Month: September 2022

09/20 My Last Day Off for a Long While and Essay-Writing (Plus Casey!)

Don’t let the title mislead you: I’m still working on the Sidewinder Stories!

I just keep remembering that I have other things to work on, and occasionally I fall asleep.

I’ve been noticing a tendency during the sessions for my players to debate over the sources we use for the timeline. Me being me, I have only one real way to handle such an occurrence: Writing!

GameMaster Essays
I know you’re not surprised.

How often these essays will be posted, I can’t say, but I will set up their links before I write them out so players and readers will know that I’m listening to their questions and will make the effort to answer them.

As the evening is settling in, I’m getting ready for what will surely be a form of revenge from management: overtime. I won’t be seeing a less than 11-hour shift outside of Sunday for weeks.

With that, I’ll see to adding a little to the stories before bed. For everyone that’s made it to the end of this, I present Old Man Casey!

Being nosy about the neighbors down the way.

Good night and stay safe out there, readers.

-JB Swift

09/19 Early Morning Monday Street Art

This bit of urban artwork has been up in my town for…I want say over ten years. It’s directly across the place I usually sit down at for coffee, so it’s also the thing I zone out on when I’m still sleepy or needing to caffeinate before the long drive home.

I like to think that one day, I’ll figure the artwork out. Or the artist will show up and tell me that I need to stop thinking too hard about what was a moment of fun to them. Until then, it remains a favorite object to zone out on.

Happy Monday, readers. Stay safe out there while I continue to wake up and meet the day.

-JB Swift

09/18 Late Night Re-writes and sleepy Old Man Casey

I’ve always had a personal rule when it comes to any world-building or campaign-writing: if the players add something to my world and it fits, I need to respect their creative drive and add it to my campaign.

Now, with the current campaign being a Star Wars campaign set in the Expanded Universe timeline, I’m beginning to understand the pressure the authors of those novels must have felt when they were adding to the universe.

Last year, one of my players gave me some details to their character that I thought would add depth to the character, honor the players’ creative perspective, and enrich the Star Wars universe. Unfortunately, I also forgot to write the bloody details down, so when they gave me new details based on what they had said beforehand, I was understandably (from my biased perspective) confused. I went back through my notes and, to my horror, realized I had been moving from a point with background details that would not be in following with my rules on player contributions.

To Lina: I apologize. I didn’t write the damn thing down.

With that, I’ve spent the evening going through my background notes and adding the details necessary. Old Man Casey is, also understandably, sleepy from my late-night work.

Hard working dog right there, folks.

Now that that has been fixed, I can continue with my writing, or rather since it’s nearly midnight and I’m driving the kids to school in the morning, probably should go get what sleep I can.

I swear, I need to include a section for GameMaster Essays so I can explain what notes I have.

Stay safe out there, readers. Hopefully I’ll have Mardek’s Side-Arc ready for posting in a couple days, and the next Adventure posted shortly thereafter.

-JB Swift

09/17 Back Home and Game Night

We’ve made it back home from our trip to Dallas!

The dogs were understandably angry with us. Not only were we gone, but we put them up with people who gave them haircuts.

“I’m going to pee on everything.” -Indy

There’s a reason why I have the rule of “get everything on the floor put away” when we come home after a long trip. Not ten minutes after getting home, the corgi was peeing on any bag I hadn’t gotten to yet.

“I’m not getting 5 feet away from you for two days.” -Korra

The Goldens are old enough to understand that sometimes we leave, but the youngest of the pack, Korra, still doesn’t like it if we’re gone for more than a day.

Now that we’re all settled back at home, it’s time I prepared for the Main Arc session tonight! So much to do, such little time.

Stay safe out there, readers. I’ll write about how they did sometime tomorrow.

-JB Swift

09/16 Friday’s Attempts and Never Escaping the Day Job

It’s been said to me before that when you set something in your memory, a friends’ vehicle or a regular but significant interaction, you start noticing it more often in your everyday life. In the past, I would have scoffed at this notion.

But ever since taking up with the US Postal Service, I’ve found it all but impossible to avoid noticing the presence of the post office, even on my day off. I’ll be at home all day, never once stepping further from my home than the property line, and I’ll see a mail truck in some sitcom or movie. My family has taken great delight in pointing out a collection box or postal vehicle and saying “Look, it’s you!”

The sarcasm is strong in my family.

There are moments, however, that I’ll spot something that reminds me of work but doesn’t annoy me. Those are things of history, mostly. When I find something I know we used to use but is largely defunct, I’m always intrigued.

