D&D Homebrew Babble: What's happening with the Saffas?

So let's start with:

 Update: I'm alive!

Not much happening on the life front. I'm still trying to save up for a big trip next year. Still waiting for answers on said trip. Still getting ever nervous as the days fly by and the deadline for buying my tickets nears (still months away but that's not going to stop me from panicking).

To escape the continuous waves of panic that the above inflicts upon me, I dive deep into the depths of procrastination (via computer gaming) or escape (via D&D). It's been about 9 months since I rambled about my homebrew, so I figured I could do that today.

First thing: There are now multiple groups romping through my world.

Okay this isn't a new thing. We had the South African group (which is still going strong after 31 sessions!), then we had the British group (square peg, round hole lasting only like 10 sessions, if that? I can't remember), and now I have a multi-national group that I've just finished session zero with. The latter will be gathering only once a month, but I'm hopeful it's going to go well and will be memorable enough that the gap in between games will not be too distracting. I also think I have also selected the group well enough that there won't be any issues and we're introducing a few new things that I'm excited about - not new to the story, but new to the gaming dynamic. One is basically a mechanism to allow ongoing feedback for everybody and the other is a mechanism to bring roleplay forward on matters that won't necessarily be tackled in game.

So that's rather cool.

Second thing: I'm a horrible DM. 

Well, debatable. But I took about eight months before levelling up the South Africans to level eight. This was due to a mixture of reasons: We hadn't gathered more frequently, they were taking their time through my world (can't complain about that), and so were not really hitting any big milestones.

With that said, I'm happy with the progress they're making. There's a self-motivated engine that's running the show and it's not coming from me as powerfully as from them. They want their characters to achieve things and they want to know what's going to happen next. Which is nice. It makes me happy.

Third thing: I'm still stressed and anxious.

I struggle a lot with perfectionism and performance anxiety. (well, actually all kinds of anxiety, but this one is relevant for this situation :P)

I don't know if I'll ever shake the trepidation that dogs me when it comes to running a self-made game especially, but so far I've been having good days and bad days. Bad days involved medication and a power nap which makes me feel awesome... so I guess they're not terrible days. Good days involves me sitting in disbelief thinking "how on earth did we end up here?"

So even though I'm stressed and anxious about stuff, I'm pretty grateful too. I'm happy with what's going on with this group and happy to have them.

D&D: You win some, you lose some (random progress babble)

So my one Dragon Heist game ended. Well, to be more accurate, I ended it. It was another situation where it was a square peg in a round hole. I won't go into the details of it but I felt it should be noted in this here blog thinger. I'm not super happy about it, but I think it's for the best.

This means I have one Dragon Heist game left - of which they're probably like three-four sessions from the conclusion. I'm happy to report that, after a five-month break, we're reconvening to finish off the game. I'm very happy about it.

I've also started an Ironsworn game with two friends. We've created the world in our last gathering and now need to make our characters. The energy of the collaboration has me excited. We still have a lot to learn about the actual game mechanics and whatnot, but we've already created a world that's unique to any I've played in and it's driven by them, not me. Which makes me very happy.

Finally, I'm going to risk my homebrew with a group of fresh faces. I'm nervous about it but excited. The group has been assembled, the primer has been given, jokes have been made and characters are in the process of being created. So far, so good. I've specifically chosen people who I feel will work well together and hopefully spend time diving into character backstory - which is one thing that, while not absolutely essential, kinda sorta is important for my homebrew. That will drive character motivation when things are still uncertain and they don't know what they're doing.

In my South African group, we're getting a new player into my homebrew. Poor bastard doesn't know what he's letting himself in for. I chatted with him and then on the same day cooked up a seven-page primer for him. Mwahaha. He doesn't get to know what the others know yet until they start playing, but he'll have a better idea of the dynamics of his immediate surroundings. At least, that's the idea.

Hm, that reminds me. I still have some more information to babble at him about.

So yes, I lost some and won some these past two weeks. But overall the winnings outweigh the losings.

Oh! One more thing to babble about briefly. In the past couple of weeks I've joined a roleplay-heavy play-by-post. It's rather challenging, but fun!

So that's another win.

