Above the table talk

DnD, Gaming

D&D game last night went great! My character helped lift an ancient curse, and restore honor to a fallen lord. Also blasted an enchanted suit of armor and gained a magic sword, not bad.

Before everyone split up, I talked about my plans to use the next session, when we go back to the campaign I run, as a new season or fresh start. I asked everyone to think about what kinds of things they would do in downtime, gave them a sheet that outlined how that would work mechanically, and generally set the stage for the next chapter of these heroes.

I said that the players were free to travel, catch up with friends, and meet back in one location. My hope was that they would decide what that location is so that I can plan ahead and have something concrete ready for them. They… didn’t do any of those things, at least not last night before we wrapped up.

So I want to talk in this post about what I did, and talking about things above the table, and at the table.

At the table, or in-character talk, is communication that comes in-world, from a specific person’s viewpoint, whether it’s an NPC directly talking, or a note or a book written by some author. I make it clear to players that those aren’t always 100% accurate, and there may be missing or incorrect information, or even lies, depending on the topic and the person.

Above the table talk is what would be considered meta communication. Me talking as a person playing a game, or running the game. It’s useful because even though we are all invested in maintaining the illusion of the fantasy world as something that exists and follows its own rules, we are also real people, friends and colleagues, who are getting together to run a game and have fun.

One of my players said that they weren’t sure their character, who only joined the group very recently, would have a reason to meet back up. That shocked me! At the time I offered the idea that they had forged a bond of adventure but I could tell that wasn’t that convincing. I wasn’t sure at the time if that was in-character talk, or if it was above the table talk. It worried me.

It’s entirely possible that my players do not want to engage in downtime or non-adventure activities. Even though they have fun with the game and seem to enjoy the way I lay out the world and the lore, they’re just here to play a game and have fun. They don’t want to do what they see as homework. And that’s fine. I’m fine with that. Nobody is going to care about my made-up world more than me. But narratively I think it’s important for there to be a gap between the last chapter and the new chapter. If nothing else I need in-game time for all my various cults and factions to advance their own plots.

Today, in the Discord for our game, I tried again to get the players to talk about downtime activities they may want to do. Two of the players immediately said they wanted to go… follow the next logical plot point and seek a reward. Oy. They really do not want downtime.

If nothing else, I can just narrate a time jump. Hand-wave it and just skip over a couple of weeks to the next major event. If they object I can push back and say “I gave you every opportunity to fill in the gap with your own choice of action; you have no right to object now.” They’re all gamers and I think they’ll get it. I don’t have to say it that bluntly, of course, but that’s how I feel. If I offer something, there’s a reason for it and I want them to take advantage of it.

But I was still worried about the player who wasn’t sure about their character re-joining the group after a break. Since I’m the Dungeon Master (DM) I can’t just tell them reasons why they would want to stick with the rest of them; that would be heavy-handed. I could have their patron tell them it’s in their best interest to do so. That would be in-character, in-world communication. But… It would seem insincere,; it’s a reaction to their comment, instead of something that organically comes up during play. I’m afraid it would break the shared illusion.

Instead I just mentioned what I had noticed, and told them, completely sincerely: “I wanted to say that you are a valued member of this group, you’re a great player, and you will always have a seat at my table for as long as you want to play.” I said that above the table. They liked that!

And then we conspired to try to nudge the other players into taking downtime. Hopefully that will go over well. Time will tell!

Strategy process exercise task job

General, meta

I was complaining to my bestie Tracy that I had no idea what I should write about tonight. I’m writing this early because I have a D&D game later, in about an hour and a half. So to make sure I post something, I opened up my text editor and stared at the screen and realized that a) my mind was blank, and b) if I want to write topical posts for a wide variety of audiences, I need to be able to come up with good post ideas, lots of them, quickly.

The downside to having a blog that is just “whatever in the Hell I want to post about” is that I have so many options that it’s like having no options at all. If this were a sports blog, I could just write something about any of the many many many sports games that happened today, or the general news, or follow-up on previous topics. If this was a gaming blog, I could piggy-back off the narrow focus to come up with something to write about. While I am working on a more specific blog (coming soon) this place does not have that restriction. So, sometimes, I sit down and flounder.

