The session last night was epic, and I’m somewhat proud of myself for planning it out the way I had. I’ll be going over the notes and working it into a story format, but the party was just excellent with their choices and abilities.
I’m getting spoiled by having competent players.
But it’s Sunday, and I need to do my house-spouse duties.
Don’t mean I don’t have to wear the hat, though.
Lot of chores need doing before I can justify a writing sprint, but thanks to the doctor prescribing medications for the sinus infections, I can actually function without saying “existence is pain!” like any other Meeseek.
Of course, I also get an audience while I try to clean the house.
So unhelpful, but dammit they’re adorable.
Stay safe out there, readers. Gonna try for a writing sprint this evening.
We had to reschedule the Star Wars RPG session to tonight, as attendance proved to be a problem. I have a feeling that the summer is proving to be exhausting for everyone, not just this government-issued letter monkey.
Just in case this occurs tonight, I have a contingency plan!
I broke the adventure down into three separate side-quests, allowing the players to choose which aspect of the adventure they want to go through. This works out when we have, say, a Pilot who is unable to use their ship until everyone is finished with the ground mission, so they stick with the ground forces, or a droid designed for stealth operations unable to do so because everyone picks the noisiest methods to finish a mission.
This is what I normally do when I see players saying they might not be able to attend the Main Arc sessions, but still want to be involved somehow. After the session tonight, I’ll be going to those players who could not attend and give them the chance to go about their own side-quest.
It should be fun! I’ve been planning this out for months.
Along with that, I’ve been giving some thought to finishing the novella that a player asked me to write up. He rarely gets to play, but put a ton of work into the design and background. I think after I finish Chapter 4 in “Peregrine: Rising”, I’ll set up a couple weeks to knock that out.
When a player tells me that they’re way too tired for a game session, I’m going to listen to them. It’s something I understand way too well. As a consequence to that and to too few players in attendance for the night, I decided to postpone the session and reschedule.
In doing so, I had the chance to go over the notes for the adventure! Good thing, too, because I had set the difficulty in those challenges way too high.
If there’s anything I’m going to complain about in regards to the Revised Edition of SWRPG, it’s that they didn’t give enough context to explain what challenge rating to put to a given encounter.
So, I’ve been working at scaling things back to a more balanced setting. This mission is supposed to be the ‘finale’ of the adventure before they go to the third act. I’ve also been told that several parts of the site weren’t working properly, or that I’ve forgotten to upload some things.
The latter is way more expected than the former. I have the list of things to upload, somewhere on this lumber room of a work desk.
To compensate for the lack of presence here today, I present Han’s Weather Photo choice of the day!
She likes knowing what I deal with while on the route, especially the weather. She has odd moments of liking meteorology. I can’t say I disagree.
With that, the lateness of the night is catching up with me. Not sure how much writing I’ll get done, but I’ll at least go over my work from earlier and make sure I hadn’t nodded off while typing again.
It was nice, having an actual “weekend” for once. That it happened on Tuesday-Wednesday is besides the point. Got caught up on a lot of housework and a lot of writing.
But the mail is calling, so it’s time to take up the satchel and put some miles under my feet. I shudder to think how much clean-up I’ll have waiting for me.
(My route is the best training route for new carriers. If they can survive the 12 miles of this walking route, they can handle any of the others in my town. That also means they’ll leave a mess for me to take care of.)
Writing-wise, it’s been very productive. Over 20,000 words in the novel!…and we’re only a prologue and three chapters in…
I wasn’t kidding when I said I wanted an old-school science fiction brick-of-a-book story. That I’ve planned for six more to make it a series is…somewhat daunting but exciting.
Now that I’ve found my notes in the various folders for my old stories, I’ll also (very occasionally) give them some attention. The Sidewinder Stories are the primary for those, however, so players: expect the rest of Chapter 3 to be up soon! (Ish)
Speaking of Sidewinder, I’ve also found an artist willing to take commissions on making cover art! He’s sent me the first draft of the concept and…well, I’ll admit I teared up a little to see my name on a book cover. Since it’s in Star Wars, it’s not publishable, but when it’s ready I’ll be printing out copies and sending them to those players who were there during Arc I. They’ll be able to see their characters on pages.
The goal of every Forever-DM.
It’s time to sling letters. Here’s hoping to get a tiny bit more written down during lunch and the evening.
Years ago, I learned the hard way that I was not the sort of writer that can work on multiple full-length stories at the same time. I’d get stubborn about trying to keep up with each project and eventually, I’d get overwhelmed.
Oddly enough, while this happens with writing, it doesn’t do the same with my RPG campaigns. Physical exhaustion is what kills my ability to run multiple campaign arcs. (Don’t worry, players; I’m not abandoning any of the work, just very tired)
Since learning this about myself, I’ve set myself with priorities. When I have a real evening to myself, I dedicate chunks of time to the campaign writing, as well as to my work-in-progress. That does not mean, however, that I’ve abandoned my other projects entirely; I just wait until I’ve satisfied my priorities well enough to go into those other worlds.
