Curse! Splat!

So I know this isn't a life blog, but the fun has to be documented somewhere and it influences my future geekiness.

It's almost a week into nanowrimo and it's already very quickly going to pot. I can still catch up - if I can write 15 000 words in one day to win like I did a couple of years ago, anything is possible. So I'm not going to say that I'm giving up on nanowrimo just yet, but it's going to the backburner while I recover a bit more karma.

Now, those who know me should be aware that I don't actually believe in luck or karma or stuff like that. But just because I don't believe in them don't mean they're not going to screw up my circumstances right good. 

Last Friday I had courier package trouble, then got home late, and found a pigeon in the kitchen which promptly shat on my head. On Saturday, I rolled so poorly on Roll20 that people were suggesting I roll with actual dice (which I could have fudged the rolls for) because clearly digital dice hate me. 

And then came Sunday. Beautiful, beautiful Sunday.

I had an Arkham Horror date with friends. First, I overslept. Then I got the car out of the garage to discover the tyre is flat. Then I tried to move the car to find the battery was giving issues and not letting me restart the car.

Joyous.

So I put on my big-girl pants and changed the tyre while my mom coordinated with a neighbour to give me a jump start. And then we discovered that one of my mom's friends had "borrowed" my jumper cables without asking me. I was livid. But, long story short: tyre got changed successfully (yay), jumper cables were returned (yay), car got jumped (yay), and off I raced to go play a card game (yay) in which we died (well..... shit).

I would like to say yesterday wasn't a train smash but I'd be lying. Continued car trouble, evil meetings, poor conflict resolution, it had the makings of a disastrous day and it delivered.

And then we have today. I'm honestly terrified what today is going to bring.

All of which is to say, nanowrimo is the furthest from my mind right now. I had dnd games to prep, life's crash helmet to fasten, and just general work mayhem to navigate.

So what about streaming? I'm going to try to keep the Wednesday weekly stream going. Instead of doing nanowrimo like I did last time, I'm just going to play games. It'll be fun, relaxing, and not nearly as exhausting as trying to pull words out of thin air.

That's the hope anyway.

Geeky Babble: Con.ect 2023

This year's Con.ect seemed a little smaller than last year, but I don't know whether there's truth to that statement or not. There was definitely more marketing, more hype about the stalls that was going to be there, etc. That said, I enjoyed both days and felt a little overwhelmed on Saturday by the amount of people that rocked up.

When things were still quiet...

I decided to support the convention with a VIP ticket. I heard there was going to be a goodie bag and was pretty hyped about the idea... That didn't pan out exactly. The bag had a decent looking Con.ect hat and pin, and an energy mixer. But otherwise it was just filled with business cards. A missed opportunity, I think. 

As is the custom now with this convention, there were a large number of cosplayers. I didn't snap a lot of pictures of them, but did get two that I thought was rather well done.

Cosplay of For Honor character

Cosplay of Reverse Flash

Bubbly goodness!

I also got to try out 'Bubble Tea' though admittedly, I avoided the tea part and went for a fruit slushie. Still, really good! If they return next year, I'll definitely be another soul who stands in the queue for them. 

I didn't buy a lot of stuff, some armbands, dice (of course), and a little dragon statuette. I did end up buying a lot of food-related things. On the dice baggie that I got was a website link, which I promptly followed and found more stuff to splurge on. 

As mentioned above, contrary to last year, there were dice to be had this time! I went for the most legible which ended up being the cheapest. I also tried to ask for Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse, but it wasn't available for purchase. The first vendor I asked had a whole bunch of D&D books, but was absolutely bewildered by the question. Poor thing. The second was less bewildered but also not any more helpful. I'm also worried as to how much it would have cost had it been there. Book prices have sky-rocketed to something crazy. It's okay though. I have it on DnDBeyond, so it was more a collecting thing than a 'I need to have it' thing.

The Dune RPG handbook's price was absolutely shocking. Good thing I bought the pdf and that pdfs are a thing that can be purchased, because I would never be able to justify the price that the printed book was going for.

In any case, Con.ect seemed to have been a success with a lot of people arriving and partaking in what they had on offer. 

