Jarric

Absolutely skulking is allowed. And if you decide you have some bandwidth whenever we do it, maybe you use the guides to correlate all the things you already know about your homebrew world, rather than creating a new one? it's so true. True for anxiety too; if you drink to avoid social anxiety you seem to get a double hit the following morning. Excellent! Next challenge kicks off 13th Feb, and the following works 27th March. What works better for you? If we get a date we can try and recruit some more people. Yeah, that sounds ideal for me.

Can't speak for the others, but I think it was spot on. You managed to provide useful information and help the party, even while spending a chunk of the session wondering if anchors could fly

That sounds awful, but also kind of hilarious that your Fitbit registered it. Hope it's not too bad.

Weekend 1 Saturday was a good day. Climbing first thing, which is always good, and there were a load of new routes since I'd last been to play with. I flashed a 6B+ as well apparently, which is a very good result for me. In the afternoon I did a bunch of D&D prep (having had 3 weeks to prepare for the game, I obviously left it to the last day . Got some yoga in, teeth done, and my languages, but no studying. I also hit my calorie goal, which was actually a struggle because I had enough left over from the week that I needed to eat a lot at the weekend. Sunday was a good day. I laid around and chilled out for half the morning, which was really nice. It did mean however that I didn't get out for my run until 11, which was less than ideal as we had D&D at 12. I did get the run done, but I was about 5 minutes late for starting D&D which isn't great for session 1. D&D itself was great. One of the players couldn't make it unfortunately, but I think the others had a great time. Mild spoilers for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist: In the evening I did a bit of studying (finally!) and my yoga, WW roasted a turkey thigh with loads of veg and stuffing, and we chilled in front of the TV. Languages and teeth were done. I also spent a little time sketching doves for my Pathfinder character's holy symbol. I failed my calories though - I got to 2,828kcal, and I just didn't want to eat any more. I contemplated trying to force something down, but I'd already been snacking in an effort to get to the 3,273kcal I needed for the week, and I just didn't want anything. Week 1 stats Dailies: The muscle: 6/7. I failed to hit my calories on Sunday, meaning I finished the week 455 short at 20,489 (average 2,927 per day). I lost 2lbs last week, which I was kind of expecting after an anomalous 6lb gain the week before. Nonetheless, if I'm losing weight I need to increase my calories, so the target for this week will be 21,504kcal. That's 3,072 per day. I'll be aiming for 2,688 per day, plus a floating buffer of 2,688 over the week. The documancer: 4/7. Not ideal, but I'm starting to make progress on this. With less than 2 months in which to write this essay, and a desire to write it in 1, I need to crack on. The face: 7/7. Teeth brushing continues to be a habit. The translator: 7/7. It's been a token effort at times, but I've studied French and Dutch every day. The chonologist: 2/4. Only 4 working days this week, and I was 1 minute over my goal Thursday and 3 minutes over on Friday. If I have to fail a goal this is the way to do it. Weeklies: The cartographer: 1/1. Left it until Sunday, but I did get some drawing in. The camp-maker: 1/1. The bank holiday on Monday gave me some time to do some cleaning, but nothing since. The field-medic: 7/1. The 30-day yoga challenge has seen me smashing this, and on many days I've also done some foam rolling on my hips and shoulders to try and feel a bit better too. The second-storey specialist: 1/1. I got my hangboarding done on Thursday. Once per week is plenty.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it! And thank you Ah, but am I hungover less, or running less? Real talk though (alcohol thoughts spoilered): Well, it doesn't really matter; you could do 26 levels of 14 rooms, or 1, 364-room level. Or you could make a town 1 building per day. Funnily enough the Gygax 75 challenge recommends that each floor has 1d6+6 rooms, so 7-12 rooms, which is right on the 1 level per week to 1 level per 2 weeks range. It's a good point though; there'd be no harm in mixing it up throughout the year, and having some levels much larger or smaller than others. Two thoughts. Firstly, thank you, because this challenge sounds great. It would actually be a great thing to run here in the acountabilbudddies threads, with a few people all creating their own campaign simultaneously in time with the 5-week challenge cycle. I'd love to do that, and have people sharing ideas, keeping eachother accountable, and geeking out about TTRPGs. Would you be game for that, if we ran it in a couple of challenges time? (That's assuming your work might be a little more settled by then and you might have more free time?) Open call to anyone else who would be up for a challenge like that too. My other thought is that while Gygax 75 would definitely be more useful for me to create content that I will actually use in a D&D game, I'm not planning to run a homebrew setting at any point in the next few months, possibly the next few years. I've gravitated to Dungeon 23 as a creative writing challenge - an excuse to do a tiny bit of writing and a tiny bit of drawing every day, rather than something that I intend to run or publish. I'm sure I will pull bits out of it to use in future campaigns - no ideas are wasted, they all get recycled eventually - but I think this serves the purpose of getting my into a daily writing/drawing habit better than Gygax 75.

