– have a small core of online activities which align with your values, then happily miss out on everything else. Something having a possible benefit is not enough reason to use it.
## Principles for how this works:
– Clutter is costly
– Henry David Thoreaus theory of economics – the cost of the thing is the amount of time which must be exchanged for the thing.
– Optimization is important
– the law of diminishing returns
– for news, set the interesting articles as read later for review later in the week.
– Intentionality is satisfying
– The Amish Hacking Philosophy – a very principled use for technology, focusing on maximizing positives and minimizing negatives. Very local Focused. Intention trumps convenience.
# Digital Declutter – to rapidly switch to a digital minimalist lifestyle
## 1. Take a 30 day/One Month break from tech
Define which techs you are going to break from. Websites, apps, maybe games, video Entertainment. Keep only techs needed to keep relationships and professional work. Restrictions can be used to limit overuse of neccessary apps when bans would be harmful.
The 30 day break helps break. Addictive habits before setting new ones.
## 2. During which you explore/reengage with other satisfying activities and hobbies
Spend time in solitude
1. Solitude – a subjective state in which your mind is free from input from other minds.
2. Just as important as social activity, need both.
3. Solitude deprivation – a state of spending 0 time in solitude.
4. Spend time away from your phone for extended periods of time each day.
5. Take long walks/Hikes.
6. Write letters to yourself.
2. Reclaim non textual Face to Face Conversation.
1. Shift texting into consolidated sessions at pre-specified times.
2. Set up Conversation Office Hours.
3. Reclaim Leisure
1. Prioritize demanding activity over passive consumption
1. Work on projects/virtuous Hobbies
2. Active leisure
1. How To Live on 14 hours a day
2. The Bennett Principle – the mind doesn’t need rest, just change.
2. Craft – any activity where skill is used to produce something valuable.
1. Prioritize analog over digital
2. Fix or build something every week
3. Social, Structured activities
1. Social workout
2. Analog in person TableTop Games
3. Sports leagues
4. Volunteering
5. Group projects
4. Use tech to support high quality leasure, not Mindlessly replace it.
1. Mouse book – a little book to replace phone.
2. Schedule low quality techs for limited times. Recs 20-40 min per week
5. Join a group that brings people together for useful Ends.
1. The Junto – Benjamin Franklin’s self Improvement society.
6. Leisure Plans
1. Seasonal – objectives and habits
2. Weekly – review seasonal and schedule implementations during the week with reminders.
## 3. At the end reintroduce only techs that bring significant value
Don’t just reintroduce everything.only let back in tech that support something you deeply value and is the best way to do so,and then only. Use it in the way most optimal for supporting that value.
Use only the specific services from Social Media that actually helps you. This is a struggle as the apps work Against you.
1. Delete the apps From your phone. Worst traps are mobile Only.
2. Limit general Purpose Devices to Narrower uses.
3. Don’t use social Media as entertainment, news, debate,
Friday 1-20: Starting Getting Things Done by David Allen
Intro Material
Forward – Paraphrasing, “most self help books are whooey and a waste of shelf space, this one is different.” strong claim. Let’s see how it turns out.
Intro – Looks like this copy I have is GTD 2e. The cover material has the Copyright in 2015 so it’s still an 8-year-old book.
Welcome – He has a lot of pertinent quotes from other authors in here in little sidebars. There’s some good stuff in here. Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of my favorite poets makes an appearance. I should reread my collection of his stuff now that I should be able to understand it better.
“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble”. Reminds me of Franklin Covey’s talk about a principle-focused life from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Welcome – the quote at the end about not constantly firefighting also reminds me of the 7 habits, specifically the bits about striving to spend as much time as possible in Q2 or the space of Important and not urgent.
Tuesday 1-24: Getting Things Done – Chapter 1
Chapter 1 – A New Practice for a new reality
The stated problem the book is trying to fix – We are stressed and unproductive, feeling like having too much to handle and not enough time to handle it in. Our eyes are bigger than our stomachs. In addition the work advanced “knowledge workers” do tends to be nebulously defined, requires cross team coordination, and often changes without notice. I definitely felt like that at college, probably because I kept filling my time with video games and DnD.
The stated “promise” or thing you will have gotten by applying the books lessons to your life? More time in a state of flow.
The Principle behind the changes that makes to promise possible? Effectively managing ones commitments, especially the “open loop” ones you make with yourself results in less stress and more productivity. To do this, you have to identify them, capture them on a system outside your mind, clarify what it is you have to do to make progress, and keep reminders of them in a regularly reviewed place. And you have to this consistently.
The ancestor of every action is a thought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you have something on your mind It’s because
The intended outcome isn’t clear
The next action step hasn’t been decided
Reminders of the outcome and action isn’t in a system you trust
…you can’t do a project at all! You can only do an Action related to it.
Pg 21
There is no reason to ever have the same thought twice, unless you like having that thought.
pg 24
Work bottom up, from whats in your inbox, not on a big planner.
That was a very dense 26 pages. Overall it seems to make sense to me. When I was in college I once created a checklist of what I needed to do and I did well in that class as long as I was keeping up with the list. At work, I got a lot more efficient and happy once I was able to get all the information onto step-by-step how-to lists and into a central cheatsheet with the exceptions to the standard rules.
Friday 1-27: Getting Things Done – Chapter 2-4
Ch 2 – Getting Control of Your Life: The 5 Steps of Mastering Workflow
The general steps one takes
capture what has our attention
every open loop must be in your capture system and out of your head
have as few capture buckets as possible
empty them regularly.
Clarify what each item means and what to do about it
Items can be:
Trash: non- actionable and no longer needed
For Incubation: non-actionable and might be needed later
Reference: Non-Actionable but handy for reference later
A Project Action: Something that needs to be done relating to an “open loop”
Do It Now – If it takes less than two minutes
Delegate it – If it’ll take more than 2 minutes but it’s better if someone else handles it.
Defer it – If you’re the right person and it’ll take longer than 2 minutes, stick it on your “next actions” list
Organize the results which presents possible options
Items can go Into:
The Trash – for trash
A Someday/Maybe List – for items you might like to get to
A “Tickle” System – reminds you of Incubation items at a later date
Project SPcific Storage/Files – for materials and plans
Calender – for Actions that have to be done at specific times/days. Appointments. To-Do’s do not go on Calender.
A Next Actions List – for “Defer it” next actions. once you hit around 50+ you’ll want different lists for different categories of things. It’s suggested to categorize by location you do these things.
Waiting for list – reminders of what you’re waiting on.
A Reference System – for Reference items. Obsidian?
A Project – Any desired result that can be accomplished within “A Year” and that requires 2+ Action steps.
reflect on the options that presented themselves once we organised
Review Weekly: Your Calender, Your next actions lists
Review occaisionally: Projects, Waiting For, and Someday/Maybe Lists.
engage with the option we chose
3 models:
For choosing actions in the moment “Four Criteria Model”
Context, Time Available, Energy Available, Priority
For Identifying Daily Work “Threefold Model”
Doing Predefined Work
Doing Work as it shows up
Defining your work
For reviewing your work “6 level model”
5: Purpose and Principles – The Big Picture view.
4: Vision – Your projections for 3-5 Years in the future.
3: Goals – What you want to be experiencing in 1-2 Years
2: Area of focus and responsibilities – The roles you fulfill and the obligations you take on
1: Current Actions – all the actions you need to take
Chapter – 3 Getting Projects Creatively Under Way: The 5 Phases of Project Planning
Horizontal focus – assessing multiple projects across an equal level. Vertical focus – examining multiple levels within a single project The natural planning model
defining purpose and principles – why the limits/standards for acceptable means and acceptable outcomes.
outcome visioning – what
brainstorming – how
Capture ideas – mind mapping
Don’t judge challenge evaluate or criticize,
go for quantity not quality
Put analysis and organization in the background.
organizing – who and in what order.
Move from. Informal structure to formal. gantt chart?
Basic steps
Identify the significant pieces
Sort by:
Components
Priorities
Sequences
Detail to the desired degree
identifying next actions – decide for each moving part, decide when to continue planning if needed, clarify whose next steps it is.
When more clarity is needed, shift thinking back up the natural planning scale. If more action move down.
Thus far everything has been common sense and yet it’s oddly gratifying to see it laid out so cleanly and nicely organized. I’ve often heard portions of this stuff individually or on its own but it’s like I’ve been seeing the trees and now I’m being shown the forest.
Monday 2-6: Getting Things Done Ch 4-8
Last week while I was working on Mothership I found some time to make some more progress reading getting things done. I really like this book and can see why it’s so popular. Where 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is very Macro/high minded and philosophical, Getting things done is a more micro focused and practical.
Chapter 4 Getting Started: Setting up time space and tools
Set up a space as your central cockpit of control. Even if you move a lot you’ll want a place for reference material storage. Having a good reference storage system is highly important. He recommends 1 A-Z filing system. Don’t let filing become a personal management system. Purge it once a year There’s a lot here about physical inputs. Some of this might be good but it generally seems less useful for someone like me who’s mostly digital.
Chapter 5 Capturing: Corralling your Stuff
Gather everything that’s out of place in one “In tray”. Supplies reference material, decoration and equipment stays where it is. Out of date material goes into the in-tray. Don’t get into purging and organizing in this process. Start with your desktop, then move into your desk drawers, countertops, inside cabinets, floors walls and shelves, then equipment furniture and fixtures, then finally in your mental RAM. This is not a practice in minimalism. There’s a big list of incompletion triggers that can be a jumping off point for clearing your mind. It’s quite good. Not reproducing here due to length.
Chapter 6: Clarifying: Getting In to Empty
Process the top item first, process one item at a time, never put anything back into In Emergency scanning is not proccessing Lifo vs fifo doesn’t matter as long as it’s all done Deciding not to decide is another decision.
I am rather like a mosquito in a nudist camp; I know what I want to do, but I don’t know where to begin Steven bayne
Trash goes into trash. When in doubt throw it out Incubate items go onto a someday maybe list or tickler file
Action steps are the next physical thing you do. After processing your inbox the last thing is to identify projects you have.
Chapter 7 Organizing: Setting up the Right Buckets
Being organized me is nothing more or less than wear something is matches what it means to you. Basic Categories:
A projects list
Project support material
Calender actions and info
A Waiting for list
Reference material
A someday maybe list Keep these items very distinct. All you really need are lists and folders Organize by context
Deferred actions go on the Calender
ASAP actions are split between:
Calls
At computer
On Mobile
Errands – for while your out of work and home.
At office
At home
Anywhere
Agendas – items to discuss/cover when meeting with people/groups
Read/review possibly a separate list for “fun” Have a separate waiting for list for actions awaiting commitments from others. Don’t toss all documents of one “type” grouped together when they require different Actions. For email have on folder for @acting on, one for @reference, and one for @!waiting for. @action is an extension of your at computer list.
Project reminders – keep a list of them all. Neccessary for weekly review Hidden activities in current activities, higher horizon interests/commitments, current problems/issues/opportunities.
problems are always projects Sort projects by: personal/professional, delegated projects,areas of focus, roles,
Don’t use project support materials for reminding. Keep references separate from your next actions
Any topic that requires more than 50 folders/items should be given its own organizational unit. Don’t use your contact manager as as your next actions list/reminders Things fir you’re someday maybe list
Things to get or build for your home
Hobbies to take up
Skills to learn
Creative expressions to explore
Clothes/accessories to buy
Toys to acquire
Trips to take
Orgs to join
Things to see and do
Current commitments that won’t be getting attention for 3+months
Food
Children
Books to read
Music to listen to
Movies to see
Gift ideas
Web sites to explore
Weekend trips to take
Mic. Ideas
On your Calender flag events, reminders to review projects, defer decision making
Checklist – a recipe of potential. Ingredients and actions for completing projects. The more novel the situation, the more specific the checklist needs to be.
