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Year of Follow Through

I had a different draft of this blog, it was long and rambly. So I deleted it. Then I realized, why have a blog if you can’t aimlessly ramble. So, to start off my Year of Follow through, what better way then to follow through. If you’re unfamiliar with what I’m talking about, please check out this video from CGP Grey. (promise you’ll come back)

If you don’t want to watch the video, here’s the TLDR: Having specific goals to accomplish over the year is likely to lead you to failure. No surface level fault of yours, though; it’s really hard and really easy to give up on creating habits as human beings.

So instead, have a “Theme” for your year. The only goal is to change the trend of your life going towards the positive. Even if you only lessen the negative trend, the year is still a success.

It’s helped me not get so twisted up about “Failing” at what I wanted to do that year.

2022: Year of Curation

Last year was a big year for me. Graduated, moved out, learning to fend for myself and learning what I wanted to be. Suddenly I had all this free time and it was on me to use it wisely. I did not.

I was doing things that weren’t satisfying. Like I love eating a full bag of popcorn, but that’s not nutritious.1 So I would take big long looks at what I was doing and what I was getting so soured by. It wasn’t some formal record keeping, but I came up with some soft / hard rules for myself.

  1. No social media on the phone. No need to carry it around everywhere.
  2. Liberal use of plugins to cut the chaff out of my social media use. (i.e. algorithm based “trending” feeds)2
    • Sub point, I also use things like reader views to cut out gross web designs.
  3. Follow under 100 people on any given social media.3
  4. If I can’t follow you with RSS, I simply don’t follow you.

There’s some other “vibe checks” that I have too. Things with “dark pattern” designs. Design to trick / persuade you to spend money. So things like chess.com were eventually cut out (seriously why should I pay you for puzzles). Battle pass games, “energy” games, you get the point. Websites with huge pop-ups to join a newsletter, cookies warning, making you pay to read one tiny article. Fucking New York Times, you’re only good for your crosswords.4

It was a juice cleanse for the soul, and I have a much healthier relationship with the internet. “Digital Minimalism” was a way to describe it, but that’s a story for another blog post.

2023 Year of Follow Through.

Okay, so last year I got my feet underneath me and made meticulous little strategies to not get distracted from What I do. Which if you haven’t guessed already is write. “Follow Through” is simply putting my butt into the chair and getting those fingers to do the clicky clacky. I already know. I read the books and watched the videos. The development is done. I just need to follow through.

Everything else that I need to follow through on

  1. I’m working on many books.
  2. This very blog
  3. Dungeon23
  4. Web Design
  5. Improving my Health

etc etc

Season of Accountability.

Now, there are no rules, so I’m also breaking my year into season. Because sometimes I am not enough to follow through. I need accountability.

So last year, I did a lot of “vibe based” tracking. This season, I want to get it down to a fine(ish) science. I’m doing this in two fronts:

  1. Spreadsheets. Love or hate them, they’re great of lists of numbers
  2. Accountability groups.

The last one is way more important. I started a little private discord with my friends. Made personal contracts. Set up regular check ins to bully helpfully support each other. This very blog is a part of that accountability, too. Yes dear reader can be a part of my life, parasocially of course.

Conclusion

Don’t mind, I only have the first season planned out. These aren’t like hard rules, I may not even have a season after and just stick with Follow Through. This is all really just a form of Kata, or meditation, or practice. A guiding plan to improve a trend line over the course of a year. Life is a great labyrinth with twists, turns, and pitfalls. Don’t let it discourage you.

  1. food mediphores? I must be hungy↩︎

  2. Plugins I use: Dark reader, Unhook, Ublock Origins, Tweak New Twitter, Sponsor Block↩︎

  3. I swear to god, the amount of people who complain about twitter to only be following 500+ people is staggering.↩︎

  4. I have a post on the back burner about how shitty it is that NYT makes you pay while Fox News allows you to read the article. And we wonder why the internet is shit.↩︎

January 5, 2023

Dungeon 23: One Day at a Time.

