Jarric

If anyone is interested in creating an RPG campaign world during the next challenge cycle, or even just a bit of a creative challenge, check out the worldbuilding 5-week challenge here:

Are you planning on running an RPG campaign and need somewhere to start? Do you want to create a setting where your players will have loads of great stuff to ignore whilst they set up a cheese mongering empire? Do you want to create some really great content, before consigning it to the draw where all of your good TTRPG ideas are kept? Then this is the challenge for you! A few weeks ago, @DarK_RaideR introduced me to the Gygax 75 Challenge, a 5-week challenge for building just enough to start a TTRPG campaign. The idea is that you don't need to start with an entire world, just enough to get your players started and keep them entertained for a few sessions while you work out what's next. It looks really good, and since it's a 5-week challenge, we thought it would be the perfect thing to run in line with the forum challenges, and with plenty of people sharing their own worlds and encouraging each other. Over the 5 weeks of the challenge, you will: Create a general concept and a pitch for your campaign world Flesh out the general area your players will start in - your green hill zone Give your players a dungeon to explore Detail a nearby town or city Start thinking about the larger world This guy explains it a lot better than I do: So when are we doing this? In line with the next 5-week challenge - starting 12th/13th February and ending 18th/19th March What kind of world can I make? Anything you like! Feel free to stretch the prompts as far as you like too - a dungeon can be any location your players would want to explore, and your green hill zone could be a space station, a huge metropolis, a lush forest, or a subterranean labyrinth. Who can join? Anyone! The more the merrier! It's not a competition, I just hope people will show up and share their ideas. What do I need to do? Download the free Gygax 75 workbook here, Then just show up and start working through it when the next challenge starts.

Well done on this challenge dude! I know you say that tracking is a simple goal, but I certainly find that tracking food affects what I eat, even without any goal calories/macros. What gets measured gets managed, and all that.

Wednesday - week 5 day 3 Wednesday was a good day. Crossfit was mostly front squats and pistols squats, all good fun. After a few pistols (rolling up from a candlestick position) my knee started to feel a bit tight, so I didn't push it too hard. Work was busy, and I ended up staying late so failed my timing goal. In the evening I worked on a bit of a tech project. My work are going to be requiring us to work from company devices when working from home. Most people already do, but a few of us went home during lockdown to our nice desktop PC setups and have been using those ever since. The IT person at work lent me a laptop docking station to try, and after a chunk of re-wiring I was able to get all of my peripherals - two screens, keyboard, mouse, webcam, speakers, headset, webcam mic, headset mic, and printer - working for the laptop. All I have to do now is unplug one wire from the laptop and plug it in to the PC, and I have everything switched from one to another. There's a little bit of fine tuning needed, one of the screens flickers occasionally, the screens no longer show the BIOS on startup (time to get a tiny screen for that?), and I need to sort cables so I don't have to pull my PC out of my desk to switch things, but I'm really happy with how well everything works already. Something about having all of that stuff condensed into a single cable makes me very happy. I also found time to cook Peruvian-style chicken with a red pepper sauce, chickpea salad, and garlic butter rice. It was a recipe box meal, and it's going on the regular rotation because it was lush. 3/5 dailies (teeth, languages and calories, but not studying and left work late). 1/4 dailies - I did some foam rolling before bed. Thursday - week 5 day 4 Yesterday was a good day. I ran first thing - 4 miles (6.4km), including 6 x 110yd (100m) stride intervals. It felt pretty strong, but my hip's hurting now so I need to watch that. Work was a day full of meetings, and I didn't arrive on time for my goal. In the evening I did a tiny bit of hangboarding before dinner was ready, and after dinner went and re-routed a load of wires to make my tech experiment actually usable for work. 3/5 dailies (teeth, languages and calories, but not studying and arrived at work late). 1/4 dailies (hangboarding). Week 5 outlook I ate bang on my low calorie target Monday and Tuesday, and made a conscious effort to snack a bit Wednesday and Thursday so I wouldn't have too much to make up at the end of the week. I'm still now at a point where I need to average 3,360kcal every day for the next 3 days to hit my weekly goal, which feels like a lot! I may need to re-think my strategy on this; my current plan is predicated on drinking more beer than I am currently doing. Other things I need to do this week: Clean something (camp-maker goal) Draw something (cartographer goal) Set up Gygax 75 thread for next challenge Prep for D&D on Sunday Watch a lot of rugby, as 6 Nations starts tomorrow

