State of USP

USP End of Year Check In 2021

Holy cow everyone, I can’t believe it’s already the end of 2021. This year has been a heck of a ride here at USP, and I just wanted to take some time as we go into 2022 to talk about some of our highlights from the past year and to let you all know a little bit about our exciting plans in the new year.

USP is almost two years old at this point and those two years have been some of the most uncertain times in recent memory. It has been energizing building this community, providing a welcome respite from everything going on. I have loved our games, our conversations, and I appreciate all of you who have stopped by to say hello in stream, dropped a comment on one of our YouTube videos, or just read our blog posts here on the site. Thank you everyone from the bottom of our hearts, we couldn’t do all this without you.

So, here’s a few things we accomplished that I’m particularly proud of in 2021:

• Founding this website and blog. It has been wonderful having this space to function as a launch pad for all of our content. We’ve featured works from talented writers and artists on the blog, and we’ve kept a fairly consistent upload schedule. Love to see it!
• Origins 2021. This was our first convention appearance in person, with Andy, Aaron, and myself all running games where we got to interact with people directly. It was amazing getting the chance to introduce new folks to our platform and playtest something that I’ll talk about a little later in the wild. I’m immensely proud of everyone who put in the work to represent us in the physical world, and can’t wait to see what we can do at Origins 2022 and other conventions next year.
• Founding the Earth-Prime Tabletop Universe. This year saw us focusing on Mutants & Masterminds, but more specifically with Green Ronin’s flagship setting of Earth-Prime. I started us in February with Netherwar and we are on track to play through at least February or March of 2022 with this epic story. On top of Netherwar, we added City of Destiny, our playthrough of the Emerald City Knights campaign, but the kicker is, both games exist in the same world at the same time. We’ve even had a massive crossover episode with 10 PCs at once, GMed masterfully by Aaron. Crystal Fraiser and Steve Kenson even came on as guest stars in a couple of episodes, and we became an affiliate with Green Ronin. And I can assure you the EPTU is only beginning.
• Highlighting Other RPGs. Even with our M&M showcase, we found time to shine a light on a number of other lesser known RPGs this year. Fallout Wasteland Warfare, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Monster of the Week, and the Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide all got series on the channel. We had one shots as well for Call of Cthulhu, D&D, 7th Sea, Alien: Colonial Marines, Things From the Flood, and Crash Pandas.
• Becoming an LLC. We officially became an LLC in the state of Ohio, making us kind of legitimate. I just think that’s neat!

It’s been an awesome year, but next year is going to be even better. Just to announce a couple of exciting things we have planned in 2022:

• Publishing TTRPG Content. Starting with our first adventure module: The Lost Library for Mutants & Masterminds, we are going to be creating material for you to use at your home tables. We’re looking into adventures, NPCs, locations, option rules, all sorts of things for all sorts of systems. Keep an eye here on the site as that information becomes available.
• Monthly One-Shots. We’re going to be doing monthly one-shots on top of our November/December Holiday series so we can show-off even more systems throughout the year. We’ll be starting with finishing some “one-shots” I ran earlier in 2021, since I have the tendency to write more than I need. Surprise. But starting in March we’ll be doing brand new content, including a Lancer stream run by Calvin! If you have suggestions for systems we should look into, please post them in the comments below, or let us know in Twitch chat!
• EPTU Expanded. Netherwar Season 1 is coming to an end early in 2022, but that crew will be taking on another EPTU series after Netherwar comes to a pause. I won’t spoil exactly what corner of Earth-Prime we’re going to, but just know it’s going to be pretty Stellar.

That’s just a few of the exciting updates we have to look forward to in 2022. As always, thank you so much for your support as our community has grown and found its footing. All of us here at USP greatly appreciate it. Please have a Happy New Year and play something fun for us!

Although we know that we have fans (and cast members) located outside of the United States, the majority of us here at the Untold Stories Project are busy today celebrating Thanksgiving with our families today. So, no new blog post today, but come back next week for new episodes of Netherwar, City of Destiny, and our special Tales from the Loop one-shot and a new blog post on Thursday!

And in the spirit of Black Friday, if you’ve got gaming gifts to get anyone on your list, consider using our affiliate codes! Any purchases made at DriveThruRPG using our link will throw a little cash our way so we can keep making content for you to enjoy, as will our promotional code USPGR at Green Ronin’s Online Store will get you 5% off as well as a small kick-back to us to help keep our lights on.

So, until next week, Happy Thanksgiving and if you get any holiday gaming in, may all of your hits be criticals!

Aaron and the entire Untold Stories Project Crew

Welcome to our first ever Untold Stories Project contest! As we near the one-year anniversary of our debut on Twitch, we here at USP wanted to showcase the talented and amazing people in our community. Thank you so much for your support through this last year and we can’t wait to see all of your amazing entries. We are actually running two separate contests through the month of May and beginning of June: a short fiction contest and an art contest.

Short Story Contest:

Theme: Gaming (This can be a story about gamers, something set in the universe of a game world, a few thoughts from the perspective of a favorite personal player character, or a hilarious story from a con in written format, just as a few ideas.)

Format: ~1,500-2,000 word story (We aren’t going to run it through a word counter, but shoot for that range)

Prize: $25 (paid via PayPal) and an Untold Stories Project t-shirt (your choice of size and colors)

Art Contest:

Theme: Gaming (A portrait of a character, a landscape, a map, a prop or weapon replica, etc.)

Medium: Any, but it has to be delivered to us digitally, even if that means taking a picture of it and emailing it to us for judging.

Prize: $25 (paid via PayPal) and an Untold Stories Project t-shirt (your choice of size and colors)

How to Submit:

Please email your entries to uspcontest@gmail.com between now and June 4, 2021. Contest entries will be posted to this blog for the community to vote on their favorites.

Judging:

We have three members of the Untold Stories Project crew who will perform a blind review of each piece and that trio will select the winner in each category. We will also have a community favorite for both categories who will also win a piece of Untold Stories Project merchandise! (specific prize TBD, but we’ll try to make sure it’s cool)

Disclaimer:

By submitting your entry to us, you grant the Untold Stories Project the right to share your work across our platforms (including but not limited to this blog, our Twitch stream, social media, etc. but not including being sold as merchandise without separate arrangement with the creator.) All rights are reserved to the original creator of the work, which can be shared by the original creator anywhere else, once the contest is concluded.