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It's been a while, here's what I'm up to

It's a snowy tuesday afternoon. Campus just opened back up officially and it's much more crowded than it was just a week ago. Felix and I went out to grab Starbucks with his leftover meal points. I haven't touched this server or gemini in about a month, and I missed it every day.

Never too late to get better

Anyone who's read my blog before knows I had a rough time last semester. I began glogging as a way to relieve some stress while failing all my classes and feeling down about my life. This semester, I hope to turn that around and instead pass my classes and glog about cool stuff I find and do.

So far, this semester is going much better than the last. My homework is getting done, the remediaton class is forcing me to write a planner, and for once this year I'm looking forward to my future instead of being scared of the mistakes of the past. A fresh start is a great help sometimes, even when the start isn't all that fresh.

RPG stuff

Running RPGs is difficult online. Not only do I have to keep everyone engaged and excited about the gameplay as normal, I also have to overcome technical difficulties, shitty microphones, a lack of body language, and further limited desk space. I'm used to big tables with enough room to spread my papers far and wide, along with a laptop and a big dry erase board I can get my players to fill out for me. Now I have a computer desk covered in wires and papers, with dozens of half-baked computer tools to make up for what I'm missing at the table, and a mountain of extra prep I have to do to get my campaign ready. From finding tools to drawing out content to pre-game testing to quick troubleshooting the online ttrpg workflow is much more complex than the simple pen and paper roots it tries to emulate.

I've found a few tools that help simplify my workflow, like using shmeppy over roll20 for faster and more impromptu mapping, easy discord dice bots, and a few custom tools to track damage and initiative. However I never really found a good flow state for my campaigns. They either feel too abstract, leaving players unsatisfied when they do cool things and confused when I try to explain what's going on, or they are too complex, leaving players bored when I inevitably have to stop and troubleshoot some essential piece of tech mid session.

Maybe I should get better at delegating GM tasks. Give one player the role of combat tracker, keeping hitpoints and initaitive in order. Let another player handle the pieces on the vtt. Maybe even let an experienced player research the simpler rules questions while I move along with the story. That should help a lot.

If you have any ideas, feel free to shoot me an email at giantnoah@gmail.com

This was a shorter post, but I just wanted to get something out there and on the page to prove I'm still alive. Especially now that I'm no longer on CAPCOM.

Have a great one

-- Noah