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Today was my second of two days off this week. While I enjoy having them together, it's also nice to only work 2 or 3 days before having another off day. Today wound up being as unproductive as ever, thanks in part to my inability to focus on one thing for long. I swear, at times I wonder if I don't have some kind of attention deficit disorder. The closest I came to staying focused today occurred when I was beginning to iron out ideas for a D&D pirates mini-game I was thinking about running (I personally wanted to do something with Vikings and Norse mythology, but most folks I asked said "pirates," when I asked for opinions about "flavored" D&D.)
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mfsfreak showed up, and we went to Best Buy, to snag the new Evanescence CD, "The Open Door". Good stuff, lemme tell ya. I also got "The 13th Warrior", since the copy I used to always watch is with my brother in Pennsylvania. Having my own copy isn't the same as borrowing his, though. :-p After Best Buy, we went to Comics N Collectibles, mainly to see what RPG stuff they had, but while their selection wasn't horrible, it was no longer as nice as it was even a year ago. We left without buying anything.
Coming back here, the two of us (strieson was at work) began toying around with Three-Dragon Ante and an article from Dragon #346, in which you use playing cards placed in a "tarot-like" pattern, and pennies as counters, to assign your ability scores. Frankly, the randomness was pretty refreshing, but after doing it for a few hours, I am sick to death of thinking about it. Hopefully, this distaste will fade once I get some sleep, so I can "roll" a character that I'll enjoy. :)
While getting ready for bed, I realized that I have no desire to make a pirate mini-game now (this could also be my level of exhaustion speaking, too), so that could invalidate my point about staying focused (since I'd toss what I did come up with). Thinking about it, I believe that I'd just like to write some kind of story. The deal is, though, that I am not sure where to begin. I begin to think of one thing related to the story, and begin to heap more on it, without dealing with any piece I've already tossed on, so soon I have this HUGE pile in front of me, and that's when I begin to feel hopeless. "How can I begin to get started?" I tell myself. "I should just not worry about it, since there's no way I could get THAT done."
That also explains my problem with creating a campaign. I begin to look at the big picture, rather than the small individual pictures that make up what I don't realize is just a mosaic. I jump around from idea to idea wih no real direction to my mental wandering. For example, I once thought of a campaign idea in which the heroes had to collect seven keys to unlock a mystical anchor that is holding the world in the wrong place in the universe (this was a rough idea I had for having a Dragonlance Age of Mortals game that winds up back where things used to be, rather than the horrible thing they did with my beloved Krynn). I foresaw clashes with agents of the Dragon Overlords, Mina (Takhisis' disciple), or other groups for whom the new world order is preferable. I saw a world-spanning journey, with each key providing hints to lead them to the next one. And it would have worked, if I'd not been convinced that I couldn't keep up with that much, or that I began to hop from the elements that the keys represent to who was guarding what.
How do you writer-types on my LJ focus? How do you gamers create campaigns? I think that if I was able to focus some of this energy, I'd feel a lot better. Perhaps, it wouldn't bother me to be writing about a specific fiction/game world (such as Krynn, Eberron, Thieves' World, or the worlds of the Symphony of the Ages, the Wheel of Time, or Dennis McKiernan's "Once Upon a..." tales, as long as I could get the ideas and stories from the inside of my mind, to the paper in front of me. Do outlines work? How detailed is the first draft of such an outline?
Well, I have work in the morning, and I'm rather ambivalent about it, but I know I'll hate it if I get no sleep, so to bed I go.
G'night, all.
mfsfreak showed up, and we went to Best Buy, to snag the new Evanescence CD, "The Open Door". Good stuff, lemme tell ya. I also got "The 13th Warrior", since the copy I used to always watch is with my brother in Pennsylvania. Having my own copy isn't the same as borrowing his, though. :-p After Best Buy, we went to Comics N Collectibles, mainly to see what RPG stuff they had, but while their selection wasn't horrible, it was no longer as nice as it was even a year ago. We left without buying anything.Coming back here, the two of us (
strieson was at work) began toying around with Three-Dragon Ante and an article from Dragon #346, in which you use playing cards placed in a "tarot-like" pattern, and pennies as counters, to assign your ability scores. Frankly, the randomness was pretty refreshing, but after doing it for a few hours, I am sick to death of thinking about it. Hopefully, this distaste will fade once I get some sleep, so I can "roll" a character that I'll enjoy. :)While getting ready for bed, I realized that I have no desire to make a pirate mini-game now (this could also be my level of exhaustion speaking, too), so that could invalidate my point about staying focused (since I'd toss what I did come up with). Thinking about it, I believe that I'd just like to write some kind of story. The deal is, though, that I am not sure where to begin. I begin to think of one thing related to the story, and begin to heap more on it, without dealing with any piece I've already tossed on, so soon I have this HUGE pile in front of me, and that's when I begin to feel hopeless. "How can I begin to get started?" I tell myself. "I should just not worry about it, since there's no way I could get THAT done."
That also explains my problem with creating a campaign. I begin to look at the big picture, rather than the small individual pictures that make up what I don't realize is just a mosaic. I jump around from idea to idea wih no real direction to my mental wandering. For example, I once thought of a campaign idea in which the heroes had to collect seven keys to unlock a mystical anchor that is holding the world in the wrong place in the universe (this was a rough idea I had for having a Dragonlance Age of Mortals game that winds up back where things used to be, rather than the horrible thing they did with my beloved Krynn). I foresaw clashes with agents of the Dragon Overlords, Mina (Takhisis' disciple), or other groups for whom the new world order is preferable. I saw a world-spanning journey, with each key providing hints to lead them to the next one. And it would have worked, if I'd not been convinced that I couldn't keep up with that much, or that I began to hop from the elements that the keys represent to who was guarding what.
How do you writer-types on my LJ focus? How do you gamers create campaigns? I think that if I was able to focus some of this energy, I'd feel a lot better. Perhaps, it wouldn't bother me to be writing about a specific fiction/game world (such as Krynn, Eberron, Thieves' World, or the worlds of the Symphony of the Ages, the Wheel of Time, or Dennis McKiernan's "Once Upon a..." tales, as long as I could get the ideas and stories from the inside of my mind, to the paper in front of me. Do outlines work? How detailed is the first draft of such an outline?
Well, I have work in the morning, and I'm rather ambivalent about it, but I know I'll hate it if I get no sleep, so to bed I go.
G'night, all.
