Gaming Babble to note that I'm alive!

The first post for 2026 was not supposed to be coming out nearing the end of February, but here we are.

So this babble is probably going to be all over the place, but I am scatterbrained so it's fine.

What have I been playing on PC?

Aska

It is still in early access and definitely isn't a 'complete' game, but I really dig this game. I usually end up playing like an hour of it every two or three days and that consistency has meant that I've racked up quite a few hours of play time. People could argue that it is still very empty and I'd agree... that just means that there's more coming and honestly, I'm excited for it.

Foundation

I bought Foundation when it was still in early access and kinda forgot about it as they worked on their updates. It released it's 1.0 version in January last year and I decided to give it a go when a recent notification for update came up. I'm enjoying it. You have to think about how you want to build your town a little differently than one would in a game like Settlers and Banished. I play it when I want to relax and listen to music... which admittedly is quite frequently. I should be doing other things - more on that later.

StarRupture

Another early access game, this time by Creepy Jar - the makers of Green Hell which I've babbled about before. It feels like it took inspiration from Satisfactory as it is a factory-building and exploration game with a few other things that keep you on your toes. It's still early days and there are a lot of fixing that needs to happen to run the game smoothly, but it's going to be a fun one. The humour is there and the factory building aspect is fun. I always look forward to returning to my spaghetti-bowl base...

Battlefield 6

This is probably the game few people would imagine I'd play. I used to play the old single-player Call of Duty games and I didn't like the newer iterations and multiplayer. This is the first of the Battlefield franchise that I've played and there are elements that just spark a similar happy feeling. I'm not good at the game. My highest score is always how many times I've died. I don't know one scope from another or anything about gun stats, but that's not why I play the game. Sometimes it's just fun running and shooting the shit out of people while cackling a little crazily. This is my go-to game for that currently.

Don't Starve Together

After a very long break, I've restarted playing DST and playing it with friends even! It's still a brutally difficult game for me, but I love the art style, I love the humour, I love the characters and the challenge. And even though I die frequently, I find the game mostly relaxing. I have babbled about Don't Starve in the past, but basically it is a survival game where darkness means death and starvation is always around the corner. The beautifully twisted Tim Burton-esque art style keeps you entertained while you learn how to survive the different seasons, the different biomes, and the critters you encounter.

I've had this game for years, I've been playing it for years, I have yet to survive a game 'year'. I think my record was 48 days or something.... haha!

It is the game I turn to when I'm in the mood for a challenge with amusement laced in between. 

Satisfactory 

Satisfactory is a factory-building and exploration game that I've babbled about before. I've dumped so many hours into this game from early access to official release and it's almost always installed on my computer. My current playthrough is promising. I might just complete the game this time... but it's slow going. The problem is that it's about automation a lot of the time and while I understand that notion, I find it very difficult for my brain to really plan things in a way that makes it possible. So instead of being outside of the spaghetti conveyor belts and machines, my pioneer is one with the spaghetti, feeding into machines and making sure that everything works... well... reasonably.

That's a lot of gaming... what else am I up to?

Well, predictably, I've been running D&D and ToV (Tales of the Valiant) games. 

Oh! I'm so happy Level Up Store has begun stocking Tales of the Valiant books! As far as I know this is the first and only place where you can get these books in South Africa.

I currently have two dedicated campaigns that I'm running:

• My TNO homebrew for the North American crew is going really well. It's a big group of people, which can be a bit daunting as I've never had as big of a crew at one gaming 'table' but I love the stories that are coming from their characters.
• The Dragon Heist game that I started last year is still running. We're about a third into the game with the extra padding provided by the Alexandrian Remix. We've had a lot of player shuffling which does bring a challenge because now half of the people playing weren't there when the foundation for the intrigue-heavy game was laid, but we're navigating that alright. Fortunately I know the game so well after having run it so many times that it's not so much of a challenge to prep for it.

Along with running two dedicated campaigns, I also run oneshots of different games. I would like to do that more for systems like Tales of the Valiant, and Fantasy Age. But one thing at a time.... or a few (other) things at a time. haha.

Okay, that's a LOT of gaming.

Yes, I know. My plate is full up again. In among the games, I do life things - mostly consisting of work and sleep... haha. 

TTRPG Babble: Stats!

I see that I always share my stats around October every year, so I figured better late than never.

This year was a little weird prep-wise. Usually there's a clear month-active / month-inactive that goes on where as I had four somewhat busy months this year and there rest were middling. It made sense though. March I was still under the impression that I was going to do the October convention (which didn't pan out) and I worked my ass off getting things ready. August was the GeeksxGamers event. September was spent making maps for my homebrew - and they're some nice maps but I can't share them (yet?). And end November was the next GeeksxGamers event.

Oddly though, while this year wasn't terrible in terms of possible burnout, I clocked the most hours prepped of the three years since I've been logging them. It makes sense though, I have had a lot of games and randomness going on this year.

Recap of the year's TTRPGS campaigns ran by me.

• I finished off "Phandelver" - deciding not to continue further with the "and Below" part.
• After 59 sessions, I've put my homebrew with the South Africans on permanent hiatus. Considering we started the game in 2021, I am quite pleased with how far it went.
• The last session for my homebrew for the North Americans this year will be session 29. It's still going surprisingly well even if we can sometimes only play once a month.
• I started running "Waterdeep: Dragon Heist" with some South Africans. Scheduling has been a challenge but I'm about to drop a bomb on them so I'm quite excited to see what happens. we have possibly one or two sessions left this year.

GeeksxGamers is doing it again!

So in August, GeeksxGamers had their maiden voyage into the world of conventions. On 29 November, they're setting sail again in partnership with Valhalla Gaming to run an event dedicated to gaming. 

Girls in Gaming is going to be an event filled with eSports, TTRPGs, Board Games, War Games, and other games, quizzes and cosplay.

This event, giving the nod to females in gaming, isn't reserved for them alone. It is more an acknowledgement that in a perceived male-dominated setting, women are active and willing to game as well. It is a celebration of diversity.

My part in this event is, of course, on the TTRPG side. I have games prepped for D&D 5e 2014, Realms of Pugmire, and Fantasy AGE. My fellow GMs are primarily focused on D&D, so it's not all weird new things we're doing on that front.