Cutesy dragon statuette

A brief update: I'm doing it again!

I don't have much to report this month. Things have been very much the usual tedium of working till I can escape and escaping until I have to go back to work. That said, I have been up to some shenanigans in that I've started Streaming again.

Every Wednesday at 20:00 GMT+2, I stream on Twitch for about an hour. The streams are very low key and calm. I sit and play Colostle by myself (babbled about the game on my blog here) and throw in ideas from those who watch. It has been fun. I've had about four sessions so far and the story is progressing steadily. Don't get me wrong: The writing is sub-par from my side as I just sit and waffle, but that doesn't really matter. It's still fun and good practice and that is part of why I do it.

I've been given a lot of guidance from my friend Discarded Dork and they've been kind enough to actually assemble these incredible layouts for the stream too.

I'm still learning the ropes - streaming, writing, writing while streaming, using OBS Studio, etc. But it's going well and that's all that matters.

I don't know what I'm going to do for nanowrimo with regards to the stream. Seeing as 1 November falls on a Wednesday, I feel like it is a good opportunity to actually do like a stream for it... 

I don't know. Much to think about.

DnD Prep Stats babble

One of the weird and wacky things I decided to do in the beginning of the year is to start logging how much time I spend prepping and playing D&D games.

The motivation behind it was to see what I could work on to help fight back against the last-quarter-of-the-year burnout I have endured the past couple of years. I had to be realistic and I had to make liberal use of my scalpel in an attempt to trim down on how much time I spend in and around games. And I was somewhat successful. I've trimmed down how many games I play in and how many games I run. 

Besides cutting things down to size, I kept a monthly log of the number of hours I spend prepping. And... It's a lot. Even having cut things down, I spend a ridiculous amount of time prepping my games. Considering how liberal I was with that scalpel, I can imagine why previous years have been so exhausting.

Things I've included as prep are map making, summarizing previous sessions, reading certain materials that involve D&D (like The Griffon's Saddlebag for magic items), and everything that basically took longer than 30 minutes to do. That was my mark. So if I only spent a minute on something, I didn't log it... which probably means I spend even more time than I have logged but I figure 30 minutes makes sense.

So without further ado, the most recent results:

Homebrew refers to everything prepped for my two homebrew games... it's definitely what I spend most of my time on. Oneshots are sessions that conclude within one or two gatherings - I haven't done a whole lot of those, and it's interesting that it takes between 2-3 hours for me to prep them. Written adventure specifically relates to my Dragon Heist Campaign which has now been concluded. I'm fiddling with the idea of possibly running Phandelver and Below in a year or two... we'll see. And then Other refers to things like making maps for other people or fiddling on World Anvil (which I'm admittedly struggling with, but I'm trying to use. My brain hasn't figured it out yet).

What I found particularly interesting about this logging exercise is the very visible ebbs and flows that naturally occur without my pushing myself. Some months I'm excited and full of ideas. Other months I'm lazy and tired. My games don't become more or less. They remain fairly constant. And yet, I still have more than enough material to supply... well sort of. I still feel like I don't have enough material, but I think I'll never stop feeling like that.

TTRPG Babble: Ironsworn Starforged

For some reason, this particular post feels very difficult to write. I guess it has to do with the fact that I don't consider myself a persuasive writer and the things that I enjoy the most tend to require persuasion? I dunno.

Ironsworn - Starforged is a TTRPG that can be played solo, co-op (without a GM), or with the traditional GM-and-player setup. I would say it's primarily designed with solo in mind, but it provides you with the tools if you wish to play with friends.

Setting

Where the original Ironsworn had you roam the lands of a gritty fantasy scape, Starforged is a science fiction game inspired by the likes of Battlestar Galactica and Firefly. Your character is an Ironsworn: a capable person who takes on quests in the form of Iron Vows - just like the previous game - but you're travelling the vast space of The Forge as opposed to the Ironlands.

The Forge is a large cluster of systems and planets that orbits your character's galaxy of origin. Due to cataclysmic events (defined during the setup of the game), your character's people fled their galaxy to inhabit the Forge and has resided there for two centuries now.

