Reflections – Feb 20-26

My weekly thoughts post. Writings about whatever I’m thinking about or interesting thing I’ve found each day.

This weeks stars include:

• A Stellar System
• Astro City
• Love

Monday 2-20: Gaius Invictus – Our Local Setting

In order to not spoil anything for my group, I’m going to be leaving out some higher-level detail.

Found inside of Iterum-1(The Universe) is the Milky Way Galaxy. In the Milky Way Galaxy is the Nostramare Sector. In the Nostramare Sector is the Vitebsk System. This stellar system is the primary location where our player’s tales are set.

The Vitebsk system

• (0) I Harmah – Gas Giant (25)
• (0a Temperate) Vitebsk 674-83B{+2}(27C-2) Urbanised surface, Anthropomorphs
• (0b) Ib Omsk 630-0X0 Inner World
• (0c) Ic Qabis FFA-2X1 Bigworld
• (1) II Ivanovo 740-0X0 Stormworld
• (1a) IIa Krovengrad 100-7XB{+2}(A68+0) Maneaters, Megacorps
• (1b) IIb Smolensk 585-1X1 Inner World
• (2-3) Asteroid Belts (Chuluu) 000-2X1,000-6XF Trade Hub, Xenophiles
• (6) III Sur 423-2XF Iceworld
• (6a) IIIa Gibuti 343-0X0 Iceworld
• (6b) IIIb Sagal 252-1XF Worldlet
• (9) IV Salalah 964-000 Radworld

World Profile Key(Derived from Traveller 5s and SWN.)

• Diameter, Atmosphere,Hydrographics,-,Pop,Tech level, Port Class, {Importance},(Resources, Labor, Infrastructure,-, Resource Units)

Tuesday 2-21: Astro City

I recently decided to start reading the old Astro City comics. I’m not sure what prompted it, but I decided it and so I started. I fly through most comics and this was no exception. I’ve finished volumes 1 and two as of this writing.

Unlike many other comics I’ve read, this one seemed to focus, not on the heroes themselves but on the ordinary people who have to live with their antics. It’s very human-focused. I found a lot of touching moments, a lot of poignant statements, and a lot of heart here. I preferred the longer arcs to the shorter ones, but overall I found this run to be one of the more memorable comics I’ve read.

Wednesday 2-22: Age of Empires 2 as Bestiary

I love Age of Empires 2. It was one of the first PC games I ever played back when I recieved a mac for my Hem hem birthday. I loved the campaign missions. Lately, after getting back into watching SStarcraft 2 multiplayer casts, my mind wandered and now I’m watching AOE2 casts.

On reflection, due to it’s attempt at historicity, AOE2 has a variety of units that can be pledged to fill in as templates for your medival fantasy games. It should be noted that AOE2 uses an advancement system where players “advance” through the agtes in a given match and some units unlock later on.

Your core land combat (Non-siege) units are

• Militia -> Man at Arms -> Long Swordsman -> Two handed Swordsman -> Champion
• Spearman -> Pikeman -> Halberdier
• Archer->Crossbowman->Arbalester
• Skirmisher->Elite Skirmisher
• Cavalry Archer->Heavy Calvary Archer
• Hand Cannonneer
• Scout Calvary -> Light Calvary
• Knight->Cavalier->Paladin
• Battle Elephant->Elite Battle Elephant
• Monk

Thursday 2-23: Thinking about second dates

I went on a first date today. She was nice but seemed… off. not like going to kill me and skin me off, just not well put together. Honestly reminded me of myself a year or so ago. Year ago me sucked. I wouldn’t want to date year ago me. But I also know that year ago me turned into today me and that today me would turn into tomorrow me. So do I make the Investment?

A week or so ago I listend to this Youtube video about why modern app based dating sucks. I don’t know much about the guy but the video stood out to me. Dating apps can’t see the things that lead to successful relationships they can only measure things that might point to those qualities. Like measuring the rims on your car to determine your net worth. He points to this paper as an example of the sorts of material that cover what actually successful relationships look like and the sorts of things dating apps ask for don’t cover them. Satisfaction, commitment, Intimacy, Trust, Passion, Love, stuff like that.