Which led me to the idea: write about how to come up with blog post ideas. Easy-peasy! If nothing else I can rant about not feeling creative lately, but if I do a little research, I might come up with a strategy, a process, one that works for me.

Because I’ve been on this new blogging kick, the Algorithm has taken notice and has started to feed me Content about blogging, writing, and freelancing. Earlier today it surfaced a video from a creator about making money using Google News, which got me to click and watch. Turns out, the idea was “find today’s top story on a topic you know about, paste the contents into a Large Language Model (LLM) “paraphraser” (and those should be double-heavy-extra scare quotes, because, really) and then sell that paraphrased article to some other content mill. That’s not something I would do.

I mean, maybe, if my blog were about summarizing news for people, I might take a look at the top headlines and rewrite it myself, but I would absolutely not use an LLM for that. The video creator (whom I will not link because don’t want to encourage that behavior) did say to re-read what you get back from the summarizer, because that’s why they advised finding a topic you know about… still.

But the basic idea of scanning today’s headlines is a good one for finding out what everyone is talking about, I suppose. That would be great if this were a “recent news” kind of blog, instead of a “spontaneous unedited opinions of Some Random Guy on the Internet” kind of blog.

I have been using Google Analytics and Google Search Console on my recent blog-push, and it’s hilarious to me what kinds of search terms lead people here. A big one is “chicken butt shirt” for example, because way way way back in the day I posted about a cool and funny button I bought off the internet. “Guess what?” “Chicken butt” is a phrase I and my bestie use frequently. But, like, can I turn that in to a blog post? Could I get 1000-1500 words out of that? No, I don’t think I could.

What else does Google say people like about the blog? Well, another top search term is “Bettie Bondage” which, in this site’s case, leads to a movie review I posted a long time about about a biopic of Bettie Page. Again, I’m grateful for the traffic but if I used that as a basis for future content this might become an NSFW blog.

Not that there’s anything wrong with those. Just not really what I’m aiming for here. I’d start a new blog for that kind of content (note to self: look into starting a new blog for that kind of content. I hear it’s a sure money-maker.)

Not sure where that leaves me. Let’s stick a pin in this. Maybe I’ll do some actual research and write up a “how to keep your blog swimming in content” article.

I’ll add that to the Ideas File.

Large Language Models Continue Being a Mixed Bag

Daily Story Project, Digital Art

I don’t have a lot to say tonight but I am showing up and trusting the process.

I used Microsoft Copilot to generate some images for use in my D&D game today. Mostly they turned out OK but there’s always small things that I wish I could change or tweak or combine. I always count the number of fingers on people the AI generates, for example, but there are also often smaller things. Copilot will generate four images for every prompt, and often, I’d love the ability to say “give me the third image but with the beard of the fourth image.”

Four images generated by Microsoft Copilot from the prompt "Obadiah Stane from Iron Man, dressed in medieval robes and armor, with dark red skin and long black ibex-style horns, holding a golden goblet in front of a roaring fireplace"
Only one of these looks sufficiently like Jeff Bridges in “Iron Man” for me to use (top right.)

Let me give you an example. I’m designing a dungeon and I can see it in my head but I wanted a picture of it to help me visualize it, and maybe if the picture was good enough I could show it to my players if and when they ever get there.I really wish I had a fun human artist friend I could give these prompts to, and that they would modify the images for me. Maybe that would be too much effort for random requests from me, though. I might be presuming too much about this theoretical friendship.

Image generated by Microsoft Copilot from the prompt "Looking out over a large shaft carved out of the earth going down deep. On the far wall is carved a bas relief of a dragon whose head is at eye level, and whose body extends down into the depths, its wings and arms extended out to ether side wrapping around the inside of the stone shaft. The observer, a dwarf carrying a torch, stands on a balcony opposite the dragon carving's head."
Wrong: the platform is to the left of the bas-relief, the body should go all the way down, the wings should wrap around the inside of the well… ugh, this was all wrong.