Amazing art by Joshua Meehan

Setup

As with its predecessor, Starforged embraces 'prep is play' and the first thing you'll do is set up the circumstances your character will find themselves in. Things like religion, information technology, horrors, medicine, magic, laws, etc. are all covered in the setup so that you have a rich and unique environment at the start of the game. 

The second thing you create is the immediate sector of space your character will find themselves in. Starforged has an amazing range of oracles to assist with everything from the planets' habitability to the settlement's law enforcement. You're never really without help when setting up the circumstances of your character's journey.

And then finally, you'll create your character. Are they augmented in some way? Are they a sword wielder or do they shoot their gun from the hip? There are so many options that you can decide from. 

Character creation

I feel I should elaborate a bit on this aspect. In Ironsworn Starforged, your character has five stats that remain static throughout the game:

• Edge - agility and distance fighting
• Heart - courage, empathy, sociability
• Iron - physical strength and close-quarters fighting
• Wits - expertise, knowledge, and observation
• Shadow - sneakiness and cunning

These stats make up your character's immediate strengths. But then comes the asset system. In the beginning of the game, you select a number of assets that defines your character. As you progress through the game, you can gain experience points which essentially act as 'currency' to either purchase more assets for your character or to add features to an existing asset. 

The book says it better.

Game Mechanics

Inspired by Powered by the Apocalypse, the game has a number of moves that can get triggered by your character's actions. Once a move is triggered and a dice roll is required, you roll two 10-sided dice and one 6-sided die. The d10s are your challenge dice; your score will hopefully beat both for a strong hit or one of them for a weak hit. The d6 is your action die which is rolled to help determine your score. It along with the relevant stat and any bonuses will form your action score which you compare to the numbers of the d10s.

So pretty much the same concept as I babbled about in Ironsworn.  

How to get it

Purchasing the PDFs are fairly easy and can be done via DrivethruRPG, but getting the print version might be a little trickier. As of the time of writing this, a reprint is planned next year as most of the books have been sold out. For all the info of pdf and print copies, see here.

Thoughts

Ironsworn Starforged gives you the opportunity to have a rich adventure within the vastness of space that's only limited by your imagination (and the dice rolls). The rules are similar to the original Ironsworn, with very few changes, and yet it feels like an update to the original recipe. If you're into solo roleplaying and science fiction is a thing for you, then I'd heartily recommend Ironsworn Starforged.

To nanowrimo or not to nanowrimo?

 So, if you've been following this blog for the past couple of years, you'd know that I frequently participated in a funny "little" exercise called NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). To make a long story short, the exercise is to write a story of 50 000 words in a month - specifically the month of November.

I last participated (and floundered spectacularly) in 2021 when burnout hit me so hard I would have been seeing stars if I wasn't so exhausted at the time. Last year, I didn't even consider it because the burnout bug bit me again. This year....?

I don't know. 

Part of me wants to do it again. It always feels exciting and then grueling and then delightful when you succeed on whatever your target was - be it the 50k or whatever else. I feel like I have the energy this year that I didn't have in the past two years. My problem is that I don't exactly have a story in mind. 

See, my favourite activity is not the actual writing. It's the planning. And by planning, I mean PLANNING. White boards and markers, pictures and notebooks, the whole nine yards. I love when I have something that I can explore, prepare, consider, work on. I spend an unending amount of time on it.

But this year, unless the idea lightning bolt hits me in two months, I would be writing without a plan. Which means there's already a 50% likelihood of not making my target. I'm one of those "fail to plan, plan to fail" people who can't pants anything. (pants = flying by the seat of your pants)

I do have a couple of options for if I do pants this thing:

• Colostle: This is a solo-rpg game I've babbled about before that I was very impressed by. If I were to use this as a mechanism to generate content, I will be set for at least... 10 000 words? I think I would be challenged to do a lot of worldbuilding and it would definitely take the form of a journal with 'daily events'. It is a possibility. I think my hesitation with this is that there are so few hand holds in the game and it's so free-flowing, that it's almost too reliant on my own creativity: which makes it daunting. The rules are painfully simple though. It's not something I'm going to get stuck on. It will just be "Can I think up what to do in this situation and stretch it into as many words as possible?"