The GM workshop - Big Reveal

In my previous post, I talked about wanting to do something about the GM shortage that we have. And... I did a thing.

THE THING

In short, I'm running a six-session series on the absolute basics of GMing - specifically focusing on the more adminny, less creative aspect. Not all Game Masters are going to run their first, second, or even tenth game as a homebrew and there are some considerations that all of them would benefit to spend some time on. So that's what I'm going to try and facilitate.

The format is simple. Each session, I'll yammer for a maximum of 20 minutes on the subject I had prepared (with SLIDES! Oh! And HAND OUTS!). Then I'll open it up for discussion, questions, etc. until people are exhausted or two hours have passed.

Time zones being what they are, the current series will probably be easier for Africa, Europe and UK peeps to join, but if it works out, I might try to find a more friendly time for the Americas as well.

I'm very excited, a little nervous, but mostly determined to help do my part.

Let's see how this goes.

TTRPG Ramble: Past and present

This post is a mix of what I've been up to, what I'm actively working on, and future plans. 

First, what I won't be doing. In April, I blogged about the TTRPG thing at Con.ect. That has unfortunately fallen through. I'm sad about it but it is what it is.

Anyway, rather than ruminating too much about that, I'll instead babble about other TTRPG things:

I've been running a Phandelver game that's now heading towards a close. I was planning on doing the "and Below" part but there was a general sense of exhaustion coming from the group. They love their characters, but I didn't know whether this campaign would've been a good one for them.

And I have a Dragon Heist game going that is starting the second chapter of the book. It's been amusing so far. I haven't run DH in a while and need to reacquaint myself with all the strings of the various puppets and plots. The group is relaxed, so I don't think we're going to burn through the material quickly.

My South African homebrew game lasted 59 sessions before I called an indefinite break to it. But the story hasn't died in my mind. I'm still consistently making notes for it. Not only for the North American group that's currently working through the material, but for future possible scenarios.

Speaking of the North American group, we're 25 sessions in. It's been interesting leading them through because of the different focus' that they have towards aspects of the world. It makes me very appreciative of the groups I've had gone through it past and present because they have made me work harder on this idea of mine. 

I'm toying with the idea of running more games... I do have a few concerns about over extending myself though. Life has been pretty stressful and I don't know if adding more on my plate would be the best course of action.

I think I just need a holiday. That would be nice. I should maybe think of taking a couple of days off somewhere soon.

So that's what I've done and what I've been up to. What I'm planning on doing in future has to do with my whine a year ago about the lack of GMs. I figure one has to be the change one wants to see or some such. So I'm doing something that will hopefully yield something good. We'll see.

GeeksxGamers convention: Game, game, drop, take an energy drink, up you go

One Sunday, something strange happened to me. I got a phone call. I stared at the phone, looking at it as if it were a bomb and realised I should probably answer...

And in a way it was a bomb. A good bomb. There is going to be a convention in Gqeberha that's happening on 9 August 2025 at Walmer Town Hall. It's going to involve people being able to play D&D (2014), a selection of over 50 boardgames, and Magic the Gathering. There's going to be a Warhammer exhibition, two cosplay competitions and two Klask competitions.

It sounds super exciting to have this in the city and, having met the organisers, I can say that they're as excited and enthusiastic about the opportunity this will bring as I am.

How is the day going to work?

The convention is divided into two time-segments - day and night - and each of them has their own entrance fee of R300 or if you're planning on staying there from 9am to 11pm the cost is R500.

EDIT: Following the feedback received from the community, the convention slashed their prices. And is now charging half of the original cost! Thus R150 per session and R250 for the whole day.

There's been some critique about the cost being steep. My argument to that is that a stroll-through-stalls convention can cost you near R100, if not more. Attending a three-hour movie where you sit on your behind doing nothing but watching costs you R200. Here you have the opportunity to spend several hours playing games, learning some new once, interacting with people and having fun for R300. To me, it sounds like money well spent.

If that doesn't sell you, think on this. There are oneshot D&D tables that cost $25 per person per session for 2.5 to 3 hours. Being able to access several games that exceed that time for cheaper than that is a big deal.

EDIT: Following the feedback received from the community, the convention slashed their prices. And is now charging half of the original cost!

So what will I be doing?

I've been approached to be one of the 40 volunteers who will help make those brave souls who venture through the doors feel welcome... I will sit them down, smile, and then try to kill them in D&D.😈 There are going to be around six tables dedicated to running D&D for curious folk or seasoned veterans with party levels of 3rd, 5th, and 8th respectively. I've been asked to try and pack as many games into the day as I can... which will probably mean three or four sessions of around three hours each. 

That is a new kind of challenge for me, but I'm excited to take it on. And I won't be the only DM there. So what I'm saying is that the TTRPG tables will be rocking.

Boardgames

I'm not big on boardgames so I can't say much about it except that there will be a LOT on offer to play. There are also volunteers that will be taking care of players and helping them out. I've heard the selection will be beginner friendly but that there's some fun ones in the mix. Out of 50 games, I can't imagine that a person won't find one game they'd enjoy.

The ultimate problem for introverts tends to be finding the people who'll play those games with you and here is where the beauty of a convention catering for activities comes in. You can't throw stones at not finding people if you're not there to join with those who resonate at the same frequency. 

Magic the Gathering and Klask

I'll be honest, I don't know anything about either of these games but they'll also be at the convention and so should earn mention. There's more information on the convention's website about both.

Warhammer exhibition

Representatives of the city's wargaming enthusiasts are going to come show their awesome miniatures. They'll have a section specifically dedicated to Warhammer and will be there to interact with anyone interested in getting into the addiction.

Cosplay competition

There will be two cosplay competitions for each time segment of the convention. Pre-prep and communication before the convention is essential for those who're interested in taking part of it. More details on their website.

A last thing...

So I'm very excited about this convention, like I've said above, and I think it's worth supporting. To that end, I would ask that you spread the word if you're in the area or come join if you're curious. From the D&D side I can tell you that newbies are absolutely welcome at my table. And I know others feel the same. 

"But I don't have a character!" - That can be supplied.

"But I don't have dice!" - Dice will be provided.

"But but but..." - No buts! Just butt there! 

See you soon 😁

Build up and pay off - When TTRPGs go right.