Chapter 8: Keeping it Fresh and Functional
Review Process
look at your Calendar fir the hard commitments
Then your actions list for your current context/relevant agendas
Weekly review – whatever you need to do to clear your head
Get clear
gather up all your loose ends.
collect loose materials
get in to empty
empty your head
Get current
review next action lists. Mark off the completed ones.
review previous and then upcoming calendar items
review waiting for lists
review projects lists
review relevant checklists
Get creative
review someday/maybe lists
Sunday 2-12: Getting Things Done Chapters 9-15
Chapter 9 Engaging: Making the best action choices
“They’re myried ways to give it all up you can ignore the physical world and its realities and trust in the universe. I did that at one point in my own particular way and it was a powerful experience. One I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I tried to check out of my practical connections though I didn’t choose to end my life. I had much to learn about cooperating with the world I had chosen to play in. But surrendering to your inner awareness and its intelligence and advice for the worlds you live in is the higher ground. Trusting yourself and the source of your intelligence is the most elegant version of experiencing freedom and manifesting personal productivity”
4 Criteria Model
Context
Some people have special lists for “brain gone” and “<5 minutes”.
Time available
Energy Available
Priority
Robert Frost – “You have freedom when you are easy in your harness”
3-Fold model for evaluating daily work
Predefined Work
Works as it appears “Busy and Urgent”
Defining your work
6 level model for evaluating your daily work.
Current actions
Current projects
Areas of focus and accountability
1-2 year goals
Long term visions
Life
Everything sits in a hierarchy from level 6 at the top and level 1 at the bottom. “Getting things done, feeling good about it means bring willing to recognize, acknowledge and appropriately engage with all the things in your ecosystem of your consciousness.” Work from the bottom up. Without control of the bottom level, engaging with the top level feels fruitless.
Make sure action lists are complete, including agendas and waiting for items
Finalize your projects list. Should capture all commitments. Can take 10-15 hours
Define your roles and responsibilities. Keep an Areas of Focus list.
Capture what motivators exist currently
What are the longer term goals and objectives in my org what projects need to be in place to fulfill them?
What longer term. Goals and onjectives have I set for myself? What projects need to be in place
What other significant things are happening that could affect my options about what I’m doing? Doc childre “neutral is fertile ground for new possibilities to grow from”
Chapter 10 – Getting Projects Under Control
Projects that necessitate planning include those that still have your attention after you’ve determined their next actions and those for which useful ideas and details show up ad hoc.
Chapter 11 The Power of the Capturing Habit
Things in your “in” tray are agreements you’ve made and accepted with yourself. To not break it:
Don’t make the agreement
Complete the agreement
Renegotiate the agreement
Chapter 12 The Power of the next action decision
The section on why the brightest procrastinate the most really spoke to me. Don’t let next actions morph into lists if tasks or sub projects. I’ve noticed myself doing this as I implemented this system. This is a good chapter
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.
George Benard Shaw
Chapter 13 The Power of Outcome Focusing
I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all mischief in the world arises from the fact that man did not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation that will be necessary to erect a hut.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Chapter 14 GTD and Cognitive Science
TLDR: There’s a lot of new science that’s come out to support the effectiveness of GTD’s methods.
Chapter 15 The path of GTD Mastery
3 tiers
Employing fundamentals of managing your workflow
Implementing a more elevated and integrated total life management system
Leveraging skills to create a clear space and get things done for an ever expansive expression and manifestation
aka basic control, using that control to accomplish what you want, then using that control to accomplish more than what you originally intended
Final Thoughts
This is one of the most practical productivity books I’ve read in a while. Gonna need to spend some time implementing this before I tackle another self-help book. I think I’ll go back to Fiction next.
More of Getting Things Done, The Outer Wilds, and the session 6 report for What the Devil is Due campaign.
Monday 2-6: Getting Things Done Ch 4-8
Last week while I was working on mothership I found some time to make some more progress reading getting things done. I really like this book and can see why it’s so popular. Where 7 Habits of Highly effective people is very Macro/high minded and philisophical, Getting things done is a more micro focused and practical.
Chapter 4 Getting Started: Setting up time space and tools
Set up a space as your central cockpit of control. Even if you move alot you’ll want a place for reference material storage. Having a good reference storage system is highly important. He recommends 1 A-Z filing system. Don’t let filing become a personal management system. Purge it once a year There’s a lot here about physical inputs. Some of this might be good but it generally seems less useful for someone like me who’s mostly digital.
Chapter 5 Capturing: Corralling your Stuff
Gather everything that’s out of place in one “In tray”. Supplies reference material, decoration and equipment stays where it is. Out of date material goes into the in-tray. Don’t get into. Purging and organizing in this process. Start with your desktop, then move into your desk drawers, countertops, inside cabinets, floors walls and shelves, then equipment furniture and fixtures, then finally in your mental RAM. This is not a practice in minimalism. There’s a big list of incompletion triggers that can be a jumping off point for clearing your mind. It’s quite good. Not reproducing due to length.
Chapter 6: Clarifying: Getting In to Empty
Process the top item first, process one item at a time, never put anything back into In Emergency scanning is not proccessing Lifo vs fifo doesn’t matter as long as it’s all done Deciding not to decide is another decision.
I am rather like a mosquito in a nudist camp; I know what I want to do, but I don’t know where to begin Steven bayne
Trash goes into trash. When in doubt throw it out Incubate items go onto a someday maybe list or tickler file
Action steps are the next physical thing you do. After processing your inbox the last thing is to identify projects you have.
Chapter 7 Organizing: Setting up the Right Buckets
Being organized me is nothing more or less than wear something is matches what it means to you. Basic Categories:
A projects list
Project support material
Calender actions and info
A Waiting for list
Reference material
A someday maybe list Keep these items very distinct. All you really need are lists and folders Organize by context
Deferred actions go on the Calender
ASAP actions are split between:
Calls
At computer
On Mobile
Errands – for while your out of work and home.
At office
At home
Anywhere
Agendas – items to discuss/cover when meeting with people/groups
Read/review possibly a separate list for “fun” Have a separate waiting for list for actions awaiting commitments from others. Don’t toss all documents of one “type” grouped together when they require different Actions. For email have on folder for @acting on, one for @reference, and one for @!waiting for. @action is an extension of your at computer list.
Project reminders – keep a list of them all. Neccessary for weekly review Hidden activities in current activities, higher horizon interests/commitments, current problems/issues/opportunities.
problems are always projects Sort projects by: personal/professional, delegated projects,areas of focus, roles,
Don’t use project support materials for reminding. Keep references separate from your next actions
Any topic that requires more than 50 folders/items should be given its own organizational unit. Don’t use your contact manager as as your next actions list/reminders Things fir you’re someday maybe list
Things to get or build for your home
Hobbies to take up
Skills to learn
Creative expressions to explore
Clothes/accessories to buy
Toys to acquire
Trips to take
Orgs to join
Things to see and do
Current commitments that won’t be getting attention for 3+months
Food
Children
Books to read
Music to listen to
Movies to see
Gift ideas
Web sites to explore
Weekend trips to take
Mic. Ideas
On your Calender flag events, reminders to review projects, defer decision making
Checklist – a recipe of potential. Ingredients and actions for completing projects. The more novel the situation, the more specific the checklist needs to be.
Chapter 8: Keeping it Fresh and Functional
Review Process
look at your Calendar fir the hard commitments
Then your actions list for your current context/relevant agendas
Weekly review – whatever you need to do to clear your head
Get clear
gather up all your loose ends.
collect loose materials
get in to empty
empty your head
Get current
review next action lists. Mark off the completed ones.
review previous and then upcoming calendar items
review waiting for lists
review projects lists
review relevant checklists
Get creative
review someday/maybe lists
Tuesday 2-7: Thinking about Gygax 75 Week 4
So some time ago I started the Gygax 75 challenge and got stuck on making a dungeon. This week I forced myself unstuck and am now moving on. The challenge for “Week 4” is to make a town. The checklist:
Find or Sketch out a city map.
Look at the equipment lists for your game and name the shops where they can be bought.
Locate and describe:
A Political Faction and It’s Rival
The place where characters can lose all their money
A secretive Guild hall and it’s reputation
The best place to obtain a hot meal and a clean bed
A religious center and the god(s) to which they are devoted
A Feature Unique to the town.
Create 5 characters with distinguishing characteristics, what they need, and their current agenda.
For extra credit:
Create 4 hirelings or specialists the characters might recruit
Generate 7-9 Rumors
Thankfully I already have alot of this sorted out thanks to my setting info and various tools. The Big thoughts looking at this are:
How do I map a Sci-fi City? The answer is a district pointcrawl, for which I’ll be taking notes from Electric Bastionlands generation methods.
What sources do I pull from? I have my setting notes, Stars without Numbers Main book, the Distant Lights Supplement, The Merchants of Light Supplement, The Persons of Interest Supplement, Motherships players and wardens books, and the supplement A Pound of flesh. Quite a lot of background material.
What is on My Personal Checklist?
Pull all prior setting notes into obsidian for categorization and organization. (Mostly google docs but there’s stuff in roll20, foundry, Google Sheets, and other stuff)
Determine the size of the settlement and create a city map using Bastionland’s guidelines
Convert all the specialized military equipment from part one of the campaign to their mothership equivalents.
Sort equipment by availability and seperate into “Acquisition sources”. Detail them
Using the compiled general setting information for the Vitebsk system, Complete the rest of the list.
Wednesday 2-8: On the name of my setting
I have a lot of material to reorganize and integrate into the knowledge database in Obsidian. I haven’t been running a game for almost a year now and I’m rusty. Something that came up – What do I call my setting? The sector of space I ran my Stars Without Number game in is the Nostramare Sector which is a corruption of the Latin “Mare Nostrum” AKA “Our Sea” AKA the Mediterranean. I used the Latter Earths Gyre Setting while running my Worlds Without Number game. I suppose I should use Gaius Invictus. I don’t think I’ve ever explained this. Gaius Invitus is what Sir Terry Pratchett(GNU) would call a “Pune” or play on words. Invictus means unconquered, Gaia is the personification of the earth, and Gaius was the most common roman name, roughly translating to “Guy”. Thus Gaius Invictus is “The unconquered dude/world”.
Thursday 2-9: Vampire Survivors
Vamnpire Survivors has come back with an update that adds more achievements. Acquired all three in three runs. Promptly uninstalled. FOr most games, besides finishing them I’m also an achievement hunter. I usually don’t 100% games but I do use them as a form of extrinsic motivation to come back to old games.
Friday 2-10: Outer Wilds
Over the last two months I’ve been plodding my way through Outer Wilds. Some games you can pick up and drop willy nilly. For Outer Wilds, I always felt that it was a game that I had to pick up for sessions at a time. At it’s heart Outer Wilds is a grand mystery, that one solves in a groundhog day like 22-minute gameplay loop. I will say that the Outer Wilds is very good at getting a reaction out of me. The sound design is fantastic, meaning that even when I knew I was about to die it always made my heart skip a beat. Outer Wilds terrified me. It made me feal visceral heart stopping fear. Knowing that the DLC is known to be a scarier experience I did not go out of my way to experience it. It also provoked wonder. It’s worlds are varied and each prompted new methods of mechanical mastery. Even within the worlds It always felt like I was finding something new every time I revisited them. Everything fits together like clockwork. Outer Wilds is probably not an experience I will return to, but it is One I will remember fondly and will highly reccommend.
4.5/5
Saturday 2-11: What the Devil is Due – Session Report 6
Aka: That time I got Reincarnated as a Tiefling and went to Hell
Possible Spoilers for Dragon Heist, Tomb of Annihilation, Descent into Avernus
The Cast
Atlan Gran (Me) – A Human Wildfire Druid, recently reincarnated into a Tiefling. Pyromaniac and general troublemaker.
Harrow Tench – A Human investigative rogue who just wants to retire but keeps getting pulled back in.
Gaelia Ernst – A Half–Elf Land Druid
Nemry Oakwish- An Eladrin Fey Warlock whose mode and powers change like the seasons.