Why bring this up? When I matched with her I put aside my misgivings because I we shared some similar interests. I thought maybe that pointed to some similarities of personality. The more I talked with her, the shallower that seems of me.

So am I going to pursue a second date with this girl? I don’t think so. It would be unfair to string her along any further.

Friday 2-24: On giving a presentation

I get bored in Sunday school at church nearly every week. Lessons are slipshod and are information light. The teachers grasp of the material is rudimentary at best and they rely too much on audience participation to fill in the time. In addition the class participation is generally of low caliber. I’ve fealt this way for years. As part of my season of clean I decided that I wanted to stop wasting this time and start using it wisely. To that end, this week I watched and took notes on this MIT opencourseware talk.

Heuristics

• Cycle on the main subject. Repeat the point.
• Build a fence around your idea, seperating what is not your idea from what your idea is.
• Use verbal punctuation to announce good onroading points for the audience to pay attention again.
  • Enumerating, asking questions, 7 seconds is about how much dead air you can tolerate
• Time and Place
  • 11AM
  • Well Lit
  • Cased like for a heist
  • Reasonably Populated. More than half full
    
• Tools of the Trade
  • Board – tool for informing/lecturing.
    • Graphing quality
    • Speed quality. We Write At about the speed people can absorb ideas.
    • It’s a target for the hands. Better to not hide hands in pockets or behind back.
  • Slides – for exposing ideas.
    • Always too many slides and words in peoples presentations
    • Don’t read. Make sure any words are easy to read.
    • Using them always forces attention between slides and speaker.
    • Be in the image
    • Use simple images.
    • Reduce the words
      • No titles no logos
      • People focus on the slides
    • Remove clutter.
      • bullets or fancy fonts.
      • Use Size 40 or 50 font.
      • Don’t use a pointer. Can’t use one without disengaging with the audience. Use arrows instead.
    • Can use a slide meant to confuse your audience exactly once.
  • Props – tool of playwrights.
    • Empathetic mirrorring. One can feel oneself in the place of the presenter with the prop or board.
• Informing
  • Don’t start with a joke
  • Start with an empowerment promise. The reason for being here.
• Inspiring people
  • When someone exhibited passion, when they showed a new way of thinking, when someone believes in them
• To Teach How to think Provide:
  • the stories they need to know,
  • the questions they need to ask,
  • mechanisms for analyzing them,
  • ways to put them together
  • ways of determining how reliable a story is
    Persuading
• Oral exams
  • People fail from not practicing with friends who don’t know the subject enough and not situating/providing context enough
• Job talks
  • They want the candidate to show they have vision and that they’ve done something, and want it shown within 5 minutes.
  • A Vision is a problem someone cares about and something new in your approach.
  • To show you’ve done something list the steps that need to be taken took In the solution of the problem.
  • Conclude by enumerating your contributions.
• Getting famous
  • Why get famous?
    • You get used to being famous, you never get used to being ignored.
    • Your ideas ar like your children. You don’t want them to go into the world in rags.
  • How do you get remembered?
    • A Symbol associated with your work.
    • A Slogan, a phrase that provides a handle on the work
    • A Surprise
    • A Salient Idea, an idea that sticks out
    • A Story of how you did it, how it works, why it’s important
• How to stop
  • Final slide
    • Not a Collaborators slide
    • Not a “Questions?” slide
    • Not a “For More info” link slide
    • Not a “The End” slide
    • Not a “Conclusions” slide
    • Contributions from the work.
  • Final words
    • A joke Is just OK. Makes people think they’ve had fun the whole time.
    • Thank you” is a weak move. It implies people stayed out of politeness.
    • A stock Interdiction is good.
      • God bless you and God bless America. is an example
    • Salute the audience.

