One of my strengths as a DM is my ability to create customized, interesting content. I normally wouldn’t assert this because it includes a value judgment and is based on preferences, but part of the nature of customized content is adapting things to fit the interests of the people involved. It can be incredibly exhausting to do when the various players have very different interests (shoutout to my lovely but incredibly interest-diverse D&D group that meets no more than once every other week), but it is incredibly satisfying when it works out.
Continue readingMonth: November 2021
The Best D&D Story Genre Is Mix-And-Match
I’ve begun introducing some elements of horror into one of my D&D campaigns. One of the BBEGs of the whole homebrew world is essentially nothingness that is something. The Void, since I can’t help but enjoy an allusion to a common phrase. Because when you stare into The Void in this homebrew D&D world, it literally stares back into you. It provides a great tool to mechanism ennui, doubt, and questions about the purpose of it all in a D&D game where some of the players are interested in asking those questions.
Continue readingHoliday Reflections
I am at the beginning of a entire week (including two weekends) off of work. The first such week I’ve had since the winter holidays of 2020. I’ve taken the time off to work on some writing projects, rest, and grapple with the issues inherent with navigating the holiday season separate from a toxic family situation. Which, you know, is emotionally fraught enough on it’s own without throwing the holidays into the mix, which is an exponential increase rather than additive or even multiplicative. But I’ve planned some writing projects to keep me busy and engaged, some projects around the house to keep me moving and give me time outside my own head, and enough fun plans to keep me from feeling like I’m not using my time well.
Continue readingI Have Too Much Fun Stuff To Do
My relationship with media consumption has shifted over the last year and a half. It’s a mixture of living alone, trying to maintain healthy day-to-day habits, and the way that the pandemic has shifted a lot of content I used to consume into the streaming sphere. I had very little I used to follow as it came out, instead consuming it in bursts when I had time or wasn’t feeling well, or just needed a couch day. The pandemic changed how I rationed out my energy, my need for rest, and how I react to socializing, and that in turn changed how I consume media.
Continue readingFalling Asleep To Fallout 4
I have returned to playing Fallout 4. One of my friends reinvested himself in the franchise and, after we had a lengthy talk about it one day, I found myself wishing to return to the world. I’ve played it before, even doing a fun punching-only build with a character who looked like Superman/Clark Kent, but I’ve never beaten the game. Like Skyrim, there’s just so much to do that I never quite get around to chasing down the main quests. Or most of the major side-quests. I don’t think I even reached the point of the game where you have to pick a final faction. I have, however, always enjoyed the game and it’s low-stakes combat on a moderate or lower difficulty makes it a perfect game to doze off to.
Continue readingI’m Tired and Sad, So Let’s Talk About The Legend of Zelda: Episode 7
Once more, the events of my life have conspired to leave me emotionall drained, exhausted, and on the downswing of my depression wave (and I was doing so well over the last few days!), so let’s return to the one topic that will ALWAYS cheer me up: The Legend of Zelda. In Breath of the Wild, I’ve been doing a Master Mode play-through. The plan originally was to find all the koroks, do every quest, and absolutely 100% the shit out of the game this time. Just go all-in. Unfortunately, since this is my 5th full-play through (not counting two I started but never finished), I’m finding myself having a difficult time staying engaged.
Continue readingHalfway Through National Novel Writing Month
As of writing this, I have passed the halfway mark of National Novel Writing Month. I am about twenty-one hundred words ahead, a lead that was growing steadily until a recent spate of just-enough-to-hit-average days due to stress and the reason I’m back in the depths of my depression wave rather than still riding the peak. Still, I’m far enough ahead to take a day off if I want one and feeling pretty good about my overall progress.
Continue readingTrauma, Video Games, and Acessibility
I took a whole day off. A whole-ass day. I did some laundry, because I need clean clothes for after my day off, but I didn’t fold the shirts (which is what always seems like the most difficult part of doing laundry until I start folding them). I didn’t do any writing. I didn’t check my blog. I didn’t go on social media. I didn’t even spend time trying to get people to play online games with me. I just sat on my couch, caught up on The Adventure Zone, and played Ghost of Tsushima. The Iki Island expansion stuff is interesting, but it did make the game a bit more troubling for me since it takes all of the horrible, traumatic moments of this game about trauma, death, and the question of what is permissible in war, and has started playing them all out again.
Continue readingWhat A Fucking Day
Somehow, I’ve managed to get almost everything done. It helps that one of the events I’m trying to catch up for is going to be late in the day tomorrow, so I should have enough time to get through it all. All of which only really applied until the rest of today happened. For a lot of reasons, the day I wrote this (November 19th, 2021) has been exhausting, draining, and just miserable. I don’t want to go into it all because it is either nothing surprising/unexpected or personal to the point that talking about it would take more writing and emotional effort than I have in me to give.
Continue readingI Am Exhausted, But It Feels Great. Time To Celerbate!
There is a particular mental state that I rarely experience, that I don’t enjoy experiencing as much as I appreciate being in a situation where it happens. Specifically, it is when I am so unfocused that I wind up adding more media or minorly active tasks until I am literally incapable of interacting with anything additional. For instance, last night, I found myself watching Critical Role, playing Pokemon SoulSilver, and swapping between Twitter and Imgur on my phone, all while singing a song to myself that had been stuck in my head all day.
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