Asami Fulmina – An Air Genasi Storm Sorceror working with the Grey Hand of Waterdeep
The GM – Has made it clear that he’s going to be throwing everything and the book at us and to expect a high body count.
Last time after damming(heh) the distributary of the river styx we made our way over to the Fortress of Bel to await the resurrected wrath of shumrach. After a long rest and awaiting 24 hours nothing has appeared.
In an attempt to find out what happened to Shumrach, Nemry attempts to scry shumrach and fails. Upon Nemry’s prompting, we decide to leave the fortress and make our way towards the “Bug zapper tower” we scryed on a few sessions before. Upon approaching we get a good look. It’s a twin pair of towers with a sickly yellow orb floating in between. The area around the towers is covered in grimy ash. Standing at the base of the tower is a stone person who calls out to us in Primordial Terran. Thankfully Asami can understands him and we get to chatting. He’s disappointed we mainly came out of curiosity. He offers a quest. He made a deal with the duchess of hell he’d like our help to break. In exchange for a favor from Zarael, He became bound to serve Zarael, so he was set to guard the “Demon Zapper”. We need to steal Zaraels copy of the contract and then generate a Gale force wind to destroy it. We decide to look into it and made to leave.
Upon deciding to leave, We see that A gauntletted hand has sprung out of ther ground and siezed Asami’s foot. Atlan tickles it with a feather and combat begins. After a bit of maneuvering and Sami turning into a T-Rex, the gauntletted hand is pulled out of the ground and an Armoured Earth Elemental emerges from the earth. Two more emerge and the Stone Servant of zaraelFighting both it and the Stone Servant.
After defeating them we scale the two towers and see two sick unicorns within the sickly sphere. After some discussion we take the wrecking ball on the back of the soul grinder and take down the towers, bringing the sphere down to the ground where it dissapates. We heal the two unicorns and communicate we are on the same side. They explain they were originally captured when the angels came down to fight in the blood war. As recompense for our service they offer their horns to us.
Now we set off to see what happenned with Shumrach.
Sunday 2-12: Getting Things Done Chapters 9-15
Chapter 9 Engaging: Making the best action choices
“They’re myried ways to give it all up you can ignore the physical world and its realities and trust in the universe. I did that at one point in my own particular way and it was a powerful experience. One I wouldn’t wish on anyone. I tried to check out of my practical connections though I didn’t choose to end my life. I had much to learn about cooperating with the world I had chosen to play in. But surrendering to your inner awareness and its intelligence and advice for the worlds you live in is the higher ground. Trusting yourself and the source of your intelligence is the most elegant version of experiencing freedom and manifesting personal productivity”
4 Criteria Model
Context
Some people have special lists for “brain gone” and “<5 minutes”.
Time available
Energy Available
Priority
Robert Frost – “You have freedom when you are easy in your harness”
3-Fold model for evaluating daily work
Predefined Work
Works as it appears “Busy and Urgent”
Defining your work
6 level model for evaluating your daily work.
Current actions
Current projects
Areas of focus and accountability
1-2 year goals
Long term visions
Life
Everything sits in a hierarchy from level 6 at the top and level 1 at the bottom. “Getting things done, feeling good about it means bring willing to recognize, acknowledge and appropriately engage with all the things in your ecosystem of your consciousness.” Work from the bottom up. Without control of the bottom level, engaging with the top level feels fruitless.
Make sure action lists are complete, including agendas and waiting for items
Finalize your projects list. Should capture all commitments. Can take 10-15 hours
Define your roles and responsibilities. Keep an Areas of Focus list.
Capture what motivators exist currently
What are the longer term goals and objectives in my org what projects need to be in place to fulfill them?
What longer term. Goals and onjectives have I set for myself? What projects need to be in place
What other significant things are happening that could affect my options about what I’m doing? Doc childre “neutral is fertile ground for new possibilities to grow from”
Chapter 10 getting Projects Under Control
Projects that necessitate planning include those that still have your attention after you’ve determined their next actions and those for which useful ideas and details show up ad hoc.
Part 3 The Power of Key Principles
Chapter 11 The Power of the Capturing Habit
Things in your “in” tray are agreements you’ve made and accepted with yourself. To not break it:
Don’t make the agreement
Complete the agreement
Renegotiate the agreement
Chapter 12 The Power of the next action decision
The section on why the brightest procrastinate the most really spoke to me. Don’t let next actions morph into lists if tasks or sub projects. I’ve noticed myself doing this as I implemented this system. This is a good chapter
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.
George Benard Shaw
Chapter 13 The Power of Outcome Focusing
I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all mischief in the world arises from the fact that man did not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation that will be necessary to erect a hut.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Chapter 14 GTD and Cognitive Science
TLDR: There’s a lot of new science that’s come out to support the effectiveness of GTD’s methods.
Chapter 15 The path of GTD Mastery
3 tiers
Employing fundamentals of managing your workflow
Implementing a more elevated and integrated total life management system
Leveraging skills to create a clear space and get things done for an ever expansive expression and manifestation
aka basic control, using that control to accomplish what you want, then using that control to accomplish more than what you originally intended
Final Thoughts
This is one of the most practical productivity books I’ve read in a while. Gonna need to spend some time implementing this before I tackle another self-help book. I think I’ll go back to Fiction next.
Cool Things I Found
Cities Without Number, Kevin Crawford’s cyberpunk outing, is still on Kickstarter.
This Week: I am dedicating this week to finishing my Gygax75 Dungeon Post. For good or ill I will be putting something out and moving on by the end of the week.
If you play RPGs with me DO NOT READ ON as there will be spoilers for our upcoming game in here.
Monday 1-30: Applying the Getting Things Done Planning Methodology.
So lets plan this out. The GTD Planning method is:
Defining Purpose and Principles
Outcome Visioning
Brainstorming
Organizing
Identifying next Actions
1. I’m doing this because I want something to use as an introduction to “Act 2” of my campaign to introduce players to my home Sci-fi sector. I also want to complete the Gygax75 challenge.
2. The Outcome should be a dungeon as outlined in the Gygax75 project as “Each level should have a central theme and some distinguishing feature, […] As each level is finished the various means of getting to lower levels must be keyed and noted on the appropriate lower levels […] A careful plan of what monsters and treasures will be found where on each level is also most necessary, and it can take as long to prepare as the level itself.” With the release of the Mothership Wardens Operations Manual, I will also follow the principles for a good Mothership adventure as outlined in it. Namely, we want to:
Follow the TOMBS Cycle
Have something to Survive, Save, and Solve
Have Something for Everyone
3. Mind Mapping.
4. The Significant Pieces I need are
Stats for the corrupted Mercenaries
Stats for the AI Robots Minions
Stats for the Big AI himself
Stats for the survivors
Names for all of these
Adjustments to my already keyed rooms to demarcate their presence
Something to Solve…
5. To Do:
Brainstorm Something to Solve
Find the best advice on Mothership Monster Making
Stat Out
Corrupted Merc
AI Minion
AI
Survivor
Place The Creatures on the Map
Develop their Routines
Change the room descriptions to match their impact
Final Editing Pass
Tuesday 1-31: Something to Solve
The Big questions
What’s causing the Signal?
Who are these Humans with really high tech who keep showing up?
What is the Monster?
How do we stop it?
How do we satisfy it?
How do we repair these elevators (Actually teleporters)?
Wednesday 2-1: Statting Monsters
One discord commentator on the Mothership Discord Provided these statblocks as the “just use bears” approach
C:20 I: 20 1(-): lil goblin bastard; headcrab, random chaff
C:55 I:40; 3(30): badass power armored cyborg, boss human, a grizzly bear; a gaunt walker
C:75; I:60 8(25): An alpha gaunt; The Alien
A guide to converting OSE monsters to Mothership monsters was also recently posted to the OSR Discord. Thank you Morgan_x_4!
Using these Guidelines I have come up with the following:
The Corrupted (Beirutian Guerilla) – C:55I:40W3(15)AP:5
Mag Rifle – 1 W Gunshot[-]
Advanced Small Weapon – 1d10 Bleeding [-]
Tactical – Despite being warped, they are still proffessionals and will utilise full tactics and will retreat if overwhelmed.
Dirty Fighters – They will utilize ambushes, traps, and every underhanded scheme to defeat the players.
Originally sent here to stop the signal and uncover what they can as to the location of the Drive, these High Tech Mercenaries from outside the system have been corrupted by the Proccess. Have been horribly mutated and now wear horribly fitting patchwork suits over their shredded armor. Now they attack anyone not wearing a Business suit.
Rearrange – Using the Matter Reconstructor the process can rearrange matter, throwing up walls, moving things around, and generally manipulating its environment in unexpected ways.
There are always more – Whenever one is damaged beyond repair, it will eject its core. If the Core remains undamaged then it will assemble 1d4 new units and split the core into each. If it is damaged or immobalized then it takes 1d4 hours.
Appears as a red orb with four white metallic substances, three acting as legs and one piece that projects upwards and back from it.
Robot Minions of CEO. Spiderlike. Used for maintenance. Are generally passive unless someone is messing up the environment or CEO is nearby.
Charles Elliot Osbourne/Commercial Electronic Organizer (CEO)- C:80I:858(25)AP: 20
Lazer Vision – 2d100 Bleeding/Fire
White Glove Service – 2 W Blunt
Security Blanket – Electronics don’t work around him.
Hostile Takeover – Any Electronics it can network with can be utilized fully by it.
Offshoring – Can relocate its mind to another body or any other computer system sufficiently large enough to host it. Will utilize its satellite defense “Firewall” as the first retreat and will use it to destroy any ships around the Gas Giant. If this somehow fails then it will Upload itself to the most sophisticated network it can find (in this case the Krovengard Server Farms)
Looks like a well-dressed corporate executive of ambiguous race and gender. It obviously doesn’t breathe, or blink, or twitch. Think Mark Zuckerberg. Only communicates by quoting Business aphorisms, Motivational Quotes, and “Customer Service”/Marketing talk.
It was initially created to act as a friendly AI interface to handle Customer Service Interactions and middle Management but took on more roles over time until it basically was the company. The bank owners used the AI to try and crash the market for profits. Before the AI could bring thingts back online the Scream happened and it lost it’s mental brakes. Since losing it’s mind it has:
Taken over the orbital defense systems of another nearby moon, “Siezing”/claiming the planet as payment for unpayed for debt.
Downsized the Staff by venting all the air and then Utilizing the cleaning Drones to take care of the bodies, avoiding funeral expenses and severance packages.
Given itself a swanky new “office” as payment for good work.
Special thanks to MTB and Igneous on the OSR server for the name
Upgraded its body for maximum professional beauty
Add the Damage
Corrupted mercs – C:55 I:40; 3(30)
Thursday 2-2: Statting Survivors
This one is straightfoward. Just use the stats from the contractors section
Surviving Beirutian Mercenary Javier Morreta – C:45 I:35 W3 A10
Mag Rifle – 1 W Gunshot[-]
A surviving Beirutian mercenary. Will not reveal his orders or who he serves, even under pain of death. Will absolutely work with the party to get out alive. If survival seems likely will push for the party to risk themselves accomplishing his goals.
Asteroid Miner Ivanna Kamen – C:25 I:25 W2
Hand Welder – 1d10 DMG Bleeding – can cut through doors
A local scavenger whose crew was among the first to come. She doesn’t know why he’s being kept alive. Wants revenge on Osbourne for killing their friends/surrogate family.
Void Urchin Toofer Sisko Un(24601) – C:30 I:40 W2
Unarmed – 1 DMG Blunt
Is familiar with the area, but not all of its secrets. Has convinced the AI he’s a potential investor. The CEO has treated them as a VIP. Secretly an escapee from a lab on the nearby world of Xochitl.
Friday 2-3: Vampire Survivors ate my night
This game is soooo good. I set aside my ambition for this week to 100% it. And I did so.
This is now game number 6 I’ve 100%-ed. I recommend the following video on it on whby it’s so addicting.