This sounds great; I might have to make a version of it this week. When you're burned out, the little things really do feel like major things. They're like the straw that broke the camel's back. It's excellent that having got past the big stuff that you can recognise how differently you're dealing with the same stimulus.

Friday - week 1 day 5 Yesterday was a good day. Crossfit first thing; 8 minutes to climb as high as possible in sets of 1, 2, 3, 4 etc. power cleans and chinups I managed 6 rounds and 3 reps with 60kg (132#) on the power cleans. It was a really fun one. After that we had 100m (110yd) rowing sprints. My best attempt was 17.0 seconds. On the one hand, my PB is 16.9 seconds, and that's not far off. On the other hand, I set that record in October 2019, so it's a bit sad I haven't improved in all that time. Guess I can blame the pandemic break from rowing? Work was ok; working from home and got a load more stuff squared away. Also got an e-mail saying I'll actually have to attend jury service on Monday, so no more catching up on work for me! In the evening I did yoga, made crispy chilli beef udon broth, and went to Tesco for a bit shop - it was a busy day! Then just time for a couple of beers in front of the TV before bed. I failed my work goal; I didn't log on until 08:38, and I didn't get any studying done. Calories were tracked and within budget, teeth and languages were done, and I did yoga again. I also heard about Dungeon 23, which is a challenge to create a megadungeon in 2023 by designing 1 room every day. At the end of the year you'll have 52 dungeon levels each with 7 rooms. I've obviously missed week 1, but I'm going to kick this off from Monday and it should kickstart my drawing (I hope).

It's not, but it's still a fail - the goal has to have a cut off somewhere. I chose 08:35 because a) if I walk WW to work I should be there about 08:25, and b) I start work at 08:45 so it gives me time to get in and make a cup of tea before I log on.

Thursday - week 1 day 4 Yesterday was a good day. Went for a run first thing, the first run of the final week of couch to 5k. Probably the first time I've run for 30 minutes since my last race in, November I think? It felt pretty good, and though my hips and knees aren't perfect I'm not doing badly. I did some yoga when I got in. I meant to mention the other day that I've written my running plan for the next 17 weeks. Starting from 9 miles per week, I'll be at 27 miles per week at the end. Which sounds like a lot, but it's adding less than 10% to my mileage each week - the mystical power of compound interest. Anyway, I failed my work goal of getting in at 08:35; I arrived at 08:36 thanks to the knock on effect of getting out too late for my run. Work itself was ok. I've finally be actually called in to jury service for next week, so this week I've been able to clear a load of stuff while I've had no meetings booked and nothing in my diary. In the evening I did some hangboarding, and wow I've got worse at that. Given how well I've been doing at climbing I was quite surprised by that. Otherwise I had a couple of beers, chilled out, and went to bed. Failed the work timings, but hit the calories, studying, teeth brushing, and languages. Ticked off yoga and hangboarding from the weekly list.

as long as it does the job Yeah, I would rather play in person, but apart from WW the closest player in my game is 70 odd miles away, and the farthest is over 5,000 miles away, which makes in-person games a little tricky. I actually really like catching up with people by video call in general, I just don't like the way Roll20 can turn D&D into a board game. And of course the lack of spontaneity, because you can't just scribble a map as you say. The one good thing is, by the time I've copy typed a stat block into Roll20 I'm pretty confident I understand all of it's abilities!

I had to look back at my intro here to work that out, so a while! Apparently I started running in August 2015, decided after 6 weeks that I hated it, and gave it up. Then I think in mid-2016 I signed up to an OCR and had to train for it, so I've probably been running consistently since about then. Crossfit started October 2018, so quite a while even with a bit of a pandemic break. Yoga I've no idea; I kind of do it as a recovery thing or as active rest when it fits in - the daily yoga only started this month because a 30 day challenge sounded like fun. Yeah, I think that's where I am; interested to try it out, but also a little apprehensive with the unknownness of it all. Thanks! The new mirrors have arrived, so if I can get another day or two out of it I'll be happy!

