Claincy

Pain pain pain pain pain pain pain. That's all.

So today was interesting. I was running a session of Mistborn for one of the crews. This particular crew is currently involved in a house war and I'm largely letting them decide their own strategy and just rolling with it (I did give them some information and a cool map of Luthadel to strategise with). But here's what made today particularly interesting to handle: this crew was about 2 or 3 days behind another crew in the timeline. 2 sessions ago that other crew was at a ball which I figured (correctly) that this crew would get to in today's session. The thing is, as far as the first crew was aware nothing particularly untoward happened at the ball, it didn't get violent and nobody got killed. That's great and all, but when you have a second crew with a proclivity for killing going through the same event.....the established canon is in peril. I did make sure a warning came up that if they broke the peace at this ball it might significantly hurt their chances of forging alliances with other houses that were currently neutral in the house war (still about 2/3rds of the major houses at this point) and I had some thoughts as to how to handle it if it did happen. In essence so long as it was hidden or covered up for long enough that the other crew wouldn't have found out about it yet where they are up to, it's all good. As it turned out, one of the PCs did murder someone but they had the sense to do it quickly and quietly (in the men's toiletry area) and to hide the body, so the timeline stays (practically) intact! What they don't know is that an important NPC who is allied with them noticed the PC who did it standing in that area and will doubtless put 2 and 2 together (this happened by chance, not a plan on my part). What makes things even more interesting is that they selected their target fairly randomly based on who happened to give them the opportunity (making sure they were from an opposed house of course) and I just used a random number generator to select which house the next NPC to come along would be in each instance and then I just picked an existing NPC from that house or made one up. Now it turns out that that random(ish) NPC he murdered happens to be married to a PC from the other crew's sister. All in all the consequences of today's session should be very interesting.

*hugs* how much longer are you there for?

Excited dogs can be very entertaining, if sometimes difficult to manage. Robbie has a similarly excited reaction to going to the vet (or going anywhere in the car, the car is just great in general apparantly), though he doesn't squeak so much. I was very impressed yesterday when I walked him to the vet to pick up more of his food. He saw that my mother was already inside but still managed to sit and wait politely while I opened the door. Completely different thought (a more random one ) : would someone with severe chronic pain on Roshar constantly have 1 or more painspren around them? More broadly does it matter more for summoning spren if the emotion is strong compared to the average in the general region or compared to what is normal for the person. On a similar note, I wonder if how well you are coping with pain would effect whether painspren appeared or just the intensity of the pain.

Enabling the characters to react (in advance and in the moment) to actions that other characters are taking was one of the main goals of that set of mechanics.

I don't want to post the exact rules, in part simply because they still need significant modification and are missing core components, partly because I have some notions towards publishing them eventually and I don't want to post the details online before I have decided if/how I want to go about that. With that said, I'm happy to talk about some of the main concepts In place of the more common +x from abilities or something like the Mistborn Adventure Game's system where you roll a number of dice based on your stats this system treats your stats as a pool of dice that you can expend on related rolls. Trying to lift something heavy? Use a physique die or two to improve your chances. Of course if you use too many dice too quickly you may run out before you have a chance to rest ... The system uses a dual health system. Stamina represents your ability to dodge, block and in general avoid getting injured. Once you run out of stamina you start taking hits to your health instead and every time you lose health you have to roll on a critical injuries table. It uses summed 3d6s so the extremes of 3 and 18 are far less likely than the middle numbers, and have far worse consequences. So instead of going directly from up and fighting perfectly to unconscious and dying there is an intermediate phase where you can still fight (or flee) but every hit you take has the potential for severe consequences. The other key thing is a sort of wheel of moments that replaces a more standard turn order. Instead of taking turns following an initiative order you choose the next action you want to take and place your marker a number of segments (moments) along the wheel based on how long that action will take. The combat progresses moment by moment and every character who completes an action in that moment makes whatever rolls may be necessary and resolves their actions, then declares a new action and moves their marker forward again. When declaring an action characters can choose to rush it to complete it faster (but it will be harder), or to take their time so as to improve their chances of success. This was by far the hardest part of the system for the players to grok but once they got the hang of it they apparently started to like it quite a bit.

Today I ran a 1-shot for the tabletop roleplaying system I've been developing. This is the first time I've tested the system practically and it worked. I definitely found things to improve on, of course, but that's a good thing. The system does a number of things very differently to other rpgs I've played and I wasn't sure if some of them would actually work in practice. I thought they would but I couldn't be sure without actually running them. It did take a bit for the players to adjust to them, but once they did they quite liked them

Hidden benefit of being a twin: you generally don't have to stand around awkwardly when people are singing happy birthday to you