Yesterday was a good day. Procrastinated a bit first thing, but managed to get out for a run. Hit my 4 miles and it didn't feel too bad. I didn't get to work on time for my goal, nor did I finish on time. I wonder if the extra 20 minutes I would have earned from hitting my goal Monday and yesterday (which get me started 10 minutes early each day) would have been enough to get me to finish on time? In the evening WW cooked an amazing beetroot and halloumi filo pie. Whilst that cooked I did a tiny bit of essay writing - just trying to get myself back on track with this bit by bit. My legs were feeling pretty beat up by the evening, so I did some foam rolling before bed. Languages and teeth also done. 4/5 dailies, 1/4 weeklies.

Monday was a good day. Crossfit first thing was block pulls, working up to a heavy set of 6-8. I hit 140kg (308#) x 6, which felt incredibly heavy, and according to my coach looked 'sketchy as fuck'. I'm very lucky then that I don't seemed to have injured myself. We had some dumbbell deadlift '21s' and strict knees to elbow/toes to bar to finish up. I didn't get to work on target for time. I did just about leave work on time, but then when I got home I spent ages trying to get my bank account transferred (I've found a deal that pays £175 for transferring your account, and gives you a 7% interest savings account, which would all be fantastic if the app would bloody work). The upshot being that I made dinner late and didn't do any studying or anything else. Dinner was an excellent white fish Mediterranean stew with sunny aioli (if I do say so myself). I very rarely cook fish, but this was bloody great and left me thinking I should do it more. 3/5 daily goals, 0/4 weeklies.

It's the little things.

Week 4 Last week was a good week, very busy but it's all good stuff. I very much enjoyed all of the events I had planned, and made at least a token effort to stick to my goals most days The muscle - 3/7 - big drinking events, together with my desire to eat lots of food to soak up the alcohol, made this very hard to hit. I finished the week 6,751kcal over my goal - that's 962 extra kcal per day. I also set a personal record on Friday, consuming a total of 6,117kcal in one day. I don't think I've ever broken 5,000 before (and actually tracked it) I've gained 4lbs this week, though I suspect that will be a spike that ticks down, and so I won't be changing my kcal target right now. The documancer - 1/7 - I didn't make enough effort to fit this in. Need a big push to try and get this essay written during week 5. The face - 7/7 - tooth brushing habit keeps going strong. The chronologist - 3/5 - this seems to be more of a challenge when working from home, or at least it was this week. It's too easy to roll in at the last minute when I only have to go upstairs. The cartographer - 0/1 - I had time to do this and didn't do it; not sure how to kickstart my drawing habit again. The camp-maker - 1/1 - very glad I got some tidying done on Monday before the week exploded. The field-medic - 2/1 - though this hits my goal it isn't really enough, and I'm feeling that in my knee right now. The second-storey specialist - 1/1 - ironically I skipped climbing on Saturday, so whilst I did do my hangboarding session my net position isn't any better for it. With that said, evening hangboarding definitely works, and it's still better than if I'd skipped this and climbing.

weirdly I've encountered the Swolebold in one of @jonfirestar's campaigns. Starting to think I actually should write this one-shot now. Call it 'legally distinct Gaols & Drakes' or something. To be fair, with the current OGL stuff it feels like everyone else is doing that anyway...

That sounds amazing - I love a stupid cinematic moment

Thanks! It's going well so far! budget monsters would be a great premise for a one-shot. Or a good plotline for that RPG where you play the monsters setting up to defend your dungeon...

