hedonic ink

How I Write a Lot

2024-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

So… up front, this may not work for you. I am as prolific as I am for a lot of reasons, some of them very personal. Years of practice at producing passable text on demand (play by post), for example. And I find it more enjoyable to write forward (and the other phases of writing) than do almost anything else.

I’d been compiling notes on my working process and what motivates me for a month or two, narrowing in on a model for it (ttrpg designer brain), when a friend shared this link with me: how I went from writing 2000k a day to 10000k. This article pretty much sums it up, with lots of good examples, but I have some refinements for myself, based on my experiments.

First, my goals are a lot more modest; I want to write 1k quality words a day, consistently, every day, with a goal of 70k (from “open” to “the end”) in 70 to 90 days. That’s a barebones rough draft in three months; that’s doable. And it’s a sufficient word count for most adult genres so I feel like I’ve “done it” even if the revisions are still looming.

So, first step; I set a clear, achievable goal. Set the bar low; you can always revise up— I went from a goal of 1k at day to a goal of 3k once I knew I could do it and maintain the quality that keeps me motivated. I’m also fine if I only hit 1k per active project in a given day. That’s still meeting my 70k in 70 days goal. I also limit myself to no more than two active projects at a time (which frankly so far is my biggest failing).

I suspect that this count will go up as context (what has been established so far fictionally) builds, both across a novel and across a series. My experience so far has been that the last few chapters just pour out.

Here are my notes, shaped by experience and the article above. Merry Christmas!

Prep (“knowledge”). For me that’s a strong narrative structure, probably custom, that feels “right” for the work and has phases with page counts. One that has emotional intensity. The classic example (though I think it’s better suited to Hollywood than a novel) is Save the Cat. Also characters who have a defining and emotional event in their past and a want (an overt goal they think will fix their lives or at least keep them going) that motivates them now. They might also have a need, a thing that will really fix their problems (to paraphase from Save the Cat). And a set of scenes I really want to see, derived from those characters, tucked into the narrative structure.

I also like to have a short bulleted list of “truths” I need to demonstrate for a given scene; “show he breaks things when he’s mad” or “explain how minor magic works” gives me something to write to, even if the context (everything that has happened up until now) of the scene has shifted away from how I originally expected it to be when we got to this part.

I need more of this than I think I do. You can deviate from it, updating later scenes to adjust. You can discard it entirely. But you can’t be supported by it if it doesn’t exist at all.

Note, this doesn’t usually take more than a few days to a week to actually complete on paper, but the longer it percolates in my mind, the easier “enthusiasm” seems to be.
Discipline (“time”). I don’t track that much, just what information the Writing Goal plugin for Obsidian gives me; words written per day, per file and per project, and a project total. I only edit as much as I need to; this is a subjective measure, but doing less editing, right up to the point of being slightly annoyed about it, has helped me work faster. Years ago I’d usually do a full re-read from page one and edit up to my last writing point each session, and I was able to do a NaNoWriMo just fine that way. Now I use the model I honed in play-by-post; I edit each “chunk” (technical term) enough to follow the last smoothly, and I make sure the contents of a given file are coherent, and then I just keep going.

Knowing what you hit enter on will be read and responded to (the play-by-post model) is excellent training for not over-editing a rough draft; in writing you have the luxury of reaching back and refining, reworking, and adjusting for flow, but for me, pretending it’s one and done has been very helpful. I do a bit more editing between brain and fingers than I should for real speed but that helps me reach a “readable” level of quality I feel excited to revisit later in revisions.
Enthusiasm. Arguably the hard part for me, because of discipline issues. I find it easy to find the joy in any given scene, no matter how small, once I start typing. It’s just too easy to skip a whole scene with a placeholder for later, and then end up having nothing but those left to write! Or I’ll get lost in eking out a few hundred words polishing a scene I might not keep. Or veer off my scene structure entirely, and write a candy bar scene I haven’t yet written the proper context for, so it will be flabby, vague, and maybe even need to be discarded later. The other pillars have pitfalls but they seem so much more obvious. I just try to write as in order as much as possible, even if that’s just an empty file with a big commented out summary.

Oh, and if I feel sluggish or lost (not enough “prep”), I write a long comment at the top of each file, kind of how I’d describe the contents of this file that I’m about to write if I were just telling someone about it. It’s just for me so I’m very casual with it, but I’m never rude to myself. It also works as a good bridge if I absolutely need to skip ahead. Comments don’t count in Obsidian against my word totals, either.

So, anyway, those are my notes. Oh, and also, I try to remember it’s a process to refine and reflect on, not a done deal. I am always iterating, always cutting stuff that isn’t working for me, or trying new things in small doses.

Obsidian Workflow for Writing

2024-12-23T00:00:00+00:00

I’ve been writing on my iPad for several months, using a cheap bluetooth keyboard (Arteck, $15). I use the folding case that sticks out in front as a sort of lap table, and write wherever I am, or in the car. I work out of an Obsidian vault I store locally on my iPad.