Saturday 2-4: What the Devil is Due – Session Report 5
Aka: That time I got Reincarnated as a Tiefling and went to Hell
Possible Spoilers for Dragon Heist, Tomb of Annihilation,
The Cast
Atlan Gran (Me) – A Human Wildfire Druid, recently reincarnated into a Tiefling. Pyromaniac and general troublemaker.
Harrow Tench – A Human investigative rogue who just wants to retire but keeps getting pulled back in.
Gaelia Ernst – A Half–Elf Land Druid
Nemry Oakwish- An Eladrin Fey Warlock whose mode and powers change like the seasons.
Asami Fulmina – An Air Genasi Storm Sorceror working with the Grey Hand of Waterdeep
The GM – Has made it clear that he’s going to be throwing everything and the book at us and to expect a high body count.
Last time after escaping A mountain-sized dragon skull we made a deal for the Hand of VECNA(to be picked up at our leisure) in exchange for teleporting the army dragonic fiends Abishai to an unspecified location.
After some discussion we take the demon grinder around the pit of Schumach to the distributary of the river Styx that feeds it, hoping that we can find a way to dam it along its edges. The river has been running for some time and the distributary has created a chasm. After a bit of planning Gaelia and Atlan cast wall of stone to create a dam. After casting it and hunkering down, the party is attacked by a series of “sad shadow bats singing a song to the river” the Nabasu. As they sing, the river becomes more violent and another creature emerges from the water, a “Styx Myrmidon”. After a combat involving Asami getting dunked in the river Styx and failing to be drowned, Atlan staying on his feet longer than usual, and after calling his death save as 20 and rolling 19, his next death save he rolled a 20 and got back up. After the combat, we take a short rest and then use our last appropriate spell slot we dam the river styx.
Upon damming the distributary, we see the green slime at the bottom slowly pulling itself back together. Unfortunately, our smartest party member couldn’t figure out how long it would take. After some discussion, we decide to make our way toward Bel’s Fortress and then skirt the edge to find a place to hide out. We travel without incident. The place is surrounded by well-armed flying demons loading and unloading weaponry. We decide to wait 24 hours for Shumrach to reforge and take a long rest. We cast Tiny Hut and Gaelia wrote a contract in blood and deep speech on the entrance to the demon grinder that any who enter will forfeit their soul to feed the Soul Grinder. During the rest, two demons approach see the writing and leave.
24 hours later, no Shumrach appears…
Sunday 1-29: Finishing Up
Adversaries have been added to the specific rooms on the map and noted in the Adversary Roster. Thankfully with the process acting as a cleanup crew, I don’t have to actually redo all of the rooms, the process cleans up after everybody. It feels good to finish this little project.
My weekly thoughts post. Hopefully, by making these posts I can force myself to get into the habit of creating content again. I’ll probably release posts consisting of compilations from these more meandering posts that focus on a particular topic.
This Week: Alot of Getting Things Done, What makes a setting good for adventure, and why I got stuck on the dungeon creation step of the gygax 75 challenge.
Monday 1-23: What makes a good setting for adventure?
Last week Orbital Crypt made a post about getting ready for a post-apocalyptic campaign. In it he makes mention of what makes for a good adventure setting.
The selection process helped me crystalize what kind of setting works best for this kind of campaign. You need a big world with soft borders, one with enough people around to provide many opportunities for trade, conflict and faction play, while still leaving a whole lot of map open for monsters and dungeons to live in. You also need cool stuff lying around, and a reason for why all the cool stuff hasn’t been looted yet – either because the existing civilization isn’t strong enough to grab it all, because something is constantly creating more dungeon, or because The Mandatory “Fall Of The Great Civilization” event happened too recently and the world is still in the early days of recovery. The last one is probably the most convenient, because it needs the least justification; if the new world is young, you don’t have to explain why it is so bountiful. As an added plus, the shackles of a greater, more organized civilization have yet to fall upon the land and render it more ordered, safe and lawful – things that don’t make for a good adventuring realm. Instead, lines are more naturally drawn between many smaller and more local powers (which are in turn more easily messed with by individuals, such as the PCs).
Orbital Crypt – Post: Apocalypse – A Gamma World Analysis & Sandbox Prep Megapost
He points to Against the Wicked City’s classic post “OSR Aesthetics of Ruin“. Now this is some great stuff, but my mind wonders how one could create a great sandbox setting that aesthetically moves in the opposite direction.
A small world with hard borders
Generally few people around
Not alot of space for dungeons or for monsters to live in
Not alot of cool stuff just lying around for the taking
Nothing is actively going around making cool things or something made cool things but is no longer around
A central power controls most civilization making it generally ordered and lawful.
This whole thing smells like an O’Neil Cylinder in transit between worlds. Relatively small, no real “wilderness” because your borders are extremely empty space. Few people around could be because they’re all in hibernation or because the cylinder is meant to be filled once it arrives. Everyone left is thinly distributed around on maintenance projects.Very little gets built because there’s few excess resources. The whole thing is probably under close central control of whoever runs the colony.
So how does one make this a good setting for adventure?
Perhaps the PC’s are opposed to whatever org maintains control. If this is an AI, then maybe having multiple AI’s that work in conert might be a good idea. Friend computer, Hal 9000 etc. I’d personally draw inspiration from this excellent Wayspell Post. If it’s people I recommend making it a counsel rather than an individual.
Whatever “monsters” you do want to use has to be something that is either impossible to defeat permanently or has to have excellent means of escaping.
If the space is enclosed then there should be some variety in the terrain. I imagine most of the area will be urban or Agricultural, so having botanic gardens might be a good idea. Maybe crib from the Book of the new sun and have space be bent in the gardens so these areas are larger than expected.
I expect this to be a very social game so don’t make combat the main focus. If you do want combat then I think utilizing something like a colosseum (Virtual? AR?) would be a good workaround.
Tuesday 1-24: Getting Things Done – Chapter 1
Ch 1 – The stated problem the book is trying to fix – We are stressed and unproductive, feeling like having too much to handle and not enough time to handle it in. Our eyes are bigger than our stomachs. In addition the work advanced “knowledge workers” do tends to be nebulously defined, requires cross team coordination, and often changes without notice. I definitely fealt like that at college, probably because I kept filling my time with video games and DnD.
The stated “promise” or thing you will have gotten by applying the book and fixing the problem? More time in a state of flow.
The Principle behind the changes that makes to promise possible? Effectively managing ones commitments, especially the “open loop” ones you make with yourself results in less stress and more productivity. To do this, you have to identify them, capture them on a system outside your mind, clarify what it is you have to do toi make progress, and keep reminders of them in a regularly reviewed place. And you have to this consistently.
The ancestor of every action is a thought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you have something on your mind It’s because
The intended outcome isn’t clear
The next action step hasn’t been decided
Reminders of the outcome and action isn’t in a system you trust
…you can’t do a project at all! You can only do an Action related to it.
Pg 21
There is no reason to ever have the same thought twice, unless you like having that thought.
pg 24
Work bottom up, from whats in your inbox, not on a big planner.
That was a very dense 26 pages. Overall it seems to make sense to me. When I was in college I once created a checklist of what I needed to do and I did well in that class as long as I was keeping up with the list. At work, I got a lot more efficient and happy once I was able to get all the information onto step-by-step how-to lists and into a central cheatsheet with the exception to the standard rules.
Thursday 1-26: Class Warfare
After all the hullaballoo with the DnD OGL I decided to expand my library in a few directions in order to have more options to show people for when they ask “What should I Play besides DnD”. My order has now arrived. First to read is class warfare. It’s a supplement for Dungeon world intending to allow one to design your own classes/Playbooks, one of the main restrictions on Dungeon world.
The Book starts with a basic deconstruction of what makes a Dungeon World class: 3 powers, a racial ability, and a few details. there’s a neat breakdown of the default classes on how these fit into the basic construction and then it gets down to how you construct a class. Class Warfares system has you pick one class core, pick two or three specialties to get the powers, choose a racial power, set hp damage and load, and then continue with character creation as normal based on those choices. Overall it’s not a lot more difficult than typical class construction. There is some advice and an example given of making a prebuilt class instead of a character, most of which strikes me as good sense, but good to have stated plainly for people who don’t read RPG theory every day.
The rest of the book beyond this point is a massive list of Specialties, and spells from which to construct your characters/classes. Here a few of the standout bits.
Adventurer
OK all these specialties have sections in them describing what someone needs to do to gain the option to take that specialty as a compendium class. I can absolutely imagine a game where you start with no specialties and pick up specific compendium classes as one adventures.
The fool specialty is unlocked y doing something so dumb everyone is stunned and speechless. Imagine this happening at a table. you do something dumb and everyone is sitting there in silence and then the DM goes “Fool compendium class unlocked”. Lol
There is a specialty for being the owner of an estate or business. Their core ability? The ability to request something from the estate, possibly causing the estate to fall into disarray until you do something to put things back in good order.
Theres also a different one for being a landed noble that literally puts your settlement on the map,
Another one for having a permanent entourage. One of the entourage’s weaknesses can be that they’re dead inside.
Another one is for owning a shop. Adventurer is just the class for those who want to specialize in non-adventuring stuff. honestly, these work better as compendium classes rather than something inbuilt into a regular class.
Disciples
Power of will and faith in something. I like that it says it doesn’t have to be a god. That was a good 5e innovation to the paladin that works well here.
The Avatar of a god specialization gives one extra domain, one of which bloody conquest. This is the build a God class.
The Exorcists Tagline? “Who ya gonna call?”
The Empaths tagline? “Captain I sense Hostility”
I like that a lot/most of these are not spell casters. it makes it easy to get the divine without making every divine related character just a different flavor of wizard.
The Impervious is all about playing the pacifist and enduring hardship. Combined with the Sacrificial lamb and you can get a real peaceful christlike figure going.
Magicians
Subtitle – the color of magic. GNU Terry Pratchett
The Dominator specialty is dark. you literally have to break someones will and make them your slave to get it. Not for all tables.
The image for the shadowmancer is a completely black page. The opposite of a ghost in a blizzard is a shadowmancer in the dark.
All the Psychic specialties appear in this section. This makes a certain kind of sense.
There’s an option for a full Vancian caster and a 5e-styled “Prepared Caster”. The difference? Vancian casters lose their spells upon casting but can memorize twice as many, while prepared casters keep their spells but can’t memorize as many. Is the trade-off worth it?
Rogues
The body thief is pure horror.
There’s basically the full oceans 11 team in here and I kind of want to run a heist game where everyone has a different rogueish specialty.
Warriors
The two page spread for the arsenal is metal.
I like the captain as the leader of men kindof class.
The Standard bearer is a neat bit of design. Your main ability is focused on not attacking yourself but on aiding others.
The gorgon is a bit of an odd one as it’s entirely focused around one particular enemy. Probably the least broadly applicable class.
Friday 1-27: Getting Things Done – Chapter 2-4
Ch 2 – Getting Control of Your Life: The 5 Steps of Mastering Workflow
The general steps one takes
capture what has our attention
every open loop must be in your capture system and out of your head
have as few capture buckets as possible
empty them regularly.
Clarify what each item means and what to do about it
Items can be:
Trash: non- actionable and no longer needed
For Incubation: non-actionable and might be needed later
Reference: Non-Actionable but handy for reference later
A Project Action: Something that needs to be done relating to an “open loop”
Do It Now – If it takes less than two minutes
Delegate it – If it’ll take more than 2 minutes but it’s better if someone else handles it.
Defer it – If you’re the right person and it’ll take longer than 2 minutes, stick it on your “next actions” list
Organize the results which presents possible options
Items can go Into:
The Trash – for trash
A Someday/Maybe List – for items you might like to get to
A “Tickle” System – reminds you of Incubation items at a later date
Project SPcific Storage/Files – for materials and plans
Calender – for Actions that have to be done at specific times/days. Appointments. To-Do’s do not go on Calender.
A Next Actions List – for “Defer it” next actions. once you hit around 50+ you’ll want different lists for different categories of things. It’s suggested to categorize by location you do these things.