It's almost four days since it happened.

Since what happened, you ask?

Magic. Since magic happened.

In March 2024, I started a D&D homebrew campaign with the North American crew. Having run this adventure with the South Africans, I had some vague certainties as to what was going to happen down the line. So I began seeding things - gave one player's character random heartburn and weird dreams about the past.

Saturday night (technically Sunday morning for me), 19 sessions and more than a year later, I finally got to tell him why.

I was, as always, very nervous. I struggle with almost permanent anxiety and just having the reason for it being different. Needless to say, that was raging. I also have a large group of people whom I don't want to sideline for the big reveal, so I worked on ways to include them through recollection or questions. We also had a surprise new edition to the party that required me bringing them into the game in a way that still works for the story. Oh! And I only had two hours to do all of the things in.

A lot of things to juggle for my anxiety-crazed brain.

So I took away combat for this session. I mostly took away exploration. Instead, I focused in on the tier of play that I love the most and comes up the least in many campaigns. I let the people roleplay for two hours.

This group knows how to roleplay.

The player whose character had weird heartburn had such a look of shock when I finally revealed why there's a stabby-burn feeling in his chest. And the shock reverberated through all of them. There were slack jaw moments which I will cherish in my memory forever. It was such an amazing time. Amazing enough to vaguely write a post about it. ;-)

Story payoffs like this one doesn't come as frequently to me in a campaign. I will never be able to duplicate this even for the same group. But I'm challenged to try. 

What's happening in the land of Ris?

 So it's been a while... I got more weary after my last post and have been vegetating a bit. However, things are also kinda busy in my world so I thought I'd give a general babble about what's happening in terms of hobbies and what's not.

TTRPGs

There's been a number of developments in terms of what I'm up to with regards to TTRPGs. 

• My longest running homebrew D&D game with the South Africans have come to a bit of a halt. We completed 59 sessions from 2021 until now and, while we've had some breaks, they haven't been sufficient. People are fatigued and I decided that it would be better to put the game on indefinite hiatus. This also gives me the opportunity to rest more (see below on what I'm up to to why this statement is funny).

• My homebrew game with the North Americans is going on session 18. What I find interesting is that I'm the one who wants to move the current thread along and they're like "no, we want to use the next session to talk about things that has happened so far". Which is awesome. I am not complaining.
  
  
• I'm planning on running two different oneshots at our local gaming convention in October - one for the Fantasy AGE system and the other for Tales of the Valiant. I have the "stories" basically formulating in my mind and spent a huge amount of time on creating character sheets... and I'm not done yet. I'm also practicing the oneshots on my friends and will be running the ToV one in May. Should be fun.
  
  A bit more on the idea we have. A group of us are essentially going to have two tables running games on both days of the convention. The games will only be two-and-a-half hours in length - thirty minutes to familiarise players with the system and each other and then two hours on the actual playing. We're going to be showing off games like Fantasy AGE, Tales of the Valiant, Daggerheart, Realms of Pugmire, and others. 
  
  
  
  
  
• I'm also running two games with the same group of people on Saturdays. We're playing a Phandelver and Below D&D campaign, but on days when not everyone can come, we mess around with Fantasy AGE trying to familiarise ourselves with it.

Computer Gaming

• I'm slowly, very very slowly, playing Mass Effect again. And by slowly, I mean 'I have gotten to the Citadel for the first time and haven't touched the game in like a week afterwards' kind of slowly. I constantly try not to be sucked in by how amazing the game was build and the world constructed. I try to remind myself how hurt I was and how painful the end is going to be. And then I see a cutscene and it's like "Oooohhh..... prettty!" I be dumbass, yes.
  
  
• I'm also losing time in Stranded: Alien Dawn which has recently been acquired by Paradox Interactive... it doesn't immediately bother me but I have to wonder how many million DLCs they'd be able to get out of a game like that. 
  
  
• Aska is also a game I play quite regularly. I know there's a lot of micromanaging that you need to do, but it's relaxing. It's got all the makings of a settlement builder and survival game all meshed up into one. It ticks all the boxes in my mind as something that I want to play without thinking too hard.
  
  
• And then finally there's Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries. A game I shouldn't enjoy because I don't know anything about the stats and guns and whatnots. But somehow, even though I am terrible at the game, I find myself enjoying what I can do. I've had to restart several times in the campaign because I inevitably run out of money and working mechs, but it's still fun. I get the same enjoyment out of it that I got from Battletech and I miss just as badly. haha.

Writing

I've picked up writing again, albeit very very VERY slowly. I have a Mass Effect fanfic that I'm posting for the first time which actually came into existence over a decade ago. For any of you who followed Shattered Reality on FanFiction.com, the story I'm posting now is the one that inspired and is referred to in that one. You can read both without being spoiled by the other, so if you are interested in Mass Effect fanfics the Shattered Reality story was finished and is beefy. 

TV / Streaming

I don't really watch any shows all that much. I've never been big at watching series unless it's something that really catches my attention. I'm happy to see that The Last of Us is back with a second season. Having played the games and enjoying the story, I'm happy to see how they translate that into a different medium. I was a little worried that Bella Ramsey wasn't going to seem older in the second season, but so far I'm on board. 

Board Games / Card Games

I'm still playing Arkham Horror at least twice a month. We've worked through a number of campaigns and it's been a lot of fun. I've been asked to teach others how to play the game at a board-gaming event. So naturally I decided to pull my friends in because I am not keen on doing stuff like that alone, haha. That's happening on Sunday this weekend. (If you are in the area and interested, send me a message and I'll give you details or link you up with people that have the details).

In Conclusion...

So I'm not inactive. If anything, I'm quite busy and keep myself at that level a bit too much. That said, I'm enjoying myself thoroughly, so I can't complain about things that help my mental health and give me joy. 

Outside of the hobby world, things are a bit rough. At least I have things I can take shelter in.

Mini-babble: Cartograph Atlas Edition

So remember when I said December was an emotional trainsmash? Well, it would seem that January didn't like that and tried to one up it.

WTF, January?!

So as per usual, I sought escape from the insanity that I find myself in. And I found a new solo TTRPG to babble about! Introducing: Cartograph Atlas Edition.

