This past week, I spent a lot of my spare time working to clean up my campaign OneNote. I started with the character section and plugged away until I had all of my non-player characters compiled into a relatively consistent format that at least lends the appearance of organization. Then, to celebrate, I made this nifty video where I show you exactly how I keep my characters organized! Hopefully this video will help spark some ideas in my fellow gamemasters for ways to better keep track of your cast of characters without getting totally bogged down in pages of crunch and/or description.
This is the second GM video I have made, and I have hit a couple stumbling blocks that make this particular type of video a bit frustrating to produce. First, my webcam software really does not like to play well with Adobe Premiere, which is my editor of choice. This means that I have to compile and edit any video that shows my face using the much more clunky Windows Movie Maker. Second, it took me several takes to pull this clip together without sounding like a complete stuttering buffoon, and even then I feel like I miss important points or spend to much time on boring stuff. Nevertheless, I want to be good at making videos, and I realize that the only way to get better is to practice!
Anyway, hopefully you enjoy the video, and if there is something else that you would like me to explain or demonstrate in a video format, let me know!
Now that the wedding craziness has passed, I find myself slowly shifting back into D&D mode. I am currently in what I suspect is a rather rare situation: having successfully completed one campaign and gearing up to start another with (mostly) the same characters in the same world.
I am trying to use this intermission time to get my game notes in order so I can approach the next chapter with a better system of organization. This is not to say that I am changing my current system, just that I have not had a chance to fully implement it. Well, now I'm implementin'! and holy carp is it tedious to do so!
I've been trying to break my tasks into manageable chunks. The first step being to get the character records in my OneNote into a consistent format. Even this is proving daunting as I would often pull in stock descriptions from the 3.5 SRD website to avoid having to pull out a monster manual in the middle of a game, but when I had some time on my hands or was creating an NPC from scratch, I would use my own custom mini-stat template. If I was making a group of allies or baddies, I would often just shorthand a single block and then indicate a couple key stats to tweak up or down when rolling for the group's leader or other unique characters. Well, now that I am faced with getting my DM house in order, I look at this mix of desperate time-saving measures and I want to scream.
I'm sure I could move forward just fine without cleaning up my mess, but knowing that its there really bugs me. I also know that once we get wrapped up in the next campaign that I will never get around to cleaning up this pile, so I need to do it now, or not at all.
While I'm busy on my own trying to get my notes organized, my players and I are also starting to plan out some intermission sessions. These will be less formal get togethers to discuss things like how to incorporate any character swaps, what improvements to make to the party's base of operations and to go shopping with all of their reward money from saving the world.
Have you ever had to get organized between games, or even other creative projects? How do you handle it? Is it worth it?
If you play tabletop
RPGs or any videogame that involves the collection of stuff with limited space
and/or weight capacity, you are no doubt familiar with inventory management.
That is the time, often when you have either reached your storage limit, or when
you have just reached a major accomplishment, when you go through your
inventory organizing all your stuff, keeping what you need and selling or
discarding what you don't.
Well, the Wife and I
have entered into a real life phase of inventory management post-wedding. Think
of the wedding as an end boss that we have just kicked the crap out of. We have
some gear that we picked up specifically to help defeat it, but did not use
(leftover booze, tableware, etc.) We also have received some phat lootz
(wedding presents) for defeating Wedding. Finally, we have all of the
disorganization caused in our lives as we rushed headlong into
battle marriage, which we neglected in the chaos,
but which now stare us in the face every time we get home from work. It's time
to get all this nonsense organized!
After our honeymoon
spent in rather austere surroundings, the Wife, and to a slightly lesser
extent, myself, got the bug to put things in order and trim the fat from our
lives. We are planning out ways to declutter our house, prioritizing those
things that are important to us (like games) while culling those that are no
longer useful (posters from college). Some of the culled items will go into
storage, others will get donated to Goodwill, some will go into the trash.
Hopefully we are
actually able to stick with this inventory management plan, as I know we both
feel more relaxed when we are in a relatively clean home. Unfortunately, if
videogames have taught me anything, an organized inventory only lasts so long
before you find yourself carrying around 275 pounds of brooms.
Howdy all, for this week's Make-it Monday, I thought I would give you all a sneak peek into my D&D campaign OneNote, and specifically, into how I have been reorganizing it according to Johnn Four's buckets of sanity method.
Don't mess with a guy's bukkits of sanity!
Oh, and to help it make sense, I made my first ever vlog! What!? You can see me and hear me talk! Also, yes, I know I pronounce it vee-log... trolololol!
Let me know if you like the video, and I will consider incorporating more stuff like this into my regular blog. I certainly wont use video for everything, but it's certainly handy when trying to demonstrate how something is made or done... like with movement and stuff.