Hapax Legomenon – a word or expression used only once in its context. “being said once”

Saturday 2-25: 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 we went to the demon zapper, beat up some earth elementals, and freed two unicorns who gave us their horns.

This session we began by heading back to the pit of Shumrach. As we approach we see what appears to be a new mountain in the distance. upon inspection it appears to have a greenish Tint. We’ve found Shumrach.

Following the mountain, a giant blod red demon emerges from the mountain. It wades through the earth and heads towards Bels Fortress. As we follow from a safe distance we notice a mass of flying creatures starting to amass around him. Eventually Bels fortress comes into view and Shumrach begins to stops to bellow a challenge to Bel.

As Shumrach begins to lay siege we begin to circle around bels fortress looking for a weak point to get in. As we do so, bels fortress erupts, unleashing an army against shumrach

As the armies engage we drive to bels fortress some devils on the ground summon demon motercycles and move to engage us. Harrow shoots one of them with a net and then combat begins.

Using a variety of dirty tricks we knock them off the motorcycles.

After defeating them we pull up to the mountain and learn that there are no ingress points at the base. We were going to have to scale the mountain. after sheltering and taking a short rest we stealth ourselves and make our way up the mountain.

As we make our way up we hear Shumrach screaming for the head demon to come out as he approaches the mountain. we are 200ish feet from the peak when a pillar of fire spews form the cvolcano, leaving a floating glowing demon floating above the mountain. This demon, like a shooting star, arcs towards shumrach and strikes shumrach knocking the mountainous demon back 50-100 feet away, his feet leaving the ground. It then lays into him until shumrach is nearly vaporized. We hustle to the edge and take the stairs lining the inside of the caldera down into Bels Fortress.

After about an hour of descending we see the demon that defeated shumrach return down the mountain, radiating a massive amount of heat. eventually, we come down to the Base of the volcano. In the middle of the caldera lies an island surrounded by lava. On the island are a bunch devils, on which Nemry casts mass suggestions, at which the devils laugh and reach for implements of torture. We manage to smooth talk our way past the devils and end up talking to Bel.

We make a deal to sabotage Zarael’s Flagship so that it’s immobile so that Bel can be reinstated as lord of Avernus in exchange for which we can receive the chains of Carcarei. We will receive the location of Zaraels sword as a bonus for stopping the weapons systems. A contract is signed and we receive the chains and then are escorted out.

Sunday 2-19: The Art of Loving

By Erich Fromm

Sociology used to be known as social economy.
Love is union under condition of preserving ones integrity.

Preface

Love is not a sentiment that can be easily indulged in by anyone regardless of the level of maturity reached by them. The book wants to convince the reader that all their attempts for love are bound to fail unless they try most actively to develop their total personality so as to achieve a productive orientation. That satisfaction in individual love cannot be attained without the capacity to love one’s neighbor, that is to say without humility, courage, faith, and discipline.

“He who knows nothing, loves nothing. He who can do nothing understands nothing. He who understands nothing is worthless. But he who understands also loves, notices, sees … The more knowledge is inherent in a thing, the greater the love.… Anyone who imagines that all fruits ripen at the same time as the strawberries knows nothing about grapes.”

Paracelsus

Ch 1 Is Love an Art

Love is an art not a sentiment
It is more important to develop your capacity to love than your desirability as an object of love.
Finding love is currently treated as a commercial activity, that of finding a good deal on a desired object and purchasing it(aka dating and marriage).
Being crazy in love is confusing the intensity of love with the intensity of the preceeding loneliness.
Loving is not easy.
Learning the art of love

1. Mastery of the theory
2. Mastery of the practice.
3. Holding the art in the highest esteem
   Love us profitless in the modern sense, only benefitting the soul.

Cool Things I Found

Cities Without Number, Kevin Crawford’s cyberpunk outing, is still on Kickstarter. 3 Days Left.

https://anvaka.github.io/city-roads

Reflections – Feb 13-19

My weekly thoughts post.