Spotted this in Dallas while I was out walking. That is a mail chute. When you have a multi-storied building that has multiple offices occupying it, you need an area to drop off outgoing mail, preferably on a floor the postman can access quickly. So, instead of leaving outgoing mail outside the office, tenants would simply drop the mail down the chute, and it’d be collected at the end of the day.

I wish we still used these, to be honest. Not only would be useful, since it’s uncommon for building tenants to use the collection box, but it’d be a connection between me and my postal brethren of decades past.

Small moments like this are things I enjoy immensely.

Stay safe out there, readers.

-JB Swift

09/15 Late Night Side Arc Notes on Home-Brew Star Wars

I had established my rules for players on attendance a while back: they’re welcome to join the Main Group, but if they can’t meet the Main Arc session schedule, they’re welcome to explore Side-Arcs and will get my full attention just like everyone else.

One of these players, whose character will be introduced when I write up Arc 2, gave me a fun challenge: Can we make a Mech suit in Star Wars?

The short answer is: Yes, of course! But designing the concept has been tricky. I’ve been looking at the design as a kind of powered armor, but more and more often, I’ve thought of the concept as a vehicle. I’m going to have to go over my notes again and see what I need to do.

Unfortunately, it’s a short post for today. My day, while away from work, has still been pretty busy, and I haven’t slept more than 7 hours in the past two days. I was told that I need to finish up my writing work and head to bed.

But it’s been productive! I can promise that!

Welp, I’m off to sleep. Stay safe out there, readers, and good night.

-JB Swift

09/14 Early Morning Downtime and Yesterday’s Annoyed Animals

Sarah and I are sitting in the predawn, waiting for a business to open for 6AM, after being told that we needed to be here for 5:30AM or there’d be dire consequences.

I gotta admit, it’s a great tactic to get people to check in early. But that could’ve been another 20-30 minutes of sleep, if I was lucky.

While we’re waiting, I can let y’all know just how angry some of the other animals at the Swift Ranch were yesterday.

Daisy is angry, but she’s also old, so she has reason.

Ever woke up an old hamster to clean their litter? They really don’t like this and will make their opinions known, via grunting and nipping. At least, Daisy grunted.

And two of the cats were around while we were going about our travel-prep work. The third was nearby but she wasn’t feeling the camera at the moment and darted off into the woods for her rambling rounds.

Apollo: cute but derpy.

Apollo turned out to enjoy being an outdoor cat, but occasionally he comes inside to sit on the desk and swat at my hands while I attempt to write. He fancies himself an editor.

Y’all, pray for Penelope. She’s all right, just very dumb.

Ever seen a cat headbutt the water bowl over and over until they knock it over? Then meow at you until you put out more water, so they can repeat the process? That’s Penelope. When she was a kitten, she had to be kept separate from the others for medication, so we set up a water feeder for her. Apparently she took to it way too well. She also gets annoyed if she doesn’t have the carrier we brought her home in set up for her to sit in during the day.

Time to start the morning. Stay safe out there, readers.

-JB Swift

09/13 Wandering around a Dallas Mall

I haven’t gone out of town for months and months, and it shows for this awkward little postman. We’ve gone out of town for a quick trip and upon arrival, Sarah wanted to stop by a few shops. She also knows me well and said “go look up the food available at the place”.

We got here with closing time coming soon, so it’s at the crowd level I like: sparse.

Not 5 seconds later, I’m debating religion with 2 proselytizers. My life.

As the day was spent preparing for the trip and traveling, there hasn’t been much writing just yet. But once we’re settled in the hotel, I’ll have my tablet out to whittle away at Mardek’s Side-Arc.

Stay safe out there, readers.

-JB Swift

09/13 Early Morning Page Updates!

This is being typed during the middle of the biphasic sleep cycle, so apologies for misspelling. I’m half-asleep.

In what I consider the greatest of ironies, the character who has the most in-depth background written by their player was one of the biography pages that took the longest to write as a wiki-article. But, it’s finished!

Meet Votosh Khall:

Votosh Khall

There’s irony at the other end of this spectrum, as I tackle the final biography page for the Arc 1 player-characters who said during creation, “GM, I’ll let you fill in the gaps in his background”, but that’ll be something for next week. At the moment, I have a Side-Arc story and the final details of the upcoming Main Arc session to write out.

I should probably get to bed as well, at least for a couple hours. I’ll schedule this to post with the dawn. Good night, readers. Stay safe out there.

-JB Swift