So to play this game you need a number of six-sided dice that are going to represent one of three types of things so you need to try and have them be at least three colours. These are going to represent landmark dice, biome dice, and temporary dice. Along with that, you're going to need a piece of paper, a pencil, an eraser, a pack of playing cards, and a notebook to journal in.

The idea behind this game is that you take on the persona of a cartographer (selected from lists or rolled randomly) who arrives at an area populated by other people and you've been tasked to draw a map and chart what you find. You have different phases of play - one of which has you roll dice onto the paper to see what biomes and landmarks you find. You also have a phase that involves writing responses to prompts about the different areas you've travelled to.

Now obviously, you can play fast and loose with this idea. For example, I played a little following the rules and phases and then I realised that I'm just too brain tired to actually write anything, so I ended up just creating a map with the dice rolling (which is was quite fun). The book also gives you ways to modify play from the default fantasy roll, draw, and write.

One can buy Cartograph Atlas Edition pdf from Itchio for $12 USD. Or you can purchase it and over 100 other solo ttrpgs for $10 USD on Itchio by getting the Solo But Not Alone 5 bundle. I will probably babble about some of the solo TTRPGS in other posts as I explore them. The bundle is available for the next three months.

Babble about things and then eventually LegendKeeper

 There are a number of things I collect randomly. I have purchased an insane number of TTRPG pdfs off of sites like DriveThruRPG. I love stationery so places like The Papery are a massive problem. I have an enormous number of PC games on my Steam account but only play a few of them for longer than an hour or two.

And then, in a weird mesh of online stationery, I love trying programmes and websites having to do with writing. I have Scrivener; I was a big fan of Liquid Story Binder (but they're no longer updating it 😕); Microsoft OneNote remains a big favourite; Obsidian is golden for idea crafting and linking; and so on...

This means that I have an overabundance of programmes and places where my homebrew world resides. And I know that this kind of window-shopping for programmes is basically procrastination from actually working on writing, but I have also just been trying to find the one that works the easiest and the best.

World Anvil is a strong contender for working the best, but I can't call it the easiest website to learn. It is incredibly robust and the things you can do there are simply phenomenal. But you need to have an understanding of the programme you're working with. You need to think about things in a particular way, otherwise you won't have a clue what you're doing.

And then came Anto from Icarus Games and he started sharing about his campaign which he writes up in LegendKeeper - a worldbuilding site that does all the things I need it to do (and more) without overwhelming me with everything it can do.

I tried it out for the 14-day trial period and I was still a bit skeptical but growing more convinced that this both covers working the easiest and covering all the bases I need covered. So, when my brother asked what I'd like for a Christmas present, I asked that he'd help me get a year subscription. The site keeps your projects if you no longer subscribe and enables you to export it. So the work wouldn't just hang there inaccessible if you don't pay... but, after a week of working on this programme, I have to say I think this is going be one of those sites (like Inkarnate and Roll20) that is going to become a permanent thing.

So let's (finally) talk about LegendKeeper...

As mentioned above, it is a worldbuilding website. What that means is that it allows you to write and compile a series of articles (with or without the help of templates), and link them to each other and whatever maps you have loaded up. There are some standard templates available to help prompt you, should you need that (user-created templates are also available on their Discord). All of this enables you to set up a wiki as detailed or sparse as you'd like it to be. You can also select certain pages, tabs, or paragraphs to be hidden and kept secret from those who you share the project with.

Which leads me to the first 'nit pick' of LegendKeeper in its current state.

LegendKeeper is currently in Open Beta. Which means that there are a multitude of features available, but it is still a work in progress. If I understand it correctly, there are two ways to share the project. One is by a link which means they won't need an account and can see all the things you didn't hide in the project. This would generally be great for just sharing with your players so they have a wiki-like view of things. The second is by actually given them access to a role. This enables them to collaborate and not just view. Currently there are only two roles: admin (sees everything including secrets), and member (sees only what you've made available, can edit if you allow it).

There's currently no fiddling with what each collaborator can do. You have an all-or-nothing approach which doesn't work as well if you have multiple groups running the game - as they'd need varying access to information. If I read it correctly, it is the developer's intention to diversify roles a bit and add them almost like Discord does. So this isn't a deal-breaker or anything. It's probably the one problem I have with it amongst a lot of good.

I'm not halfway through doing what I need to do to upload all my scattered notes onto LegendKeeper, but I'm happy so far with what I have there. And I'm happy with how simple it is and impressed by how complex you can make it. The pricing for everything you're getting is also reasonable. 

So all in all I'd say I'm very happy with LegendKeeper. Let's give it a year and see what I make of it when I need to resubscribe. 

Homebrew update

I took a couple of months this year to break from my homebrew, but I'm happy to report I'm back in the saddle and have been having a great time with both my South African and North American groups.

So what has been happening. Well the [redacted] that I've been working for years has finally been [redacted]!! That's amazing, right?

😉

Version 1 - back in 2021

No, but to be more serious, a lot of good things are finally falling into place. For my North American group, they've finally moved out of the starter settlement and are learning an overabundance of things. I was a little worried that they would go in a different direction than I had hoped, but after teeter-tottering between three locations, they settled on the "right" one. This is the ultimate challenge of having an overarching "story" in something of a sandbox. I want the players to go where they want to go with their characters but need to make sure there's something for them in the direction they decided on.

I'm also (super) excited to see what they do with the area they've gone to. Some great story beats can be found there including a cameo of my mother's very first D&D character... but it can also be completely missed. That's the thing about player agency: it's up to them to find the threads you hope they'll find. I know there's also the whole 'give them a choice and then just make that choice the right one' as a strategy but I haven't really the experience and insight on how to do that with my game. So yeah. So far it's going very good. We're meeting next week for session 10 which is a bit of a milestone in my mind, though I don't exactly know why that's the case.

--.--

Current version - still a work-in-progress

My South African players have had 53 sessions and I've just dropped a lore bomb on them. They're focused and ready to go find out information. My attempts at intrigue was a little iffy, but then again, it was my first attempt at it so I'm happy that at this redirection. The thing I've also learned about intrigue is that it is more likely to split the party. Which I don't mind, but you almost want solo sessions then versus sitting for three hours and spotlighting each player as they do things the other's characters know nothing about.

