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.