I have a low profile mechanical keyboard (a havok reddragon) I love, works great, but it’s easier on my wrists to keep my hands flatter. And I like being able to wrap my thumb under the keyboard while just using my fingers to type in a travesty of ergonomics.

Plugins: Writing Goals (makes a good graphic that is unbeatable for motivation), Novel Word Count (words/pages per file at a glance in the explorer), and Longform (for aggregating later, don’t mess with it until you need it). The Shimmer theme; it’s just perfect for the smaller screen. Adjust the settings for each, and turn on templates and workspaces if you don’t have them on already.

Optional: the CSS Editor plugin, for adjusting line spread on custom fonts and making my active focused pane bigger.

.mod-root .mod-active {
  min-width: min(50%, 48rem);
}

Setup (Vault): Four folders. Design (anything I’m noodling on, brainstorming new projects), Reference (static stuff), Staging (for projects I’m preparing to write but haven’t decided to write), and Writing. In Reference I have folders for templates, pdfs, and code bits for longform.

Setup (Project): In Staging or in Writing, I make a top level project folder with a random-ish project name, then subfolders for notes, abbreviated title rough draft (giving it a unique name makes it easier to find in the writing goals pane), and structure to hold the scene level structure document. I used to do a wiki folder for reference things like locations, characters, and timelines, but those can just as easily go into notes or structure, depending on how formal it is. And I don’t really do a lot of that anyway.

I do three split panes; left is my scene level structure document with all the scenes listed, the middle is writing, the right is my motifs/return to list (things I want to come back to later). I use a css snippet plugin to make it so the “active” pane is larger than the other two. I test so a line of text in the middle panel is about 60 to 80 characters, just so I can kind of eyeball how long my paragraphs will be “in print” (it’s basically a guess but it comforts me).

Once you have your panes set up, especially if you plan on working on several projects concurrently, save your workspace; I use the title of my project. It’s annoying to accidentally close a pane and have to set it all back up again.

I name each writing file sequentially, with the scene/event, like “01 locked in the hold” or “15 16 a tryst”. I refer to this in my side documents. If I miss a scene or need to add on I just slip it in, as 05-1 or 05-2. I don’t renumber everything unless I’m reorganizing several scenes and it’s easy to. As long as they stay ordered in the explorer I’m fine with it.

I insert a properties template up top with a handful of properties (back_phase, fore_phase, status, type, pov, who, when, location) that I never bother to fill in, though you certainly could, and then you could use a dataview to get juicy lists of “all scenes from a specific POV” or “all scenes at a particular location” or whatever. I just put my word-goal in there.

I try to keep each file no more than 20 pages long, with one or two scenes per file, depending on my expected word count for the current phase. I establish those intended page counts when I’m making my structure and outline, and set the word-goal property to that. I use 3000 (ten pages) as my default, if I just can’t decide.

I use formal comments (%%) to block off stuff that’s just “to me”, usually up at the top, where I’m often doing a quick outline of what I expect to write in this chapter along with what I need to remember to communicate in it, or when I identify a gap while writing or re-reading, say, where a character should really expand more on a subject or a sex scene is missing a beat.

I use a placeholder format like “(( vague thing ))” for minor blanks, like “(( identifiable clothing item))” and “ Sir (( identifiable clothing item ))” or similar. I keep it loose for when I’ll use one notation over the other, but I’ve found it’s depressing to find on a re-read I have 500 words inside an “(( and then– ))”. Comments don’t count towards goals so they don’t deliver annoying shocks like that.

A minor custom addition to longform strips comments and aggregates the files into one document, separated by headers. I can then re-separate it into formal intended chapters with a manual clean-up pass, towards the final format.

I was using more folders, and setting up canvases with connected nodes, and making individual files for each phase I could link back to or embed for each writing file, but it was all just too much work and maintenance when a side file can convey the same information without all that bookkeeping, and I can also edit that side file as the story changes, so it always reflects what’s happened on the page and where I think things are going.

Backups: I use Filebrowser Pro to compress my vault and back the zip up to iCloud. I also mirror the vault to my google drive, in a “projects-writing-ios” folder. This is a one-way sync, primarily for storage, not for working out of elsewhere, so I don’t worry about if I have renamed or extra files. This gives me versioning, and spares me the annoyance, because my working files are local, of having iCloud randomly off-load part of my vault to save space.

The drawback is that I need to tap to start it manually or rely on shortcuts and automation. I tried it, but I didn’t really need it uploading that often, and setting it to five minute intervals only when I was actually using Obsidian was really hard to accomplish with the ios tools. So every hour since the last time (FB’s max) plus “when I remember” is fine.

Conclusion: This is a lot of words for a very simple process that can be set up very quickly. Once you have the main vault set up, making a new project is as simple as going into Files and making a project folder and three subfolders. And then write!

Nov Novel Month Recap

2024-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

I wasn’t going to do a November novel writing challenge after NaNoWriMo imploded, but after joining the lovely Tavern At the Edge of the World writing discord and finding the Tasto challenge, I just had to participate, even though I had two projects going already.

I spent October writing on those existing projects, and preparing for my Nov project. My prep was more extensive than the first two projects, with some fun community character and world building questions. I also discovered a love of sprints!

