Category: Gaming

10/20 A Frustration of Modern Players

Being a millennial, I’m used to the concept of people “ghosting”, or expressing interest in joining something and then disappearing when it’s time to schedule an event or the event starts.

Being an introverted and socially awkward person, I’m also accepting of the concept. I understand that there are times when someone’s social battery is depleted and they just don’t want to deal with people. I deal with that regularly, myself.

The frustration comes in when I do my utmost to be welcoming to new people, especially with my ‘gaming table’, and the ghosting occurs. The reasons for it can be quite legitimate, but it also worries me about how I’m perceived by these new people.

I’m an excitable GameMaster, I know. When someone says they’re interested in joining, I go all out to make them feel welcome. I send invites, give primers for the setting, and provide extraneous details that have otherwise not been noted in the rulebooks. In terms of introverted nerd, I can get overbearing in my attempts to be welcoming.

There are two ways to react to this sort of behavior: accept the sheer nerdiness or run away from the overeager weirdo.

(This is not talking about the upcoming New Player session happening this week, but a different person altogether. The New Player has shown enthusiasm for the campaign and seems excited to try his story. I’m looking forward to his session!)

I’ll have to work at reining myself in when talking to potential players, but I know myself well enough to understand that some folks will be driven off by this behavior.

To those players: I apologize. I know I’m weird, but I’m really just excited to tell a story.

Stay safe out there, readers! I’m off to sling letters.

-JB Swift

10/15 Main Arc Session Night and Old Man Casey

I am both exhausted and excited. It’s Saturday, so it’s Game Night!

It’s also the third Game Night in a row, and I’m realizing exactly why I am so strict about my Session Schedule holding to a bi-weekly schedule.

I’m tired and getting grumpy. I don’t like that aspect of myself showing itself in my sessions, and I worry that my players would see this as resentment or disinterest. If the past year has been any indication, I’ve wanted one thing to come across: I love being a writer and RPG storyteller. Not only is it fun, but it’s also a personal enjoyment and challenge.

(There’s a voice I’m looking forward to trying out. After hearing other Narrators try their Bith voices, which always sound like Kermit the Frog if he had espresso, I wrote a Bith into the session so I could try it out myself. It’s not great, but damn is it entertaining. Pity the players who have to indulge me.)

That said, I’m looking at the calendar and having to make a hard decision. We’re officially in USPS’ “Heavy Season”, so the mail is picking up and the parcel count is hitting offensive levels. I’m going to be extremely busy during the ‘winter months’.

For those readers who are not familiar with the Southern United States, our winter months are still warm and humid, with occasional patches of “Why is it this cold?! It’s only 50 degrees out here! Damn humidity!”

I don’t want to push myself to the point of burnout, so in the interest of keeping the campaigns going, I’m ending my Main Arc Sessions for the year on November 12th, and my Side-Arc availability on November 19th. I’ll start back up January 7th 2023 for both.

That gives me two Main Arc Session nights left for the year after tonight. I wrote this adventure to be full of interesting details and notes for the players to investigate, and the last session showed me that they’re going about the adventure with intellect and patience. Other players in the main group, those who haven’t been able to join the sessions due to their own exhaustion (two of them have infants, so their exhaustion is absolutely valid) chime in with questions over the recordings and mapping out their decisions from ‘behind the scenes’. I’ve also been complimented by how faithful I’ve been to NPCing those characters.

I am enjoying this group far too much to let simple exhaustion from me drive them away from the table.

This is also to say that though I will be closing down my Sessions in mid-November, I will still be (trying) to make daily posts and adding on to the pages for the campaign throughout the Heavy Season. It’s a bit like therapy for me to sit down and add to a universe instead of stewing on the antics of management.

Don’t worry, I won’t take the remainder of the year off from writing altogether. I might have my month off in April next year, but I won’t know until next March and see what Tax Season looks like.

I’m off to handle up on house chores and finalizing details for tonight. I’ve asked Old Man Casey what he’s thought of my challenges so far:

I moved the dog bed to the office for while I’m off work. He approves.

He’s unimpressed and wishes luck to my players. I think.

Stay safe out there, readers!

-JB Swift

10/12 New Players, New Ideas, Old-School Union Practices

If there’s anything that catches my attention on the Internet, it’s reading posts by people who are looking to join a campaign.

Also animal videos. They’re adorable and I won’t budge on this exposing of my sensitive side.

I was scrolling through Reddit when I came across an example of the former. A player was looking for a group to join! I let him know about this place and explained my rules/expectations. He, in turn, told me what he wanted to try out.

I won’t spoil the details, but when he’s introduced to the campaign, I’ll write up a Biography Page for him. For now, I’m wandering the route with my Campaign’s Notebook and plotting out new concepts to add in the timeline.

While I’m enjoying my nerdiness, I’m also enjoying the looks on the faces of management as I remind them about the multitude of contracts and manuals that they should be following when giving me orders concerning the mail. It’s a sort of perverse pleasure to explain to someone who technically outranks me that they need to pay attention to a set of forms that they do everything in their power to avoid.

I’m a nerd. I’m also a bureaucrat. I like going through books for references and having paperwork in proper order. It also annoys management because they can’t issue discipline just because I’m following rules that they find annoying. This is why I support unions.

Stay safe out there, readers! I’m off to make a supervisor sign off on six pages of paperwork. *Mad cackling ensues.*

-JB Swift

Updating Pages and More Writing!

