Across the Sky
ADJUSTMENTS to my preferences about running a game. Laptops are annoying. I think the school exam style of bringing only pencil and paper to the adventure is right. I've been using Obsidian recently and it's nice, and too powerful. I was using IAWriter but it gets slow on VAST documents; Get It At Sutlers and Bits O' Troika became stop-motion after a piddly 80k words or so, which is weird 'cos novels are definitely longer. Obsidian chops things up almost by default, skipping that issue. Problem now is I have nothing reminding me that things are getting too big or too granular. Running a game at the table from Obsidian is to witness your hyperlinked hubris in (slow) motion. Solution? I vomit forth on obsidian, and cut it down in notes. Inefficient, but it pays in smoothness at the table since the vomit still exists somewhere and can be accessed through the abbreviated notes. If I forget what I meant then I end up with a third thing that is entirely new. Bargain.
Having access to anything I want in unlimited amounts is not good for creativity.
I am also trying reign in what is, in my opinion, my worst habit: saving the best for last. It is never worth it! Not once in anything, least of all games. Lead with the good stuff, eat your cake first. It's an ongoing battle and the megadungeon is the correct place to have it.
In an attempt to eat my cake I will be running my Traveller meets Troika golden barge game at home as a treat. Still work, 'cos the finished barge play rules are absolutely going in Troika2 (talk about cake!), but I've finally "solved" it enough that it exists in my head as a solution rather than a bunch of questions to be answered. It won't survive impact with play but it can at least grow into something from this point.
Anyway, here are my rules for golden barge games:
I played High Frontier 4 All again recently and that tied it all together. It's so obvious I hardly need to write the rules out. I love having resource management in games and this is going to be it. Manage fuel (gold), routes, crew, risk, repairs, and of course provisions. With all those levers the players will have no shortage of motivations to slip and slide all over the shop on the hunt for needful things. The world will accrete without me (as GM) having a to decide what is important, I can lay track ahead of where the players tastes are leading.
The next time I'm here I'll hopefully have a map of some bit of the humpbacked sky and an idea of what the party might be doing. Or I might just be moaning again about something like the lack of creative joy in commercial TTRPGs, or how rpg trade shows are mostly pewp. But hopefully maps!