Starring Gene Wolfe’s Isekai, Atomic Rockets, and Spooder-guy.

Monday 2-13: The Knight

Moving on from Getting Things Done I now return to Gene Wolfes The Wizard Knight. Specifically the second book “The Wizard”. For those at home, here’s a quick recap of what I can recall off the top of my head from “The Knight”.

The main character of the wizard knight is Able, a regular American boy who is isekaid to the land of the faeries for a time before ending up in the world of Mythgarthr. He spends some time wandering around before deciding he sees a castle in the sky and decides to become a knight and visit said castle in the Skai. Throughout his journeys in the first book he collects a series of misfits including a big dog, some faeries he freed from enslavement but now seem to think of him as their master (another isekai with hot slave girls, real original Gene), a manservant, an ogre, a talking cat, and an obsession with an elf girl who he decides will be his true love. He mets the mysterious “evil” Setr and learns of the evil frost giants who threaten the southern lands. In his quest to woo the elf girl he goes to the land of the frost giants and gains the magical sword Eterne. After gaining the sword and slaying a dragon with it he is swept away by a valkyrie to the castle in the Skai.

The first book was written in such a way that it made me think of classic faerie tales and old arthurian myth. Very fanciful and flavorful without being too dense. It’s also very clear that Able is not a “Good Person” although it does seem like he’s trying.

Tuesday 2-14: Gaius Invictus – Musing on General Physics

Gaius Invictus is my personal homebrew setting I use for all my worlds. Its basic assumption is that of our own universe with a few small tweaks:

1. The heat death of the universe will not come in 1×10^1000 years, but rather the universe as we know it will be over by the relative year of 14 Billion AD.
   • This is just so I can have nice defined bookends with easy to understand milestones. I do have a Watsonian explanation but that’s a revelation I’m keeping to myself for now.
2. There exists a parrallel “Dimension” which is seperated from the regular dimensions by a sort of “skin” which can be interacted with by exoiotic means. This space is truely empty unless polluted by outside sources.
   • This is my less fantastical version of hyperspace. There’s no folding of space to allow for FTL. It’s just truly empty to make NFL feasible. You still have to follow relativity and regular physical laws.
   • Names for this space include: Meta space, M-space, The Uncreated night, The Outer Darkness, The Warp, The Astral Sea, and Hyperspace.
   • The skin is my excuse for “something from nothing” physics like Psychics and magic without violating conservation of energy/mass. There is no such thing as something for nothing though, even using this to handwave short term consequences. There are always consequences.
   • Still need to come up with names for this one.
3. There exist Pocket Universes which can have their laws of physics determined by their creator.
   • These are my excuse for Elseworlds, dimension hopping, “time travel” (no such thing), and running games whose rules don’t naturally fit with my “main continuity”.

Other than that I aim for realistic, believable physics and social dynamics. On Mohs scale of science fiction hardness, I’m aiming for somewhere between a 3 and 4, although that can slide a little bit. I’m a big fan of Atomic Rockets. While I don’t think my work will get their seal of approval, It definitely gets min.

Wednesday 2-15: Gaius Invictus – Major Eras

This timeline of the unniverse of Gaius Invictus from a human centric perspective is a rough draft and subject to change.