If you check to the right on the Home Page, you’ll see a new box: Progress Tracking. I’ll be adding on my other projects to that box, but the Peregrine story will get the most attention at the moment. It’s going to look like a lot, but keep in mind that you won’t see the numbers change all that often.
I do have a side-project that I’ll be looking into, though, that will involve other people. I’m going to be on the lookout for someone to make the artwork for this website (it needs a profile picture of its own, and I will not use other artists if I can’t compensate somehow), and if they could also draw up cover art for the Star Wars fan-fictions (to be given freely to the players when I can print them, which will happen), that’d be an awesome bonus.
So, if any of your are artists, please let me know and I’ll see about how much I need to save for a commission.
I’ve also restarted the Postal Living page and added an article to it. I’m lining up what else I want to write about for it, which will take its own time. That’ll have to be done carefully, as I navigate what I can write about and not violate the Hatch Act. Yes, I take that very seriously, even if some folks in politics do not.
I’m off to set things up and have a writing sprint for Peregrine before I get too exhausted. If there’s anything y’all have been wanting to see or read, let me know! If it slipped my notice, I’d rather you tell me than it stay on the backburner.
It’s almost become a tradition that, just as the Party is logging on and everyone is chiming in that they’re ready to play, there’s a tech problem.
Usually, it’s just an internet connection problem. That’s par for the course, as rural Louisiana isn’t a bustling hub of high-speed connectivity. Yesterday’s session, however, also plagued me with required updates for the headset, the program, and the computer all at once.
…and I thought I had already done all of those. Joy…
So, the party was informed that I wouldn’t be able to talk. There was a worry that the session would’ve been canceled (the phone has a camera, but out here it lags too badly for a gaming session) when I remembered something.
I can type really fast when I need to.
So, we switched to a text-based session while my systems updated.
So much of this.
Haven’t ran a game like that since I was a teenager and internet chat programs were hitting their stride. One of the players chimes in afterward to ask if they could continue playing in this medium, in fact.
A solid 2 hour session, player engagement and RP, plot development, and a satisfyingly suspenseful cliff-hanger for the next session. All in all, a good night.
Now, to fix my tech problems. Time I looked into mesh routers.
Stay safe out there, readers! Writing sprints this evening!
It’s about time I took a look at the Campaign Calendar and let folks know what is going to be available in the coming month!
We have the SWRPG Main Arc Session happening this Saturday night (05/27)! -Arc 3 “War Diaries”, Adventure 2 “Cry Havoc” We have the upcoming v3.5 D&D Dungeon, First Session TBA (working on a date that’ll accommodate everyone’s schedules) We have two Solo Sessions coming up, also once I figure out everyone’s availability. -Votosh -Zino
I will be on a family vacation during a Main Arc session weekend, so while I like to say I will be available, I don’t think I’ll be able to escape the two kids and the two nieces.
It’s been a rather hectic time, readers. Even the past week was jam-packed with crisis after crisis, coupled with the exhaustion brought on by working 10-11 hours days.
But I’m taking a few moments this Sunday, after wishing a Happy Mother’s Day to every mom around me, to write up a brief report.
First and foremost, to those readers I have here that are mothers: my heart goes out to you. You are appreciated and loved, folks.
The past week started off the best way a crisis-leaden should: with two new tires.
My wife’s career is travel-heavy, but the distances are mostly within the state, or maybe just over the border occasionally. Instead of putting miles on the Pilot, which we need for family travel or as a backup, we got a used car meant for work-travel. While I do my best to keep up on its maintenance, I’m afraid I hadn’t looked at the tires in a few weeks.
…there was tread there, like only a month ago…
…yeah, in hindsight that was a bad idea. Sometimes, it doesn’t occur to me just how much travel that little car goes through. But we got two new tires installed, and I’m lining up the next two to come in soon, so I don’t have to worry about that problem for a while. That way, any new problem can get its proper amount of attention. We like to be thoughtful around here.
Along with that, I’ve had the wonderful distraction of a new riding mower! You might be saying that something to handle another chore should be a distraction I would want to avoid, but the riding mower had been updated enough to zoom across the yard, and we have four acres out here.
The redneck in me will always win out, eventually. That mower can drift, folks.
Work had its own crisis, but a beneficial one, at least. We held the NALC Food Drive this week, which if you’re on a city route in the United States, you might have noticed via a brown paper bag in your mailbox. They were for postal customers to fill with canned/dry goods so us letter carriers could collect and deliver to the local food banks.
That is a really good cause to get behind, and I’m proud to do it, but damn does it involve a lot of legwork. On a 12-mile walking route, extra legwork is…disliked, to put it mildly.
Some 500lb of food, just from my route.
We had a family crisis as well! My son was hit with croup in the middle of the night a couple days ago, and we discovered that croup can still infect children all the way up to six years old, so it’s not just a baby worry. Neither of the kids had croup as babies, so we didn’t know what we were looking at.
We just had our 4yr old son suddenly unable to breathe at 1AM. Understandably, we panicked. I put him in the Pilot and we hit 90mph on the highway to the hospital. He was treated and the croup was knocked out, but we had to stay and monitor him the rest of the night. By the time Saturday (05/13) rolled around, I was clocking in for work on less than two hours of sleep, and I had to collect all of those bags.