• Ironsworn Starforged: I haven't babbled about Starforged on here yet, but I have talked about Ironsworn here and here. In Starforged, I think there's a bigger possibility to generate more words than I would in Colostle, but it will have its own challenges. Starforged is a 'prep is play' type of game, where you spend hours worldbuilding and then the story can start. I've done a bit of it, my brother brought me the books when he came to visit, and I immediately jumped in and started playing. The challenge I have is the fact that I still need to come up with an inciting incident. In Colostle, that's supplied. Your character has a list of possible motivations to choose from. But Starforged is very much a blank canvas and I don't know if my ol' noggin will come up with something interesting to start off with. Once I do get started, it's going to be fun. There is a LOT more mechanics and rules to the game, but because of how much I've played Ironsworn, I'm not too bothered by that. The biggest challenge will be the dice rolls. My dice hate me. So I might end up with a dead character. Fortunately, once you've done the world building, it's easy to just generate a new one and tell a different story.

Yes, I'm definitely leaning more towards Starforged, I'll be honest. Maybe my next post should be about Starforged just so that people can know what it is I'm getting myself into.

Other possibilities:

• Fanfiction: I used to be very into fanfics. I know it's controversial because some authors are okay with it and others are absolutely appalled by the very notion that you would dare think of writing a story with someone else's world. I'm of the opinion that it's writing practice and, so long as you're not an asshole about it (trying to claim the author stole your ideas and whatnot), it can explore aspects and situations that might even be insightful. I tend to stick to game fanfiction though as opposed to book fanfiction. The lines feel a little less blurry. But what would I fanfic about is the question. I'm still too angry at Bioware to give Mass Effect a chance. (Yes, yes, I know, it's a game, I should get over it, but I think this grudge might stay with me until I stop breathing). If I do write fanfiction, it might be something like for XCOM or such... but I don't know. I don't know if I'm in the mood or have the capacity to come up with a decent idea. 

• D&D: I think I play too much D&D and spend too much time prepping my homebrew to actually write in it. I think this still classifies to some degree as fanfiction... But anyhoo, I don't know. Here I would have to have a decent plan of action and something I want to write. I've done D&D playthroughs as writeups for Nanowrimo before. It works, it's just not very interesting to me.

• Original fiction: The least likely thing to happen - me coming up with an original idea set in an original world (it would be either fantasy or scifi-ish) is not currently within the capacity of this writer. My big problem with original fiction is that I love world building and can come up with some things that would interest me, but the actual main story? Pffft.

Regardless of what I do, I don't think I'm going to go into the social aspect of Nanowrimo. It used to be a thing: meeting other participants, going to write ins, etc. Heck, that's how I met the person who would eventually get me into D&D. So I am not going to knock it and say it's stupid or something. I just think I don't want to use the full machine that is Nanowrimo and will rather go with the barebones that is the initial concept. 

If I do end up taking the plunge, I'll probably share some of my progress here... maybe. 

D&D Babble: Finishing off Waterdeep Dragon Heist

I did it. It happened. After 38 sessions, the game which started in January 2021 was finally concluded last night.

It went well. Lots of laughter and one big 'whoops, maybe I shouldn't have done that', my chaos goblins chose the side of light and was still handsomely rewarded (because in my world, good deeds aren't punished... just a nice little shift from reality, no?).

Feedback has mostly been positive. Just one big glaring negative: not enough combat. This is both a flaw of mine and of the particular campaign. But this is also a group that's a bit more combat-orientated, which exacerbated the problem.

What was funny to me is how every victory had to be celebrated. Like a player rolled a natural 20 (I think it was the only one for the night) and pictures had to be taken. I love that. I love that the small things can be big things in this game. The group worked very well together, which was also great. We had long discussions about what to do, plans were constructed, reconstructed, scrapped and re-reconstructed. All good fun.

I think from my perspective, the biggest flaw of this group is scheduling. It was an utter bastard. It was also not a case of preplanning. Time was very fluid and last-minute cancellations were not uncommon. For the ISTJ, mega-planner, wanter-of-schedules this was quite a challenge. But I'm glad we stuck to it and got it done.