Waiting for list – reminders of what you’re waiting on.
A Reference System – for Reference items. Obsidian?
A Project – Any desired result that can be accomplished within “A Year” and that requires 2+ Action steps.
reflect on the options that presented themselves once we organised
Review Weekly: Your Calender, Your next actions lists
Review occaisionally: Projects, Waiting For, and Someday/Maybe Lists.
engage with the option we chose
3 models:
For choosing actions in the moment “Four Criteria Model”
Context, Time Available, Energy Available, Priority
For Identifying Daily Work “Threefold Model”
Doing Predefined Work
Doing Work as it shows up
Defining your work
For reviewing your work “6 level model”
5: Purpose and Principles – The Big Picture view.
4: Vision – Your projections for 3-5 Years in the future.
3: Goals – What you want to be experiencing in 1-2 Years
2: Area of focus and responsibilities – The roles you fulfill and the obligations you take on
1: Current Actions – all the actions you need to take
Ch- 3 Getting Projects Under
Horizontal focus – assessing multiple projects across an equal level. Vertical focus – examining multiple levels within a single project The natural planning model
defining purpose and principles – why the limits/standards for acceptable means and acceptable outcomes.
outcome visioning – what
brainstorming – how
Capture ideas – mind mapping
Don’t judge challenge evaluate or criticize,
go for quantity not quality
Put analysis and organization in the background.
organizing – who and in what order.
Move from. Informal structure to formal. gantt chart?
Basic steps
Identify the significant pieces
Sort by:
Components
Priorities
Sequences
Detail to the desired degree
identifying next actions – decide for each moving part, decide when to continue planning if needed, clarify whose next steps it is.
When more clarity is needed, shift thinking back up the natural planning scale. If more action move down.
Thus far everything has been common sense and yet it’s oddly gratifying to see it laid out so cleanly and nicely organized. I’ve often heard portions of this stuff individually or on its own but it’s like I’ve been seeing the trees and now I’m being shown the forest.
Saturday 1-28: What the Devil is Due – Session Report 4
Aka: That time I got Reincarnated as a Tiefling and went to Hell
Possible Spoilers for Dragon Heist, Tomb of Annihilation,
The Cast
Atlan Gran (Me) – A Human Wildfire Druid, recently reincarnated into a Tiefling. Pyromaniac and general troublemaker.
Harrow Tench – A Human investigative rogue who just wants to retire but keeps getting pulled back in.
Gaelia Ernst – A Half-Elf Land Druid
Nemry Oakwish- An Eladrin Fey Warlock whose mode and powers change like the seasons.
Asami Fulmina – An Air Genasi Storm Sorceror working with the Grey Hand of Waterdeep
The GM – Has made it clear that he’s going to be throwing everything and the book at us and to expect a high body count.
Last Session we had made a deal with Lady Zarael of hell to get three items and deliver them to her. We fought some insectoid demons and rescued a green thing named bazit from the pit of Schumach. He tells us He tells us that the man at the obelisk in the distance is not to be trusted and that those who seek the star will be burned with the frosted wings.
Turns out Bhazit doesn’t have coins (Shocker!) but he has information on the fortress of Bel, former archduke of avernus. He says that the former lord of the fortress can be ressurrected by damming(Heh) the tributary of the river styx that feeds the green goo in ther Pit of Schumach. In exchange for this ionformation we free him from the cage he’s in.
While settling down for a long rest we see a red light in the sky, which coalesces into a flaming horse, running across the sky. Nemry casts scry on it. The Horse seemed to be following the path back the way we came and it appears to be exhausting itself in it’s hurry. Following up, he decides to scry on mooncolor, seeing an “unholy contraction”, with electricity blazing between two prongs, with a ball of unholy light in the middle. In the distance he can see a red star. At the base of the contraption is a blocky humanoid with large hands, reminiscent of an efreet. A fined running away from other fiends in the distance is fried by a blast of energy from the device. Looking around in the distance we are able to see the device far off in the distance.
After arguing what to rename the Demon Grinder (Rosebud, Battlewagon, Fiortnite Battle bus) and coming to no consensus we set off towards a tower in the distance that looks like it’s made of metal red blue white black and green strands like sickly DNA. It sits near a mountain sized demon skull. Diverting at the last minute towards the skull, we enter between its teeth.
A low rumble permeates the spaced in the skull, and Asami notices that the rumblings are actually words, speaking of revenge, escape, kingdoms and other stuff.
While in the skull our Nemry tried to scry on the speaker causing the earthquake words. After a second we We hear a deep melody, the word “DOOM” and the back of the cave begins to glow. We hightail it out as the cavern collapses around us. Harrow tries to Millenium falcon us out but fails at the last second trapping us inside. Nemry tries to cast tiny hut to protect us but it’s burned away when we are hit by the light. We take some damage but survive, before the light burns away.
Nemry hears a voice in her head. “Who disturbs the tomb of our lady and queen” . After replying it was from those who seek to revive the queen, the cave/skull opens enough to let us out. We are surrounded by 50 white abishai(Dragon fiends), a minotaur who has opened the cave, and a tortle with a skull-adorned staff. This escort, “guides” us toward the previously mentioned tower.
As we approach the tower we see a translucent dragon circling the tower, and then descending towards us, with more Abishai moving out of the tower to meet it. Thank heavens none of us are using characters from the Dragon slaying game. Out of the tower is a red Dragonborn with obsidian weaponry and armor and one arm, the other being occupied by the HAND OF VECNA. Nemry cites our “diplomatic immunity” and indicates we would like to make a contract and we are ushered into the tower. We step into a septagram of privacy with the tortle, the Dragonborn whose name we learn is Ashardalon and the minotaur.
After some negotiation, we made a deal: We get the hand of Vecna, and we will have to teleport the army somewhere some other time. on our way out we take a look at some alternate vehicle options but opt to keep our own. We are escorted back to the demon grinder.
Sunday 1-29: Why I’m Stuck
Some time ago I decided that, as prep for a future campaign I would do the Gygax 75 challenge. I thought that by following this I would be able to quickly get myself in the right headspace and get prepared. All was going well until I sat down to write an adventure. I did things out of order and made things harder for myself. Too hard in fact. So hard that I kept putting it off. What made it hard?
I didn’t start off with a strong vision and it made it difficult to make decisions.
I had made the decision to make this a pointcrawl which I was inexperienced with
I decided to format it in the formal style of Into the odds “Iron Coral” starter dungeon.
I decided to make the whole thing inside WordPress instead of writing in an external editor and then copying it over for a final formatting pass.
I made it for a system I was less mechanically familiar with.
So what am I going to do about it?
I’ve been reading Getting Things Done and I have access to the Mothership Wardens Manual. Paired with a recently posted conversion guide on the OSR discord I’m going to take a stab at finishing it. I am committing to finishing this before my next weekly post goes up.
Wish me luck.
Cool Things I Found
Gundam the witch form mercury had a strong first season but the music was out of this world
The Menu Movie was Fantastic
The Netflix Matilda Musical is quite good
I Quite enjoyed Puss in Boots 2: The last wish. Never saw the first one.
Gene Wolf The final Book of the New Sun, not counting the many sequels like Urth and so forth. Over on the OSR server we’ve been reading through the Book of the New Sun. Unfortunately, I didn’t start recording my thoughts until this book.
It’s been really interesting. Severian, the narrator, and the lead protagonist is a man of contradictions. He constantly says he never lies and has perfect memory (later seems to be a form of perfect recall he has to “turn on”) who forgets things and omits constantly, a rapist who thinks all women are into him, a killer who seems to only ever kill in self-defense or in service of “justice”, a rebel who constantly looks for someone to follow, and a lot more.
The setting is a fascinating far future dying world, but because the author tends to use old words instead of made-up ones the whole thing has a sort of medieval vibe and one could easily mistake the setting for a fantasy one at first read. There’s a lot of very good prose and a lot of blinks and you’ll miss it details. The world unfolds itself slowly over the course of all the books, which can be frustrating if after two books you are still having fundamental questions about the nature of the world, but it does make it satisfying when you get that payoff later.
Ch 2. I think memory Thecla is still conscious as she recognizes she’s been eaten.
Ch 3. The New Sun is another name for the conciliator? So the book of the new sun is in fact the book of the Conciliator.
Ch 3. Healing as a form of reverse time travel is an interesting take. Reminds me of how Orihime’s rejection ability works (From Bleach).
Ch 5. The ascians from the northern continent speak like a cross between a Bible thumper and a Tamarian from Star Trek. Such a great idea for a fantastic culture. Be sure to nick it for my/your/our game. That last quote though sounds like newspeak from 1984.
How shall the state be most vigorous? It shall be most vigorous when it is without conflict. How shall it be without conflict? When it is without disagreement. How shall disagreement be banished? By banishing the four causes of disagreement: lies, foolish talk, boastful talk, and talk which serves only to incite quarrels. How shall the four causes be banished? By speaking only Correct Thought. then shall the state be without disagreement. Being witout disagreement it shall be without conflict. Being without conflict it shall be vigrous, strong and secure
The wounded Ascian – Citadel of the autarch, end of chapter 5.
Ch 7. Gene Wolfe loves his stories within stories, doesn’t he? Now we have a contest of stories. This one feels like a classic nordic revenge plotline. Reminds me of the Saga of Grettir.
Ch 8 – It seems obvious in hindsight that the claw didn’t always use its healing powers. Makes sense that Severian, thick himbo he is, didn’t get that. Makes me feel dumb for not catching that. To be fair it is entirely possible that it was healing the Pelerines. Mysterious religious order and all. I would not have put it past Wolfe to have a religious order whose members are made immortal by a relic of fantasy Jesus. Mental note to add such an order to my games.
Ch 9 – “People tell me I’m a very stupid man” made me lol.
Ch 10- “You’re a materialist, like all ignorant people. But your materialism doesn’t make materialism true. Don’t you know that? In the final summing up, it is spirit and dream, thought and love and act that matter.” Ava speaks truly although the inverse is also true, one’s spiritualism does not make spiritualism true. The quotation reminds me of a passage from Neil Gaimans Sandman.
“Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Vol. 3: Dream Country
Ch 11 – The Ascians tale is interesting because it’s an interpretation of a story based on a recitation of specific passages of, for lack of a better word, scripture. One translation struck me as a bit of a strecth but it fits into the rest of the story.
“How are the hands nourished? By the Blood. How does the blood reach the hands? By the veins. If the veins are closed, the hands rot away” “He left that farm and took to the roads”
Ch 11 – It should be noted that each of the statements is in point of fact scripture and by paying attention to the statements one can understand a bit about the Ascian society. There’s some striking stuff here:
“It is better to be just than to be kind, but only good judges can be just; let those who cannot be just, be kind”
“The Citizen renders to the populace what is due to the populace. What is due to the populace? Everything.”
“Can all petitioners be heard? No, for all cry together. Who, then, shall be heard-is it those who cry loudest? No for all cry loudly. Those who cry longest shall be heard, and justice done to them.”
Ch 12 – Lashings are worse for fat people because the lash cuts deeper?
Ch 12- A man selling himself into slavery of a religious order is interesting. It contrasts with how selective the Pelerines usually are with their proper initiates as evidenced by Ava.
Ch 14- “No doubt many a man who walks about and does his work is dying and many who lie abed all day are healthier than those who bring their food and wash them”
Ch 15. “Distances on the map were in proportion to their difficulty, and turnings were adjusted to suit the dimensions of the paper” has anyone seen or written a map like this? And he departs from the map. When he sees the final destination, attempting a straight shot. Of course he does. And when he does the destination disappears. Stupid GM railroading his players.
Ch 16. The reasoning about the army’s reinforcements reminds me somewhat of the ongoing conversation now about Russia’s recent recruiting tactics in the ongoing Ukrainian conflict. The fact that it so clearly matches what is going on means that either these are very simple truths, or that I, like Severian, am not that bright and there is something deeper going on here. Given that this is a statement made to Severian and not by him, I am inclined to think the former.