So the images get about 75-80% of what I ask of it. But asking for stories and creativity from them in writing is still very disappointing. As mentioned yesterday, I’m coming up with scenarios for an upcoming session of my campaign. I thought I’d ask ChatGPT if it could weave together my players and their character’s goals and backstories, and use them as plot hooks for one scenario. Maybe I’m bad at writing prompts, but all it did was give me separate scenes for each character, and it (in my opinion) chose only the most trite, cliche options for all of them. It wasn’t worth the effort to type in all the information I gave it. I punted on all the “ideas” it gave me and am starting over from scratch.

How To Restart Your D&D Campaign

DnD, Gaming

Screenshot of a portion of the map for my D&D campaign, a piece of digital art in an old-fashioned style in sepia tones. It shows a large walled city, Kopno'domas, on a river, surrounded by suburbs and villages, forests and hills, ruins and settlements.
The great walled city of Kopno’domas, Jewel of the Crownless Lands, and many of its suburbs. Art created in Inkarnate by Brian Moon.

Almost two years ago I started running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign using the Fifth Edition Rules. When I started, I hadn’t run a game in over a decade, and I wouldn’t call my previous games all that successful. Sure, we had fun at the time, I even wrote some fiction set in that world (like The Princess and The Brewer, or A Beggar’s Tale) but I didn’t really grasp the core skills of how to keep a game going, how to incorporate the players and their characters into the ongoing plot, and how to keep the focus on what happens at the table and not get bogged down in pointless worldbuilding. I vowed to do better in this new game. I had learned a lot over the years about how to keep things interesting, what level of preparation is necessary, and how to make the game collaborative, not just one person’s (the dungeon master’s) vision.

A huge help to me was Matt Colville’s “Running the Game” series on YouTube. I even modified his “Delian Tomb” basic adventure and used it for an early session. Good stuff! Also good: The Alexandrian, who was the first person to introduce me to the idea to prep situations not plots, or the Three Clue Rule for creating mysteries the players will love.

I started to prep for that first session by pulling out the campaign maps and notes I had used a decade ago and using them as a starting point. I used the old games notes as the recent past on which to build, to give a sense of history and a living world, and then dropped the new characters into the middle of things. I had factions, situations, people with goals… and no idea where it will all lead. I let the player’s actions be the inputs; how does what the players do change the world and affect the various factions?

We had some player changes over that time but have settled into a core group of five characters. In our last session, a couple of months ago, they had managed to defeat an evil sorcerer who was trying to imbue a giant brass golem with arcane and powerful energy. A big boss battle, in other words.

One of the players has wanted to run his own game, so we arranged to have him run some adventures for a few sessions to give me a break and let me play my own character. That’s been going well; Vic’s a natural gamer, understands story and plot, and it’s been fun seeing him come to the table with his own ideas.

That being said, after this next session, it seems likely that we will be moving back to my own campaign, so I’ve been thinking about how to restart the game. I now have a group of 4th level characters, who know a bit about the world they live in and the various factions, who have worked together and started to gel as a team. They each have their own backstories and goals but also have friendship and the bonds of pulling through tough situations. My intention is to come up with a summary of what’s transpired so far, and a recap of the groups, cults, and factions they have been ignoring while tracking down and killing the sorcerer. Those other leaders have not been sitting on their thumbs, no; they are now a little more powerful, and a few steps further along toward their own goals.

Again, the design philosophy I intend to follow: I’m going to create situations, and let the players interfere (or support!) those other people’s goals, and just see where it leads.

I may be running the game, but I can also be surprised by what happens next. This is the best and most successful campaign I’ve ever run, and I can’t wait to get back to it.

The internal struggle to maintain

atheism, fear

Not sure what to write about tonight. I’m still committed to posting something every day, of at least 500 words, but tonight I don’t really have a specific topic in mind. Every so often I allow myself to be vulnerable and post about my fears, my worries, my anxieties. Every so often, but in realizty, these days, I feel those fears, worries, and anxieties every single day.

I consider myself an atheist. I believe that there’s only one kind of stuff in the universe, a position described as materialism. That position can be opposed by dualism, the idea that we, conscious beings, are made of two kinds of things: body, and spirit; likewise, the universe is composed of nature, and supernature. Science and magic. And those two kinds of things operate by different rules. That is not my belief. It’s all one kind of thing, and it can all be understood, even if we do not currently understand all of it.