Whereto next? Dunno. I know the general feeling is to give Ris a break from DM-ing, but also that no one else seems to have time in their schedules to DM. Whatever happens though, I might suggest running the new Phandelver campaign with them in 2025. I'll only acquire it late 2024 and it will give me time to plan, create maps and set up the game on Roll20. 

Why not just purchase the module on Roll20, you ask? Well, because I wanted the book and buying both seems expensive. I just can't justify it. Plus building the module was a lot of fun. I don't know if this will be as fun... maybe I'm remembering the TONS of work fondly because of the years that it's been since I last did it? I dunno. We'll see. Maybe I'll cave. But for now, only the book.

Anyhoo, I'm rambling. Let me go do something more productive...

Babble Post 101: Talking to your players (again)

 Imagine my surprise when I realised that I've hit over 100 posts on this blog...

... no really! It was a surprise. I mean, I babble and have been babbling on here for over ten years. That is an achievement in and of itself, but then to add that I have been babbling so much that I can note that I've reached that amount? Colour me stunned.

So today's post isn't actually about all that though. I wanted to revisit a subject I brought up in a previous TTRPG-related post about getting feedback from your players.

There's something exceptionally daunting about asking for feedback in any context. Asking for it as a DM when you're not prepared for the answer could make or break you - especially if you're not used to constructive feedback, or your players don't know how to delivered it in that fashion.

But a couple of months ago, I heard of a method of feedback giving/receiving that works fairly well. This method is called Stars and Wishes. 

Now again, I suppose it depends on the type of people you have in your party. But how this works is, in your discord server or roll20 talks or whatsapp group messages (whatever you use), you allow for a channel or time for stars and wishes after each session or so. 

This is an opportunity for the players and DM to hand out Stars to someone for something they did well - be it the plan the rogue came up with on the spot or the roleplay of a particular scene. So it's not just feedback for the DM but for everyone. Stars is the opportunity for praise that you don't usually give but might think of about a particular moment, incident, or aspect.

Wishes is a mix of feedback and desires: things the player/character would like to see or encounter or would like to see LESS of like politics and puzzles, particular monsters or story beats. It can also be things like "Less talky-talk and more combat". It can be projections into the future or feedback on behaviour like "Allow the DM to explain what you see first before exploring with your tokens" or "DM, explain what we see first before showing us the map so we don't go off into the unknown."

Stars and Wishes is a really great tool to get consistent feedback without the stress of directed, scheduled feedback. It also allows a space for people to chat after a session about the things they liked or would have preferred. 

I think the negatives of Stars and Wishes is that if you're looking for direct feedback, you're not necessarily going to get it or, if you have that particular player, you might get too much of it. So whether this strategy will work or not is heavily dependent on the type of people in your group.

But yeah, just an interesting concept I thought was worth sharing.

Ramble about games

 Update: I'm still alive!

It's been a while since I said anything, mostly because I don't have a lot to say. This post is going to be a ramble about everything I've been up to... I think. 

PC Gaming - what have I been playing (a lot)

Satisfactory

I can't tell you how long have I been playing Satisfactory in my recent playthrough. Well, technically I could, I suppose, if I look at the save files. But I don't know whether I should. It's such an addictive game with a basic concept. It's been in Early Access forever, but the game is still a lot of fun to play regardless of its 'unfinished' state. It's fairly polished with only one annoying bug that I feel should have been fixed by now.

But, I digress...

Satisfactory is a first-person factory-building game where you arrive on a planet and it is your job to get its resources. If you are the slightest bit OCD, you might find yourself agonising over where to put what and how to get the squares aligned and whatnot. My character isn't that far gone though. She lives in a disorganised factory where she leaps over equipment constantly and shuns walkways. That said, I still reach my target in terms of resources submitted to the big sky via sky elevator, so I'm not doing all that bad.

I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Baldur's Gate 3

I have to admit, as much as I love D&D, I can't say I'm completely enthralled by BG3. It's good, no doubt. With the interactive world and poor dice rolls my character makes, it's almost a bit too real. But I've just never been able to get into games like it - from the original BG to Divinity: Original Sin. I think the game is brilliant and well thought out. I just don't know whether I can say I like it. Still, I'm open for correction, so I spend a couple of hours here and there mostly dying due to poor choices and die rolls... again art imitates real ttrpg...