Ch. 17 – “…Resolution and plan are better than a sword because a man whets his own edges on them.” pithy. not sure how a man whets his own edges by having a plan. I suppose whetting a sword is a means of preparing for events to come. Not as deep as it seems at first glance yet still insightful.
Ch 23- ” I, however, never suffered more than a sore throat and running nose, forms of sickness that serve only to deceive healthy people into the belief that they know in what disease consists. Malrubius suffered real illness, which is to see death in shadows.” I don’t believe I have ever been sick enough to see death in the shadows. I am yet young and undoubtedly will come to that state sooner or later. Entropy comes for us all. This brings to mind the post “Who by Very Slow Decay”.
Ch 24- Major Spoiler: The Autarch also acts as several lower officials when appropriate. This is a great bit of characterization. It makes me think of the shenanigans Ankh Morporkhs Patrician Vetinari sometimes got up to in the filling of his duties. I like the idea of a savvy ruler who is not afraid to condescend to lower positions to make things happen when appropriate. Also makes me think of Odin and how he’d disguise himself as a traveller in some of the old legends.
Ch 24- She bits about anti-iron and promatter is a fascinating bit of sci-fi magic hand waving. I like the idea of regular matter being “pro” matter. It fits the naming schema well. I like how the explanation of real matter creeping in and causing the anti-matter to react, thereby causing the flier to lose its lifting power over time makes a sort of sense. It’s a brilliant bit of technobabble.
Ch 25 – Throne of Salt points out that the Autarchs legion of pasty lives is mostly composed of regular people, thereby serving as a counterbalance to the natural inevitable aristocracy. Makes me think of this scene from Malcolm in the Middle. Spoilers for the ending of that show.
Ch 30 – Hierodule means holy slave huh. A quick google tells me that’s true but it’s also a type of Tyrannid (Warhammer 40k). Funny, One would think hierodule would be a sororitas or inquisitorial model.
Ch31 – A White hole, I’ve heard of them but never looked into them much. Wikipedia offers a brief overview and the concept is really wild. The whole Big Bang could be said to be a white hole. Note to return to the concept of a White Hole in the future.
Ch 31- “We are Aquastors, beings created and sustained by the power of the imagination and the concentration of thought.” Now there’s a DnD planar creature if i’ve ever seen one. Makes me think of Terry Pratchetts Small Gods.
Ch 31- “because we could not conquer it it was our always” “Everything was a relic, All the World was a relic.” Indeed it is.
Ch 35 – The mandragore would be a wonderful dnd encounter. How does one roleplay a creature reading a players mind?
And now it is finished. So many interesting characters and beats. so much stuff worthy of stealing for your TTRPG. I feel I do not fully understand it but I understood that may be the case when I started it. I am sure with future rereads more will make sense. I am satisfied with what I have read for now. Onwards to the next book.
Throne of Salt also participated in the book club and has posted his thoughts on the whole of the Book of the New Sun here and here.
My weekly thoughts post. Hopefully by making these posts I can force myself to get into the habit of creating content again. I’ll probably release posts consisting of compilations form these more meandering posts that focus on a particular topic.
Monday 1-16: Citadel of the Autarch part 3
Continuing with the readthrough of the Citadel of the Autarch:
Ch 16. The reasoning about the army’s reinforcements reminds me somewhat of the ongoing conversation now about Russia’s recent recruiting tactics in the ongoing Ukrainian conflict. The fact that it so clearly matches what is going on means that either these are very simple truths, or that I, like Severian, am not that bright and there is something deeper going on here. Given that this is a statement made to Severian and not by him, I am inclined to think the former.
Ch. 17 – “…Resolution and plan are better than a sword because a man whets his own edges on them.” pithy. not sure how a man whets his own edges by having a plan. I suppose whetting a sword is a means of preparing for events to come. Not as deep as it seems at first glance yet still insightful.
Ch 23- ” I, however, never suffered more than a sore throat and running nose, forms of sickness that serve only to deceive healthy people into the belief that they know in what disease consists. Malrubius suffered real illness, which is to see death in shadows.” I don’t believe I have ever been sick enough to see death in the shadows. I am yet young and undoubtedly will come to that state sooner or later. Entropy comes for us all. This brings to mind the post “Who by Very Slow Decay”.
Ch 24- Major Spoiler: The Autarch also acts as several lower officials when appropriate. This is a great bit of characterization. It makes me think of the shenanigans Ankh Morporkhs Patrician Vetinari sometimes got up to in the filling of his duties. I like the idea of a savvy ruler who is not afraid to condescend to lower positions to make things happen when appropriate. Also makes me think of Odin and how he’d disguise himself in some of the old legends.
Ch 24- She bits about anti-iron and promatter is a fascinating bit of sci-fi magic hand waving. I like the idea of regular matter being “pro” matter. It fits the naming schema well. I like how the explanation of real matter creeping in and causing the anti-matter to react, thereby causing the flier to lose its lifting power over time makes a sort of sense. It’s a brilliant bit of Technobabble.
Ch 25 – Throne of Salt points out that the Autarchs legion of pasty lives is mostly composed of regular people, thereby serving as a counterbalance to the natural inevitable aristocracy. Makes me think of this scene from Malcolm in the Middle. Spoilers for the ending of that show.
Ch 30 – Hierodule means holy slave huh. A quick google tells me that’s true but it’s also a type of Tyrannid (Warhammer 40k). Funny, One would think hierodule would be a sororitas or inquisitorial model.
Ch31 – A White hole, I’ve heard of them but never looked into them much. Wikipedia offers a brief overview and the concept is really wild. The whole Big Bang could be said to be a white hole. Note to return to the concept of a White Hole in the future.
Ch 31- “We are Aquastors, beings created and sustained by the power of the imagination and the concentration of thought.” Now there’s a DnD planar creature if i’ve ever seen one. Makes me think of Terry Pratchetts Small Gods.
Ch 31- “because we could not conquer it it was our always” “Everything was a relic, All the World was a relic.” Indeed it is.
Ch 35 – The mandragore would be a wonderful dnd encounter. How does one roleplay a creature reading a players mind?
And now it is finished. So many interesting characters and beats. so much stuff worthy of stealing for your TTRPG. I feel I do not fully understand it but I understood that may be the case when I started it. I am sure with future rereads more will make sense. I am satisfied with what I have read for now. Onwards to the next book.
Tuesday 1-17: Gamma World, Other Dust, and Investment
Today I came across two fascinating articles which I have to think more about.
The first one is Orbital Crypt’s post about Gamma world and its use in a sandbox. It’s really in-depth and I won’t attempt to coverall what it does but one of the things that kept coming to my mind was “Why not utilize Other Dust by Kevin Crawford?”
The other major article was the Angry GMs article about what it means to be a good gamer master. Short answer: A Good GM builds investment. Is that the really it? A Gm builds investment from his players and thus is a good GM? Considering all the things that a GM does, everything does seem to be towards building investment in the world. Playing the world is all about being invested in the world over the characters.
Wednesday 1-18: Cutting to clean
As part of the season of clean I cut my hair. Took it from where it hung in my eyes and cut it back to just short enough that I can run my fingers through it. I think as part of getting cleaner I need to cut back on the things that are naturally accummulating in my life and causing clutter.
I took my closet of clothes and composed a minimal wardrobe for the season.
9 pairs of Pants.
9 “Day” shirts,
4 “Night” Shirts,
4 “Night” Bottoms,
Boots,
Sneakers,
My Church outfit, Dress Shirt, Dress pants, sweater, tie, belt, shoes.
Not counting undergarments and socks, that’s 36 Items. Everything else gets shoved into a bag and stuck in the closet until it gets warm enough to trade things out. I don’t know that I’d call it a “capsule” wardrobe as basically, no thought went into how stylish my selections have been. My knowledge of fashion is minimal, to say the least. I think the wizard shirt I got from the OSE Kickstarter is the coolest thing ever.
I will think of more things to cut.
Thursday 1-19: Getting Things Done, Obsidian, Anki and study habits.
As part of my season of clean I am moving foward with some personal non-blog related projects. As I prep for this I need more structure in my life. For this purpose I am doing three things:
I am migrating my to-do list from Google Keep to Todoist. I liked the simplicity of keep but it was overly burdensome to use on my phone and it didn’t let me nest more than 1 layer deep. Todoist is a little bit more robust, integrates with my google calendar, and generally is just nicer to interact with.
I am making the next book on my reading list Getting Things Done. It was recommended to me at some point and I feel it’ll be a decent follow-up to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
I am looking into a new note-taking system. After listening to a few episodes of the podcast Cortex I’ve decided to take a crack at using the program Obsidian. When I started at college I used Evernote but found myself not following along enough. Hopefully utilizing the unique linking structure of Obsidian I can map things better.
Some time ago I stumbled upon this article by Ncase, which inspired me to use the flashcard app Anki. I used this app to study for my CompTIA A+ IT certification to good effect. Now, following the advice from these reddit posts I hope that by utilizing these three tools and the Getting Things Done methodology, I’ll be able to be more successful in my future studies.
Now I just need to figure out where to start with Obsidian.
Friday 1-20: Starting Getting Things Done by David Allen
Forward – Paraphrasing, “most self help books are whooey and a waste of shelf space, this one is different.” strong claim. Let’s see how it turns out.
Intro – Looks like this copy I have is GTD 2e. The cover material has the Copyright in 2015 so it’s still an 8-year-old book.
Welcome – He has a lot of pertinent quotes from other authors in here in little sidebars. There’s some good stuff in here. Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of my favorite poets makes an appearance. I should reread my collection of his stuff now that I should be able to understand it better.
“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble”. Reminds me of Franklin Covey’s talk about a principle-focused life from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Welcome – the quote at the end about not constantly firefighting also reminds me of the 7 habits, specifically the bits about striving to spend as much time as possible in Q3 or the space of Important and not urgent.
Saturday 1-21: What the Devil is Due – Session Report 3
Aka: That time I got Reincarnated as a Tiefling and went to Hell
Possible Spoilers for Dragon Heist, Tomb of Annihilation,
The Cast
Atlan Gran (Me) – A Human Wildfire Druid, recently reincarnated into a Tiefling. Pyromaniac and general troublemaker.
Harrow Tench – A Human investigative rogue who just wants to retire but keeps getting pulled back in.
Gaelia Ernst – A Wood Elf Land Druid
Nemry Oakwish- An Eladrin Fey Warlock whose mode and powers change like the seasons.
Asami Fulmina – An Air Genasi Storm Sorceror working with the Grey Hand of Waterdeep
The GM – Has made it clear that he’s going to be throwing everything and the book at us and to expect a high body count.
At the end of the last session, One of the skyships of Zarael fell on top of the carnival. We are teleported onto the ship and invited to dinner by a portbellied amnizu. The flowers are guns. The food dopesn’t look monstrous but is almost certainly glamoured. Zarael sits on a throne of black iron flanked by a Baelzthos general of logistics pit fiend. After casting a spell to ensure privacy, we begin to discuss getting us down.
Plan A, Have a tree transported down the layers and then use the spell Transport via Tree to Teleport down. This is shot down as being unwise as we probably need a few more levels. We are contracted to get the Hand of Vecna from a Dragonborn, a shard from the mirror of Mephistar (the city of fear) to the “NorthEast”, and the chains of Styx from the Bels Forge. The loophole is that we have to deliver her items to her and that will require us onto her own proper ship which will require us to pass through it and leave through the main hole down without arousing suspicion.
After Signing, we are given a Mad Max-styled Tank called the Soul Grinder and Descend onto the plains of Avernus(Roll Credits).
Our first encounter on the plains is a buzzing cloud that follows us going down the highway. In a burst of Fire and Buzzing, we are assaulted by a number of wasp-like demons. After utilizing some of the Soul Grinders weapons, we drive them off.