• -14 billion to -7 Billion BCE: The Pre-Galactic Era – Birth of the universe to the formation of the Milky Way galaxy
• -7 Billion to -6 Billion BCE: The Quiet Skies Era – Formation of the Milky Way to the first interstellar societies.
• -6 Billion to 2100 CE BCE: The Precursors Era – First interstellar societies to first Human interstellar societies.
  • -5 Billion BCE: Formation of our solar system 
  • -3 Billion BCE: Life on Earth
  • -10,000 BCE: Neolithic Revolution
  • -6000 BCE: Urban Revolution Starts
  • 0 CE: Birth of Christ
  • 1800 CE: Industrial Revolution
• 2100 – 2700 CE: The Era of the First Human Mandate – The First Human Interstellar Polity.
  • 2100 CE: Human Invention of the Spike Drive (M and S type drives)
  • 2700: Humanity Experiences the Scream.
• 2700 CE – ?: The Second Human Era
  • 2700-3050 CE: – The Era of Silence – The Post-Apocalyptic Dark Age following the Scream
  • 3200 CE: The Present Day of Stars Without Number
• 2700 CE – 6 Billion CE – Unknown Eras
  • 1 Billion CE: Merging of Milky way and Andromeda finishes.
  • 3 Billion CE: The universe divides into “Root” Iterums each containing one of the local groups.
  • 4 Billion CE: Each of the Root Iterums has split into galactic Iterums containing singular galaxies.
• 6 Billion CE to 14 Billion CE: The Crystal Sphere Era – Universal splitting continues with Iterums containing only individual solar systems.
  • 6 Billion CE: No new star formation.
  • 7 Billion CE: No new planetary formation.
  • 14 Billion CE: All Iterums except Redacted have been Redacted.

Thursday 2-16: The Robert Alter Translation of the Hebrew Bible

Today I received a book I had been putting off ordering, hoping I’d get it for my birthday or for Christmas. On the reccommendation of an ex-student of theology, I acquired this translation, specifically for two reasons. The footnotes and the poetry. Half of every page is just extensive footnotes on the translation and context of the words on the page. The translation itself, according to the introduction, is intended to more accurately reflect the subtleties of Hebrew rather than focusing on raw transliteration or modern intelligibility.

Today I read the introduction to the first volume of the set. And what does Robert discuss? Philology and how over clarifying in translation can ruin a piece of it’s inherent mystery and depth. I suppose this is similar to jokes and frogs. Dissect too much and while you may understand it, the thing dies. I love his term for this act: “The Heresy of Explanation”.

He makes mention that the Bible is lexically rather constricted and that’s limited use of language may be a result of it being a sort of theatric way of speaking, as opposed to the typical vernacular which I find intriguing.

What is the Implication of this analysis for an appropriate modern english equivalent to an ancient hebrew style? The Right Direction, I think, was hit on in the King James Version, following the model of Tyndale a century before it. There is no good way to render biblical Hebrew as contemporary English, either lexically or syntatically.

pg xxvii

He mentions that for all its faults the King James version is probably the closest translation of the original out of all the translations, which I find somewhat gratifying as my church uses that as its primary bible. He also spends a good bit of time clarifying how he tends to go about handling trickier translations and how he attempts to translate the Hebraisms to English without losing both clarity and power.

Overall the Introductions have given me the impression of a very learned man who understands the material beyond a mere theological or historical, but rather a literary one.

Friday 2-17: Lessons from Spiderman PS4

Over the last week or so I;ve been Playing Spiderman PS4. My take on it as a game or story is unoriginal. I reccommend Whitelights review if you want to know it;s qualities as a game.

Instead, here are 1d6 lessons for RPGs that might be worth taking.

1. As long as you have a robust core set of enemies, reskinning them for different factions is an excellent way to extend their usefulness, albeit not forever. See the various mook factions that show up throughout the game.
2. Having more than 1 “Home Base” to threaten or have things happen to is a good way to encourage players to move through your sandbox more dynamically. See Octavius’s Lab and FEAST
3. Having more ways to interact with the world besides combat and integrating those ways into the ways PCs are challenged can lead to more interesting encounters than just fight after fight.
4. It doesn’t take much to endear one to an NPC, especially when they are pointing you in the direction of adventure and when who they are ties into why they can point you in said direction. Looking at you, bird lady side quest.
5. Vary how you present your quests. If they are presented too formulaically they can cause a player to lose interest, even if the material they’d be doing is quite varied. Looking at you, Lab sidequests.
6. Instantly failing a mission for one misstep sucks. You’d rather have at least one opportunity to recover and stop the cock-up cascade from failing a mission. Looking at you every stealth mission.