[Update]
After uploading the video to YouTube, I experienced something I don't feel that often, complete and utter dread. I was fine when making the video. I got a little nervous while trying to edit it, but once it was posted, my brain started screaming at me, "WHAT IN THE NINE HELLS ARE YOU DOING, GEOFF!?" and it kept shouting that all night. I woke up around 3:30 this morning, and gave up trying to get back to sleep a little after 5.
It's seems weird that this project is having such an effect on me. I'm not normally this self conscious about putting my self out there. I've done a lot of stage acting in my life, heck, my undergraduate degree is in theater! I regularly go to karaoke. Heck, I've even been on television and radio for work... multiple times! Some of it live! For some reason, none of those things were as scary as this.
Perhaps, it's because this video was entirely my own idea. Perhaps it is because I am dipping my first toe into a creative medium (web video) that I have been admiring for the past several years, but only now got up the courage to ask out. Perhaps it is the rumors of trolls lurking in the untamed jungle of the internet that have me glancing over my shoulder, thinking, "I should go back."
I think it is all of the above, plus the mutterings of my own inner critic, who is grumpy that I am not a master of the medium right out of the gate. I am a n00b, when it comes to web videos. I utterly flail about when it comes to lighting, editing and structure. I need to acknowledge that, and be okay with it for now. This experience really deepens my respect for the people who willingly put themselves out there in this way.
[/Update]
So, like all good nerds everywhere, the Fiancee and I have been watching Game of Thrones. While we have both read the books, the couple that we watch with every week have not. I have to say that watching their reaction at the end of this week's episode was worth all the jackassery that George R.R. Martin has put me through thus far. Now finish the damn series, George!
During last night's episode: Game of Thrones viewers on the outside, someone who has read the books, center.
I'm running a character-building session for Spirit of the Century tonight. Keep an eye out for updates on that new and exciting campaign later this week!
This week's Make-it Monday project wasn't so much making something new as greatly reorganizing something my players have had for a while. The Fiancee and I spent the weekend down in Portland celebrating a friend's graduation from college. We both wound up completely exhausted, and I just didn't have the energy to finish my initial Make-it plan... so, I went with a less-rigorous plan-B.
Months, even years ago, I provided my players with a binder, called the Adventure Log, which they could use to take notes, store handouts, and generally track anything they did not want to forget about the game. It is the players' counterpart to the GM's notes. Well, the binder grew to include some handouts stuffed haphazardly inside, along with a quad-ruled tablet of hand-sketched maps, another legal pad tracking their loots and the stuff in their bag of holding, and various random scraps of paper crammed into the front and back pockets. Everytime you picked the thing up, something would fall out.
I decided it was long past time to tidy up the players' Adventure Log. So, I added labeled dividers with sections for the details on their base of operations, storing provided and self-drawn maps, handouts, and for tracking stuff in the bag of holding. I got rid of the separate notepads and slipped blank, loose-leaf paper into the binder to replace them. I even added a pouch at the front that holds cards with descriptions of the group's favorite buffs and persistent area-of-effect spells.
Jeremy Bates commented on my last post, suggesting that I change my habits in order to break out of the aforementioned creative funk. As I thought things through, I realized that a change was just the ticket I needed to get out of Funkytown (see what I did there?)
I realized that my malaise had spread to more than just my creative endeavors. I was also feeling unfocused at work. It didn't take me long to realize that the incredible amount of clutter that filled both my physical and digital life was creeping in to clutter my head. To remedy this, I turned to some videos on time management, Gmail power use, and Outlook organization from Lynda.com. Over the course of a couple days, I got both my work and personal email inboxes down from over 1000 emails each to just the one or two active conversations I had going on. I also did a major clean of my office workspace and set up a massive OneNote brain dump of all the to-dos I had rattling around in my head. All of this cleaning and organizing was aimed at one ultimate goal. Get my thoughts into an organized structure so my head could be clear for creative pursuits. So far, it seems to have helped.
Now to the point... minis! Over the past couple days, I used my newfound Zen to churn out a couple mini-painting projects!
I now give you, the three forms of Templeton the wererat
and Daethin Moonshadow, elven ranger
I'm pretty happy with how these turned out, especially since I have painted less than a dozen minis ever (including these) and that these were the first to include human flesh tones and un-obscured faces. Nevertheless, after feeling all good about my work, I made the mistake of looking back at the tutorial pages for the painting techniques I used and find myself feeling super inadequate once again. Ah well, my next step is to practice with some ultra thin paints in an effort to get smoother application and less caking. I fully intend to have this painting thing mastered by the time those 250+ Reaper Bones minis arrive next year.