Monday - week 4 day 1 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit first thing was squats - hit 95kg (209#) x 3 x 5. Getting back to where I want to be on these now. Followed that with a 6 minute workout - first 2 minutes max cals airbike, next 2 minutes max reps wall balls, final 2 minutes max cals row. I didn't go too mental on it, because it was about -2*C in the gym and I really like being able to breathe. Scored 74 cals+balls+cals in the end. Work was ok; I was out most of the day at a meeting and lunch with a client, so my office time was just trying to not leave things too difficult for tomorrow. I did hit my boundary times for starting and finishing though. In the evening I tidied away a box of shoes that's been sat in our bedroom since we moved in almost 2 years ago (we bought some under-bed storage boxes at the weekend, which was the main thing holding me back). I hoovered in the bedroom too, so that's a tick for the cleaning goal. The I cooked dinner, and in an effort to use up some random items I made roast turkey and pineapple curry. It was bloody lovely, if I do say so myself, though the curry spice was almost completely lost in the mix. I was knackered by that point, so we watched Lego Masters Australia and went to bed by 10. Food, calories, languages, and time all done, but studying missed, so 4/5 dailies. 1/5 weeklies ticked off with the cleaning. Week 4 plan It's going to be a busy week, so I need a plan: Tuesday run, work, study at work, hangboarding in the evening because it's my only evening to do it, Tesco shop because only free evening for that, change bedding and put away clean stuff Wednesday crossfit, study on lunch break, work team thing including drinks after work, home by 8pm, oven pizza dinner, drunk drawing Thursday run, study at work, D&D prep in lunch break, into town for supplier party straight from work Friday Crossfit (assuming I get to bed early enough on Thursday), study on lunch break, snack straight after work then out for formal industry dinner Saturday bouldering, try and fit in a bit of studying, out with Hopalong in the day, home around 8pm, need an easy dinner Sunday run, D&D, prep for next D&D session, study, roast dinner, prep breakfast for next week As you may be able to tell, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are all drinking events. So the plan for that is eat lots of food, drink plenty of water, and try to relax and have fun with it all. Calories may go somewhat out the window, because I must not under eat to fit in the beer - I will track all calories and that's the main thing this week.

Week 3 update So I've dropped off updating for a few days now, but here's some things for Wednesday - Sunday. Crossfit has been good. Wednesday was a 7 round E2MOM of bar muscle ups, power snatch, and burpees over bar, and I got all 7 single bar muscle ups! I think I've had about 1-2 ugly BMUs in my life before that, so getting 7 in one workout was incredibly pleasing. Friday was squats, and I hit 100kg (220#) for 3 reps, 90kg x 5 and 80kg x7. My 5RM is 105kg, but that was a long time ago, and this is probably the heaviest I've squatted in at least a year. Running has been good too; 3.5 miles on Thursday and 4 miles on Saturday, and both felt solid. Knee and hip are a bit achy, but nothing a bit of foam rolling won't fix. I also signed up to 2 laps (14km/8.75 miles) of Nuts Challenge in March, and rejigged my running plan to accommodate the first race of the season. Calories were on track all week - I worked hard to eat enough and finished at 21,616kcal against a weekly target of 21,504kcal. I forgot to weight in this morning unfortunately, so we'll keep that goal where it is for now. I only managed to study twice last week, so I need to push that harder this week, and I didn't meet my work timekeeping goal once. Languages and teeth were both 100% though, and I did at least 3 foam rolling/stretching/yoga sessions. I also hangboarded on Wednesday evening, which might be my new go-to time as it fitted really well with the week. Cleaning I just about managed a bit of tidying on Sunday, which I'm going to count. I didn't manage to draw once - Dungeon 23 isn't going well (or, in fact, at all) right now. I've had a few evenings where I've been really shattered and had to go to bed early - not sure why as I'm alright in the day, and I'm not short on time in bed. On Sunday I ran D&D. The party were exploring some sewers, and started the session having run into... let's call it an 'eye monster', about the size of a grapefruit with a massive central eye and 4 stubby little eye stalks. It was a fun little fight, but they killed it fairly easily, and found their way to the bad guys' hideout. To my surprise they had a bit of trouble with the goblins guarding the entrance, but to my greater surprise they absolutely annihilated a duergar before he managed to land a hit, and followed it up by wiping out a grey ooze that was hiding in the lavatory. Then the party entered a central chamber, and discovered the man they've been looking for being threatened by a half-orc wizard. At the far end of the room, clutching a human brain on legs, was a truly inhuman creature. Milky white eyes protruded from it's rubbery, purple skin, and four tentacles dangled around it's alien mouth... The mindflayer headed off into the next room, leaving the brain and the wizard to take care of the party. The wizard went down to a well timed sleep spell from Thea, the bard, but I genuinely thought that the brain was going to claim the first PC of the campaign. A successful dissonant whispers from @jonfirestar's sorcerer, Bilgur, managed to cut it down to size however, and as it tried to flee Hammarfist, @WhiteGhost's barbarian, took an attack of opportunity for the killing blow. With the wizard just sleeping though, the ranger unconscious, and the mind flayer a room away, they're not out of the woods yet.

I'm prepared to better that you're already a better DM than you think you are Good news about the physio, I'm really glad it's fixable! Just be patient and trust the process (or you can use my strategy from last year, and keep pushing to hard and re-injuring it every couple of months). Sorry to hear about your nan. I don't think it makes you sound callous though; reality is that you're always likely to feel more worried about people you have a close emotional connection to that about other people. And a close emotional connection is not defined by how close someone sits in your family tree.