I decided to go for both low-hanging fruit and a challenge; I picked my example characters from Alpha & Omega, a ttrpg I wrote but haven’t yet released, and decided to tell their story. It was easier, because I knew the gist of the story (it still surprised me) and the characters (I thought), but harder, because I really wanted to do their story, and their world, justice.

My goal was 1k a day, to get to 30k (and “the end”) by the month’s end; stretch goals were 50k, and then the impossible 70k.

My outline for my Nov-novel was solid and hefty (for me), almost 2500 words; I created a new narrative structure for it, built on the concept of ebb and flow, and then filled it in with scenes. I also put truths to reveal under each scene, so I could keep track of what had been explored, and when.

Status Quo. 1% done; 1% or 3 pages. The hero, as they usually are, doing (or trying to do) what they usually do. Establish the frame of the usual, the normal, and carry it forward.

1 Felix erupts from the Boss’s office, hitting Jamie with the door. Spider’s fast enough to avoid it. He makes a bad impression as a snarling arcology brat. She makes a bad impression as a resentful Vanner. They’re partners now.

show the class difference, the education difference

show that Felix is a second generation Agent, and Jamie isn’t an agent at all

show Spider won’t throw their upbringing into the mix

show the sun is gone, it’s a solar array now

And, of course, I established a premise question, one I could turn to whenever I wasn’t sure what would happen next, or how someone would act.

So far my premise question is definitely “how are they more powerful than they seem and how do they hide that?” Also “how do they feel unworthy, and of what, and how do they act because of it?”

I kept a side document, by scene, where I wrote down potential issues with that scene, things I needed to establish earlier or that would need to be changed retroactively (“pre”), and follow-up scenes/notes to hit (“post”).

And then I just wrote; two big pushes right at the beginning for a 10k weekend put me on a really solid start. The outline stayed pretty consistent, though I had a couple of scenes that weren’t actually scenes, just vibes or a thing happening. And I identified a couple of places I would need to beef up a subplot (the kids next door became much more important than they had been, but they were just a faceless group) and introduce one (a character who could anchor the idea of the world being worth saving).

I took the time, frequently, to do a commented-out “what’s going to happen in this scene” chunk up front, and that helped a lot when I wasn’t sure what a scene would cover. I ended up rewriting from third to first person pov after a chapter or so. I also rewrote a couple of scenes from a different POV.

It pulls too many punches; there’s not always enough conflict, and what conflict there is resolves too quickly. It simmers and then it explodes, but I am uncertain if the heat is high enough. Part of the problem is it feels like it could be a three book trilogy detailing the redemption of a world, but it could also be an open-ended series focusing on the main characters fighting the problems of their society. And I don’t think I did enough to take it solidly in either direction; it will be better when I decide.

I was also surprised at how the characters developed in play; one was well-developed from his appearance in the ttrpg, but the other was nothing more than a name, a culture, and an iffy superpower. I generated her a backstory using what I call my “Heirs” process (after yet another unfinished ttrpg) using my Misery oracle (I’ll try to remember to do a post on how I do this eventually). I let her speak to me as I wrote her, and her culture blossomed from being defined by a purpose to a group of infuriating and amazing characters I can’t wait to write more about when the holidays are over.

I was nervous, starting out, that plotting too much was going to stifle me, but it turned out to be the opposite; I felt supported enough that I could really work confidently. I think that’s a subjective point, but I also think it’s well-worth looking for, for yourself.

Anyway, here’s my related bluesky posts:

11-04-2024

13000+ words on my not nano, over the last three days. Unsustainable pace, so I’ve gone back to a thousand goal per wip (I have two I’m writing forward and one I’m revising for pov). The extra prep on this has made it pretty easy to flow forward. #writingcommunity

11-09-2024

Just hit 30K in my Nov project; my month goal. That brings me to 500 pages written since Sept. 8th, split across three projects. Some of those days were unsustainable; I can do 3k if I push, but 5k was no longer fun. And three wips is too many at once. But pretty proud right now. #writingcommunity

11-10-2024 6:35

Just finished the final two scenes in my Nov novel, logging another 3.5k words and putting me at just under 35k total. Plenty of notes to incorporate. Also a supporting subplot to flesh out, and a second subplot for contrast that needs to be fitted in. Not a bad day’s work. #writingcommunity

11-10-2024 6:54

I just realized this means I have to incorporate all my notes, and write two supporting subplots. Uuuuuuuuuuuugh. I sure hope I feel motivated tomorrow, or I might just spend the whole day touching up the sex scenes (I wrote those already, haha).