We come to a Bridge that crosses a river of green goo the pit of Shumrach. There are mechanical devices lowering and pulling up cages with green monsters in them into the pit. One of them, named Bazit, hails us and says he was imprisoned for stealing soul coins he’ll give us a bunch if we free them. After much deliberating we smash the mechanism with the Soul Grinders wrecking ball and tow him out. He tells us that the man at the obelisk in the distance is not to be trusted and that those who seek the star will be burned with the frosted wings.
Ominous…
Cool Things I Found
Nature Publishes Short little sci-fi pieces and this one caught my eye this week.
This is not an advertisement. This is not promotion. This is not a euphemism for me designing a system. This last Sunday I received a discord invite from a friend to a server for feedback and playtesting of a custom RPG system.
Now I’ve made my own stab at designing my own system before. Unfortunately, I fell down a simulation rabbit hole and ended up stopping once I was looking into soil fertility based on loam content. So I know many pitfalls of the system and not beginning with the end in mind. After some probing, I determine my friend is making a dnd clone. When asked to what’s going to differentiate himself from other systems his response is “It’s not going to be a copy of someone else’s so as long as it’s not an exact copy someone’ll want to play it”
Now I’m not saying there’s no truth to that but I am, to say the least, concerned. Sometimes tinkering with something does turn out something great. Heck, I’m sure most rules systems start as house rules before becoming something new, but not being a carbon copy of another system is a very low bar to clear and indicates a lack of forethought. There’s no rough draft doc yet so I can’t say anything definitive yet on the system.
What’s the dividing line between house rules and a new system? Is it the number of house rules? Is it just being willing to restate all the rules of the game in a separate document? I remember reading one post that said like 7 rules was the boundary where you should just rewrite the rules to integrate your changes.
Monday 1-9: Start of the Winter 2023 Anime Season
I like anime and I usually watch a good bit of it. This season we have a number of “new” shows I’m looking forward to watching.
Vinland Saga S2 – I read the manga for this one and I’m excited for Farming Arc.
Kubo Won’t let me be invisible -read the manga for this one. Expecting a sweet cutesy chill vibe
Bofuri season 2 – hooray for cute girls breaking an MMO
Tomo-Chan is a Girl – one of my favorite romcoms. I’m a bit concerned that the 4-panel format of the original won’t translate well and will lead to pacing issues. 1st episode was good though so my fears may be unfounded.
Is it Wrong to pick up girls in a dungeon S4 pt 2 – The worst named show is still going strong.
Trigun Stampede – I liked the original and while I’m not usually a CGI fan, the CGI here is smooth AF. The writer is going for an MCU style adaptation where they try and adapt the big points of the story but still kindof do their own thing. The first episode was good so I’ll continue to watch.
Misfit of demon king academy S2 – Fantasy One punch man continues to be hilarious.
Nier Automata Ver 1.1a – Beat the game and loved it. Holy Moly was there some bad CGI on the aircraft/mechs in episode 1. the character animation is pretty smooth.
Continuing from last season – Urusei Yatsura, My Hero Academia S6, Eminence in Shadow.
Thursday 1-12: Building a New PC pt 2
So I used to use a Lenovo gaming laptop as my primary daily computer. Unfortunately it was Today I build a new machine. AMD Ryzen 7600X, Radeon 6650XT, 32GB ddr5 RAM, 2TB SSD. AS stated last week I decided to use linux for now. However I had a last minute change of heart, deciding to install Nobara Linux as my baseline. Why Nobara? Because it’s fedora based which means there is a good balance between the cutting edge new stuff of Arch and the stability of Debian/Ubuntu based distros. Plus it came preinstalled with all the gaming stuff I wanted. Day 1 impressions? It’ll need a little tweaking but it should work out. I had a bug where, after updatingt and rebooting it loaded me to the command line instead of to my KDE Plasma Desktop. Testing a few games, after enabling steam proton experimental, everything seems to be running smoothly. I really only have two complaints with the build. My first is that I’m being reduced from three screens(Laptop+HDMI+USBC) down to 1 due to no longer using the laptop and the GPU not having a USB C slot for the second monitor to plug into. The second is that it’s harder to plug things into the tower than it is to the laptop. that’s more of a desk issue than a computer issue though. Overall I think this will serve me well.
Friday 1-13: The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe
So I’m participating in a book club on the OSR Server. We are on the last book of the “Book of the New Sun”.
Ch 7. Gene Wolfe loves his stories within stories, doesn’t he? Now we have a Contest of stories. This one feels like a classic nordic revenge plotline. Reminds me of the Saga of Grettir.
Ch 8 – It seems obvious in hindsight that the claw didn’t always use its healing powers. Makes sense that Severian, thick himbo he is, didn’t get that. Makes me feel dumb for not catching that. to be fair it is entirely possible that it was healing the Pelerines. Mysterious religious order and all. I would not have put it past wolf to have a religious order whose members are made immortal by a relic of fantasy Jesus. Mental note to add such an order to my games.
Ch 9 – “people tell me I’m a very stupid man” made me lol.
Ch 10- “You’re a materialist, like all ignorant people. But your materialism doesn’t make materialism True. Don’t you know that? In the final summing up, it is spirit and dream, thought and love and act that matter.” Ava speaks truelly although the inverse is also true, one’s spiritualism does not make spiritualism true. The quotation reminds me of a passage from Neil Gaimans Sandman.
“Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.” ― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman Vol. 3: Dream Country
Ch 11 – The Ascians tale is interesting because it’s an interpretation of a story based on a recitation of specific passages of, for lack of a better word, scripture. One translation struck me as a bit of a strecth but it fits into the rest of the story.
“How are the hands nourished? By the Blood. How does the blood reach the hands? By the veins. If the veins are closed, the hands rot away” “He left that farm and took to the roads”
Ch 11 – it should be noted that each of the statements is in point of fact scripture and by paying attention to the statements one can understand a bit about the Ascian society. There’s some striking stuff here:
“It is better to be just than to be kind, but only good judges can be just; let those who cannot be just be kind”
“The Citizen renders to the populace what is due to the populace. What is due to theb populace? Everything.”
“Can all petitioners be heard? No, for all cry together. Who, then, shall be heard-is it those who cry loudest? No for all cry loudly. Those who cry longest shall be heard, and justice done to them.”
Ch 12 – Lashings are worse for fat people because the lash cuts deeper?
Ch 12- A man selling himself into slavery of a religious order is interesting. It contrasts with how selective the Pelerines usually are with their proper initiates as evidenced by Ava.
Ch 14- “No doubt many a man who walksabout and does his work is dying and many whowho lie abed all day are healthier than those who bring their food and wash them”
Ch 15. “Distances on the map were in proportion to their difficulty, and turnings were adjusted to suit the dimensions of the paper” has anyone seen or written a map like this? And he departs from the map. when he sees the final destination, attempting a straight shot. Of course he does. And when he does the destination disappears. Stupid GM railroading his players.
More Next Week…
Saturday 1-14: What the Devil is Due – Session Report 2
Aka: That time I got Reincarnated as a Tiefling and went to Hell
Possible Spoilers for Dragon Heist, Tomb of Annihilation,
The Cast
Atlan Gran (Me) – A Human Wildfire Druid, recently reincarnated into a Tiefling. Pyromaniac and general troublemaker.
Harrow Tench – A Human investigative rogue who just wants to retire but keeps getting pulled back in.
Gaelia Ernst – A Wood Elf Land Druid
Nemry Oakwish- An Eladrin Fey Warlock whose mode and powers change like the seasons.
Asami Fulmina – An Air Genasi Storm Sorceror working with the Grey Hand of Waterdeep
The GM – Has made it clear that he’s going to be throwing everything and the book at us and to expect a high body count.
After BSing our way past the front guard, waving the invitatyion we got from the devil dissenters, we find ourselves in Avernus, specifically into a carnival. from which excape is only possible by only by collecting 3 tokens, being given one to start.
First up, Harrow plays a game of target shooting, with targets being moved by invisible imps. He shoots the imps instead. After immobilizing them he uses his last few shots to hit all the targets. Earning all three tokens needed to leave the carnival.
Next, Nemry has to play a ring toss test with snakes as the rings. He speaks to the snake, “frees” it, and floats it over. Gaelia plays the same game and this time, he tosses the snake high iun the air, runs over beyong the pole, and lightning lures the snake onto the pole.
Nemry and Gaelia then play a classic “pea under the cup game”. Nemry uses her ghost vision to follow it, I use a divination spell and the lord of Avernus answers. The revealed cup has three instead of two. The devil sees the coins checks his cup where he moved them with two, and then is sucked into the earth. I take my coins and Asami takes 2 the two the chain devil had moved. Thusly we completed our collection.
We are promptly escorted by some imps into a waiting roomby an amnizu devil. One of the paintings psychically calls to us, Harrow and Nemry are taken in and touches the painting, which poisons them. At this point A butler devil says”time to move on” and the carnival disappears, leaving the mortals behind. They are still unable to leave the area of the carnival, and a giant red cloud comes over our location and then slams down over the area the carnival used to becrushing everyone except for us. We are now in the flying fortress of Zariel.
Sunday 1-15: Thoughts on Zeta Gundam
Today I finished the classic Anime Zeta Gundam the sequel to the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Overall I find the show enjoyable and generally holds up. I found the mech suit designs are generally good even if there are some real stinkers in there. The decision to have the Titans use designs remeniscent of Zeon made sense from a doyalist perspective, but overall I wish they had made the titans designs flow more clearly from Federation ones. I wasn;t a fan of how everything seemed to have “transforming modes”. Outside of a few Mobile suits clearly meant for atmospheric combat, it felt more like a feature designed to sell toys than anything that flowed naturally from the neccessities of the world.
Kamille was an annoying protagonist to start but he grew on me over time. By the end you can really see how he’s grown by comparing him to Katz. Paptimus made a great charismatic leader. I have no clue how Haman Karn became head of Zeon but her personlity was very suited for it. Char, sorry, Quattro Bageena was a nice mature presence somtimes but we got very little from him and his arc from wayward pilot to political leader was good. The young children who run around the ship are generally annoying and don’t really add anything. They could have been left out and nothing would have changed. The whole flow of the conflict from one operation/action to another is really great.
Animation-wise the best thing that can be said is that despite its age it doesn’t get in the way of the story and it communicates what’s going on relatively clearly. The music was generally good. The AEUG Theme is one of my favorite orchestral pieces now. There’s also a lot of slapping of people acting like obnoxious children which probably wouldn’t fly today.
It’s a new year so it’s time for a little retrospective and review.
So this last year I started the Blog. YAY! But I let my posting fall off and I let myself be distracted with other things. BOO! But those other things included finding a new job, moving and making more money with benefits. YAY! But I moved to an apartment that was definitely worse than the last one I was living in. BOO! But now I’m in a denser city with more interesting stuff to do, plus I now have a car so I’m more free to do them. YAY! But I’ve failed to get out of my previous habits and actually gone to do them BOO! But the Habits I was doing lead to me losing weight and getting healthier YAY! But the new job environment has a lot of enticing food so I’ve gained a bit of it back BOO!
Overall I think the changes over the past year have been mostly positive but with some backsliding towards the end.
The Winter of Clean
CGP Grey does this thing whereby instead of setting resolutions he sets themes for the year/season.
For this Season I’m Retroactively making this Winter(DEC-FEB) theme My Season of Clean. What does this mean? Clean in this context is a matter of physical, mental and spiritual Hygiene. Of throwing out what doesn’t work, sanding down the edges and working to prevent degradation.
One of the things I’m hoping to do more is to post here consistently. To facilitate this, rather than focusing on producing only “finished products” , I’m going to take a page from BX Blackrazor and start posting more “what’s happening/on my mind” blog posts. This means that topics will probably stray a bit more and cover more than just RPG stuff.
In Nerdwriters Latest Video he says something that is pulling me away from strict product focus and towards this more journally style product.
What Follows are this weeks musings
Monday 1-2: End of the Fall 2022 Anime Season
I like anime and I usually watch a good bit of it. This last season was particularly good.