Good on you for getting stuff done in the morning. I am too often tempted to think 'I'll do it later' only for events to conspire against me and for me to run out of time. Also, just catching up, I'd say shaman is a druid/witch (or druid/warlock) hybrid. Pathfinder disagrees with me, they say oracle/witch: https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/shaman/

If you're in the UK I'm more than happy to ask the others if you can join mate, absolutely. to be fair, it's a Tuesday night, and I have to drive there, so it's not quite as lucrative for the pub as you might imagine. 100%

Very true You'd fit right in in this campaign Thank you, it's a lot of fun! Pubs just seem to work for us; where gaming cafés would change for a table, pubs are happy to let us reserve a space just so they know they have people in buying drinks. And the main gaming place here is a big, echo-y room full of people playing war games, so it's actually louder than the pub. We don't get a lot of stuff done, but we have a lot of fun doing it.

Yeah, the pencils and paycheques portion of the game is less than exciting. Can you take that bit away and do it on your own time? Once you know the broad strokes species/class/class options/feats the rest is just admin, which you could do chilling at home (or stick into an online character sheet creator after the fact). On the information side, don't think of it as asking for help, think of it as outsourcing. You're obviously capable of looking up the information for yourself, but why spend your precious time doing that when someone else can give you the answer more quickly? I love this game, it's so beautiful!

Hey Deffy, how's it going? Still busy with work?

Yeah, I'm getting a load of broken picture links on my phone - I thought it was me. What is it you don't like about it, out of interest? I like character and group creation, but it can be awkward if not coordinated well. I don't know why, but I find tracking this goal like this really funny . I like it.

Tuesday - week 3 day 2 Yesterday was a good day. Went for my run first thing, and comfortably hit the planned 3.5 miles. I had then planned to do some hangboarding and/or yoga, but didn't have time for either when I got in so I just did a little foam rolling and stretching. Work was ok, but I missed my goal start time by a couple of minutes again. I did get some study in though. In the evening we went to the new pub we've found to play Pathfinder. We decided to try the food, and they serve a Thai menu, so I had an excellent jackfruit yellow curry (probably the first vegan meal I've ever bought ) and WW had chow mein. In game, we're currently exploring a fortress which was once home to a cult of Aphrodite Areia. Different factions in the cult seem to be represented by different flowers, and the floor we're currently on seems to mostly represent hellebore and aster. We called it the hellefloor. We went through a marked door (the helledoor) to find some bedrooms that were magically kept clean, and then through another opposite to find a medical ward with the same magical protections. Unfortunately it was also full of bleeding skeletons, which gave an odd image as the floor was constantly covered in their blood and then magically cleaned. We dispatched them handily, and our sorcerer got some new shoulder pads. We then had an argument about a scroll. The wizard refused to use it because it's an illusion spell, and he says illusion is unethical. As a cleric I couldn't use it, because it's not a divine spell. The sorcerer doesn't believe that magic can be contained in writing, despite the fact he travels with a wizard. In the end we fed it to Lucy, the goose who's been following us around for most of the campaign, and who is most definitely not Zeus transformed into animal form so he can fuck with us. We got back late and I realised I was well under calories, so I had a slab of chocolate cake before bed whilst practising Dutch. 4/5 dailies, 1/4 weeklies.

Monday - week 3 day 1 Monday was a good day. Crossfit was bench day, and I managed to hit 67.5kg (149#) x 3 x 5. I didn't think that was very high as I had in my head I'd done 72.5kg ages ago, but I've just checked and 72.5 was my 1RM, so 5 at 67.5 is pretty good! The WOD was 12->1 reps for time of pushups, ring rows, and sit ups. I always find pushups hard and was tempted to scale to 10->1 instead, but I stuck with it Rx and finished all 78 reps of each movement dead last in 12'52". I missed my getting to work goal by about a minute, but work was ok. In the evening I decided to do some yoga, and then procrastinated for bloody ages before making a huge chilli with leftover roast pork. I went about 350 calories into my buffer with a puff pastry mince pie that clearly needed eating up. Teeth and languages done before bed, no studying. 3/5 dailies, 1/4 weeklies