The break did me some good in solidifying my ideas and being able to present something coherent with all the threads I had been having them pick up on for three years. I'm happy to have used Obsidian to put those thoughts together. It has been super useful.

--.--

I'm hoping to move my GM "world book" over to a single place. I had initially tried World Anvil but my brain didn't want to work with the setup. I tried it twice actually and feel like I failed horribly both times. A number of people I know recommend it and I would too, if that's how your mind processes information. I found it a bit overwhelming.

The site I'm keen on trying next is LegendKeeper. I don't think it's necessarily better than any of the other sites and programmes I've tried, but I'm hoping that it will just "gel" with me better. The membership fee isn't too bad. I'm going to try it out for a year and see how it works. Might blog about it in here.

Streaming Thoughts and Plans

 It's been a while since I've done a stream on Twitch. I am planning to get back to it but I needed to take a break for a bit. That sounds dire, but honestly it wasn't for any negative reasons - all good ones, actually. Life just got very busy and there were things I've been waiting most my life to do which I got to do. So yay. 

But seeing as this isn't a life blog, I shan't go into too many details of the above. Suffice it to say that I am on a break and will return to trying to stream on a weekly basis when I feel like it. Which at this point is probably November, but no promises.

It does bring the question: What will I be streaming? I have ideas...

One of the games I'll definitely be playing on stream will be Satisfactory. It finally got it's 1.0 release after many years of being a delightful Early Access game and I haven't had the chance to dig into it yet. So I'm going to excitedly play that.

For those who don't know, Satisfactory is a first-person factory-building and exploration game where you're set on a planet to gather resources and build factories for items that the people off planet are looking for. 

It's the only factory game I've really gotten into and I enjoy it quite a bit. I will be trying to build less spaghetti-like factory lines this time around but there are no guarantees. I'm far too used to just running and jumping and sliding around, over, and under my mess of conveyor belts. If I haven't gotten organised in the 285 hours I've already spent on it, there's is virtually no chance that I'll magically bring order to chaos this time around.

Another game I will be eager to get back to is Aska. Another major update is scheduled for 14 October and, from what I've played in the game in general, I'm excited to see what the developers come up with.

I haven't babbled about Aska yet, but will in time when I've formed enough to say something about it. In short, it is a third-person settlement builder with strong Viking themes. There are some micromanaging things that need to be smoothed out. I can't jump every time a villager doesn't have a tool. But other than that, the bit that I've played it has been really good.

There is and always will be my D&D prep of creating maps on stream. Those will come in on sporadic bursts but I always have something I need to desperately work on, especially since running D&D games also was something that took a break. And I'm very glad for that break. But I've also become quite lazy because of it so catching up to the pace I need to prep things at to continue my DMing spree is going to be a challenge.

Another thing I want to do is a creative challenge. I don't exactly what I am going to do for this but I am leaning towards running a solo Starforged game. That's going to be super challenging because the setup prep is relatively easy to do. The actual playing, on the other hand, gets tricky.

Tales of the Valiant: Players' Guide - Thoughts

 So it's been a couple of months since Tales of the Valiant (ToV) came out for everyone to see. For those who don't know what it is, Tales of the Valiant is a 5e compatible TTRPG by Kobold Press. So far they've released the Player's Guide and the Monster Manual, but the Game Master's Guide is still on the way.

Now before I start rambling, let me say that I'm a little scatterbrained today. So I don't know whether this is going to come out sensibly.

You've been warned...

So what is ToV?

Tales of the Valiant is in some ways Kobold Press' response to WotC's OGL scandal. It is a system that appears built on D&D 5th Edition's foundation with a few variations in it. Though not the most accurate of comparisons, the best way I can think to describe it is when Paizo created Pathfinder as an answer to the frustrations players had with D&D at the time.

What does ToV's Players' Guide consist of?

ToV approached its introduction as though you've never played D&D. And so everything you can imagine in how to run a game and character creation and rules are in there. For those who know D&D, and 5e specifically, you'll see that the book holds everything you need to create a ToV character with a few minor rules differences or clarifications. Nothing that completely rocks the boat, yet enough changes to make ToV feel like it's own game. 

I'll try to go into the differences in a bit more detail later or maybe in a later post... I dunno yet.

Compatibility with 5th Edition D&D.

What appealed to me of ToV was that, from the beginning, they stated that you'll be able to run 5e and ToV characters together and, from what I have read, they've kept to that. How would that work? Essentially for the GM, it will be important to tell your players that they can choose either a 5e character or a ToV character. They can't mix the two rulesets for their classes and whatnot. But you will be able to have a party that consists of characters from either set. The rules of ToV doesn't vary so much that there would be sticking points and they've even released a Conversion Document to assist.

It's all about the flavour...

Having read the Player's Guide, I think one will be both curious and a bit perplexed. As this is the initial release of Tales of the Valiant, I suspect the creators went for quality over quantity. As such, ToV doesn't have the same class versatility with respect to player options, but what it does have is flavour and that it has in spades.

Each class feels unique and, where D&D can sometimes feel like a melange of sameness, I think the way they approached the different classes is really intriguing. When creating a ToV character, you're not going to feel like this is a D&D clone. Sure the stats are similar, but when it comes to what each class does, how Talents work and even the heritages, there's a lot that makes you realise that, though they can eat at the same pasture, they're not the same kind of beast.

I would have liked to see more player options, but I also recognise that this is something they can build from. And that makes me curious to see what other things Kobold Press are going to come up with.

What I got stuck on...

The sharper tools in the shed would probably have found the magic concept in ToV easy to grasp. I've admittedly had difficulty. It's not impossible to understand, instead of separating the types of spells by class, it's done by 'source', such as Divine, Arcane, Primordial, to name but a few. In the class description, you'll learn which ones your character will utilize. It's when they overlap that I get confused. I think, for me at least, I'll need to create a couple of ToV characters before I'll adequately understand it. But I figured I'd be honest and mention that there was one hiccup in my reading.