Dunno if my experience/thoughts will be of any help, but in case they are... I'm still pretty early on, just beginning my professional career now. Through early schooling I didn't really have much of an idea what I wanted to end up doing though I was leaning towards becoming an author. I considered the idea of veterinary work for a bit before realising I wouldn't be able to handle the sadder parts of the job. Heading into the final couple of years of high school I had a few ideas but no strong conclusion. (My final year units were Maths Methods, Specialist Maths, Physics, Geography, Literature, Music and Software Development :P) At the time my main ideas were for becoming an author, games developer or musician. All very safe, stable career paths of course! One thing I knew for certain was that I wanted to do something creative. I've noted even more since then that if I don't create or design something on a regular basis I get depressed pretty fast. In any case the Software Development unit was the first good IT unit I'd done in a long time, and I loved it, and I found I was good at it too. By the time I finished high school I was pretty sure that going into Computer Science was the way to go for me and regardless of whatever else I did or did not do I would end up making games, at least as a side activity. I got into a Computer Science course and by the end of the first semester I knew with 100% certainty that I had made a good choice. I finished my degree about a year and a half ago now and since then I have made some progress on my own games development and I've been working as a casual professional at the University for nearly 2 years. I made a good impression in my first position and I've had a number of others as a result. I actually have 4 different ones at the moment The only trouble with that is that combined with my health issues it's making it difficult to find time to do much of my own game development. In the future I hope to decrease that slightly to free up more time for my own games dev but for now I want to make sure, as much as I can, that I keep getting work there Anyway, the main comment I would make is to start doing what you want, don't wait till you have the right qualifications or for the perfect time or situation to get started, just do it. If you only have the time or energy to do a little bit, then do that little bit. Try to find some accountability with someone if you can to regularly chat about what each of you have done in the past week or two. It's also worth noting that it is extremely common for even experienced professionals to feel like they aren't good enough Everybody feels that way sometimes, it doesn't mean it's true or that it will always be the case.

Course the advantage of retelling stories in a format like this is you miss all the times we lost momentum or something fell flat General question: What's your setup like when GMing? I'd say behind the GM screen but not everyone uses one When running mistborn I have: -my laptop in front/slightly to the side of me with my notes and digital copies of the rulebook -my (rather large) pile of mistborn dice -my stack of MAG books -loose paper for quickly sketching maps -sometimes a large map of Luthadel with pins for the house war or other handouts When running D&D I have a bit more: -my laptop with my notes (google drive), useful websites like kobold fight club and donjon and assorted potentially useful pdfs ready to use. This sits off to my right slightly. -next to that I have a whole pile of dice -down to my left I keep my stack of core rulebooks -on the floor to my right I have a little box filled with campaign coins (the most recent addition) -next to that I have a box with the minis I think might be useful and cards for magic items the party may get (I use this template to make them) -in my bag I have spare paper and assorted terrain that might come in handy. The specific terrain varies depending on the session but usually includes a selection of Terra Tiles, Dungeon Explore tile card deck & sometimes a selection of dwarven forge and other pieces. The dwarven forge gets pretty heavy though so I only take large amounts for big set piece encounters. I tend to run theatre of the mind for simple encounters and a mixture of 2D/3D terrain for more complicated encounters.

Just to make sure my I'm not giving the wrong impression of my overall view of America's political system based on a couple of aspects of it: I do think America has one of the better systems around, I also think there are a couple of problems it has that are done better in some other versions of democracy. But I by no means think any of these other systems are perfect either I personally think that given all our flaws a benevolent dictatorship is theoretically the best form of government, but there is no way to consistently get the 1 in a million (or 1 in a billion) person you need sitting on the throne for that to work well. So I definitely agree that given the world and culture we live in democracy is the best option we have

@Jondesu @Darkness Ascendant & @Voidus as well; I don't usually like this type of music but this song resonates with me at times (for obvious reasons).

It's....not very effective Heh, fair enough.

Yeah, that's a good point. I suppose the term is about as useful clinically as the phrase "my head hurts". Urgh, I feel very fortunate not to get migraines. Also....Psyducks of the Shard Unite!

Heh, I used to do the same a lot, cept for me it was game design rather than drawing. At one point my specialist math classes had almost become scheduled game design time.

My chest pain has largely dissipated I'm also running an average of more than 1 rpg session per week over the next couple of weeks

@Jondesu Have you found any effective methods of coping with the headache/getting things done despite it? I've had a similar issue for ~3 and a half years now (24/7 headache, no effective treatment found), though from what you've said in the past I think my headache is generally a little less painful than yours. The most success I've had is in cramming my brain with enough input at once that I don't have the spare mental capacity to acknowledge the pain much. Unfortunately there are very few things I have found that require that much of my brainpower at once and so usually that means having a tv show/movie/youtube video running in the background. I don't do that when I'm doing work I get paid for, but when doing my personal work or other things I usually have something on in the background. It certainly reduces my efficiency but because it helps tune out the pain I can work for longer, or at all when I otherwise might not be able to. As a matter of fact GMing roleplaying games is about the only thing I can think of that is relatively frequently engrossing/involved enough to block out the pain. Edit: Do you get that response where you tell someone you have a headache that never goes away and they somehow internalise that as you getting frequent headaches and you have to explain again later how actually you mean the pain never storming stops.