Therefore when I am afraid, worried, anxious, my philosophy won’t allow for me to believe that I am unlucky. Luck and unluck are magic, you see. That’s not a materialist view. Luck isn’t affected by chemistry or physics. Luck is influenced by desire; it’s influenced by intention; it’s influenced by karma. Luck is magic and I don’t allow myself to believe in magic.

No, my bad thoughts are all mine. They’re the product of the chemicals in my brain. My circumstances are the direct result of every decision I’ve ever made, the long chain of decisions leading down the pathway of my life stream to this point, here, today, now, that I find myself in. It’s all me. It’s all my fault. Can’t pin this on luck, or fate, or large forces, good or bad, that exist beyond space or time. Nope. It’s me, I’m the problem, it’s me.

But wow wouldn’t it be great if magic did work? Wouldn’t it be great if I could send private thoughts to a power greater than all of us, and they would receive those thoughts and then direct spiritual, supernatural energy that can’t be measured or otherwise detected, back into the universe to reshape things in my favor? I know this sounds like I’m being snarky, but I’m not. This is sincere: it would in fact be great if that would work, because like everyone else on this planet, I would really prefer it if my intentions could magically become reality and improve my life and the lives of those I love (which is everyone, everywhere, but that’s just my leftist communism talking.)

No, my intentions are just the starting point. I need to actually take steps to turn those intentions into actions, and make sure I keep showing up and applying myself to those actions, and make sure that the actions stack up in a good way to create the outcomes I want.

How fucking tiresome it is. But that’s the reality I see when I look out into the universe. As nice as it would be were it otherwise. In fact, the TikTok algorithm, itself a product of several sciences — hardware design, software programming, sociology and behaviorial science, to name a few — has clearly marked that internal struggle of mine to resist magical thinking, and has started showing me videos of folks doing tarot readings, or saying that if I use a specific sound within minutes of hearing it, that things will turn around for me. And in moments of weakness, I’ve done those things. I’ve used those sounds, I’ve posted to my story, I’ve clicked the buttons and typed the word “claimed” into the comments. Some of those videos are very specific. They say that things will turn around for me by 1:43 PM tomorrow, or that I will come into money, that I will have a way out, if only I just… interact with their video, all praise to the mighty algorithm, hallelujah, fill in the blank.

I didn’t and haven’t, though, come into the money they said I was supposed to receive. My life hasn’t magically turned around. She didn’t come back into my life to be with me forever. I’m still here, trying to sort out my problems myself, or with the help of my friends and family. It’s still me, and the natural world.

A Celebration Based on a Pun

Movies

I’ve objected before to the now common celebration of Star Wars Day on the fourth day of May. It’s a silly pun based on a mispronounciation. We should be celebrating it three weeks later, on the 25th day of May, which is the anniversary of the first theatrical release of Star Wars (1977), but language and society is based on majority behavior, so, here we are. I surrender. May the Fourth be with you all.

And, yes, that first movie that came out will always and forever be “Star Wars” in my mind. I know that at some point after the sequel came out in 1980, the first movie got retconned into Episode IV, A New Hope, but I was there when the deep lore was written, child. It lives on, unnumbered, in my head.

I might have copies of the Original Trilogy that have been painstakingly restored by fans to their original theatrical versions on a hard drive somewhere, so that I can watch them as I remember them from my childhood. I won’t get into whether or not George Lucas is right or wrong to updating and revising them over the years. My understanding is that that started in earnest as a way to cheat his ex-wife Marcia out of royalties during a nasty divorce, which does sound very petty. But, as mentioned above, the revisionism started very very early on by tweaking the name of the original film. Mr. Lucas always had that urge in him, from the start.

So for this Star Wars Day, I wanted to go back through past posts and find the time I talked about the first time I ever saw Star Wars. I was certain I had written it all out at some point. If so, however, I can’t find it except in passing.

Here is a roundup of selected past posts from me about Star Wars and the impact it’s had on my life.