Week 2 wrap-up Dailies: The muscle - 0/7 - went way over my calorie budget on the first couple of days, and then stopped tracking later in the week. I don't really know why, but once I'd missed a day I lost enthusiasm for the rest of the week. I maintained weight last week, which suggests I didn't end up too far over target, and I'll be keeping the same target this week The documancer - 3/7 - not a great show on studying, but ideas are slowly starting to form. The face - 6/7 - missed brushing my teeth Saturday night after the pub crawl, otherwise all good. The translator - 5/7 - no energy for this on Friday and Saturday, but I got back on my bullshit from Sunday The chronologist - 0/2 - only 2 days of work last week, for one I missed my start goal (though at least hit my contracted start time), for the other I stayed late chatting and then had to finish up work after. It was nice and social at least. Weeklies: The cartographer - 3/1 - only got 3 days of Dungeon 23 rather than the prescribed 7, but it's more than enough for this goal. The camp-maker - 1/1 - I actually feel like my allergies have been better this week having done some hoovering. More tidying needed though. The field medic - 3/1 - missed a few sessions on the 30 day yoga challenge, but it's still more than sufficient for this goal. The second storey specialist - 0/1 - I didn't get to this. I have to do it by Thursday, because I climb on Saturdays and I don't want to hangboard on an adjacent day. The initial plan was Tuesday or Thursday mornings after I run, but I'm starting to think that Wednesday evenings might be a better option... A bit of an unusual week last week, woth 3 days of jury service and no working from home. The next couple of weeks are a bit disrupted, but less so, so hopefully I'll get back on stuff now.

I'll admit, I was pretty surprised myself . Combat at level 1 is pretty swingy though - a couple of rolls going the other way would have made a big difference.

Well, looks like I've missed a couple of updates... Thursday was a good day. Running first thing, then back at work after jury service, Didn't get to work within my goal time, but I did some studying in the afternoon, and did my languages. Friday was a good day. Crossfit was good; overhead press, then some handwalking practice. The workout was a fun one, the options were, for time: 100ft handwalking or 50 palm raises, 2 cal erg at the end for every time you stop 200ft handwalking or 100 palm raises, 4 cal erg at the end for every time you stop 300ft handwalk, 6 cal erg for every time you stop I opted for the middle option, with palm raises, and ended up doing about 48 cals on the air bike. Finished within the 15 minute time cap, though not by much. I stayed at work late, not because I was working so much as that I was chatting to people, but still failed on that goal. In the evening I was knackered, so I did nothing. Saturday was a good day. Bouldering first thing was great, and then I chilled out for a chunk of the day and did some D&D prep. In the evening WW and I went on a pub crawl with out Pathfinder group - the pub we play at has closed (we hope temporarily), so our mission was to find another pub to play at for the time being. We wandered into random a pub we weren't expecting to go to, and that ended up being the winner, so that went well. More importantly, we had a really lovely night. Sunday was a good day. Had a bit of a hangover, having got in about half midnight from the pub crawl, but I got out for my run. In the afternoon I ran D&D. The party went to investigate a warehouse as they search for a missing person, and after exploring upstairs were surprised by a group of kenku downstairs. I was rolling like I've never rolled, and very soon WW's bard, Thea, was unconscious. Then, on her first death save, she rolled a natural 1. As Thea is (sort of) the only healer, this was bad, and with the party diverting their attention to trying to save her the kenku piled in to attack. @jonfirestar's sorcerer, Bilgur, dropped next, along with the dragonborn ranger, Gjeraldd. With only @WhiteGhost's barbarian, Hammafist, still fighting away, and the elf rogue, Creed, dragging Thea's unconscious body out the door, they were very lucky when the city guard rolled high on their initiative, stormed the building, and arrested everyone. At this point Bilgur remembered that he was an aasimar, and could have used healing hands to bring Thea back up for her healing spells. The party managed to talk their way out of the situation, not hurt by a surviving witness who confirmed the kenku were with the kidnappers, and they learned that the missing person they were looking for had been taken into the sewers. Following the trail into the sewers (having stocked up quite considerably on healing supplies), they came across a floating creature. About the size of a grapefruit, it had a single large eye in the middle of its face, and 4 eyestalks protruding from the top of its form. As it bared its teeth and went into attack... we ended the session. In the afternoon I went to see my parents for a bit, then came home to a lovely roast pork dinner. I boiled some eggs for my week's breakfast, and got to bed at a sensible time. Speaking of going to bed, it's that time, so I'll finish wrapping up week 2 tomorrow!