D&D Babble: The Aftermath

 As the gargantuan juggernaut rose out of the flaming pool of lava, the heroes (and the DM) steeled their resolve to fight in what would be their most challenging battle to date.

When I was a lot younger, I used to play guitar quite a bit. I was self taught and didn't know much, but could sing and made reasonable amount of noise that could be misconstrued as music. The problem was that I had the horrible habit of making an utter fool and failure of myself the moment you put me in the limelight. Sure, I had times where I didn't choke, but the times I did were... memorable.

Long story short, this is a persistent fear in me now and drives my performance anxiety to its limits.

Fortunately, despite what my anxiety was trying to tell me, I didn't drop the ball (or the robot) this time. In fact, I had quite a bit of fun.

It's eyes glows bright and fires radiant light down on the heroes.

They say that, like characters, game masters have alignments. I'm definitely of the more benign DMs out there. I cheered and encouraged as the party whittled down this enormous construct before them. I did get to blast them with eye beams - which was fun - and I got to slap around a player who had turned into a dragon, but I was still cheering as they found creative (and destructive) ways to deal with their foe.

In the end, time was the biggest enemy. We had three hours and the objective wasn't completed by that time. We improvised and I hope that the players still felt like they had accomplished something big.

I won't be sitting in for the conclusion of the campaigns. Time, again, is the enemy in this regard. But I am hoping that with the ending of their journey, they will feel determined, liberated, and satisfied. 

D&D Babble: Sometimes wonderful, unexpected things happen.

As anyone who plays D&D - or any TTRPG for that matter - could tell you, the game is unpredictable and surprising. Most often in delightful ways. But my babble today and the title thereof comes from outside of the table.

For the past near-on-a-year, I've been playing D&D with a group of people on alternating Saturdays who're living predominantly on the North American coast. I got pulled into the discord server and the first thing I saw was the sheer amount of people connected to this dungeon master and went *gulp*. The gentleman in question has multiple games running throughout the week, all set within his world, all containing different people playing characters in this world which becomes influenced by their actions. It's a beautiful thing to see. 

And what is happening is also kinda rare in that his homebrew story is coming to a spectacular conclusion. The goodies are fighting the baddies and the odds are stacked against success, but they still fight and may just succeed and each player involved in the story is deeply invested.

From a DM-ing perspective, it's inspiring because it takes one helluva story and one amazing DM to garner such devotion. These are people who have busy lives and yet they make the time because they're captured by the unfolding story.

My Saturday games are detached from the events, but I'd have to be blind not to see the excitement of the other groups on a near-daily basis as things slowly come to a head.

And then the unexpected happened:

"Hey! Got a sec?" the DM asks me after our game. "I was wondering if you would be my second DM for the epic?"

...

......

..........

!

My brain stops functioning for a time as I try to absorb the enormity of the suggestion. At first I wonder whether he got the right person. Maybe he was meaning to talk to someone else. I mean his channel has over 60 people and mistakes happen.

Then I finally understood what Troy Baker felt when he got to the audition for the Joker in the Batman: Arkham Origins and, not knowing what he was there to audition for, spotted the dialogue that was undoubtedly from the Joker himself and went, "Oh God."

I composed myself, admirably, and accepted the honour with as much gravitas as I could muster.

Since then, I've been battling with brain goblins on a daily basis - much like I did when I took the Glentana gig. The emotional pendulum is swinging from glee to horror at a somewhat rapid pace. In many ways this is a bigger step for me than DM-ing in Glentana, because Harlen's shoes are fucking massive. And I will not be leading newbies. These are veteran players at a level of gaming and roleplaying that I have not necessarily encountered before. I'm used to sitting at the feet of experienced players. Sitting at the head of the table is going to be a challenge.

But it is a challenge I'm willing to take on and am taking on. I've already started prepping by printing out materials and making notes. Harlen has been awesome in supplying all the details, setting up everything, and making me feel as comfortable as possible.

My goal is a simple task, but I feel an enormously crucial one: As we come to the end of the story, make the conclusion worth the journey.

*cough* In other words, don't be a Mass Effect 3 *cough*

And I think I can do that. 

I'm going to absorb as much as I can. I'm going to forget myself, step out of my goblin-infested mind, and just present the best story I can for people who deserve their long and arduous journey to have a fulfilling end.