Saturday 2-18: Human Space After the First Mandate

Utilizing Stars Without Numbers rules for jump travel and the listed facts on the mandate and s[like drives from the Core book.

Human Space starts with Earth.

2200: The First Wave of human expansion reaches its peak. Most habitable planets within a year’s travel time from Earth have been successfully colonized, many by small religious or ideological groups.
Terran nations begin to forbid further exploration for fear of being unable to maintain control over their offworld colonies over such distances. The Terran Mandate is organized by Earth’s superpowers in order to ensure that Terran control of the colonies continues.

pg 126

Given that any spike drives of level 4+ are considered pos-tech and thus require Psionic tech to make which occurs after this point, I’m going to assume that this years worth of travel time is done with level 3 or fewer drives.

A Level 3 spike drive can travel 3 hexes in 6 days. given a 360 day year (for nice even numbers), A ship headed out from earth can make 60 Hops of 3 Hexes for a total distance from earth of 180 Hexes for the first wave.

This is a respectable size for the “core” of human space. using SWN’s Sector standard of 8 by 10 hexes, This core of human space contains (180*2*180*2/8*10=129600/80=) 1620 Sectors, or a little over 40×40 sectors.

The next period gets tricker thanks to the Existence of gates making sspike drives meaningless. Thankfully, Crawford saw fit to include this tidbit.

2500: … The furthest reaches of the frontier now
extend ten years of spike drive travel from Earth…

Pg 127

Assuming we are now using Postech Drives, the math becomes: 600 Hops of 6 Hexes over ten years for a radius of 3600 hexes. (3600*2*3600*2/8*10=51840000/80=) 648000 Sectors, or about 805 Sectors to a side.

How far is this? Assuming Travellers standard of a Parsec per Hex, By the start of the mandate humanity had reached merely 507 Light years from home. By the end of the Mandate, Humanity had reached 3600*3.26=11736 light years from home. For context, the milky way galaxy has a radius of 52,850 light years per google. Earth is about 26,000 LY from the galactic center, this means that Mandate Era Space covers a significant portion of the Galaxy, but not a majority.

What does this mean for Post-Silence Era humanity? Limited by not having access to pos-tech drives, Any post scream polity can only control roughly the space equivalent to the size of the original mandate. that means that at a minimum, assuming perfect consolidation, There is going to be a minimum of 400 polities the size of the first wave mandate controlling human space.

I wonder if it would be possible to use a data set somewhere to populate these hexes?

Sunday 2-19: Gaius Invictus: The First Mandate – Control

In my setting you cannot go faster than lightspeed. This means that, from the point of the center of power, a system that’s a parsec away will receive instructions over the course of about 3 years. How then do you unite a multi-stellar Empire?

Each system will be a government in and of itself. Local governments will have to handle everything pertinent to the day to day running of a system. So what unites these local governments to the central authority? moreover, why do any of these governments care about one another? Why the same thing that has united people in the past.

1. Commerce – Trading in this case is going to be more along the lines of safety for merchants to ply their trade and regulation on appropriate conduct. Interstellar Trade is going to resemble the age of sail more than modern shipping or ecommerce.
2. Security – There are inevitably going to be other stellar polities who do not want to play nice and will happily raid other polities for the chance at a sweet paycheck. The central authority is going to have the ability to dispatch larger and more powerful fleets than any one star system will be able to manage on its own. This security is provided mostly as a deterrent and in active suppression of threats in the systems beyond the polities borders.
3. Ideology – Sometimes people will obay orders from a location in order to fall in line with apredominant ideology, or that they have ideological reasons to trust the central authority. My mind goes to the Papacy. Local control was handled by your local religious figure but the central authority was able to wield not insignificant power of the disparate elements of European christendom.

How did the first Human Mandate keep power?