I'm far from an expert on American politics but as I understand it most of the local & state votes are still determined in a first past the post manner and I don't think it's a good system in any situation where there are more than 2 candidates. If there are only 2 candidates for a position then sure, it works fine. In a situation with more candidates it has problems compared to a preferential, transferable vote or similar system. This video does a better job of explaining why than I would: I'm not saying that other voting methods don't also have issues or that using a preferential system would have changed the outcome of this election, simply that there is definite room for improvement in general. I don't think those improvements are particularly likely to ever occur though as from what I understand it would take politicians from both major parties deciding to change things in a way that would make it harder for them to get re-elected.

We have a federal government that works in much the same way. Regarding territories: some are partially self governed as Darkness said, the others (generally the smaller ones) are administered by the federal government. From a practical standpoint I don't think there is that much difference between the territories with their own government and states. Australia is officially the "Commonwealth of Australia", though outside of official stuff it doesn't get referred to like that very often.

I wasn't at the top of my game for running D&D tonight, not bad, but I can do better. It went well anyway so I'm not complaining Where we left off last time they had just distracted the werewolves and started making a run for it (deciding to leave the important crystal thing behind). I had a cool skill challenge prepared for trying to outrun the werewolves, and a fight prepared if they failed but none of that happened. The druid, having just rejoined the party, cast summon animal and summoned horses for them all to ride on and away they went. I did make them roll animal handling checks to stay on the horses backs as they were moving rather fast without saddles (or necessarily that much experience riding) but only the druid failed and he succeeded soon enough to not get caught by the werewolves. So that went rather quicker than I had expected Excellent use of that spell. Fortunately I have the zone pretty well prepared so I wasn't caught unprepared or anything. After exploring some more they ended up planting one of the magic beans from the "bag of beans" the druid got a while back. I have very much been looking forward to them doing so. I rolled percentile dice but truthfully I'd already decided what would happen this time. A vine grew into an archway that opened a temporary portal to a small tunnel/hut like thing made from a grove of trees. Inside was a feline humanoid who had the special ability to answer 3 questions about the past, present or future. With the following caveats: -All 3 questions must be asked before any answers are given -2 answers will be true, 1 will be false A couple of party members arrived late just as the others finalised the questions they wanted to ask and so they didn't feel left out I decided, what the heck, they can ask their own set of questions. So everyone enjoyed coming up with questions and then trying to guess which of the cryptic answers was true and which were false. After that they had an encounter with a group of "wild fey", who are the progenitors of all other elves in my world. They offered to help the PCs to bypass a certain barrier (this wasn't the only way they could pass the barrier) if, in return, one of the PCs agreed to become a wild fey. They hinted at changes that were coming to the world and that the PCs were already involved in them (true) and stated that they wished to have more influence outside of their place in the feywild to ensure that when the world did change, they would still have a place in it (also true). After a number of discussions about the changes that would incur one of the player's decided to take the offer. I think becoming immortal was a fairly strong selling point. So while the rest of the PCs went to get dinner we had a 15 minute one on one session to rp through the process and deal with all the adjustments to their character. Some of which went onto their character sheet, some of which didn't. Can't have the other players knowing some things until that player chooses to tell them The only mental change involved is that the character now considers the wild fey's goal of ensuring their place in the world remains as rather important. The physical changes replace their old racial bonuses, but with significantly more powerful ones. Though they may want to keep the extent of these changes hidden from the other PCs, they might get a little nervous if they realise quite how much she's changed Across all of this the PCs learned quite a bit about this arc and a bit about the campaign/world as a whole. We closed off with a combat that achieved one of the objectives they needed and also, being against plant creatures, was an excellent opportunity for some of their PCs to enjoy their fire based magic items and another to enjoy an axe that deals max damage against plant creatures. He got it approaching a year ago and we hadn't fought plant creatures since

So if I'm lucky, I'm having trouble with acid reflux and that's what's been causing the chest pains I've been having. That's probably the case, but the possibility that it isn't is scary. In either case, I'm handling my headache, even when it's bad. But I can't handle another major source of pain very well at the same time.

One last dog video for now. Here he's playing with his water bowl which is, apparently, the best toy ever!

Roger command, deploying additional puppy video in 3..2..1 Anything shiny on the floor is a lot of fun to chase. He can generally tell what is causing the reflection but he doesn't care because it's fun

Hmmm, time for something random and positive. Here's a video of our dog chasing rainbows: And another of him as a puppy (I may have posted this one before):

Australia has a mixture of states and territories, all of the states and the larger territories have their own governments in addition to the federal government. Now things get a little complex, as I understand it: For a federal election states and territories are divided into electoral divisions. For a state election I think it varies from state to state, but Victoria divides into regions and from there into districts, each of which contains a number of suburbs. There are also a large number of local councils in Victoria, each governing a "city". There are a fair few of these cities within the city of Melbourne (just to be confusing). These cities are further divided into separate wards, each of which contains a number of suburbs. The suburbs are the same throughout but the electoral divisions/regions/districts/cities and wards are all different