Derik Badman's Journal

Didn't have the best of weekends. Saturday was all these little frustrations that seemed to keep blocking my ability to get anything done, and I wasn't feeling great for much of Saturday both physically and mentally. I feel like there are just all these little things that keep accumulating, dragging me down: stress, anxiety, accidents, problems I can't fix, etc. None of it is really immediate (except when I am actually feeling physically bad) or pressing yet it all just sits there. Was I always this anxious? Maybe I was and I never realized it?

I did manage to run a second season of the faux Warhammer Fantasy game we started a few weeks back. We had our first combat using the ad hoc Dungeon World-esque rules, and I realized how I wasn't sure how to handle some specific things (like saving throws and damage). Nevertheless we got through it without too much confusion, though we didn't get very far, only through... 2.5 rooms of a house. At this rate the first adventure (supposedly planned as a one-shot) will take... probably 4 sessions.

Did I watch a movie over the weekend? I can't even remember. Not a great sign.

I finished up The Curse of Chalion, which was enjoyable. It got a littler more conventional as it went along, eventually (halfway through) the protagonist got a quest attached to the eponymous curse. And the ending was fairly happy. I've got the sequel to read too (though I think it is a sequel more in setting than plot or characters).

Still playing Disco Elysium which is weird and funny and fun to play, if at times a bit slow. There was a point where I was just not sure what to do next, but some wandering around a bit of luck with some rolls lead me off onto a few side quests that somehow mostly manage to bring me back around to the main mystery. The game seems to be designed heavily around failure. Many things you can attempt are nearly impossible at first (depending on your attributess/skills), but often get easier as you interact with the world. Objects can unlock bonuses, having certain conversations can unlock bonuses, thoughts you have can unlock bonuses (there's a whole system where you get these "thoughts" and then can assign them to slots to ruminate on them unlocking conversation paths and bonuses on certain actions or skills). It's expected you will retry a lot of your failures. The map includes a list of the checks and notes which ones you can retry, and those retries change over time or as you perform actions or increase skills. So sometimes you can return to a previous failure and then unlock new information or locations or conversation paths. The game also seems to be tracking various decisions you make (actions and conversation choices) on various scales (kind of like Mass Effect did with its law/chaos axis) including what kind of "cop" you are and your political inclinations (currently I seem to be playing a communist art cop...).

Been getting Hadleyville my rules light western rpg into booklet form as I figure out how Affinity Publisher works. It's functioning is not always clear (and the help docs not always helpful), which has lead me to a few periods of frustration. But I think soon I will have a decent looking 8 page zine-size printable booklet. I added some more tables/lists and started refining some simple rules. Hoping at some point to get to try it out with the group.