DM babble - The lead up to an interesting weekend.

 So if you follow my Twitter account, this information will not be new.

On 8 March, I got an interesting whatsapp message. An organiser to Game Over Gaming's April Convention was in need of a DM to run a D&D game at their convention. Their go-to DM moved his ass to Cape Town and so they were short... and probably desperate. Why? Because they contacted ME and asked ME to run a game. 

I was astounded, confused, flattered, and immediately anxiety ridden. I had a chat with Tabi and she asked me what was my hesitation and I said, truthfully fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of messing up. Just fear. 

Having that pointed out meant that my pride immediately demanded that I accept the challenge. 

So on 1 April, I'll be taking the (approximately) four-hour trip from Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) to Glentana to meet up with the peeps at Game Over Gaming convention and run a D&D game on the Saturday, 2 April at 14:00 GMT+2. For this session, I expect six players ranging from absolute brand new to seasoned and have been given a maximum 5 hours to complete the one-shot I have prepared for them. And, to add to the fun, the session is going to be streamed on Twitch.

No pressure, right?

With but a few days to go, I can say I'm basically completely prepped, printed, and assembled. I'm also still terrified, but as someone who deals with permanent anxiety, I suppose one could say this is my default state. 

I figure I should break up my fears into conquerable challenges.

1. The trip to Glentana by myself.
2. Stranger danger
3. Spending the night in a place I don't know
4. Stranger danger 
5. D&D madness!
6. Why the hell is that camera doing pointed at me?
7. Stranger danger :-P
8. The second night on my own, tired and stressed, but relieved it's over.
9. Heading home by me onesy.

I know, I know, my brain is making this a much bigger thing than it is. Especially the stranger danger... But I also know that I can manage it. 

...I just need to remember to pack my courage along with my dice...

Life FYI, Gaming babble, Random babble

It's been over a month since I've last posted anything. Let's see what's happened. 

Life. 

Life did.

So since this isn't really a life blog, I won't go to deeply into it. It involves lawyers and affidavits; plumbing and electrical issues; car issues; and the ever increasing worry of not stretching my finances too far.

But that last one is a worry I know I share with millions of other people. So meh.

In response to life being a bastard, I've done my level best to dodge it by escaping into games and D&D. That's been going well. I spent nearly 80 hours on Icarus till I grew slightly weary of it, played some Valheim and Satisfactory as well. And of course Grounded - new patch! Yay! Baldur's Gate III is a game I've seen about 30 minutes of and it looked promising - I'm hoping to play more of it soon.

With D&D, I've been running two games of Dragon Heist, both going well. I'm running Wild Beyond the Witchlight with the Brits and... well they seem to be enjoying it. I'm still struggling with it. It's so whimsy yet so dark at the same time. I'll probably babble about it at some point solo. Give some kind of review for it.

And then there's the homebrew, every second Friday with the South Africans. That has been going really, really well. Better than I could have hoped for. We've finished a big section I never intended to become a big section (haha) and it was strong story wise and I managed to get one of my two challenging players on board with plans on roping the second one in better soon. I should probably babble about this one solo too.

So I guess I could say I'm okay. Not fantastic, not wonderful, not optimistic, energised, nor determined. But okay. I haven't been gnawing at my wrists yet, but the only time my hands don't shake from anxiety is when I'm sleeping (I think. This hasn't been observed :P).

And I think, given life at present, I can't ask for more than that. Well, I could, but *shrugs*.