Now that I’ve finished another day at the day job and walked my 12 miles, I’m able to dedicate some attention to this site and put more work into the campaign and its story. While this post won’t be going up until the morning, it’s best that it’s written out while I’m still awake and capable of writing.

There were two major updates added to the GM Notes page: “Rules of Play” and “Character Creation”. As much as I like to believe that I will always explain these two things to my players, experience has taught me otherwise in some slightly embarrassing ways. So, I’ve taken to putting them up on the website via the GM Notes page, and I’ll link them here for those wanting to read them over. As I’ve explained to my players (and repeat to them constantly), if there are questions, don’t hesitate to ask. Write a comment to this post with your question, and I’ll do my best to answer you.

Rules of Play

Characters Creation

Story-wise, the first part of Arc 1, Adventure 2 is nearly finished and will be posted (hopefully) by this upcoming Saturday. If I’m lucky and can stay awake long enough after work, I’ll also have the first chapter of the novella written and sent to my editor (who is gracious with her patience and can’t hit me with her shoe, being hundreds of miles away) to check it over.

This week is looking to be a busy one, campaign-wise. Multiple Solo- and Short-Arc sessions before the Main Arc session this Saturday. I’m enjoying the challenge.

-JB Swift

Sporadic Postings and Site Maintenance

I haven’t been giving my blog site the attention it deserves. For everyone that keeps visiting the place, I apologize for not making my daily postings like I’ve wanted and promised.

I have to admit that I’ve been exhausted lately. My day job has me outdoors for 10-12 hours a day, sometimes 6 days a week, walking multiple miles. While that shouldn’t keep me from at least writing something during my breaks, I’ve been forgetting to write up a post with updated content.

(This post was started around 9PM when I fell asleep at my desk and woke up at 12:30AM, in continuation of my sleep pattern. I’ve worried that it was unhealthy to sleep the way I do, but I’ve also used it as a primary writing time. Apparently, it’s way more common than I thought, though it’s called ‘interrupted sleep’. I prefer my titles of ‘Big Sleep, Little Sleep’ or ‘Dammit Sleep’.)

But I have finally managed to get the layout I’ve been wanting for my posts set up. Or at least, I’ve started setting it up for that goal. Hopefully, it’ll be easier to navigate than what I’ve had in the past, so readers and players won’t get confused when they need to look something up.

With that, it’s time I got away from this desk and to the bed. Dawn will be here soon, and I’ll be slinging letters shortly after. Goodnight, readers.

-JB Swift

Debating Site Clean-Up, Outlining Plots, and Returning to Day-Job

Well, it had been an interesting and personally exciting past couple days. I’m not one for the holidays, as they always end up more stressful than bringing the sentiment that they were made for, but I’ve finally gotten through a 4th of July with minimal stress.

This is to say: I got through this year without a firework mishap, such as a mortar round going off on the ground nearby, being shot at by a multi-launch mini-rocket, or lit on fire by a nearby drunk. These things have happened with a consistency that has made me paranoid about the holiday. It’s a wonder that I’m still alive.

Instead of dodging poorly-made incendiary devices, I had spent the majority of the weekend writing. It was with exhausted good cheer that I wrote my “Pages Updated” post, though I should mention that not every page is written out. I had a list of some 6 or 7 I wanted finished over the weekend. Over time, those pages will have more written out for them, and the never-ending cycle of story-updating will continue.

With that, I’ve been giving some thought to cleaning/organizing the RPG section a bit. I’ve noticed that it’s getting a little hectic for my players to find what they need, and I’m sure y’all readers are getting confused. I’ll look into how I can better streamline that section.

I also have plots to write! There are two sessions this week, and while I know what they’re going to go through, I need to fine-tune their challenges and choices/consequences.

Before that, however, I need to get my mail out of the satchel and into the awaiting mailboxes. Break time is over, so back into the Federal life for me.

Happy reading, folks! Stay safe out there.

-JB Swift

Adventure 1 is finished!

It took way longer than I am willing to believe of myself to write out the entire adventure, which was a total of two sessions and 8 hours of game-play. The story is over 60 pages long, totaling out around 8 chapters, including the epilogue.

It is finally done. I’m almost excited enough to make inroads on Adventure 2! But I’m going to make the smart decision here and get myself to bed before I fall asleep at my desk (again).

See you tomorrow, readers!

PS~ If you don’t feel like navigating to the story’s page, here’s the link:

https://swiftscorner.wordpress.com/arc-1-adv-1-epilogue/

Sidewinder Stories Updates!

I’ve gotten requests for the next chapters to be uploaded sooner than I normally would (normally would remember to, I’ll be honest), so I’ve uploaded Chapter 4 and I’ve scheduled Chapter 5 to go up in the morning of 4/18.

I’ll leave Chapter 4 here for reading. Fair warning: It needs an editor, and I’m terrible at that part of the writing trade. One day, I’ll get an editor.

And one day I’ll be a published writer. While we’re dreaming here.

Enjoy!

Sidewinder Adv 1 Chp 4

Star Wars RPG Adventure 1, Chapter 3 is up!

I have GOT to figure out a better title for these posts.

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve finally managed to get the chapter posted. There were a few problems with getting it in the right order (I still have no idea what I’m doing) but I think everything is now fixed and ready for reading.

Of course, now that I’ve said that, I would not be surprised if I go back to it in a few hours and I find it looking strange. Such is my life and the Internet. Enjoy!

Sidewinder Adv 1 Chp 3