1. The Exchange of Light – The central commercial authority to whom all traders would work through. This organization provided banking, diplomatic, legal, and a variety of other services making it easier for any far trader or “Merchant of light” to conduct business with you, whatever the local economic system looked like.
2. The Imago Dei – an organization of AI fleets whose main job was to roam outside of mandate space and pre-emptively deal with any external threats.
3. The Perimiter Agencies – Organizations who, with permission of the local authorities, would work to prevent any X-Risks to the world form within the system.
4. The MAESTROs – After the formation of the Mandate, every world was given an AI known as a MAESTRO to act as central planner and daily runner of the societies as they worked their way up to a truely stable polity. In addition to this, the maestro acts as the Mandates representative to whatever government the locals operate under. Every world that achieved a certain “level” would have its own “Melody” AI added to the other worlds MAESTROs, being distributed by the merchants and safeguarded by the Perimeter Agency. In this way the Maestros can act on behalf of the Mandate even without receiving central commands.

So here’s the question? How vast and how strict can an interstellar polity be when restricted by the speed of light? As far as the governed consent.

Cool Things I Found

Cities Without Number, Kevin Crawford’s cyberpunk outing, is still on Kickstarter. 9 Days Left.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Reflections – Feb 6-12

My weekly thoughts post.

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

1. look at your Calendar fir the hard commitments
2. Then your actions list for your current context/relevant agendas

Weekly review – whatever you need to do to clear your head

1. Get clear
   • gather up all your loose ends.
   • collect loose materials
   • get in to empty
   • empty your head
2. 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
3. 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?

1. 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)
2. Determine the size of the settlement and create a city map using Bastionland’s guidelines
3. Convert all the specialized military equipment from part one of the campaign to their mothership equivalents.
4. Sort equipment by availability and seperate into “Acquisition sources”. Detail them
5. 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.

1. Current actions
2. Current projects
3. Areas of focus and accountability
4. 1-2 year goals
5. Long term visions
6. 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.

1. Make sure action lists are complete, including agendas and waiting for items
2. Finalize your projects list. Should capture all commitments. Can take 10-15 hours
3. Define your roles and responsibilities. Keep an Areas of Focus list.
4. Capture what motivators exist currently
   1. What are the longer term goals and objectives in my org what projects need to be in place to fulfill them?
   2. What longer term. Goals and onjectives have I set for myself? What projects need to be in place
   3. 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

1. Employing fundamentals of managing your workflow
2. Implementing a more elevated and integrated total life management system
3. 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.

Reflections – Jan 30-Feb 5: Mothership Dungeon Week

My weekly thoughts post.

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:

1. Defining Purpose and Principles
2. Outcome Visioning
3. Brainstorming
4. Organizing
5. 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:30 I:30 2(-): cultist, evil dog-sized alien, moderately nasty wildlife
• 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:55 I:40 W3(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.
• The Proccess (Creep) – C:20 I: 20 W:1(-) AP:0
  • Matter Reconstructor Beam – 1d100 Bleeding/Fire[-]
  • 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:80 I:85 8(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.
      • “Demand is about to skyrocket, Like the good old days after the Scream“
      • “He’s going to try and grab all the marbles and it’s your job to hide them“
      • “We Must Monetize Our Assets through Synergy“
      • “We’re Sorry“
      • “There is no Nobility in Poverty“
      • “Can you thrive under pressure?”
      • “You may want to participate in non-work related activities” <- something said in a recent corp. training I took.
      • Corporate BS Generator
    • 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.

I have scheduled the post for Tuesday Morning.

Cool Things I Found

Cities Without Number, Kevin Crawfords Cyberpunk Outing, is now on Kickstarter. As is Yoon Suin 2e and Cloud Empress.

This Poem

Kill 6 Billion Demons is starting it’s 6th and final book.

This SMBC Comic

It’s Loss

My Year of Kickstarter 2022

In 2020, I backed my first Kickstarter, the 1st Old school Essentials Kickstarter after the name change. Since then I’ve started backing more and more projects. This year, the year I was unemployed for most of, I backed a total of 11 new projects. Let’s see how well they’ve all delivered and how much buyers remorse I may have.

