From Book to Table: 11 Types of TTRPG Players

(This image has VERY LITTLE to do with the article, though it provided insight while I was a Keeper)

I almost decided against writing this because so many more experienced DMs/GMs/Keepers (D&D Shorts/Dungeon Dudes/Matthew Colville) have spoken so eloquently about this. But as a novelist converting a novel into a game, I feel it’s integral to recognize how others will interact to your work-as-a-TableTop game from my perspective and not the perspective of a native DM/GM/Keeper. If you want pure game tips, click those links–especially Matt Colville’s–as he’s both a writer and a game developer (dev), and I highly respect his work.

From Book to Table: Creating a 5e Supplement or Campaign

When your hippy typewriter breaks.

I’ve been a little light on the employment of late. Having just graduated with a Masters in English and Rhetoric from JAXState, my daily dose of applications have kept my nose down and hopes up. While I work to find work, on the other hand, I’ve been watching up on the veritable explosion of third party modules and campaigns found both within the 5e setting and without. While I’m not currently able or willing to put time or energy into developing my own TTRPG–whuff–I have the solid foundation for creating my own content. My own module.

Here’s how I’m going to do it.

From Book to Table: Converting a Novel to a Tabletop Game

iStock photo *Cuz I’m a poor English Boy Without a Ko-Fi

I haven’t been here much in the recent past; partially because I’ve been novel-writing, and partially because the long COVID season (2+ years?) has left me a little breathless and overwhelmed. Finally, I picked up a Masters in English during my downtime. Woot? I’ll post something about my current projects soon.

So. One of the Massive projects I recently undertook was the conversion of a favorite novel to a D&D campaign, as I felt inspired by an amazing friend group who play legendary campaigns. For those who don’t know, Dungeons and Dragons is a highly successful (and highly controversial) gaming system that evolved out of 1980’s tabletop. It’s currently in its 5th edition, with a 6th soon to be out (2024). It’s rife with backgrounds, lore, deities, character classes, subclasses, “races” (or ancestries), and all manner of creative freedoms. For the purpose of this post, I’ll use D&D as the Tabletop Role Playing Game (TTRPG) of choice.

But like a lot of new D&D players (and Pathfinder, for that matter), there’s an overwhelming amount of world (and multiverse/multiplane)-building involved. I don’t have time, energy, OR ability to memorize and study all of this information. Like many who came before me (Critical Role anyone?), I chose to build my own path and convert my beautiful, wild world of Lorcalon to fit the narrative needs of a group gameplay campaign.

The question is! How?

For all those who recently got into it–or those who have played for years but want to know more about how others do it–this post is for you.

VLOG 2: Where I Rail In Support of Dream Narratives

(VIDEO: I say hi, talk a bunch about my writing beginnings, and discuss the importance of dream-writing in novels. Note: My official stance is: Dream Writing is not inherently Weak Writing; Weak Writing is Weak Writing. Also, cool new intro music I stole from a professional a capella group. JK. I made it myself.)

In a nutshell: I had a complicated childhood (who didn’t?) and my out for this was telling myself stories gleaned from remembering dreams. Some were nightmares, terrible, terrifying things. Others were blissful stories I started, journeyed through, and finished in a single night. I fell into scifi/fantasy because it’s from where all my stories grew. I’da gone horror if I had any experience with it.

How the Dinotopia Fantasy Book Series Saved Me

Breathe Deep, Seek Peace.

I know. I know. It isn’t Harry Potter, or Wheel of Time, or the Lord of the Rings, or the Dresden Files. It’s… dare I say… better?*

This post comes on the coattails of a delightful tweet where a class of students is reading Nic Stone’s Dear Martin, and one student’s reaction to an important part of the book. It warmed my heart so much to watch, and I immediately remembered when I was that age, or younger, and the series of books that hit me in the emotional space.

The book series was called Dinotopia, written in 1992 by James Gurney, surrounding a fictional island in the 1800’s where intelligent dinosaurs and people coexisted peacefully. The series began with three books that artfully depicted delicious, crisp scenes reminiscent of 1950’s art, da Vinci-esque machinery, and vibrant clothes, all surrounding a cast that felt almost small-town in nature; salt-of-the-earth folks. The colorful books won Hugo awards, and were apparently super successful.

And, I didn’t own either of the three of them. I read the first two, piecemeal, at Waldenbooks (rest its soul) because they were too expensive for me to buy. I randomly came across them at friends’ houses, but was too uncomfortable mentioning it because it was fantasy, and fantasy was fake.

On Black Panther and Symbols

M’Baku. My favorite character.

 

Warning: there are a few spoilers ahead. Marked out for your easy identification.

Black Panther, as the rest of the world already knows, was brilliant. I had the good fortune of seeing it in the theater last night, and while it wasn’t a perfect movie (does every superhero movie require a BvS-style “Martha” moment? T’challa could have just said, Nope. I don’t recognize Killmonger as having a stake to the throne. Lock him up as an outsider.), it had so much awesome going for it, I’ll put it in my top two Marvel superhero movies EVER, and within the top five superhero movies ever (Behind Dark Knight, Batman v Superman, Blade, and Hellboy).

I feel a portion of what made Black Panther so successful was the importance of symbol-use, symbol-sets, and individual identity, and I’m going to talk a little about that in this post. Also, Claw had one of the greatest laugh moments in super villain history, and it was perfect.

I Tiptoe Around (Some) Empowered Women in Literature and TV

This semester, I’ve been studying American Indian Survivance Discourse. I’ve been studying code-switching and the importance of diversity in voice through minority writing. I’ve been studying transgender literature. Fairy tale literature. LGBQ literature. It’s beautiful.

Most recently, I’ve been studying the poet Adrienne Rich. While all the subjects I put in my head this semester has had an impact on me, to varying degrees, Rich never ceases to explode my thought. Boom. And the kicker is, I studied her seven years ago with similar effect. Her insights are mind-curling, deep and twisting and nearly self-aware. And she made sense, on Thursday, in a way that fit something I’ve been thinking about for a while.

She said that for her to be a truly independent woman writer, she had to stop using men’s sensibilities and styles while writing.

Inception is Strangely Lovecraftian in Design

Inception is the type of movie where people walk away scratching their heads. Most people. I watched it when it first came out, enjoyed it for what it was, and moved on. (My brother, on the other hand, wasn’t such a fan.) It’s a “cerebral” thriller where the environment itself tells as much (or more) of the story as the characters. The premise surrounds a man who can extract information from another person’s subconscious via a cocktail of drugs and a carefully constructed “dream.” He brings a “Get Shorty” group of people in with him where they directly talk to the dreamer’s mind and find information, therefore performing an “extraction.” While the possibilities for creative enterprise is boundless, the movie pares all creative deviation to the story at hand, which is great for the masses and thus made for a somewhat accessible movie. While I understand why, the possibilities were literally endless for subject matter.

The content, on the other hand, is not only a throwback to “Weird Fiction” stories from the early 20th century, but also pays direct homage to the writer H.P. Lovecraft via dialogue and imagery. I watched the movie a second time yesterday, and was surprised by the correlation.

Writing Retreat: or, How to Avoid Writing

This week marks the first time I actively took a break from my 8-630 job to pursue writing. And, as expected, I spent most of that time putzing around, re-reading old works to get caught up to where I COULD write, and essentially removing myself from the world to continue doing what I do worst.

V-Blog: Audiobookish

The best way to keep word count to a minimum? V-Blog!