(Dis)honourable mentions

Just a few things that I thought would be worth mentioning: 

• Some magic items are listed in the book and they have suggested prices.
• Crafting of Mundane items are tackled but not magical ones. This is supposedly going to be addressed in the GM's Guide.
• Eldrich Blast is a Warlock ability in ToV and not a spell and thus can't be twinned if you have a sorcerer multiclass.
• ... Oh! They have multiclassing...
• The Luck mechanic is awesome. I've already started incorporating it in my games.
• Kobold Press says NO to generative AI

Final Thoughts

I've been very supportive of a lot of Kobold Press things and Tales of the Valiant is one product I feel I can get behind. I don't know if I'm going to buy their setting guide (I have my own setting to play in, afterall), but any books that build on the classes, ancestries, and heritages that has been established in this initial book will definitely be purchased and consumed.

I'm going to read through the Monster Manual now and (maybe) post about it too at some point. If not, I'll definitely have a post on the Game Master's Guide after I've read it. Can't wait for that to be released!

D&D 2024 - Will I or won't I?

Is anyone else conflicted about acquiring D&D 2024 books?

Let me explain my reservations.

I'm quite happy with fifth edition D&D. I'm open to learning other systems but not necessarily a new edition. 5e by no means is the perfect system, but it does everything I absolutely need it to. It engages without overwhelming the player. It's rules-medium (neither heavy nor lite). And yes, the crafting is useless and the CR-rating is laughably broken, but those are things I can overlook for the most part.

With that said, I had always thought that I would acquire the "new edition" of D&D's Dungeon Master's Guide. This deliberation came to mind when they initially talked about the next iteration - before the debate of 6e, 5.5e, One D&D, etc. It was just a thought of "Oh, it would be nice to get more help on the DM-ing side".

And then we had the OGL fiasco last year January and I found myself reconsidering.

I've not moved away from 5e, but I have found myself moving away from WotC in that I don't want to give them any more money than I already have. I've always looked for my homebrew for third-party content as well as the actual core stuff, because my players know their monsters too well and bringing diversity to a 10-year-old edition is always welcome. I welcome the introduction of Tales of the Valiant from Kobold press that promises compatibility to 5e while being its own game. I've already pre-ordered their GM Guide that's to come out in November-ish(?) and I'm incorporating a number of their monsters into my game.

Okay, that was a bit of a tangent. 

Basically I don't feel like I should encourage WotC/Hasbro's shenanigans with my money. The prices for hard-cover books have almost doubled and the content has not made up for the price. I'm not happy with the idea of AI DMs, AI Art, AI story creation. (The topic of artificial intelligence is a vast one and I'm not going to get into it besides saying that if it hits on story-telling, art, writing, and music - things that we incorporate into our culture - I'm very iffy about it. That cuts the livelihoods of creatives and doesn't give us anything other than recycled plagiarism to some extent.) WotC has had more than one AI whoopsie that was noticed by their customers.

Okay, that turned into another tangent.

Maybe all the tangents are the whole point and problem in supporting them by hauling out (a lot of) money for the new DMG. Every time I think about how nice it would be and how pretty the new books look, I wonder how they're attempting to screw us over next. And that's not the kind of thinking that inspires me to take the plunge.

40th Mischief and 50th session

Last week I celebrated my 40th bday. It went as gracefully (if not more gracefully) than my 30th and for that I am grateful. Birthdays are always tricky affairs, but my day went really well with the exception of one slight thing. So I can't complain.

My birthday week involved travelling about 10 hours in total by car by me onesy as I headed from Gqeberha to Mossel Bay and back. 

Once I got to Mossel Bay, I spent approximately three-and-a-half hours by a very talented tattoo artist who put a picture on my shoulder that we had been collaborating on for about a couple of months. This is a significant move for me. I don't put any tattoos on my skin if there isn't some kind of detailed significance to the act. My first was in mourning. This one was in celebration of something that has helped keep me sane and stable - namely TTRPGs.

The tattoo is that of a (cutesy) dragon in flight, grasping a 20-sided die in its front paws - presumably to add it to its hoard. I've named the dragon Mischief and I don't have a picture of it in a fully healed state, so I will share the pic we took on the day of inking.

Once Mischief is fully healed, I might make it the profile pic to this blog.

To celebrate my closer proximity to hagdom, I spent most of this past weekend playing D&D. I had two TNO (my homebrew) sessions - one with the SA+ crew on Friday and the other with the North Americans on Sunday morning. I had a D&D game I play in on Saturday where I got to draw from the Deck of Many Things, got one of the best cards (it gives you wishes), and almost immediately used a wish on the DM at an unexpected time... So that was fun. 

The Friday game was particularly significant as it was our 50th session playing TNO. I've babbled about my homebrew at length on this blog so I won't go too much into it now, but it is still remarkable that a game I thought was going to die six sessions in has lasted as long as it has and isn't even remotely close to a conclusion. New places, new challenges, new people, and new character progression levels means that there's always something that can happen to keep things from being stale. Or at least I hope so. 😛

Me, tabletop roleplaying, and D&D - A(n almost) ten-year journey

This year marks a couple of memorable milestones for me. I was an '84 baby, so that means 40 is knock, knock, knocking on my door. It's been ten years since my gran passed away, someone who was very much the angel on my shoulder. And it's also been ten years since I got pulled into the tabletop roleplaying scene - specifically with the drug that is Dungeons & Dragons.

Back in 2014, we were still stumbling through the new basic rules of D&D 5e (or D&D Next as it was known at the time). My first game was a oneshot in which was an almost TPK - prevented only because I turned around after my peeps dropped and ran screaming into the woods. While their gold-covered skeletons shambled through the corrupted temple in the end, I found myself very much hooked to the game and the encounter still remains one of the fond memories I keep in my memory bag of holding.

Pugmire

Through the ten years, I played in many adventures and campaigns. Official ones like Hoard of the
Dragon Queen and Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, and homebrewed creations that opened up the possibility for me to create my own story when I finally took to DMing myself. My first forays into being a DM (or GM when not running D&D) was cautious affairs full of planning and anxiety. 

In that time, I introduced my group to Pugmire - a D&D-esque game full of elevated and enlightened dogs and cats trying to find sense in a medieval-type world. I also stumbled over Fantasy AGE - which is also a really fun system - and brought that to the gaming table. There were a couple of failed attempts at Masks: A New Generation but that was mostly because I couldn't figure out how it worked... I still love the game but I haven't figured it out....