11-11-2024 10:32

Rough draft. 1k per wip per day goal, for 70k in 70, but no more than 90 days. “First page to last page” numbers (90 days in para):

WIP1: 09/08 - 10/28, 52k (11/17)

WIP2: 10/03 - 11/11, 55k (12/12)

WIP3: 11/01 - 11/10, 34k (12/01)

Pushing unsustainable/unfun, but worth trying. #writingcommunity

11-11-2024

I wrote 1000 words, did laundry, and messed around with my tool chain. Going to conquer nixos and write more. #writingcommunity

11-15-2024 5:15 pm

I had like, a stupid amount of caffeine today. I probably need actual food but I actually already ate once today. Probably. I might stay up all night writing and I’m sure I won’t regret it in the morning! #writingcommunity

11-20-2024 4:50 pm

Hit 50k on my Nov novel. I had a strong outline, confidence I knew the characters well enough to carry the plot, and daily discipline. Next time? A stronger outline (“scene 16: tbd” past-me? Really?), also embracing that I won’t actually know them until halfway, but it’ll be fine. #writingcommunity

11-20-2024 5:15 pm

That existential crisis in the face of work being completed hit awfully fast. What do I do now? Three wips at between 50 and 60k, all three done open-to-the-end. This is going to be fun, if I can motivate to do it with the numbers going up more slowly. #writingcommunityt

11-26-2024

Still chugging along, despite some of those pesky life hurdles popping up. 50 words just getting started today, but that’s 58,233 in my Nov novel project. I’ve been working in the other two WIPs but tabled them through our big move tomorrow & the holiday. Be gentle with yourself! #writingcommunity

11-30-2024

Well. Today is a rest day! Hit my 70k third Nov goal last night. And it’s actually pretty tight already. A few small placeholder bridges and some lore redundancies or omissions, a few places I want to describe stuff more. Reread time! #writingcommunity

Life Happens

2024-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

2023 was the year of journaling games; I created Silent, Heard, and an unreleased version I don’t know will ever get finished. I am proud of them all.

2024 was a year of lying fallow, of mourning changes, and grieving losses. I finished Remix, a bittersweet final word on a chapter of my creative life I had hoped, though I knew it was impossible, would never be closed. I have no more play-by-posts active.

On September 1st, 2024, for no real reason, I began writing a novel. It took a couple of days to write up some notes, to lay out a skeletal structure and briefly plot it out. I set a goal; 70k words in 90 days, with a aim to hit it at 70 days instead.

Before I knew it, I had a second, whimsical WIP going concurrently, same preparation, same general structure, but more meat to it. And then a third, because it was November! I have to do a 30 day project! That was built on a custom narrative structure I wrote up during prep, before the month started.

December 1st, I took a break. Just kidding, I used the first week to write a new custom narrative structure built on emotional intensity inspired by kishotenketsu, and incorporating the narrative beats of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty. I plotted a new story using it.

On the 7th I applied it to a shelved project that was originally structured with Save the Cat (which is fine, I guess). I was hoping to pour out some self-indulgent prose to soothe my holiday stress, with little expectation and zero discipline; I just let the story carry me. 50k+ words later, it’s today.

Stats since September 1st. Over 1000 pages of prep, notes, prose, and narrative structures. 840 of those are prose pages. 3 novels complete from an “opening” to a “the end”. A fourth novel that’s three or four chapters from it. A few pages of ttrpg design.

I don’t know how sustainable this is, and I expect “not at all”; I intended to do no more than two at a time, using the 70k in 70 days model, but wasn’t disciplined enough to do it.

Other random stuff:

I removed the artbreeder placeholder images (from like 2021?); it wasn’t generative llm content (it used an older model) but time has proven I don’t want any of that stuff near my creative works, even if it was neat before we understood the harm of it.
I probably won’t blog regularly but who knows, I also didn’t think I could write 1000 words a day of prose.
I am still doing game design, just more slowly; a lot of the heart went out of me when my group ended. I still have a handful of projects I want to see through.
I’m on Bluesky now, using this website’s domain, feel free to say hi!

emotional factors in ttrpg selection

2023-04-07T17:47:35+00:00

Note, I haven’t been blogging, but my itch page is frequently updated, if you want to see what I’m up to lately.

Emotional factors in ttrpg selection

This is not an essay on emotions in ttrpgs! A topic near and dear my heart, of course, but one I tend to cover obliquely in my works instead of blog posts. Instead, it’s a discussion of why we might pick one ttrpg over another, in a broad sense.

Recently I read a fascinating article from 2003 on Emotional Design about our emotional attachment to things, and I’ve been obsessed with translating it into a ttrpg context. And into an actual ttrpg ruleset, because that’s how I roll; the result (a generic journaling game!?!) will be up on my itch.io eventually. Anyway, the study (paraphased through my brain) discusses how there are three main ways we like a thing, ways that are weighted differently based on the thing’s perceived purpose.

