Jarric

Thanks! It took me literally years to find a system that worked for me, but this one's been going pretty well so far. Great to have you!

A wood elf enters the tavern backwards, at speed, and briefly airbourne, before sliding along the flagstones for a few feet. "Well there's no need to be like that," he says calmly, in the general direction of the door, before rolling up to his feet and heading for the bar. "First time I've ever been throw into a tavern," he mutters, to no-one in particular, and then, in a more decisive tone, "Pint of the black stuff, barkeep." A few of us will be having a go at a worldbuilding challenge using Gygax 75 for this challenge cycle, and there's still time to join. If anyone is interested in creating an RPG campaign world during the next few weeks, or even just a bit of a creative challenge, check it out here:

I'm going to try and get to the first episode tonight - I can't find it on DVD anywhere so I think I might just have to subscribe to BritBox or something. I don't think it's a problem if you don't spoiler things, it does look more inviting if there's obviously chat here.

My 2023 road map: And here's how last challenge went: Jarric's birthday party Last challenge I put an adventuring party together to represent my goals. There were far too many of them, so I've whittled it down slightly to give a bit more focus. My birthday falls at the end of week 3 of this challenge, so I guess these adventurers are my birthday party. Week zero of this challenge has been pretty busy at work, but I got some good news at the end of the week. I've applied to change my hours to work a 4-day week, and I got told that my application has been accepted! It doesn't start until September, so no immediate change in things, but it gives me something to look forward to. Aside from my birthday this challenge, I've also got a week and a half off leading up to that, and then I'm running Nuts Challenge (a 14km obstacle course race) the day after my birthday. Week 5 is likely to be pretty busy as my Mum is on holiday so I'll be checking in on my dad more, but at the end of week 5 I'll probably be going out for my usual 'watch the rugby and pretend it's for my birthday' day out. So, without further ado, lets meet our adventurers: The muscle [+2 CON] Continuing my bulk, hopefully in a slightly more consistent manner this time around. The aim is to increase my body weight by 0.25% each week (about 0.4lbs at the moment). In order to do that I will set my target calories for the week, knock off a couple of thousand, and then divide what's left by 7 to give a daily goal. That extra couple of thousand will form a floating allowance for snacks/eating out/alcohol etc.. I will also track protein daily, with a loose goal to eat at least 150g each day. For reference my weekly goal for week zero was 22,064kcal, divided up as 2,832 per day plus a floating 2,240. Assuming my weight doesn't drop this week, that will also be my goal for week 1. If I lose weight in a given week I'll up my calorie target, and if I don't gain at least 1lb for 3 consecutive weigh-ins I'll also increase my calorie target. The documancer [+2 INT] I have so nearly finished my current essay, following which I will have one, final 3,500-word essay to write to complete my professional qualification. This essay needs to be submitted in the next couple of weeks, though really I want it submitted by the end of week 1, and I'd love to have finished the final essay by the end of this challenge. In order to do this I will do some work on this essay every day. Even if it's only 10 minutes of editing in front of the TV, it all adds up and it keeps it fresh in my mind. During my time off work I will I have scheduled time in my calendar to do 2 hours per working day on the essay. If I hit that, I should finish it by the end of my time off. If I do finish and submit the last essay before the end of the challenge, I get a free pass on this goal for the remaining time and it counts as 100% completion on those days for my financial tracking. The chronologist [+2 SAN] This went poorly last time, so I'm mixing it up a bit. I'm crap at timekeeping, so I'm extending this beyond work to everything I do. Every day, I want to be on time for more things than I'm late for. And I'll be following the saying, 'if you're not early, you're late', so I'll need to arrive at things before a time for it to count. This applies to everything I have an appointment for, but I also have a few specific benchmarks: At the gym before 06:30 Out for my run before 06:30 At work before 08:35 Log off work before 17:30 At Pathfinder before 19:15 At D&D (online) before 11:55 At bouldering before 08:15 The cartographer [+2 CHA] This challenge I'll be having a go at the Gygax 75 challenge, with a bunch of other great nerds. This is a worldbuilding challenge that should give me everything to start a new homebrew campaign if I wanted to. To get full marks on this goal, I will need to complete all of the tasks each week, including the extra credit tasks. There's still time to sign up by the way, if you fancy a bit of a creative writing challenge: The translator [+1 INT] No change to this goal - practice both French and Dutch daily. Dutch will usually be Duolino, French will often be Duolingo or the Duolingo podcast, but if anyone has any other good resources I'm interested in that. The second storey specialist [+1 STR] This goal is to do something every day that makes me a better climber. Specifically, do hangboarding at least once per week, and stretch/foam roll/do yoga on all other days. I think that's it! Challenge start on Monday (obviously), and now I've written this I'm looking forward to it!