Whether you were curious about what a megadungeon is. Or because your response to making a 365 room dungeon is “Bring it on,” I’m sure you’ve seen dungeon23. The rules are simple: 

  • 12 Floors 
  • 52 Themes 
  • 365 Rooms 

It inspired me. My growing infatuation with OSR (and growing frustration with ever expanding campaigns) had gotten my brain ticking to make a big hole for my players to explore. Yet, where to even begin? I knew that the “Dungeon” in D&D meant something. I’ve only ever made smaller, 2 or 3 floor dungeons with maybe 12 or so rooms. They were the speed bump on the grand adventure my players were on. A small place to make the evocation wizard think twice when casting fireball. 

But a whole campaign setting? I would never. 

Now, however, it’s all I’ve ever craved. A place for adventures to adventure. Survive with their wits and grit. No extravagant epics. I want a cautionary tale for my players to carry with them. I don’t want to make a megadungeon. I want to make My Megadungeon.

And I hope by the end of this you do too.

TLDR; Write a room a day. A floor a month. Brag about it on your social media platform of choice. 

Part 1: What is a Megadungeon? 

Your domain is what it is. After all, we aren’t called Dungeon Masters without reason. 

That’s pretty much it. There’s not some arbitrary number of rooms between dungeon and megadungeon. It’s about intent. A dungeon is where your players stop to loot. A megadungeon is the campaign.1

Because of this, it doesn’t have to be nonstop danger. Space and friends are needed for a megadungeon. One could call it an Ecology. Sure, the Orc Gang might be hot on their heels. But the territorial Dark Elves are willing to help create a vacancy to expand their domain. The goblin market do be poppin; a brief rest to drink, shop, and gather intel is right up their alley. Your dungeon should be alive. But more importantly it should be a place to live.

Part 1a: But really though, what should I have? General guidelines:

Have Factions, not Monsters: There can be nasty boys down there, things only meant to kill can exist. But have some neutral enemies too, Even some friendly ones. This is a setting, after all. Not a death pit. (do have a death pit, though.) 

Endings, not an End: There’s no beating the dungeon. Just adventures to start and finish. Memories to make. 

History and Theme, not a Story: This place existed for some long forgotten reason. Then monsters moved in. Then even more time passed. Tell that. You aren’t telling a story. After all, it’s the players characters that tell the story. Their actions guide the plot, but give them something to chew on. Something to think about. A color to paint the story you are all2 creating. 

Wayne’s corner 

Hi. I’d like to take a brief break from talking about designing a dungeon and talk about why You. Yes You3 dear reader. Should stop home brewing a massive world. I know that r/worldbuilding has some cool maps. But it takes a unique skill (and a shit ton of time) to breathe life into a world. There’s too much to do. A small dungeon, though? You can handle that. Take all that work that would’ve burned You out and shrink it down. Your megadungeon will be better for it. It’ll be rich with culture and all while You get to look like a genius. 

If Twin Peaks, Disco Elysium, Dark Souls, Midnight Mass, Breath of the Wild, and other examples have taught me anything. Take that effort of making a functional world and shrink the scope down to an island4 cut off from the world. You’ll be left with a tightly designed and interconnected setting that will be a delight to play in.

Part 2: Tools of the Trade 

I think there’s something to writing it all down on god ol’ pen and paper. But I’m also a pervert who uses things like Fountain Pens. Surprisingly, a weekly planner works quite well for this. Make sure it has pages to actually draw the dungeon on. But, if you do like using digital tools, I can’t recommend Obsidian enough. It’s what’s currently writing this very blog post. 

Use several random tables. It takes a lot of the pontification out of the process and gives you a little spark of an idea. I’ll recommend Tome of Adventure Design because it’s nearly 600 pages of only tables.

It also takes you step by step on all the basic parts of an adventure. Then gives you small nuggets of inspiration in those remove tables. It takes care of the “initial” idea for you. After all, you need to fill those 12 floors with something. You’ll only have burnout as a reward if you try to think of every little thing. ToAD helps out with that.