Battletech

I've always liked the revamped XCOM-style top down tactical strategy games. Battletech is that with far more finnike parts. The problem is that, while I enjoy these types of games, it doesn't mean I'm any good at them. I'm not a master strategist who knows about bits and bobs that you put on mechs. Still fun though. I've lost so many hours on this game...

TTRPGs - DM-ing spree

At the death throws of a Dragon Heist Campaign

I've lost count of how many times I've run the Waterdeep: Dragon Heist. I think this would be my fifth time with only one of them having resulted in an early bailout. So three of the five were completed, one was a bail and now I'm literally waiting for the last session of the last Dragon Heist campaign (at least that I'm going to run in a while). Story-wise it's been utterly fantastic, but I am eager to get it done. I don't want to rush the finish, but I'm also ready for it to be finished.

Homebrew Babble

So I've had 35 sessions of the homebrew with the South Africans. It's going great. I got a little tired of churning out content, but it seems like, after a bit of a rest, I'm back at spending at least an hour a day working on / agonizing over the campaign. It's silly of me, but I still have a fight with my anxiety over the game. I know it's silly though, just performance anxiety and the desperate need for approval that I viciously stomp on every time it rears its head. :-P Nothing to see there.

But yes, I've been at it for two years and it's still going well. I'm ridiculously happy about it.

The multi-national group has had four sessions and they've already made very different choices than previous groups - which makes it both delightful and daunting to run for them. While these deviations aren't game-breaking, they do keep me on my toes as I learn what to cater for. The only negative I can give is that, when I prep for them, I constantly want to update my maps and make them better. This is a time-consuming process that doesn't actually yield as many rewards as I would want and I need to actually settle down a bit about it. I don't regret fixing the maps I have fixed, but I need to accept what I have already created as being good enough.

RPG Babble: Colostle

It's no secret that I'm a sucker for a good story. In the TTRPG realm, this seems to also translate into a compelling setting.

But the problem, I find, is that there are so many games to play, but so many problems in playing them. Getting people together, getting a date and a time sorted, getting prepped and ready to run. All of these things can become stumbling blocks when it comes to actually playing the game. It gets worse when it is a new game because then there's also the fact that everyone has to learn the game and might not be in the frame of mind to do so.

Which is where solo-gaming has become my escape. Like with computer games where I tend to gravitate to the single-player ones, TTRPGs/card/board games that can be run by my onesy gets attention. Then the only obstacle I have is me. Which, if I were honest, is still an obstacle, but less so than two or three other people with their individual hindrances.

So let me get back to my first statements: I'm a sucker for a good story and a compelling setting. I've only recently started dipping my toes into solo-RPGs, but I've found one that is simple, easy to play and pretty compelling.

The world of Colostle is a fantasy/medieval world set within a massive castle - each room filled with mountains, forests, even bodies of water like lakes, rivers and oceans. The Roomlands are filled with adventures, things to explore, places to navigate through and cities to visit. You play an adventurer in these lands who documents their adventures in a journal.

How does it work? 

You choose a class which determines your capabilities at exploration and combat. You're given a calling - an inciting incident or goal that you're striving towards - and you can decide on the personality of your character. 

Each day, or period of time, you draw a number of cards from a shuffled deck. This is the exploration phase and each card is something you encounter in that period. This can be a simple as finding something to hunt or gargoyles grabbing you and taking you to a different location. The cards also might show opportunities to combat creatures or Rooks (the only "creatures" who hold magic in the Roomlands that have the look of castle towers with arms and legs). Combat against Rooks are always avoidable, but then you lose out on what treasure or goodies the Rook might contain.

Having concluded the Exploration and Combat phase, you then take up your notebook and document the events of that cycle. This can be done by hand or electronically, in a notebook or pdf. How you do that is entirely up to you.

What I like about Colostle is that is inspires creativity. There's a lot of flexibility in the game by design. Things are open to interpretation and even if you were to pull the same or similar cards, it doesn't mean that the results are going to be the same. It's not a difficult game to learn and you can fall into it almost immediately with little setup required.