Visceral. It’s aesthetic; it looks good. It has the “wow!” factor. It’s that gut feeling, usually visual, that makes someone pick this book up and buy it, even if it’s not what they were looking for, even if it costs a bit more, even if it has obvious typos or clunky prose. It doesn’t say anything about the work’s fitness as a game, or worksmanship of the other aspects (beyond that someone cared enough to invest time and resources) but it satisfies the very real desire to experience aesthetics.
Functional. It works. It’s designed to a purpose and fit for it. It meets your needs, whether that’s to facilitate play, to support an experience, or to inspire creativity. This is hard to draw lines over, as, in ttrpgs, function is so subjective. That also makes it hard to place a personal value on a work, as first one must define the intended purpose and then determine if it meets it, and the success of the traditional purposes of ttrpgs depend on so many factors (and people) outside the book you’re holding. For me, this causes my assessment of function to skew towards the first and third categories, because those are more easily quantifiable.
Prestige, or what the study calls “reflective”, which is apt, but like “emotional design” is really hard to call out from the obvious meaning inherent in the term. In the study, this is considering what other people will think about you if you choose this, and being influenced by that. It’s keeping up with the Joneses. It’s buying the brand name because it’s the best because it’s the brand name. This isn’t an uncommon motive in ttrpg hobby circles, with shelfies and FOMO kickstarters the norm. One admirable expression of it I’d even argue is core to the hobby, enough that I’d call it a purpose, too: buying a book you know you likely won’t run, and reading it while enjoying imagining how your group would enjoy it, and think more highly of you as a GM for running it for them.

I believe that each of these motivations has equal validity, in context of the umbrella of ttrpgs, and of personal agenda for play; they may not all carry the same weight with you (they certainly don’t with me) but that doesn’t make someone with a different motive wrong. In a real sense, checking these three motives each time we purchase allows us to winnow out the products that won’t meet our needs, to reduce the incoming tide of options down to a manageable few that speak to us viscerally, functionally, and socially.

I also think that we could all stand to be a bit more introspective when choosing a work to support with our dollars, to consider why this piece and not that piece, and to consider what message we’re sending to creators about what will attract dollars and attention when we do.

TTRPG Points and Pauses

2023-04-06T17:47:35+00:00

Note, I haven’t been blogging, but my itch page is frequently updated, if you want to see what I’m up to lately.

A model of ttrpg points & pauses

This is just a short warm up post, recapping a theory I’ve been exploring for a while, that a tabletop system’s feel is largely predicated on the points where it asks you to transition between mechanics and fiction, and the pauses to assess the fiction that are baked into that cycle, most notably when and for how long.

Note this is a very general cycle, presented to provoke thought, not to serve as rules or insistent structure. And every bit of “too much” or “too little” below is expressly “for my tastes” and presented so you can compare to your own experiences; your tastes will very likely be different. I also doubt it’s anything new, but I hope it gives insights into why a game might feel good to you in play, or why you might bounce off one.

In short, it’s that a conflict point leads to a pause for mechanics (and thought ), which leads to a translation point and pause for twists, then flows through to the next conflict point.

Conflict point. First, there’s the point where we all know we need to roll dice, usually a point of strong tension and uncertainty, a conflict. If this point isn’t strong enough, isn’t obvious enough, we may look at each other, uncertain for the wrong reasons. We may tentatively roll dice when we don’t have to, when there’s not enough context established to carry that resolution through the rest of the process, or the dice’s fiat contravenes our nascent, as yet unformed thoughts on what must happen next, from a dramatic perspective. Thus the tendency, as a designer, to lean on an established obvious roll point – D&D’s – and the strange wonder of games that don’t, like Swords Without Master.

Mechanics pause. The point of agreement it’s time for mechanics is followed by a pause to collect dice, tote up pools, add or subtract modifiers, whatever is required to get the resolution. This pause is a vital part of running a game; it allows you to reflect, to feel the tension of the conflict, and to consider your outcomes, however briefly, and keep them in your mind, even if they never come to pass. Often when a game feels like it just doesn’t flow, like I’m at a loss as to what should happen next, it’s because this pause is being skipped, either by design or by my own eagerness to get to the dice roll. The opposite, too much time spent paused here, can feel like “too much bookkeeping”, too much fiddling with dice, too mechanical.

Translation point (and Twists pause). Next is the ease in which the outcome of the roll is translated into the fictional outcome, as we rejoin the fiction; some folks prefer to have their “thinking pause” here, once they know what the dice dictate. It’s not a point I like to pause to come up with options, but it is a place to refine the options I thought up during the first pause, the point at which brilliant, cruel, and delightful twists will occur most often. “Oh, that means she is infatuated with his brother!” on a complicated success, when I had already dimly pictured a full success as a romantic confession, and a miss as a betrayal. For me, having the ability to introduce those twists here is vital to surprising myself, as I’ve used the earlier pause to lightly sketch out what must happen.

Flow-through. And finally, there’s how long the outcome carries us until we return to the point we need to roll dice again, how long the fictional tail of the last conflict and resolution is. If it’s too long, I find my play becomes unanchored, especially solo, and it’s too easy for me to elide things I care less about, and weaken my connection to those aspects I enjoy (God-mode doesn’t make for good stories). If it’s too short, it feels overly mechanical and disjointed if the rolls are producing too many twists and turns, or too much fictional grist.

When you consider your favorite games, and especially at what point they ask you to pause to collect outcomes in your mind (however amorphous and unformed) you may be surprised at the similarities between games that seem very different. This also points to why one system feels better in solo than another; it meshes with your own sense of when to roll dice, when to pause and evaluate, when to twist, and when to continue, and supports you along the way.

Thoughts on Accessibility

2021-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

Problem: it’s really hard to make accessible pdfs.

