMing and writing, and it gives me a chance to interact and share ideas with a growing community of smart, articulate gamers — which is one of my favorite things about writing a blog.

– How did you get into gaming?

I actually wrote a post about this on TT, very early on: How Did You Learn to GM?

That’s the long answer. The short answer is that back when I was 12, a friend I went to day camp with introduced my to D&D, and I loved it. I’ve always had a very active imagination, and I love creating things — both of which are core elements of any RPG — so it stuck with me.

There have been a few times since then where I haven’t been involved in a game, but I’m never quite happy unless I’ve got a regular gaming group.

– Your favorite role playing game is? Why?

It’s a toss-up between two games: D&D, and Call of Cthulhu. Fantasy got its hooks into my brain at an early age (I read The Hobbit in second grade) and I love medieval history, so D&D has always been one of my favorites.

Call of Cthulhu is a completely different experience. It’s based on the horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, which is very bleak — the protagonists are usually nerds of one sort or another, with very little in the way of combat skills, and their opponents are deathless beings from beyond the time and space. It’s a great game, though — very atmospheric and quite different from a lot of other RPGs.

– There are many blog networks out there today – what motivated you to try to join 9rules?

I wanted to join 9rules because I believe in what they’re doing: building a network based solely on quality content, and not necessarily on appealing to the broadest audience.

9rules also has a focus on improvement — “be a better blogger” is built right into their membership agreement — and they don’t require any content changes (beyond displaying their cute logo, of course!), which was important to me.

Most of the other large networks that I’ve looked at either mandate a certain post frequency, or want you to write for their sites (and not your own), or don’t seem to be looking for niche sites like Treasure Tables. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things — that’s just not what I was after in a network.

9rules seems like it will be an excellent fit for me, and for Treasure Tables, and I’m very excited to be part of the network.

– What do you think of their business model? Or is there one?

I’d hate to reveal anything that I’m not supposed to, but suffice to say that there is a business model, and that I like their approach.

Unlike some other blog networks, the business side of things isn’t part of their membership agreement — but it’s there.

– What do you do when you’re not blogging?

My main interests are gaming (of course), writing, reading and watching movies. I also spend a lot of time on the computer — in a nutshell, if it’s in the “cluster” of geek hobbies, I’m probably into it.

Gaming-wise, I’m actually not running anything at the moment — which is odd for someone who writes a blog about GMing! My gaming group is about to start up two alternating weekly games, though, and I’m really looking forward to playing in both of them.

Your computer & OS of choice? Why?

I’m on a pretty basic Dell Dimension 3000 with a nice big monitor, running Windows XP. I’ve used Linux machines and Macs before, and I prefer a Windows box because I know enough to do some tinkering around, but I don’t need to know quite as much as running Linux seems to involve.

– Do you have a picture of your home workspace that you would share with us?

Sure! Treasure Tables HQ is pretty spartan, but also a pretty good representation of how I like my workspace: tidy, and with all my references close at hand. Plus lots of toys.

– Software that you use each day?

Word for my writing, Excel for work, Firefox and WordPress.

– Websites you visit each day?

On a normal day, Gmail plus everything in my comics, blogs, articles and links categories on del.icio.us. I’d be a lost little camper without del.icio.us!

– What advice would you give someone who is new to blogging and looking to increase their traffic?

These are all pretty basic suggestions, but they’ve worked well for me. Sites like ProBlogger and Performancing are great places to find a lot of concrete advice (even if you’re not trying to make money at it).

- Make sure you’re passionate about your subject matter, whatever it is.

- Proofread your posts.

- Explore other sites in your niche, and learn from what they do well and poorly.

- Keep track of your site stats, and see what your readers respond to.

- If you want to encourage your readers to interact with you and your blog (which is one of the main reasons I started TT), try to end posts with meaningful questions.

I guess I’d sum all of these tips up as “think about how you can increase your traffic, and do some research.” I’m pretty obsessive about both of those things.

I get the impression that quite a few folks start out, write their “Welcome to my new blog!” post, and expect visitors to find them — which doesn’t usually work! If you want more readers, doing some homework — and thinking about how to attract them — is the way to go.