Bleach returned for the start of its “final” arc, the Thousand-Year Blood war. I’d read the manga back in the day so I know what’s coming but it was a while ago so I’m still finding myself surprised by things I forgot. The animation is also of way higher quality than the original run.
Spy x Family continued to be cute. The tennis Arc in particular was a stand out.
Mob Psycho 100 had a third season and finished the story. I think I enjoyed the second season better but this one did a wonderful job of tying up loose ends and bringing things to a satisfying conclusion.
My Hero Academia had its 6th season. This is one of the better arcs and was well handled. The best animators weren’t off making movies so it’s a big step up.
The Eminence in Shadow had it’s adaptation start a little too seriously compared to the manga. This is an inherently funny series but It doesn’t show through well at the beginning. By the midway point it had found its footing and I’m going to keep watching. Delta is best girl.
Chainsaw Man started its adaptation with some absolutely gorgeous direction and animation. The CG bits still kind of throw me but they’re the best I’ve seen outside of 3d only shows like Land of the Lustrous. I’ve read the manga and the best parts are yet to come so I look foward to this shows return.
Reincarnated as a Sword is generic isekai but with the twist placing the protagonist into a secondary support/mentor/parent role rather than the role of the main hero. Well executed if a bit basic.
Urusei Yatsura took a bit to grow on me but the banger of an opening convinced me to stick it out. It’s plots are formulaic, but this is one of those shows that created the formulas so it can be excused that. It maintains a high degree of charm.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury is giving me code geass vibes. We’re starting with a school setting with fuelling being our excuse for Gundam fights. The last few episodes clearly show that the next season will be taking us to the more typical Gundam battlefield. The Yuri romance is cute and the focus on corporate rather than “national” politics is a nice change of pace.
Tuesday 1-3: Building a New PC
My current laptop has been starting to crash so I took advantage of the after christmas/new year sales to buy some parts and build myself a new PC. Going with an AMD build as I’m planning on running Linux on it as my daily driver until I’m forced to buy a copy of windows for a job or school. For the distro I’m thinking of something Arch based with KDE as the desktop environment. I’m torn between straight Arch or Endeavor or Garuda.
Parts are starting to arrive but some bits won’t arrive until next week.
Wednesday 1-4: The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe
So I’m participating in a book club on the OSR Server. We are on the last book of the “Book of the New Sun”. It’s been really interesting. Severian, the narrator, and lead protagonist, is a man of contradictions. He constantly says he never lies and has perfect memory (later seems to be a form of perfect recall he has to “turn on”) who forgets things and omits constantly, a rapist who thinks all women are into him, a killer who seems to only ever kill in self-defense or in service of “justice”, a rebel who constantly looks for someone to follow, and a lot more.
The setting is a fascinating far future dying world, but because the author tends to use old words instead of made-up ones the whole thing has a sort of medieval vibe and one could easily mistake the setting for a fantasy one at first read. There’s a lot of very good prose and a lot of blinks and you’ll miss it details. The world unfolds itself slowly over the course of all the books, which can be frustrating if after two books you are still having fundamental questions about the nature of the world, but it does make it satisfying when you get that payoff later.
Ch 2. I think memory Thecla is still conscious as she recognizes she’s been eaten.
Ch 3. The New Sun is another name for the conciliator? So the book of the new sun is in fact the book of the Conciliator.
Ch 3. Healing as a form of reverse time travel is an interesting take. Reminds me of how Bleach’s Orihimes rejection ability works.
Ch 5. The ascians from the northern continent speak like a cross between a Bible thumper and a Tamarian from Star Trek. Such a great idea for a fantastic culture. Be sure to nick it for my/your/our game. That last quote though sounds like newspeak from 1984.
How shall the state be most vigorous? It shall be most vigorous when it is without conflict. How shall it be without conflict? When it is without disagreement. How shall disagreement be banished? By banishing the four causes of disagreement: lies, foolish talk, boastful talk, and talk which serves only to incite quarrels. How shall the four causes be banished? By speaking only Correct Thought. then shall the state be without disagreement. Being witout disagreement it shall be without conflict. Being without conflict it shall be vigrous, strong and secure
The wounded Ascian – Citadel of the autarch, end of chapter 5.
More Next Week…
Friday 1-6: The End of One Campaign and the Start of Another.
I participate in a DnD 5e game every Saturday, run by some friends of mine from college. Every 3-6 months, we rotate who GMs depending on who has something they want to run. Just before Christmas, we finished one friend’s campaign, a compilation of as many dnd starter adventures he could find mixed in with some bits from the Rise of Tiamat campaign Titled “Three Dragon Ante”. It was a fun game, well run, and we had a blast. Starting this Saturday the 7th we are going to be starting a new high-level campaign taking characters from several of our past campaigns (Dragon heist->Tomb of Annihilation->The new campaign ) and running them through a heavily modified “Descent into Avernus” Campaign. The character I’m taking in was a wildfire druid who, after dying at the climax of the campaign he starred in, was reincarnated as a randomly rolled race, and wouldn’t you know it it was as a Tiefling.
A tiefling fire druid in hell. we’ll see how long he’ll last. I suspect one of my other characters will be making an appearance sooner rather than later.
Now I’m currently lined up to run my Sci-fi Campaign afterward. I should probably finish that Gygax 75 challenge I started last year…
Saturday 1-7: What the Devil is Due – Session Report 1
Aka: That time I got Reincarnated as a Tiefling and went to Hell
Possible Spoilers for Dragon Heist, Tomb of Annihilation,
The Cast
Atlan Gran (Me) – A Human Wildfire Druid, recently reincarnated into a Tiefling. Pyromaniac and general troublemaker.
Harrow Tench – A Human investigative rogue who just wants to retire but keeps getting pulled back in.
Gaelia Ernst – A Wood Elf Land Druid
Nemry Oakwish- An Eladrin Fey Warlock whose mode and powers change like the seasons.
Asami Fulmina – An Air Genasi Storm Sorceror working with the Grey Hand of Waterdeep
The GM – Has made it clear that he’s going to be throwing everything and the book at us and to expect a high body count.
Our characters leave the tomb of annihilation and use a tree walking spell to return to Waterdeep. Instead of emerging into the emerald enclave we emerge into fire and screaming. With invitations to the end of the multiverse.
We quickly rush back to our home base in Trollskull alley at the bar The Invisible Barkeep arriving to the sounds of combat. A block away is what appears to be the recently erected headquarters of the military and our bar has been turned into an emergency infirmary.
After checking on the status of our bar we head to the tower to meet up with a number of high-level notables we’ve met over the course of our adventures. They’ve been trying to close hell portals all over the city and failing while most of our characters were off in Chult dealing with the events of Tomb of Annihilation. The plan to deal with this? While they hold things together on this side, we are to go into hell and close the portals. What can go wrong?
We are given a number of magic items to assist in our journey. Including Blackstaffs wizard staff, A Circlet of the Dragon which enhances wild shape, A crossbow called The Last Word with different chambers with a different ability for each, and a tome for the warlock called the Tome of Tablain which gives a bunch of extra pact boons. Importantly for making my character even viable in a campaign where everyone is immune to fire, I’m given a special Sunblade that lets me turn my fire damage to radiant so long as I’m being lawful good. This shall be this character’s greatest challenge to not be chaotic. Our GM is most generous. I can’t wait to see how he messes with us. For the record, we are starting this campaign with level 14 characters. We are firmly into the “Everything is Broken and unbalanced” area of 5e.
After receiving these items we are visited by some envoys from hell who would like the multiverse to not end. Apparently, all devilish contracts have the finest print requiring the devils to help end the multiverse and by so doing end themselves. So we’ve been invited on a “Tour” of the 9 hells which will give us a degree of diplomatic immunity.
After a long rest, we head towards the largest portal we can see, the manor of the Casallanters – Demon worshipers who got away from us at the end of the Dragon Heist after they murdered a bunch of people. On our way there we are ambushed by a group of pit fiends and Balors, really scary demons. We have several deaths (undone thanks to revives. We have more money than god at this point) and while we kill several of them, two pit fiends escape. Ending our session with a cutscene of one of our former enemies contacting us from the underworld. All in all a bombastic start to the campaign.
A little over 2 months ago, prompted by a discussion on the osr discord server, I started and ran a book club for the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (7Habits) by Stephen R Covey. For your consideration are some of the thoughts that were shared in the chats over the last 2 months.
Background
So I personally did not come into this book review blind. When I was a teenager my parents got me “The seven habits of highly effective teens” and while serving a 2-year religious mission in sub-Saharan Africa, I and my fellow missionaries received adapted 7 Habits training courses from our mission president who used to work for Franklin-Covey (Stephen R. Coveys company). I hadn’t, however, read the main book itself. During the discussion that prompted this book club, someone described it as “Beginners guide to Aristotelian Virtue ethics” which seems fair enough. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People was published in 1989 and thus is a little dated on the references but it points to principles that transcend any particular period.
The Lessons I Learned/Re-Learned
It is not enough to just do well, but we also need to increase our capacity to do well.
Instead of just auto-responding to stimuli, we have the ability to exert our conscience and will to choose how we respond, and in so doing have the ability not just to react to the world but to Act upon it.
Focus one’s efforts on changing what is within our circle of control rather than stressing about things outa our circle of influence. The more we do so we tend to find our circle of control growing.
Leadership is about should, Management is about how. You need both to be successful
Identify your roles in life, establish goals for each of them, Make specific plans for how to achieve each goal, then adapt to whatever daily challenges come up.
To build emotional investments: keep commitments, Attend to the small kindnesses, Seek to understand, maintain one’s personal integrity, apologize sincerely, and don’t attach strings to love.
Either we both benefit or No-deal.
Have a small daily victory by Sweat, Study, Spiritual Renewal, and Service.
Repeatedly learning, committing, and doing leads to a positive upward spiral of growth.
Conversation Points
Covey makes a point of stating a shift he sees in the “self-help” world of literature from Character Ethic to Personality Ethic. Despite the names, these are not systems of ethics and values, but rather a shift from trying to get ahead by improving one’s core self and being a better person to trying to rely on gimmicks meant to present a better image.
For Habit 1/Procativity, doubts were expressed about the ability to be more than just a stimulus-response machine.
There is a distinction in the book between habits that build one’s independence and those that build interdependence. There was a lovely discussion about when one moves from one to the other and the conclusion drawn seems to be that it’s less distinct in reality and that all the habits build upon each other and reinforce each other.
The chapter for Habit 4 reminded me of this lovely game about the evolution of trust. Give it a whirl.
Quotes
It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us. Of course, things can hurt us physically or economically and can cause sorrow. But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all. In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.
Habit 1
Discipline derives from disciple—disciple to a philosophy, disciple to a set of principles, disciple to a set of values, disciple to an overriding purpose, to a superordinate goal or a person who represents that goal…
In other words, if you are an effective manager of yourself, your discipline comes from within; it is a function of your independent will. You are a disciple, a follower, of your own deep values and their source. And you have the will, the integrity, to subordinate your feelings, your impulses, your moods to those values.
Habit 3
You can’t talk your way out of problems you behaved yourself into.
Habit 3
Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration.
Habit 4
Insecure people think that all reality should be amenable to their paradigms. They have a high need to clone others, to mold them over into their own thinking. They don’t realize that the very strength of the relationship is in having another point of view. Sameness is not oneness; uniformity is not unity. Unity, or oneness, is complementariness, not sameness. Sameness is uncreative… and boring. The essence of synergy is to value the differences.
Habit 6
This is the single most powerful investment we can ever make in life—investment in ourselves, in the only instrument we have with which to deal with life and to contribute. We are the instruments of our own performance, and to be effective, we need to recognize the importance of taking time regularly to sharpen the saw…
Habit 7
Change—real change—comes from the inside out. It doesn’t come from hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior with quick fix personality ethic techniques. It comes from striking at the root—the fabric of our thought, the fundamental, essential paradigms, which give definition to our character and create the lens through which we see the world.