I've never understood why it takes so long to make a sofa - you could build a small house in less time than that. Thankfully I'm far too cheap to buy new anyway. Oo, now I want to do ours, because I thought we had a lot of books but 800 sounds ridiculously huge.

Maybe stick with 2x10 until you feel up for trying 3x10? The higher reps might be good to keep in contrast to the lower reps on your main lifts.

Thanks, on both counts

Well have a look at the pictures now and see if you still think that Yeah, I'm interested in the process, but I don't know that I'd be keen to do it. I would definitely worry about getting something particularly horrible that I'd be stuck dwelling on (which I realise is a pretty selfish, because however horrible it was for me it would definitely have been a thousand times worse for the victim, but it still worries me).

Wednesday - week 1 day 3 Yesterday was a good day. When I got to my car in the morning I discovered that my bodged/putzed/futzed/jury-rigged wing mirror job hadn't lasted at all, and the thing was hanging off. Unperturbed I headed to Crossfit, where we had bench press (65kg (143#) x 3 x 5, plus a bonus 60kg x 5), and some work on dips and handwalking. I managed a couple of steps on my hands; I'd so love to get these down this year. Work was ok. The upside of sitting around waiting to be called in to jury service is that I've got no meetings or tasks scheduled for 2 weeks, because I wasn't supposed to be here. I still don't think I'll be caught up even if I don't go in for the full two weeks, but it's much less stressful than usual. When I got back from work I decided to bodge my bodge, to try and get a vaguely usable wing mirror for a few days before I replace the thing. I feel like the pictures speak for themselves. In the evening I did the next yoga video in the Yoga with Adriene 30 day challenge, and then cooked (well, heated up) some steak lattices, and served them with some roast parsnips and red cabbage. Another 200kcal into my bonus calories due to some Christmas cake, but that's easily on track. Teeth and languages done, and in and out of work on time, but I didn't do any essay writing. Yoga again for the weeklies.

Fair enough, that sounds about right then Oo, putzed and futzed are good! D&D prep (spoilered in case my players don't want to read it, though it's not that spoilery really): Yes, I think that's a good word for it!

I still struggle with this now, it's one of those things people ingrain in their kids without thinking about the long term effect I think. WW and I are now much better at plating up sensible portions at least, so all the time I'm eating at home cleaning the plate is a reasonable idea. Eating out is more challenging.

I don't know, rigged sounds more competent than what I've done Might have to share a picture of the mess I've made. Oh wow, good luck! There's a real split of people I talk to between those who really want to do it and those who really don't want to - which side of the fence are you on?

Yeah, I think cobbled together would be similar. Though I wouldn't use cobbled together to mean repairing something I don't think? Whereas bodged could be 'building' something or 'repairing' something (inverted commas very much intended to imply the roughness of those definitions).

Tuesday - week 1 day 2 Yesterday was a good day. In the morning I went for my run, the last of week 8 of couch to 5k. When I got back I just had time to do a yoga video before work. I am technically on jury service this week, but the way it seems to be working is that I get an e-mail at half 4 in the afternoon and they tell me if they want me to come in the following morning. So on Tuesday I was working, which wasn't too bad as it's bonus time to catch up on stuff (not that I feel I'm catching up very quickly still). I also made time to do some studying In the evening I did some D&D prep, and realised how much more I need to do before our first session on Sunday! WW cooked a sort of Chinese-style noodle soup as we had some bok choi and choi sum to use up, and we chilled in front of the TV. Calories were on track - I worked really hard all day to hit my goal, and then in the evening had a big bowl of WW's homemade apple crumble which ate 300kcal into my weekly floating calories. study, teeth, languages and work timings all done. The only weekly goal I hit was the yoga.

I figured bodged might be British, but I'd be interested to know what you would say in place of it. And what do you say instead of hoovered? Vacuumed?

That's so frustrating about the car! Glad you got your refund at least. If you can always manage two out of three, you'll go far.

That roast dinner looks incredible! Though to be fair this: Still sounds like too much work on new year's day.

Thank you! Always good to have you cheering! Thanks!