Lost in Space

A tale that mentions the summer of 1977 in passing, on its way to a scene from the summer of 1981, and the crush I had that was squashed in a movie theater one night.

Old Jedis never die, they just fade away

Reminiscence that links Memorial Day, military service, war, and movies.

Adrift in time

Junior High friendships and Star Wars.

A long time ago, and might as well be in a galaxy far, far away

The very first time I met Boba Fett — or at least a guy cosplaying as him — the summer of 1980.

…They Just Fade Away

Preparing to cosplay as my hero for the last Skywalker Saga movie premiere.

That was a 4.7 bar

General

“Was going to ask if you’d want to get a drink in your neighborhood after.

“I’ll be done at 3. No is always okay.

“Just thought I’d ask since I’m out here.”

It was my best friend, Tracy, texting me. I did want to hang out with her. Been kinda lonely ’round here lately. But…

I replied, “I would like to get a drink but I don’t know where.”

Her response came back almost immediately. “Is the bar across the street not good?”

Dad has been walking to the bar across the street pretty much daily while he’s been here. I’ve been in there exactly twice when I first moved in to this neighborhood and, no offense to dad, it was not my cup of tea. Run down, open, no dark corner to hide in, noisy. I just sent back the emoji that’s described as “grimacing face” which I interpret to mean anxious avoidance.

I looked up “bars near me” on Google. The one across the street had a 3.5 star rating, which seemed high compared to the last time I’d been in there, which to be fair was 4-5 years ago. I poked around and found one between where I lived and Tracy’s appointment and found one that was rated 4.7 stars, and sent her the link. We agreed to meet there after 3.

Part of my depression kept telling me it did not want to leave the house. I mostly ignored that part of me. I wanted to see my bestie.

We both pulled in to the parking lot at the same time, her from one side, me from the other. We hugged and went inside. It did not seem too bad; had a nice covered area, despite each table having a coffee can half-filled with cigarette butts. Inside was clean, about half-full of patrons. Music a bit loud for conversation — or maybe I’m getting old. We got drinks; me a black ale, her the prickly pear cider they had on tap, she ordered a BLT, we went outside.

It was good to see her. I felt a little of the stress and despair leave my body. We caught each other up on our individual drama, commiserated with each other, talked a little bit about politics. She complained about work, I complained about looking for work. It was good. We’ve known each other for decades. The familiarity is a comfort.

We were on our second round of drinks, Tracy’s BLT half gone, when she went inside to get a to-go box for the fries and half-sandwich. While she was gone, the bartender, a thin tough-looking woman my age or older, came out to talk to one of the other patrons on the patio. I didn’t pay much mind; she said something about the man’s wife that I didn’t register, turned to walk back inside, and the guy yelled back at her, angry and defensive, defending his wife about… something. The bartender turned on her heel and came back outside, leaning over him, not backing down, finger wagging in his face.

A crowd quickly formed. Tracy and I took long sips of our drinks, gave each other significant looks.

I held up my beer. “Think I can get a to-go cup for this?” She laughed.

We weren’t able to finish our drinks. It was clear we both wanted to escape before things escalated. As we walked out to the parking lot together, Tracy turned to me.

“I’m sorry you live in the ghetto, dude.”

Wonder if the 3.5 bar would have been better? At least they would have known my dad.

Random Followup 1 May 2024

General

I am not entirely sure I have anything specific I can talk about tonight. Let’s do a quick roundup of random followup!

Haven’t been sleeping well. Bad dreams. Stressed. Still looking for work – please send me job postings for desktop support, customer support, system or network admin jobs, anything in that wheelhouse. Would love a remote job or something in the Portland area (not really keen on relocating.)

Dodgers are doing well lately. As I write this they’re up 6-0 against the Arizona Diamondbacks. I was mad at them for how clumsily they handled Shohei Ohtani’s first home run ball as a Dodger but now I’m back to normal fandom levels.

Dad’s on his Alaskan cruise and it’s been quiet around here. I did laundry today and I’d like to do some cleaning before he gets back.

Still upset at how brutally the student protestors are being treated, in Portland and all over the country. Right-wing insurrectionists get gentle treatment and bus rides from the cops; students get riot gear, beatings, and raids. Goes to show where our leadership’s priorities lie.