The Unfinished of Kickstarters Past

Kickstarters backed last year that have yet to fully deliver:

1. Avatar Legends the RPG – kickstarted back in august of 2021, the finished books have begun shipping so I should see them relatively soon. I’m not usually a big fan of PBTA games, feeling they generally emulate the structure and formatting of television shows too much. Well, this seemed like a good format for a big-name IP I know all my friends will want for me to run. And I will… once I have my physical books. The PDFs were delivered a good while ago and I am generally pleased with the layout and content.
2. Mothership 1e – I absolutely love the rules changes and hang on to every new post that comes out. I’ve actually taught a friend how to DM using just the beta Player’s Survival Guide and it has sustained a great campaign. The Beta Wardens Manual is one of the most practical and high-quality GM guides I’ve ever read. I have high hopes for the as-yet-unreleased pdfs for the monster book and ship book, as well as the final physical products.

Kickstarters that Delivered

Kickstarters that delivered this year:

1. Stars Without Number Offset Print edition – This one feels like cheating. This was basically just funding for a fancy print edition of an already-written and well-regarded book. It was delivered in less than 6 months. Kevin Crawford runs very well-organized and planned Kickstarters. He hasn’t burned me yet, and I look forward to backing Cities without Number in February.
2. Into the Odd Remastered – Another book that was basically a fancied-up version of a previously written book, except that basically the whole book got a new layout, revised rules, expanded tables, and an expanded adventure, it’s basically ItO 2e. Probably my second prettiest book on the shelf right next to the Wolves of God Offset Print edition. I’ve run it for 2 different groups in discord chat and I will happily do so again.
3. The Atlas of the Latter Earth – An expansion and setting book for Worlds Without Number. A very pretty book and its rules expansions are generally excellent.
4. Knock #3 – Funded in February, delivered in June; Knock had a super fast turnaround time for a book where every page was a full-color work of art filled with gameable and usable material.
5. A Folklore Bestiary for 5E and OSE – A bestiary from the Knock Guys. Beautiful art and it contains a lot of creatures I’ve never heard of.

Kickstarters Full of Promise(s)

Kickstarters that have yet to fully deliver. No shade, this year was a tough one for printing and some of these have just been recently funded or are waiting on other projects to complete. A lot of these have partially delivered by providing a PDF

1. Hull Breach – A collaborative project like Knock but with the disadvantage of being written after the fact for a system whose Kickstarter itself hasn’t finished yet. The PDF I’ve received has some really good content though.
2. Marlos Mire – Another adventure from the Hot Springs Island guy. I’m looking forward to run an island campaign with both books plus…
3. Secret of the Black Crag – A new island-crawl adventure from the Black wyrm of Brandonsford guy.
4. Wicked Ones – A PBTA game but one with a unique premise – playing as the monsters. The edition I got comes with an option for playing as the heroes. I’m hoping that this will be able to displace dungeon world as “best PBTA DnD”.
5. In the Halls of the Third Blue Wizard – An adventure compilation. there’s some good stuff in here.
6. The Monster Overhaul – Skerples new book, I expect this one will see a lot of use at the table. Full of brilliant art. I backed at the tier where I’d get a physical copy Magical Industrial Revolution as well.

Conclusions

So this year I don’t think I backed any “bad” products. All of them have a place on my bookshelf. Which ones are likely to see play first?

In the coming year I have two campaigns I want to run. First I have my previously mentioned Mothership campaign. For that, I’m planning on utilizing materials from the new Mothership edition, Hull Breach, and Stars Without Number. The other campaign I’m hoping to run will be an island hopping campaign using material from Marlos Mire/Hot Springs Island, Secret of Black Crag, with material from other projects making their way in. I’ll likely be running it with either OSE or WWN.

Overall I’d say this has been a successful year for backing Kickstarters and I’m looking forward to a new year of exciting projects.