A couple of caveats; I don’t use accessibility tools at either end of the process, so I’m no expert, and I am fully aware most of us are on a hobby or at best shoestring budget, for time, energy, and money. Let’s repeat that; I’m no expert. and it is entirely possible I am missing the forest for the trees (or the trees for the forest), making a mountain out of a molehill, or charging full force into an immovable wall while everyone else is using the open door (it’s a gift). So please read this in light of someone who would like to improve the accessibility of her own works, and is kind of dismayed by how difficult it seems to be even to test, let alone implement.

Current options

Epub. (info) This is essentially a zip file of your work, in html format, complete with font files and such. The benefits are high; almost every platform has something that can read it, and worst case you unzip it. To make one, you don’t need much; a very little tech savvy and either Calibre (GUI) or Pandoc (commandline). Drawbacks? Tables and technical stuff require hand-tweaking; you’re creating a second document. And since there’s no “wow” factor, you’re not earning eyeballs with it, so if “wow” matters to you, epub can’t be a primary format, and maintaining multiple versions is a pain (I know it seems trivial but it adds up, especially if you’re prolific). Additionally, font licensing (ambiguous and messy as it is) often prohibits packaging a font with epubs in particular, or charges exorbitant per book fees (you can get around this with OFL or creative commons licensing).

Accessibility tags. (info) Required by the US government as a box to check for compliance, it applies a structure to the pdf document (they really haven’t one otherwise, even if it looks like it). The sole method I could find for doing so (except business-facing online converter type sites) is through Acrobat Adobe, for (at this time) $14 a month; this is also the only way of verifying your tags visually. The freely available but not open source option is Pave but it is for personal use only, and accepts only very small pdfs.

The current situation

It kind of sucks, to be honest. Epub is probably the easiest, safest bet, but if you want to add accessibility tags, I couldn’t find a way to do it without an expensive subscription, and epub is less than optimal for both versioning reasons and for the necessity to hand-tweak tables and structure (anyone else put important info under tables sometimes, or in a strange sidebar?).

What I envision, and sadly lack the skills to implement, is a desktop program, written in Java, and built on iText, an agpl-licensed pdf manipulation program, that can be run anywhere, like bookbinder. This program would function similar to Pave; you would open your pdf, it would automatically generate a suggested set of tags, and then you could manipulate, add, or remove those tags. The exported pdf would be compliant with standards, ready to go.

I’m asking anyone who read the above, has java experience, and thinks it’s a neat idea, to take a stab at it! We know it’s possible (Pave and bookbinder exist). Can we make a FOSS program that’ll improve accessibility for everyone?

Simple Die-drop Dungeon

2021-10-14T00:00:00+00:00

It’s possible the world doesn’t need another of these procedures, but I had fun devising it. I am absolutely sure this is “standing on the shoulders of giants” territory, with my own spins. Of particular note are Bastionland’s three step dungeon, Last Gasp Grimoire’s die drop generator.

in pdf form, with the tables referred to below

Edit: the theme table’s last entry should be “150” and it’s intended to be read as less than or equal to the number. Please feel free to roll a d6 instead; I’ll fix it if I can find the source file. Yes, I would lose my head if it weren’t attached.

The Process

1) Drop 7 poly dice on a piece of paper. Toss any that fall off back on.

2) Draw circles around each; nudges and bumps now are part of the plan, so don’t sweat them. Think of them as an additional randomizer.

3) Add up the total, and get your area theme (see note above). Everything else is predicated on these themes; think in terms of it. Take a moment to roll on the sparks tables and see if anything starts to gel. Choose any one of the basic d4 options, and rewrite it to better reflect your current area’s theme, and any context you already have, like this is a bandit fortress, or there are ghosts around; repeat this up to four times. Don’t worry about eliminating options; you can add those in yourself later.

Mine’s a 64, total, so “Wrath” is my area theme. I roll 3-5 and 3-3 for my sparks, so “haunted” and “hedonism”. I don’t have a lot of context, beyond that somewhere in this dungeon is the lost crown the PCs are seeking (probably). My world has a lot of techno-magic and a lot of angry ghosts, and a lot of layers (literally). I’ll keep those in mind as I design. I’m also going to replace 2 and 4 with “signs of a ghost” and “dug up technology”.

4) For each, draw short marker lines from any visible points. Don’t sweat this; prioritize weird points (like the ones under the numbers on d10s) and then ones off the top facing’s shape. Then note the number and die size, any other visible numbers (numbers you can see from where you’re sitting on that die, write them smaller), which direction is it readable: as normal/upright (r), sideways (s), or inverted/upside down (i). Draw an arrow in this direction.

5) Connect halls; do logical joins (where one line just touches another or a node) first, then look for intersects on the short markers (don’t sweat this). Try for a rich number of joins, not a ridiculous number. Choose a starting room, but be open to changing it later.

My starting room here, I think, is the d20. I could use one more connection, I think, from the d00 to the d20, so I draw it in.

6) Roll two concepts and two dangers, and place them in pairs in tentative nodes, if you can, or just list them for now. Choose one node and combine both concepts, with a twist, there.