Gaming Babble: Sons of the Forest

So it's been a while. Not much to say in terms of what's been going on. Work, work, work, work, work, D&D! Sleep, Grounded, sleep, work... rinse repeat.

But then, on Thursday came something new...

... which was promptly interrupted by loadshedding and apparently a crashed Steam. But yes, Sons of the Forest, sequel to 'The Forest', is out on early access.

How is it? ... Pretty good. The first few hours was really rough as I took a while before figuring out things. I've not gone spelunking too much - creepy mutants creeping me out! - but I've run around the new island, and around cannibals who didn't like me running through their camps, and the game is very pretty. And good. So. Pretty good then.

The premise is that you're part of a squad who gets sent to an island to find a billionaire and his family. Soon after your helicopter takes a tumble in one of three locations on the map and you start off to continue your mission and survive and not get eaten by cannibals, not be killed by mutants, not starve, not thirst to death, or not find other horrible ways to expire.

There are a number of similarities to The Forest. Crafting has expanded but basically works the same way: Gather ingredients, combine them, boom. The difference is that there at least seems to be a lot more items available than before. Your inventory expands quite a bit and you have to swing your cursor around left and right to make sure you spot everything that you've accumulated so far. Being early access, there are a number of things subject to change. Currently some plants are hugely overpowered while others are pointless to gather. Some weapons are effective, others are like using a fly swatter on that big lady's ass in Resident Evil - meaning: pointless but amusing.

A big difference is how building works. There are a few pre-fab buildings that are built in similar ways to the original game: gather logs and lob it in the blueprint area. But the developers have decided to make free building a thing. It takes some getting used to and, as with all things, there are bugs, but I managed to craft a cabin for myself with a ramp and I'm currently working on a palisade-esque wall to surround the area. It's a lot of work but it'll be worth it, I'm sure.

Then there are the additions of companion AI. The first you encounter not far from where start. Kelvin is a useful companion who can't hear you swear at him... which is probably for the better. ;)

The other companion I've encountered so far thinks she's a gazelle. She runs her ass off the moment you swing your axe at a nearby tree, or when the baddies arrive. She eventually warms up to you if you do the things she wants you to do - like not swing weapons around her, not follow her or "chase" after her, etc.  

But this isn't Mass Effect. You're not here to interact with your companions to maneuver them into a er position. They seem to be helpful additions, but I haven't gotten far enough to see how helpful that is. I've only played 10 hours of the game, which is honestly not much but to get an impression of the game. From what I have gathered, I can say that the game does need a lot of work, there are still quite a few adjustments, tweaks, and bug squishing that needs to happen. But with that being said, I'm having fun. 

Still not keen on spelunking though... don't want to fight the mutants, eeeeek!

 

TTRPG Babble: Delve - A Solo Map-drawing Game

I've been quietly stalking some youtube channels who talk about solo-ttrpg games and stumbled over a map-drawing game called Delve. 

The premise is fairly simple: You're part of a dwarven settlement who has been sent to delve deep into the depths of a mountain to find a special type of crystal. As you explore your mountain, you draw cards that indicate what you find - resources, trade goods, remnants of former civilizations, natural formations, etc. Then you can build your own rooms - all of which needs to be drawn in, of course.

The size of the map is determined by what paper you have to work with (or not, you could always add more pages to broaden/lengthen your mountain).

The game requires a set of cards, a piece of paper, pencil and eraser. That's it. Oh, and candles if you're playing during loadshedding in South Africa, but that's not a design feature. ;)

In my second play through (which has been far more successful than the first one), I've yet to discover the void crystal, but I have stumbled over two sleeping dragons, a magma flow, an underwater lake, a dormant volcanic shaft and built a slew of different buildings. Giving me a map that looks like this:

So far, I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

2022 in retrospect

...

I find myself a little conflicted.

I don't know about you, but the last day of a year always has me very reflective and I can't decide where on the scale between fabulous and god-awful 2022 lands.

It was a year of firsts.

• First time streaming.
• First time running a dnd game at a gaming convention for strangers.
• First time a judge told me to go sit outside in the corridor like a schoolchild. 