Had a good stream tonight. I was nervous all day but once I started playing I got in to the game. Doing a good karma run, so I treated Gob with respect, helped Micky out with purified water, and am doing Moira’s quests for the Wasteland Survival Guide. I tried to help Leo kick his chem habit but I didn’t have enough Speech even though it gave me a 49% chance. Ah, well, them’s the breaks. Did fix all the water pipes, though. And all that good karma got me a visit from the jerk Talon mercs, which led to my first death. I don’t think anyone was watching the stream when it happened, though…

Need to find some royalty free music so I can mod my Fallout game to where I can use the in-game radio. I miss Three Dog! When I find enough music and get it working I’ll write up a post with instructions for anyone else to follow.

Want to do another stream this weekend but can’t schedule it until I know when dad is returning because I have to be ready to pick him up from the airport, and dad didn’t share his itinerary with me.

Mallrats is going to be my next View Askew review. It appears to only be available for rent or purchase, not on one of the streaming services I already pay for, unfortunately. I’ll watch it tonight or tomorrow and report back here with a mini-review.

Tomorrow my major plans are: modding Fallout 3, looking for jobs, and posting more battlemaps for pay-what-you-want on my Ko-Fi page. Rise and grind, am I right?

My car is still running well. I need to top up the antifreeze/coolant, and there’s a minor issue of the windshield sprayer not working on the driver’s side, but that Check Engine light has not come back on. That’s fixed, I’m sure of it.

A few new View Askew reviews: Clerks (1994)

Movies, reviews

A friend posted this scene to their Insta stories and it made me smile:

I remember that movie! Their caption, though, was: “Anyone else see this and cry thinking about Clerks III?” I realized that I have not seen Clerks III, and I got nostalgic for Kevin Smith movies. I have always lumped them into “stoner humor” but I have never said that disparagingly. Stoner humor is kind but rude, raw, silly about serious things. I adore stoner humor. A mix of sincere and gross that a lot of other flavors of humor just can’t touch.

I resolved then and there to rewatch at least the Clerks trilogy, and include as many other Kevin Smith films I could find online. So it was written, so mote it be, y’all.

First up: Clerks.

Wow did that not really age well. It was rough going back to 1994, for sure. Dante is such a tight-ass and Randall is a huge jerk. Veronica and Caitlyn are definitely women written by (young) men. And the movie feels like it drags when it should be fast. It’s 94 minutes long! Why does it feel slow?

The setup for the plot, though, rings true. Dante (Brian O’Halloran) is called in to his shitty job at a local convenience store to fill in for a missing co-worker. Anyone who’s had a retail or customer service job can relate, and just that plot point is enough to get me reminiscing about working fast food, or shopping mall, or call center jobs and the sheer hostility me and my co-workers had for the customers and the bonds of friendship formed with fellow wage slaves. The stories I could tell…

And that means the best parts, for me, are the side discussions. The things workers would talk about to get our minds away from the servitude we had to enact on behalf of our bosses and at the hands of our customers. Particularly in tech support, we would recognize conversations like the famous “Death Star II contractors” scene in Clerks where Randall (Jeff Anderson) tries to make the case that the leftist rebels killed innocent plumbers and roofers. Less well-known (or at least, less well-remembered by me) is the response where a random customer interjects that roofers do, in fact, have personal politics and that they are making a political and moral choice to work for known bad actors. Glad to see Kevin Smith undercutting one of his characters’ apolitical stances.

The shenanigans involving Dante disregarding his current girlfriend, Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti) and pining over his ex-girlfriend Caitlin (Lisa Spoonauer), I did not find charming now and I vaguely recall being put off by it in 1994, as well, although back in the day I was more inclined to think I was the one out of step with the times; Dante’s prudishness about what his girlfriend did matched the attitudes my other male friends displayed back then. It was a different time, y’all, for sure.

It was a rough start for a filmmaker but there is still a core identity here: the working-class humor and frustration of working bad low-paying jobs. That’s what I connected with back then, and that’s the part I still resonate with today. In retrospect, I would give this a solid 3 out of 5 stars.

Next: Mallrats.