I get 4-2, and 2-1, for “poison, draining” and “fast, but no armor, fire”. My twist is “temporary”. I’ll keep an eye out for where these “go”.

1) Start with the d4. The top number is the room’s contents, as below. If the lower left number is odd, add an encounter, puzzle, or trap to all odd numbered nodes, otherwise, add them to even numbered nodes (treat the d00 as 1-10). The number to the lower right tells you the average threat of the area (1 is negligble, 2 is on par with the PCs, 3 is a good challenge, and 4 is overwhelming).

My d4’s minor left is a 2, minor right is a 1, so this area will feature minor foes.

Move to your starting room. Consider each node’s number; if it’s more than half the possible total, something here is animate (otherwise, you decide). If it’s max or minimum, there’s something of value present, too. Then read the number on the corresponding table, using the die size’s title as a guide to interpret the result. For example, on a d12, “library, lab”, a 3 is water, perhaps ruining books, or maybe magical potions. On a d00, “prison, trap”, a 2 (a way out) could be a secret exit from a cell, or an already sprung trap. Read any extra visible numbers in the same way, or swap them out for sensory impressions (seperate digits, ie, 19 is 1 and 9).

Play the node’s results straight or reversed/subverted, depending on the die orientation. For “sideways”, either make this node more extreme, or link it to another area. If any of your orientation arrows point directly along a join, trap, block, or otherwise make that hall more extreme. Finally, if you see any places you’ve got an arrow pointing towards or aligned with an unconnected join, consider if a secret room could go there.

Putting it all together

Looking at my map, the d20 room is a 10, right at half, so I decide nothing’s alive in here, and it’s even, so something special – maybe a puzzle. It’s not max or minimum value, so nothing of value. A 10 on the d20 chart is “animal; farm, trap, lair”. Given the context, I decide a cave bear has made a lair here, but it’s not present. My orientation is sideways, pointing directly down a hall, so I’ll intensify this room (there’s two bears) and describe claw marks at head height along the walls of that corridor.

The d00 room is a 30 (treated as a 3 except when totalling up for theme), sideways again, with a small 50 (5). This die size means this is a prison of some sort, and less than half means again, my pick if anything’s alive; a 30, or 3, is “water”, and a 50, or 5, is an iron cage. I decide I’d like to have one of the bears caught here, in an iron-jawed trap, weak from the draining poison in the water that runs northwest, to the d10 room (foreshadowing more water over there).

The d10 room, storage or utility, is a 4, with a small 10 and 6, nothing alive, and also upright, so no surprises here. 4 is remapped to dug up technology, 10 is expensive gear, and 6 is raw materials. The slurry of poisonous, draining water is washing around a glowing device, cracked open, a sword forged from the innards resting skewered through it, and enough materials to make another. The d4 says there’s an encounter here, and I need a fast but no armor enemy (who is fiery) so I decide there’s a radioactive serpent in the water.

The d6 room is a 1, minimum value, so something of value here, with a minor 3, and sideways, so I’ll foreshadow something. A 1 is “empty” and a 3 is water. I need a little more context so I roll a spark; 2-4, fungi. There’s luminescent moss here, moss that neutralizes the poison in the water and allows someone to wield the sword.

The d4 room is a 3. The minor 2 and 1 have already been handled, as part of setup, and while I could use them anyway, it’s been a while since we had an empty room. So this is a water room too, with nothing much else of note, except two paths to choose from.

Moving northwest, to the d8 room, and 8, with a minor 3, and sideways. This is a max value room, so something of value, and even, so an encounter. The minor 3 means more water. I decide to move the dead cave bear here, animated grossly by radioactive magic. Like the serpent, it is also radioactive/poisonous, but it is not fast or unarmored. Its bones will continue radiating magic for some time, proving temporary (but valuable) benefits.

The final room is the d12, library/lab, connected to the d4 and d20. It is 8, stacked canvases, with a minor 5, 4, and 10, for collected books, old tech, and a single grimoire. I decide to replace the 8 with a sensory detail; I compare it to the sensory chart, for “scent” and then describe the smell of mildew as most of the books have rotted into a soggy mass, leaving just the grimoire resting atop a spidery cage of ancient tech that keeps it floating.

Fine tuning & final thoughts

You can weight the types of rooms by adding more dice and removing ones that don’t fit your context. For example, for a hardscrabble military outpost, you might remove the library dice, or add more d6s for more sleeping areas, or in a mine, more d20s for more “purpose of the place” focused spaces. You could also choose to replace one of the room types; just make your own table! Don’t be afraid to add in logical elements, either; if you need stairs down (or up) or a hole in the ground, declare it. You can also use the provided oracle (based on Abominable Fancy’s How’s It Going die/WoDu’s Die of Fate) to answer yes/no questions like “are there stairs here”.

After running the dungeon above, adjusted a bit for my context, I’d also suggest leaning on other resources for traps and puzzles; the seed/spark lists are useful there, but more work to generate than a drop-in table would be.