I'll be starting this challenge on Monday, but I'm guessing that some of you will be starting tomorrow. So, whilst I'm sure most of you have read the workbook (and if not, I encourage you to do so), I thought I would put the week 1 instructions here for ease of reference. Week 1: The Concept Articulate the big ideas and gather sources. “Step 1 is something you do in your head. Now, fantasy/swords & sorcery games need not have any fixed basis for the assumptions made by its referee (my own doesn't) except those which embrace the whole of fantasy. This sort of campaign can mix any and all of the various bases which will be mentioned below - and then some. […] Settings based upon limits (if one can speak of fantasy limits) can be very interesting in themselves providing the scope of the setting will allow the players relative free-reign to their imaginations.” – EGG Tasks Get/create a notebook. If you are intimidated by nice journals, get a run-of-the-mill spiral notebook or start by throwing your fancy journal down the stairs a few times and spilling coffee on it to teach it who’s boss! Seriously, get something that works for you: fancy or humble, new or used, cheap or pricey, graphed or lined or blank. If you prefer, you can work digitally, of course, keeping a folder of bookmarks, storing docs on a cloud drive, etc. Develop your pitch. Write down 3-7 well-crafted bullet points that will both communicate and “sell” the world to your players. Each bullet should be concise and focused – a few clear sentences is plenty. Emphasize the most essential bits for establishing excitement, expectations, and tone. Your pitch will give players an idea of what they can expect to find (or not find) in your setting and will help them create suitable character concepts. Gather your sources of inspiration. List them and provide a sentence or two explaining what each source brings to the setting. Cull your list so that it has no more than 7 entries. (This can be tough, but I think it’s important to focus the ideas so you aren’t getting dragged in too many directions at first.) Make sure the sources are referenced by your pitch points in some way. Sources are for you; you don’t have to share them with players and players shouldn’t have to be familiar them. In fact, Gygax would tell you not to share them as they might spoil some of the surprises for players or players might expect you to use parts of them you don’t intend to use. Extra Credit Assemble a mood board. You can use an online resource like Pinterest or create an old school collage of images that put you in the right headspace. A mood board is a great resource for quickly introducing the tone of your setting to players, and it can be a ‘living document’ that you work on over time, possibly together, expanding it as the setting grows. Start with a dozen or two visual references for places, characters, artistic styles, etc. As you work, think about how you decided what fit and what didn’t. Make sure the mood board elements support or inform your bullet points. Practice your pitch! Try explaining your idea out loud – first to yourself and then to some gamer friends (though maybe not the ones you intend to play with just yet).

I've resisted too - I'll be using the notebook I started Dungeon 23 in, before I gave up after 2 dungeon rooms.

Challenge wrap-up The muscle [+2 CON] Score: 22/35 = 62.9% = +1 CON I'm actually finding this quite hard at the moment. I did have a week where I massively exceeded my calories, thanks to lots of beer and plenty of food to soak it up, but mostly it's been hard to hit them. I think I need to eat a bigger breakfast, and to try to eat calorie dense things like seeds, and maybe that will help me get on target. That's the plan anyway. I'm going to include week 0 in my recent weights (because it makes it look better ) 11 stone 12 12 stone 4 12 stone 2 12 stone 2 12 stone 2 12 stone 6 12 stone 3 The upshot, I've lost 1lb in the last 5 weeks, but I've gained 5 lbs in the last 6 weeks. I think it's pretty clear that my 2nd January weight was an anomaly. I'm only looking to gain 1lb every 2-3 weeks, so I think this is generally, vaguely on target. I feel like I look bigger too, and I'm feeling strong, which are the important things. The documancer [+2 INT] 12/35 = 34.3% = +1 INT A pretty poor score all round here, so for week 0 of next challenge this is my one and only goal. I really want to get this damn essay finished. The face [+1 SAN] 34/35 = 97.1% = +1 SAN Near enough to perfect that I'm very happy. I'm dropping this goal next challenge, as it's becoming second nature, on the proviso that I'm bringing it back immediately if it starts to slip. The translator [+1 INT] 31/35 = 88.6% = +1 INT I missed one or the other language on a couple of days, but overall this was pretty good. There were quite a few days where I just made a token gesture, but I figure a token gesture every day is probably more productive in the long run than pushing myself harder and failing. This goal stays. The chronologist [+1 SAN] 5/21 = 23.8% = no stat increase I sucked at this. On the days I got away from work on time though, I did feel better for it. I think a more general time-keeping goal is needed next time round, because it's something I could just do with working on generally. The cartographer [+1 CHA] 2/5 = 40% = no stat increase The fact that I didn't draw at all for the last 3 weeks of this challenge is pretty rubbish. I'll be running the Gygax 75 challenge next cycle, so that will be taking the place of this for my creativity goal. Hopefully the accountability of a group doing the same thing will make this stick. The camp maker [+1 SAN] 4/5 = 80% = +1 SAN Until just now, I thought I'd done rubbish on this goal. Turns out I only missed week 5, which just goes to show that this is easier than I thought. Not sure what to do with this next challenge, but I would like my house to be cleaner. The field medic [+1 STR] 5/5 = 100% = +1 STR So my actual scores by week were 7, 3, 3, 2, 4. This was quite easy to hit, because stuff hurts from running and lifting and I want to stretch and foam roll. Will probably keep this up to track it, but combine it with this... The second storey specialist [+1 STR] 4/5 = 80% = +1 STR This went ok, once I figured out that it was much easier to do of a Wednesday evening than a Tuesday morning. It's the sort of thing I need to keep up for months or years to actually see any benefit, but I think I can work it in and eventually my climbing will improve. Overall So my stats now look like this: STR: 12 + 2 = 14 CON: 10 + 1 = 11 CHA: 3 + 0 = 3 SAN: 7 + 2 = 9 INT: 11 + 2 = 13 So I think one thing we can say is, so far in the last 13 months, I have not really fostered my creative side. That needs to change. Aside from that I'm very happy with this challenge. There's a couple of things I didn't manage to hit, but that's ok, I had far too many goals and I did better than I expected.