The week ended on a high note, as it was also a Main Arc session! As it was also the first session to have a bunch of players attending (adulting sucks, sometimes, but I’m not begrudging them for that), I gave them my full attention and as good a story as I possibly could. They enjoyed the session, and learned plenty of things that will affect their choices in the next session.
Finally, writing! I’ve been hard at work with my sci-fi novel, as well as writing up the next Sidewinder Stories chapter (expect that one ‘soon’) but I’ve been hitting a snag on the sci-fi. I’ve written that first chapter four different times, trying to see what was wrong. Now that I’m on the fifth rewrite, I’ve realized the possible problem: point-of-view.
The sci-fi chapter was originally written from the POV of Mahima Varma, the Empress of the United Stars Empire. The most powerful woman in the Empire, and one perspective I’ve enjoyed writing from, but for the first chapter, she knows too much about what’s going on. That’s not good for the readers to get their world-building details from, so I’ve decided to try a different POV: Ishim Valwa, the Empress’ aide and confidante. His perspective is an interesting one, as I can relay information about interstellar colonization and its drawbacks (Ishim is a human, but is considered an outsider from Imperial society and called a ‘Lost Soul’), as well as show the audience what Mahima Varma is like outside of Imperial trappings. Along with that, a key note I’ve been working on is the ‘space elevator’ idea. It has significance for the Varma dynasty, and will be important in later stories, but I’ve had to work on different locations to write it into.
The best one I’ve found is also the most difficult: Mount Kenya.
This is because for that story, the home of the Empire is in the African continent. Our species started in Ethiopia, so that’s where the Empire’s home is. But a space elevator needs to be at the equator, and Mount Kenya is the best location that is also closest to where the Empire would be based at.
It’s also an actual holy mountain, so I’m reluctant to put a giant facility in it. I’ve written two different versions for that part of the story, but with this fifth rewrite, I think I’ve figured out the best approach. I’ll have to see what the beta readers say about it.
With that, it’s time I got to my chores and visited my mother with flowers. Happy Mother’s Day, folks.
Stay safe out there, readers!
-JB Swift
PS~ For everyone who sat through this whole spiel, a cat picture!
Penelope sleeps the contented sleep of the fat cat on the dog bed.
As stated in the title, I’m going to be making an effort to work on my daily postings. It’s turned out that this is the best way to keep up on my life, since I’m so introverted that I could be mistaken for a houseplant.
(I’m going with an orchid, as they don’t move until absolutely necessary and it gets everyone’s attention when it happens.)
To start off, I’ve passed my recent Kung Fu test! I’m now at Maroon (Purple, really, but I like the word ‘maroon’ and no one can stop me except Sifu) and two ranks away from Black. At the rate I’ve been progressing…that’ll be another ten years. Hopefully, Han will surpass me in that time. She’s got a gift for the art.
Also, I have a new family member! My mother adopted a puppy, so now I have to teach the puppy how to be house trained, and teach my mother how to house train her puppy.
She’s adorable, and she already follows me around everywhere. She knows who keeps treats in his pockets.
That’s going to be occupying my time, but it’ll have the side benefit of teaching my kids how to handle animals. All of our dogs were adults when we started having children, and they’re considered ‘elderly’ now, so they’re (relatively speaking) pretty calm around the kids. That pup, though, is a boxer and untrained.
Have pity for my kids, folks. They’re not used to energetic critters but couch potato dogs acting like roommates.
Lastly, story updates. I’ve started making a serious effort to work on my homegrown science-fiction story, but that one won’t be ‘readily available’ to readers for a while. I’ve upgraded my account here, so now I can set up subscriptions, donations and other means of accepting money from followers and readers.
Another way of putting it: I’ll be self-published the moment someone decides to pay $1 to read my work.
…panic ensues
This means that I will, when it’s set up, have sections of my website inaccessible for those not willing to pay to read the material. While I apologize for that, please understand that I’ve been working towards being published since I was 16-years old, and I’ve only recently discovered this little loophole. The Sidewinder Stories and other fan-fiction ideas will stay public access, though. Like hell I’m going to have my players go through my quirky ideas and challenges and then turn around to pay to read how I interpreted their actions.
Expect progress on the homebrew science fiction in a month or two. By then, I’ll have my outline mapped enough to start writing in earnest. Of course, the Star Wars RPG story will remain my priority, or my players will throw shoes at me. Can’t go around sabotaging my own efforts, now can I?
….no one got that, did y’all? Dammit, I thought it was funny.
Something to expect much sooner, however, is a writing I’ve left on the backburner for too long: that Dresdenverse Sherlock Holmes story. I had gone over it recently and remembered all the things I wanted to show in that story challenge. So, I’m working on the chapter prompts for it and will sit down during a few evenings and finish it out.
Things are happening, readers! I’m excited, terrified, and battling imposter syndrome as I push myself toward achieving a long-sought after goal!
Swift's Corner 