Then the pandemic hit and my gaming increased massively as online and work-from-home made connection in a disconnected world more possible and the introvert in me thrived despite the raging anxiety that the whole situation brought. I actually started playing too much, had too many connections and had to tone down my gaming to keep a balanced lifestyle (and an okayish sleep cycle).

The ten years were marked with some very low moments, but what I can say without a shadow of a doubt is that TTRPGs can be amazing for mental health provided you find the right group of people. I started with a 'right group' and accumulated more peeps as the years went on, which means that the impact it has had on my emotional wellbeing has been enormous. 

Me telling the peeps what's what at Game Over Cyberfest 

We have little over a month until my birthday. I have special things planned on the day and will probably celebrate the weekend by playing an enormous amount of D&D. It seems fitting...

Feedback on Game Over Gaming Cyberfestival March 2024 - D&D!

My experience of my trip to Game Over Gaming is always memorable. This time was no different!

Two years ago, I went for the first time and, despite nursing a migraine borne out of the depths of hell, the weekend had gone really well. This year the migraine wasn't physical, but I had a persistent pain in the butt due to car issues towards, throughout, and from Glentana. At least we got there safe and the issues were resolved soon after returning home. No long-lasting damage or anything. 

As for the actual convention, it was a little bigger than last time with definite potential for growth. I didn't take a lot of pictures (because I'm a dummy), but it consisted of a hall where the pc- and console-gaming happened, then an external room with stalls for comic-art, peripherals and other stuffs, and finally an outside tent for board gaming and hanging around.

There was a side room which is actually a kitchen / tuck shop that we used for our D&D games. Some people might frown at this setting, but I actually loved it. There are three places that are classic D&D spaces: The basement, the dining room, and the kitchen table. So being able to capture one of those spaces for the game was great.

I had a group of five players that I did a modified Out of the Abyss - Velkynvelve with. Four of them were newbies with one veteran... they all survived and managed to set everything on fire. In hindsight, having one of them be a dragonborn wasn't necessarily a good idea, but all-in-all I loved everything about the session. 

Especially the part that I didn't know the convention hall was watching... I knew it was being streamed on a twitch channel, but I didn't know the next room could see everything. Ignorance = bliss!!!

My anxiety did mean that I had to hide my hands because they were trembling, but at the same time, I tend to talk with my hands, thus it was a constant battle. But that's a normal thing for me. I'm still nervous even when I've done something a million times before.

But yes, it was fun. I slept very little, didn't eat enough, worried a lot about the car and things, but ultimately had a blast.

TTRPG Babble: New homebrew start-up and future possible joys

 This coming Saturday, I will be introducing more players to my homebrew world. I'm very excited at the prospect of doing so. 

When I crafted the idea of this homebrew, I wanted to create a world that experienced players could traverse without fear of their existing knowledge. So, instead of having them act dumb whenever they see a creature they've encountered a million times before and know the weaknesses of, I made their characters experienced warriors who've seen all of it before and knew how to respond - no distancing required. 

The second aspect I wanted to incorporate in the homebrew was the idea of character backstory being relevant in some way to the game. There are a number of players who want to have a solid backstory without knowing what the game is fully about. They craft all these amazing things that their character has supposedly already achieved and then, when they play, are forced into a far more insignificant role because a character at their level simply couldn't achieve slaying a dragon on by their onesy regardless of what their backstory says. With my homebrew's approach, they could very well have done all the amazing things the backstory states. In fact, it is encouraged to be as elaborate and grandiose as possible.

I don't know if my incorporating of these two aspects into my game is all that unique, but I'm very happy with it. And I do think that one day I'd like to assemble this campaign into a book form. Not because it's absolutely amazing, but because I believe it gives the starting points where anyone can build something amazing from it.

But I digress. 

So I have a new campaign coming up and I'm absolutely delighted by the initiative this group has taken in crafting round characters. They've even given me ammunition to make their characters' lives miserable! My discord server's channels are filled with conversations and questions posed at each other about characters and story. They've even gone as far as writing snippets of fiction to better define and introduce their characters and the world to each other. It's been fantastic.

Naturally, it does mean that I'm nervous about the game, but I've realised that my excitement manifests as anxiety, so the more anxious I am, then in truth, the more excited I am. 

I'm very excited.

In keeping with my commitment to not overextend myself, this campaign is only going to play out once a month. There are some challenges connected with that - people forget and you spend more time in a session talking about what happened in the previous ones - but at the same time, there is also an understanding among the group that everyone is busy and we should make do with what we can.

But, speaking of excitement. I have been surprised by an offer to play Ironsworn Starforged co-op with a friend. It came out of the blue and I'm genuinely thrilled. To make it more interesting, the plan is to stream it on her channel. It makes more sense to do it on hers seeing as we'll be playing at times where the peeps who usually watch my stream are sleeping like normal people. Also, her videos stay up longer. So that's also a win. 

This will hopefully start up in April. I'll probably babble about it more here once I have more specifics.

TTRPG Babble: How do we cultivate more game masters?

 This is going to be a pointless ramble, because I don't actually have an answer to the question. If anything, I'm rather ardently looking for it. The TLDR (too long didn't read) version of this is simply the following:

• The problem: There aren't enough people willing to step into the shoes of Game Masters to run games.
• Which creates the problem: There's no way to facilitate growth of people playing TTRPGs.
• Conclusion: Stagnation/Shriveling and general disappointment.

The longer babble:

As far as I know, there aren't any conclusive answers as to what the ratio is of GMs versus Players in the hobby. Even with D&D, it's hard to say. It is played internationally by thousands of people, sure, and for that to happen there has to be GMs running the games. But there also isn't any information on how many people are waiting to play that lack the opportunity because there isn't any facilitation of the game.

Now there are some old grognards that would say "It doesn't matter if you're new. Just GM for your friends. Read the book. It's not that difficult..." but those who learnt to GM this way are few and, in my opinion, the minority of game masters out there.

I've been playing the game for nearly ten years and started running my own games somewhere around three or four years after I started playing. The group I was in (and still play with) naturally encourages and cultivates the desire to run games for others. There is no one game master. Everyone has the chance to run. Everyone has a pet project that they would like to run and we take turns as life and busy schedules allow. It is an unpressured environment that naturally sparks curiosity and a sense of 'what if I tried?'