Here for this (obviously)! It's definitely about time I watched some of the classic Doctor

I'm happy with 1 per week, 1 every 2 weeks, whatever works really. I'm in no rush, and though I'm excited now 1 every 2 weeks allows life to get in the way and be less of a problem.

what can I say, I'm just naturally empathic. Seriously though, I definitely don't think of you as emotionally stunted if that's what you're saying. I think you're incredibly caring.

Week 5 wrap-up The muscle - 6/7 - I couldn't manage to eat enough on Sunday to hit my weekly goal. I didn't realise how tough it would be to eat this much, mainly because it's not all beer and fast food. I'm having a think about how I divide up my calories in future, to have a higher daily standard and less in the ad hoc bonus box. I lost 3lbs last week (expected as I spiked 4lbs up the week prior), so I'm increasing my calorie target again. Now aiming for 22,064kcal, which is an average of 3,152kcal per day. The documancer - 2/7 - I spent a lot of evenings messing around with my computer setup, and far too little time thinking about writing my essay. The face - 7/7 - all good here The translator - 7/7 - good here too The chronologist - 0/5 - I need to rethink this. It's important, but I'm not doing it currently. The cartographer - 0/1 - I haven't drawn anything in so long The camp-maker - 0/1 - Unless you count a lot or re-wiring stuff (which I don't), no tidying was done The field medic - 4/1 - This is pretty easy to hit, because when stuff hurts I want to stretch and foam roll. I'm not sure it needs to be a goal. The second storey specialist - 1/1 - it was the shortest hangboarding session ever, but it counts. Overall a good week last week. At the weekend I went climbing, did a bunch of D&D prep, and ran D&D. Last session the players ran away from the dungeon they had finished last session in (I think the mindflayer in the next room might have had something to do with that). When they returned to the quest giver with the man they had been sent to rescue, the quest giver confessed that he hadn't got any cash, and offered the party the deeds to a property instead. Exploring the slightly haunted property one of the players found a bag of teeth under a loose floorboard, and, as players do, they totally fixated on this detail. Most of the rest of the session was spent trying to find out where the teeth had come from, or decide what to do with them next. Eventually the party decided that they would probably re-open their property as a tavern, once they'd cleaned it up a bit, and started discussing ways to earn the money to do that.

Sounds like a plan to me. Would you mind setting it up, as you've done this before?

Yes! I'm glad you remembered what week we'd picked for this; I'm looking forward to it. Do you have any plan, apart from to watch it?

Dude, welcome back, it's so good to see you here! Good luck with the house move - moving sucks, but it could be a blessing in disguise if you land in the right place.

Good on you mate - get it gone. As you can imagine, I'm pretty excited about this I wondered where the inspiration for Vutha came from

That sounds like plenty to me. Hope you feel more rested today.

Of course! Here you go: I think the sauce would be a little boring if it weren't for the paprika, garlic, and cumin on the chicken, but if I reckon if I make the sauce on it's own I should just be able to put those straight in the sauce before blending.

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.