A General Overview of Soloing

2021-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

Soloing is playing a ttrpg by yourself, whether that’s using an emulator to play 5e or playing a full game like Ironsworn or Thousand-year Old Vampire. It is not a particularly social activity, more akin to writing or daydreaming, or to play-by-post, than to a four person table live. Tempering your expectations there is vital; knowing what your desired end state looks like is crucial.

Generally, you need three things; a system you want to play, like 5e, an oracle that handles framing questions (“is there a chandelier here?”), and a framework that keeps the story progressing towards a conclusion. Soloing tools generally provide the oracle, occasionally cover the framework, and sometimes also offer a system (see below for some options). Choosing a soloing tool is actually very easy, because if one doesn’t work for you, you can always try again more or less instantly.

Generally I suggest to folks that they start with Mythic GME (playable as all in one, or oracle + framework, plus extensive additional material) and a system they know well, or with Scarlet Heroes (all in one, but the various tools can be used easily with other systems), and branch out from there.

So, how do I solo?

First, my goal is always to finish up with a log I can re-read and enjoy as a story, later, even if it’s got a lot of plot bridges (points where in a story I’d have written it out but in soloing I let assumptions, mechanics, and fiat bridge to the next interesting part). I tend to prefer less planning, or rather, just as much planning as I find necessary to get started and keep going. I also tend to prefer a smooth, forward-flowing experience over one with a lot of stops to look through rules or assess mechanical inputs and outputs. My Six Hours to Midnight play is pretty much my platonic ideal of a soloing experience. This is vital to know, as if you want a different experience, it might not suit you!

Lately I’ve been into full systems, usually ones I’ve written myself like Bone and Black, or the immensely narrative game I’m working on right now, IF. My “perfect” system is probably World of Dungeons, using PET or the newer models in Scherzo to handle both my PCs (a pair of them) and NPCs. But of course I’m already working on an even newer PC-NPC modeler in IF – which pretty much tells you where my soloing tastes lie; in constant design and iteration.

For technical means, I wrote Pythia Oracle to solo with, but since it’s always open for my group play-by-post, lately I’ve been playing right in vscode, with split panels for character sheets, and a terminal at the bottom for rolling dice and using bone.py, the companion to Bone & Black (that I swear I’ll upload somewhere eventually). This setup is perfect for something like Thousand Year Old Vampire, too, since you can keep everything visible.

Some Soloing Resources

General Resources

Learn more here.

Video & Blog APs:

Remember, there’s no wrong way to play solo!

Tools & Systems:

A few options to get you started.

Mythic GME Discord

A discord for the Mythic GM Emulator and all things soloing.

https://discord.gg/DMpbuNF

ZineQuest 2021 Post-mortem

2021-08-06T00:00:00+00:00

Last February, I participated in ZineQuest, kickstarting a small project I’ve been working on ever since. Where Mystery Dwells, a solo and duet troupe-based game, forged in the dark and with a central cycle inspired by The Skeletons. It’s a riff on my own Threat, one of my earlier OMGAM games, and one I very much enjoyed soloing.

After many months of work, the pdf has been released to backers (a couple of months ago), and the last of the physical copies is in the mail (as of yesterday). The itch.io page is live, with community copies available as of this writing! Retail print options are in the works/waiting on proofs to arrive. All promises have been met, and what little remains is in the hands of the USPS from here.

It was a good process, one I’m glad I partook in, and I learned a lot.

I tripped myself up. Taking an idea from fun idea through funded idea, and then to a written, playable, and polished game, requires a lot of hats. Literally no one was clamoring for me to finish, or demanding I make it perfect, or insisting that I produce like a AAA company in the whimsical one-person Zinequest scope. I did it to myself. Pandemic, lockdown, anxiety, etc. did not help here, but my biggest enemy was myself, by far. I fully own this, and it’s one of the biggest, most humbling lessons I learned here.

On the positive side, I was kept busy (my kids appreciate this, especially the occasional need for takeout when I lost track of time), and I learned a ton about all the areas of making a book as a one-person operation, to the point I feel a whole lot more confident going forward. And I treasure bookmaking as a skill and a hobby, one I had no idea I would love so much!

I wasn’t business-minded enough. I felt constrained by ZQ “norms”, didn’t respect my own boundaries, and discovered too late (because I failed to do due diligence and I put all my eggs in one basket) that virtually every printing option except one (again, the ZQ norm) would cost at least or, in some cases, more than, the total I asked for per unit. I also committed the classic mistake of not paying myself, telling myself that I’d probably pay me later, when it was done, when I was committing to do the work upfront. I wouldn’t dream of asking someone else to do that, but I signed myself up for easily upwards of $1000 worth of services (not even product or art, services like writing, layout, and proofing).

Ultimately, I am immensely proud of myself, and what I’ve accomplished here, with the backing of a lot of good folks who were patient, forgiving, and kind. I am satisfied that I’ve produced a solid and quirky solo & duet game, that also happens to be a beautiful piece of ephemera, and delivered on my kickstarter campaign’s promises in full. That I’ve gained skills and possibly a a milestone level or two in the printer class. And that I have learned a lot about myself and what I’m capable of.

Here’s to delivering on promises, and here’s to where the journey takes us next!