In the past two weeks, I've become aware of how... I don't want to say desperate... but how much people are itching to play. In the posts I see on Reddit, Discord, Facebook, etc. often involve people asking to play and other people also adding their voices to the post, wishing for the same thing: to be part of a game. 

This has bothered me quite a bit. 

I used to describe myself as someone with ultimately two passions: 1. to learn, and 2. to share what I've learnt. Because of these inherent desires, these needs required basically to function, I have to sit on my hands to keep myself from tossing my hat in the ring. To help DM multiple groups. To introduce people to this hobby that I love so much. But I can't... because I don't have the capacity to do so. I've only just started not getting burnt out from doing too much and so my ability to actually jump in and be helpful has been hobbled.

But even if I had the capacity, would that really help the problem? Because one more DM is not going to change the tide, is it? You almost need the same thing I had - where you not only learnt to play but learnt to run the game.

I guess it's the girl with the starfish story though, right? You can't save them all but you can make the world of difference to the ones you throw in the sea.

As I said above, I don't really have answers. It's just bothering me enough to write about it. I don't quite know what can be done. At the same time, I know I want to be part of the solution... without going into burnout.

Ironsworn Starforged: Yet another tale of loss, horrible dice rolls and death!

 

My tale begins in August 2023, when I received the printed copies of Ironsworn Starforged from my brother. We went to Plettenberg Bay for a couple of days and I started immediately to play the game.

Those who know Ironsworn games would know by playing I kinda mean prepping. But as Shawn Tomkin says "Prep is play". It took me a couple of hours to write out the 'Truths' of the galaxy I was going to have my character run around in and came up with a fairly interesting idea. The people had fled their former galaxy because of an AI war that broke out. But later in the truths it came out that AI were still something that some people had. So I imagined that the Ironsworn I was going to play would have strong feeling about AI and the cultivation of AI in the galaxy they were in now. She would probably do her level best to destroy any AI she could find.

There were a couple of other things I thought would be rather interesting to try out. I've always played close-combat, bashy-bashy characters, but in this world which takes inspirations from Battlestar Galactica and Firefly, there is a more gunslinger type feel. so I decided to make her a gunslinger and also an explorer - someone curious about this galaxy that they were still trying to figure out three-hundred years after arrival.

Because this game allows for improvements of assets (but not of stats), I sorta noted down some other things that she'd be interested in doing or things that could happen to her. Of course, the quest to destroy AI would be on the top of the list. She had lost her family, maybe finding a relative would be a nice thing to have her stumble over. 

I began my 'actual play' in December when work had calmed down to a crawl and life had decided to stop kicking me in the teeth. It was very slow going.

My character's first mission was to retrieve a data drive from a bandit camp. This drive would contain information on the transportation of an AI by ship to somewhere to be determined. I wanted to be cautious and play it safe, to not kill off my character in the first thing she tries to do. So I didn't make the firefights that ensued too difficult. She did get hit and such, but she didn't die and she got the drive and took it to the person who had initially wanted it. Their relationship was complicated. This helper wanted to sell the information on the drive, but kept her word and allowed my character to access the info first, not knowing that the latter's intention was to destroy the AI.

From the drive, they learnt that the AI was on it's way to Rhiannon and so the race from Argosy to Rhiannon began.

My character had a choice. She could either fly through the known routes to Welkin via Elysium and then cut to the unknown Rhiannon or go straight into the unknown. Being a bit of a hard ass and, seeing that I had gained confidence over the matter, the decision was made to go straight for Rhiannon. It would be a formidable journey that could lead to multiple discoveries.

It would also be a journey she'd never finish.

Along the way, she would encounter a pirate ship. This would be my first attempt at fighting in ship-to-ship combat. I again decided to play it safe and choose an 'easy' opponent. 

I Entered the Fray and the trouble immediately started.

*rolls the dice* 

Miss.

This meant that the opponent had the upper hand and I would be reacting to them rather than fighting from a position of strength. My character would not dodge immediately, exchanging fire with the other ship.

Clash.

*rolls the dice*

Miss.

The miss meant that my character's ship had taken damage, but that was okay. One of the assets I had selected in the beginning of the game was a reinforced hull. So that meant that these rolls wouldn't be too difficult to do well in.

Withstand Damage.

*rolls the dice*

Miss.

...

By this point I was getting annoyed with my dice. But I'm not superstitious. I wasn't about to haul out another set of dice to try and break the curse that was befalling these ones. Besides, it was loadshedding and I was already playing by battery-powered lamplight. Trying to find it in the dark would not have been so easy.

This time I would try to dodge though.

React under Fire.

*rolls the dice*

Miss.

The ship bobs and weaves and still gets singed by the pirate. Damage is dealt and again I take heart in the fact that I have that reinforced hull.

Withstand Damage.

*rolls the dice*

Miss.

I almost head-desked at this point. My character's ship integrity was now zero, it was battered to bits and anything harder than a sneeze would make it fall apart completely. She'd be desperate now. Desperate to score a hit on this pirate and destroy it outright.

Clash.

*rolls the dice*

Strong Hit.

It was a feeling of elation that is matched only by having spent four hours in the dark and having the power finally come on. A strong hit meant that I didn't just mark one damage to the track of this pirate, but two. And because it was an 'easy' opponent, that would mean that I could finish off this combat with one last hit - even a weak hit would do.

Take Decisive Action.

*rolls dice*

Miss with Match.

I considered how to save my character. She had failed utterly and her ship was about to be blown to bits. She could probably escape, get captured, try to escape that... I just didn't know if I wanted her to be a captive to a pirate. So I decided that the dice would decide for me. If I got a strong hit, she'd be fine and captive. If I got a weak hit... she'd die but would have one last act. And if I missed, then she'd just be dead. A fart in the wind.

Face Death

*rolls dice*

Weak Hit.

So she died. But maybe what she had done, the cylinder she had shot into the void would find a curious scavenger who'd take up her cause. Or who'd write a book about her. Or something.

As for me, I'm already thinking of how to start prepping for the next character. I still kind of want to use the same Truths. Maybe I'll change the locations and have the character be from a different sector - different planets, routes, dreams, and plans. We'll see.

As inglorious as this death was, it had kept me occupied for several months and I had fun with that.

Might consider new dice though...