Oh I’ve taken that into account, lol. Things will happen in the story even if the players aren’t there to see it, because of faction Clocks (though those will tick if the players do things in quests that would benefit any of the three factions, not through time). I think I got my bases covered with enough brush strokes that I can spin up some bullshit to bring it all back to the main story if necessary.

And yeah, I see your point. I’m doing that, though, lol. Besides the enemy mobs which I’ll need for/if they decide to go a random cave or something, I’m only doing stuff I’ll need in the first 5 sessions. Maps, characters, and narrative aid artwork that might/will be used afterwards will be done then. Most of the stuff already done will be reused later (unless the players decide to start killing people out of the blue), but they might see all of that stuff early on, barring one or two characters.

This. I like DMing for ttrpgs, and I love drawing and painting. You’d think I’d be extatic about prepping homebrew and assets for a digitally run Savage Worlds campaign set Tamriel (or a weird homebrew mix of cyberpunk and vampire the masquerade), the truth is I’m more than just a bit burned out.

I want to start the campaign now, and I’ve had the story and characters ready to go for a month now, but prepping all those art assets has been tedious. So far I’ve done about 20+ tokens, 5+ maps, 15 character portraits, and some 10 general purpose pieces to aid narration. I got about 7 tokens left and I’m done, and I can barely get one out a day, every other day.

The worst thing is I have a very clear idea of what I want the campaign to look like and I’ve already made concessions by using RPG Engine to design my maps instead of doing it all by hand and just retouching it later. I don’t want to make any more concessions, so I’m SOL.

The nothing buds are pretty good and if I’m not wrong I got them under 50.

Yeah, I’m multilingual from a hispanic country, and due to job experience and the media I consume I’ve ended up with a real mess of both accent and lexicon. Nowadays, most of my english and italian interactions are limited to online gaming, and half the time people catch on to my accent, and guess I’m either quebecois, german, or french, despite not being fluent in any of those or ever spending more than a week in any of those countries.

In day to day life, I mix all three (spanish, english, and italian), using the first word that comes to mind. It feels really jarring trying to convey a complete idea in just spanish, and end up translating foreign words in my head. It’s faster for me now to communicate in english than it is in spanish.

That’s about it. Clients often have an idea of what they want, inspired by stuff they’ve seen already. It’s just safer to request stuff that already works than innovate. So designers might have more interesting and readable ideas but they end up doing what the client wants anyway. Good way to see this is designer’s online portfolios.

A good client provides some guidance but offers a fair amount of freedom in regards to exploration, the average client has an idea of what they want already, and the worst kind of client tells you what they want from the go (because most often it just won’t work).

I see your point, but… I don’t know. Nowadays, attention is a prime commodity. The easier something is to consume, the more people it will reach. And while that doesn’t matter as much in entertainment media, it has to be considered when designing for more important topics. Thus, media has to be designed to be read efficiently.

I don’t love how media is designed nowadays, precisely because it is monotonous and boring often, but I don’t long for the days when I had to look an entire page over for the bit of information I’m after. A balance can be struck through clear layout design and following trends that respect hierarchy. Maximalism does neither.

Though, I feel like I have to differentiate artistic media from informative media. Art can go bonkers, in fact art should challenge established tropes, but design should prioritize function over form, keeping in mind there is some room for aesthetics in there.

Again, I’m approaching this from an efficiency and ease of use point of view.

I’m a graphic designer, so maximalism and antidesign. It’s taking a bit to become more than just a trend, but it’s getting there. I understand minimalism is getting stale, but the answer is not going for something hard to read. Even with proper hierarchy the sheer clash of colors, sizes, etc., will lead to a jumbled mess. Form follows function to make life easier.

A balance must be struck between maximalism and minimalism.

And odds are, they already made their choice.

This is so relatable. I attended a school that gave its students a ton (and I mean a ton) of homework, because idle hands are the devil’s workshop (ugh), and I struggled the moment I couldn’t coast through without studying. Then went on to a college with a very similar work structure, and the same thing happened, except this time I quit after failing an entire trimester’s worth of classes. Some time after I enrolled into a different college that had a more hands on approach and I aced nearly every class.

Every trimester we’d have to enroll to a class which would have only one assignment, and you’d start working on it on day 1, and present results on the final day before a panel. The workload was much greater, I had less guidance, and it lead to a more trial and error approach than a step by step guide, but I’d never felt more comfortable or happier in an academic setting. Previously I had thought school just wasn’t for me but it was all in the approach. I just can’t do piecemeal busy work.