A lot of good things happened during the year. My best friend got an amazing, life-altering new job. I committed myself financially to visiting Canada in 2024. I feel more confident in myself. Made a new friend who has already impacted on me quite a bit. (No relationships, of course. Still allergic.).

But my anxiety has never been as bad as it has been this year.

So, as 2022 leaves my periphery in six hours, I suppose the best I can do is to focus on the new year, taking the best of this year and just kicking the rest on its ass.

2023 will have some nice things lined up. I will be streaming more, hopefully. I'll have better internet, hopefully. More D&D shall be played, hopefully... 

And I'll be playing some more Grounded, DEFINITELY!

Babble: Twitch - WHAT WAS I THINKING?!

 I honestly don't know. That's the truth. I've sat and tried to figure out my own motivations and I can say that I don't know.

Whatever the reason, I've begun streaming on Twitch. And by begun I mean "did a single solo stream".

For now.

I think my intentions were/are fairly pure. I'm currently enjoying my holidays and thought that I should play some Ironsworn since I'm usually too tired to play. But what usually gets me is the fact that I don't have anyone to bounce ideas off of. As I've said in a previous post, Ironsworn can be played solo, co-op, or guided. While I'm still fairly new at the game (and solo gaming in general), I find that playing in isolation ends up with me staring blankly at an equally blank piece of paper.

So what if I could do a couple of things in one go?

• Showcase Ironsworn - which is a pretty cool game all by itself. (And whose pdfs are free btw)
• Play the game (mostly) solo
• Grab as many ideas off of those who decided to take the time to watch me fumble, stumble, and mostly wildly twitch on camera. Stupid anxiety.

I'm by no means a "Me, Myself and Die!" or "The Bad Spot". I also don't see myself aspiring to do what they do. There are many years of solo gaming, improv, and in-depth knowledge of the system behind what these gents do. 

So what am I aspiring to do?

I think just play a little Ironsworn. It's going to be a lot of fumbling about trying to navigate the rules and whatnot, but the only way I'm going to learn is through practice.

There are some obstacles in my way. Besides my own internal lacks (that I can work on, at least), my internet isn't very good. I'm still waiting for them to activate the fibre in my neighbourhood that they've almost finished installing. That's hands down my largest obstacle. I'm still going to try to stream regardless. Why? Because I am inspired to do so now. I might forget everything I've been thinking about (and spent over two hours making notes about) if I wait for better days.

I'm not trying to be professional. I'm just me. Hopefully that'll be enough.

Geeky Babble: Fun at Con.ect 2022

Con.ect is a geek convention held in Gqeberha, South Africa almost annually. I say almost because this year was the first time since the pandemic that the convention was held. It was down-scaled somewhat with it being held only on one day (as opposed to the usual two), but up-scaled in terms of the variety of things that were going on. They had their first LAN arrangement, which was an interesting development. They also had an actual play D&D session running in another room... Which is a little strange for me, but I'm happy for the TTRPG exposure it offers. Beyond that, they had the standard geeky fare: stalls, geek quiz, cosplay, some demos, etc.

Every year, I save a small, monthly amount in a little money jar for the convention. With the pandemic, that amount grew a bit more than usual, yay. Tradition holds that I buy at least one set of dice at the convention. That tradition was broken as no one was selling dice. My mom, who usually gives me grief about my dice buying, noticed this lack before I did. She proceeded to give some stalls a hard time for this lack. They took it good naturedly - especially the book sellers who never have dice to sell to begin with, but did have some board games on display. (Sorry, Bargain Books!) I directed her to the right stall to exert her customerly annoyance at and the dude simply shrugged. Apparently they didn't have stock in so they didn't bring... A bit weird, but okay.

So instead, I bought myself something else.

My mom decided to get some things. I tried to buy a hat, my head was too big for it. I thought of buying a plushie bat but decided I'll try to win the raffle first and then maybe bug the lady later if I wasn't successful. We bought very nice chocolate croissants, then left the convention to stop at a food place for a nice meal.  

In the end, I'd call that a successful outing. 

D&D Babble: Thoughts on the Wild Beyond the Witchlight

 Life is kicking my butt. Life is an evil Dungeon Master.