Part 3: The Plan 

If you’re reading this before Jan 1st 2023, this is the planning phase. If you’re reading this after, I recommend you throw caution to the winds and make your first room. You can gather all the tools and plan all you want, but none of that is substitution to putting the work in.5

Think about your Theme first. The aesthetic. Is it a wizard’s tower with dark secrets hidden within? The last standing castle of a lost kingdom. Now a home to the monstrous denizens; as you descend you may discover what happened to the fall of a kingdom. How to stop it from happening again. One thing to remember is that everything is a dungeon. Maybe your dungeon is a forest? Or it can be the asteroid belt. It can be a single room if you’d like.6

Step 1: 

This is your Development phase. Start reaching out to things that inspire you. Books, TV, Video Games, Art, and even Music. This is what your Appendix N is. Take all those little nuggets of what you like and put your voice into your megadungeon. Like you would any other work. 

For example, here are a few things that have been bouncing around in my head: 

  1. Elden Ring. All souls games are megadungeons.7
  2. Berserk. Yes, it’s bloody and Brutal. More importantly, it’s about struggling no matter what faces you. Hanging with your friends on a very long boat ride. 
  3. Magic Sword. A synth Wave band that makes me feel like I can slay Dragons. 
  4. Glorryhammer. An epic power metal band that makes me feel like I can slay Dragons.
  5. Made in Abyss: The setting is as much a character as the uhm - characters. Also, the music is super good.

Obviously I like things that make you feel unstoppable. But I want my setting to be as important as the characters and NPCs along the way- it’ll be as unstoppable. Monsters, magic, ancient secrets that when discovered will rock the world. It helps that dungeon 23 is a daily practice. I’ll spend a whole year in this setting, it’s only natural it’ll gain a personality all its own.  My megadungeon  also needs a kick ass soundtrack.

On A system: 

One thing to consider is What System you’ll be running. It’s not necessary, but if you know what system to use, then you can focus your design around that. E.G. If you want to play 5e then you can balance for that. Or you can remain system agnostic. Keeping it open though lets you focus on the themes and spirit. Giving whoever runs the dungeon (you in the near future) the freedom to choose a system and fill the gaps you leave. It’s not much to lose sleep over.

Step 2: 

Now we actually gotta sit down and start production. I’d recommend a bit of an outline. Preplan the 52 themes. Think about what you want your 12 floors to be like. Think about the layout you want in your journal too. A room, a page? I plan on splitting my week on the left side of the page, and draw the rooms on the right side. 

When you sit down to start crafting, this is where your random tables come in. It helps the creative process, gets you over staring at a blank page. 

Remember, it’s not about making it amazing. If you want to throw a few goblins in the room and call it a day. So be it. Hell, even empty rooms will be useful places for your party to catch their breath. It’s more important to do it every day, rather than waiting for a burst of inspiration to catch up. 

Step 3: 

Finally, we’re in Post Production. It’s December 31st, 2023, and you scratch out the final room. Maybe it’s amazing and ties it all together, maybe it’s one room among 365. All that matters is you did it. Now what? 

You can close the notebook, slip it into your shelf, and take what you learned into dungeon24. But wouldn’t it be so much more fun if you ran your megadungeon?

Conclusion 

This is the actual advice, if you made it here, congratulations. Dungeon23 in theory is a way to space out making a colossal megadungeon. In practice, it should prove to You that you can do it. Sometimes creative projects feel insurmountable and you get discouraged. You know where you are now, and where you want to be. The time between then and now is fret with pitfalls, monsters, and so many branching paths. It can all be over whelming. But if you take it one day at a time, you just might make something wonderful by the end.

  1. or at least a big part of it.↩︎

  2. and I do mean everyone at the table. The Dm is just as important. Unfortunately though, they aren’t the protagonists. So their actions aren’t what drive the story. But they are part of telling it none the less.↩︎

  3. Not you if you like doing this.↩︎

  4. Anything can be an island.↩︎

  5. Kinda like reading this blog↩︎

  6. Now you’re really thinking on an island↩︎

  7. and they’re OSR↩︎

December 26, 2022