Yeah. I struggled to finish my graduation thesis, for many reasons, but chief among them was that I took on a project I didn’t know I wasn’t prepared for (it went way, waaay beyond what my education gave me, including economic and social issues I definitely was not prepared to explore, nevermind explain) and my supervisor was as inexperienced in it as I was. Me being the perfectionist that I am, being unable to produce what I imagined meant I’d rather do nothing.

Took me about 2y to get a decent research paper together (it really didn’t need to take that long, it was a qualitative study on gentrification in my city), and by the time I was able to guilt myself into actually finishing it, I got a decent looking project in about 2 weeks, hyperfocusing through the absolute rage the entire thing was giving me. The terna (experts assigned to judge) loved it, from the research to the execution. I asked for the degree to be handed to me on site instead of through a ceremony. I was just absolutely done with it, lol.

I don’t really feel proud about it even though I should be, I’m just glad I got through it at all.

Also, this one might be somewhat subjective since stuff can feel hot or cold depending on the person, but body temp is around 37C, with hands lagging behind a degree maybe.

Even a two degree difference is obvious, and helps with pets (cats have an internal temp of 39 and dogs of 37), and to a lesser degree, cooking.

I’ll be sure to mention it! Appreciate it

Yeah this is the one.

Hm, the first session I ever ran I had this mentality. The session would entail meeting in a tavern, talking to the locals to gather info on a nearby tournament, and get ambushed on the road by undead. I had listed out every bit of XP that my players could earn along the way, plus a little over in case they did something cool. Both combat XP from killing monsters, as well as passing planned social and exploration checks and player-initiated social and exploration checks.

It was hell. I had a spreadsheet on one screen checking boxes to automatically add stuff (so as easy as it could be), for even the smallest stuff possible. The XP was shared as well, so I wasn’t even counting each player individually. The very next session I decided I’d start doing narrative level ups instead.

The problem with XP systems, especially the ones like Elder Scrolls which levels skills through use, is that it adds a ton of homework to the DM. On top of prepping encounters, quests, maps, NPC’s, oh-shit situation scenarios, etc., doing XP is a bit much, at least for me.

Part of the entire reason I moved away from DnD was the level up system. Savage Worlds is much better in that regard, since on an advancement players can upgrade combat skills, social skills, exploration skills, or gain the equivalent of feats (or remove what would amount to anti-feats) after an important story beat - all from the same point pool. So, an advancement could be achieved after a particularly important conversation or exploration event, and result in non-combat skills being upgraded.

Hm, appreciate it! I’ll look into it.

Might’ve been, but I don’t remember it being so red. I’m on mobile right now though, and my PC browser loads everything in dark mode, maybe the colors were affected.

In any case, the site my buddy showed me ranked games according to performance just like that one so that one would still be useful.

One of my buds is a programmer and runs linux and windows on his machine. At this point he’s pretty adroit at fixing any issues on linux, but he has faced limitations before.

Regarding work, being on linux apparently was a big plus when he got hired, and works exclusively on linux due to its stability.

Regarding gaming, many games we play apparently run better on linux (inc. ArmA Reforger and some others, I forget), but some will just not run at all (anything with a kernel anticheat), and his mic sounds like utter shit on discord due to missing drivers or something.

I do remember there was a site where you could check how well a game ran on linux, but I forget. You might be able to check if the games you got run on steam deck, since they are linux based.

Shit. What if you are running the home edition? I’ve been thinking about switching as well, but I don’t have a background in coding and I’d have to run a dedicated ssd with windows just for my work programs (design related) or migrate to FOSS completely.

There’s this belizean hot sauce called Marie Sharp’s, I get the gold one. Doesn’t sting me at all, my family can’t handle heat, but it does the job well enough.

My favourite however is Salsa Macha. Can’t get dried pepper where I’m at though, or I’d make it myself. Goes great with just about anything, even compound butter slathered bbq steaks.

Running through the most golden wheat field I could’ve ever imagined (I swear I’m not a british PM), on the side of a hill that went on to the horizon. Behind me, hauling ass, was the mystery machine with no driver. On top of the mystery machine was Cliff Burton, Bo Bonham, and Jimi Hendrix playing purple haze. I woke up as I stopped running and just started floating.

Either that, or the time I dreamt I accidentally killed a romantic partner in my sleep in a huge hotel that looked like something out of Brazil. As I woke up (in the dream), the bed was covered in blood and the police was banging on my door. I pushed an armoire into the door frame, broke a window, and jumped out. Then I woke up.