However, I'm looking forward to a long, hopefully calming, holiday in December where I will sit and veg and whine about the heat. So there's that.

But that's not what this post is about. This post is going to be a discussion on The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. This babble will contain spoilers: Some light, some not so much. I think when I get into my struggle with it, I'll mark where the spoilers run thick. To be honest though, I think this is more for DMs who are looking to run the story to read. So players *makes a shoo motion*.

Wild Beyond the Witchlight (WBtW) is an adventure campaign that takes you from levels 1-7. It starts the party off at the Witchlight Carnival and then takes you deeper on a Feywild-filled adventure. Supposedly this game can be run on "pacifist mode" or gives you the opportunity to use negotiation to get past combat. In most cases, this may be true, but I found some instances where it would be very difficult to do. My group of adventurers was first drawn to the idea of finding ways to circumvent combat and then got surprisingly bloodthirsty with the first boss. So... Yeah. No.

There are two story hooks supplied. Both are interesting. One has the player characters look for things they've lost. The other is a more standard "someone gives you a mission" approach. I think you could use both if you wanted to mix it up. I took my group through the standard mission and in it found the first problem. But more on that later.

Your PCs are sent to the Witchlight Carnival - a place of fun and excitement and lot of whimsy. My players spent several sessions in the carnival and enjoyed it thoroughly. Enough so that, even when the exit was clear, they went to all the smaller stalls to see what was available. They sucked the marrow from the bone, so to speak. Wizards of the Coast really did good here. I have never had a party oblivious to the fact that they were only level one for so long and, it's true, you can introduce this adventure at later levels, though that might require a bit work from the DM to upscale things.

After some time, the party notices that things are not as they would appear and, with some investigation, they find that the patron to the carnival is in some kind of predicament. Through possibly heavy-handed manipulation, the party is sent through to a portion of the Feywild to further investigate and correct things. Depending on the story hook, the party has a clear mission at this point or a 'oh you've lost something? well uhm, go look there.'

[More Spoilers]

WBtW sends you to Prismeer, a domain of delight within the Feywild. You find that the current management consists of three, very uniquely crafted creatures. It is probably the strength of the campaign: how unique their villains are. Prismeer has been divided by these nasty critters and each one's area is different - in landscape, fauna and flora, and mood. For all of this though, the pattern expected of the players get old quick. Reach new area, go to locations, find bad guy, kick bad guy's ass, rinse and repeat. It was probably easier to deal with from the players' point of view, but for the DM's side, it felt really tedious. As unique as the creepy characters were, there was little variety in the actual missions.

Now I realise that some of this is my own fault. For one thing, I use Roll20 and roll in the open. I am also someone not blessed with bountiful luck and so every combat consisted of my baddies being trounced. The players found that entertaining. I did not. And I think that's what bothers me so much about WBtW. It just didn't click with me.

[Even More Spoilers]

So you know how I said the standard mission presented the first problem? Well, WotC was very heavy handed in their hints. The first character you encounter who gives you a mission has a tattoo on his face. The moment my players saw that, they instantly connected it to the final riddle even though they didn't realise it at first. Now you can say "Oh they shouldn't meta-game", but if you're going to have a famous person in an adventure and make it so bluntly obvious from the beginning, it's really, bloody difficult not to meta-game the shit out of that. And so when the final question arose, it wasn't the knowledge accumulated through the game that brought forth the answer, but external knowledge instead. And when the players realised this, they felt a little cheated. Sure, there are some hints of the answer in the adventure itself, but that bloody tattoo... was basically all that was needed for the cat to be out of the bag.

[Final Thoughts]

There are a lot of good things in this adventure. It has a very 'Alice in Wonderland' dark feeling to it. So if that's your cuppa tea, this will be fun. The villains are really good. The game is FULL of whimsy - which is something I just don't have a taste for, but recognise that this is a preference and not necessarily a criticism. It's an adventure that is on rails, to some degree, but with a lot of work, you could free it up. I just found my people didn't really care to go back to the places they were before. As we sped to the end, I think the party felt the same weariness I felt for the adventure. Maybe I just am just projecting this on them. They said they liked it, after all. But yeah.

WBtW is pretty. It is detailed and intricate and whimsical and dark. But just not my type of game.