Greetings and Felicitations, Dear Readers, I hope you are doing well. If Christmas is your thing, then have a merry one, and if not then best wishes for whatever it is you celebrate this time of year, even if it is simply making it to the end of another year. Some years are better than others and I hope that 2019 was a good one and 2020 is even better.
I had a nice time at a Solstice celebration where there was a big fire and I got to don a robe and everything, and an equally fun Christmas with my tiny tree that I bust out for a month before banishing it back to the dungeon, along with the tiny reindeer and bird, in their green and red plastic bin.
Reindeer wants to be a ranger or barbarian. Naturally the bird wants to play a dragonborn.*
Received some pretty nice presents this year, which touch on my three favorite hobbies: gaming, writing, and working out.
It has been quite a few years since I’ve played roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, and I happened to mention to someone I’m getting the itch to DM once again. The result was a Players Handbook from Jolly Old Saint Nick. Now all I have to do is find some like-minded people in my area.
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel is apparently a guidebook for plotting novels. I feel pretty confident with short stories and such, but I feel like 2020 is going to be the year where I educate myself more with structuring longer fiction. So I’m going to read through this book and see about applying what I learn to going back and revisiting the Gabby novel I was poking away at on Wattpad.
The metal thingie is a wide-grip wrist roller. For anyone not familiar, you attach a weight to it and roll the rope up and lower it back down. It targets the forearms and especially the grip. Nice and heavy duty too. Can’t wait to take it to the gym. With the Twist Yo’ Wrist device I’ve been using for some time now, I’ll never meet a jar of pickles I didn’t like.
I updated my About page. I thought maybe it was time considering I haven’t touched it since about 2014.
Take care and have a great 2020.
— Ann
* I’m fairly certain that the tree wants to play a Druid, though I’ll have to build back up to where I’m high enough level to cast Speak with Plants to be certain!
Ann's Immaterium 
It sounds like it was valuable – nothing worse than a mobile at the table though! Sounds like a challenge – hopefully this next one will be much easier!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, I found the cell phone thing to be rather annoying. It certainly wasn’t a problem when I was in my DMing golden years of the late-70’s through the early-80’s. 🙂
We’ll see, though this time around I won’t be running games as a store employee, so my plan is to use my open one-shots as a funnel to find people, who I want to game with for a campaign. I’d also like to meet some people, who also like to run games, so I can play too, but while I like being a player, I’m inevitably one of those people who mostly enjoys being on the other side of the screen.
LikeLike
Welcome back to DM-ing! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, I’m looking forward to it. I put out some local feelers and I’m going to be running my first game (a one shot) in a long time (and my first ever of 5e) next weekend. So far I have three players, one is a friend and the other two I haven’t met yet.
LikeLike
Good luck Ann! I wish you all the best with your one shot! How long has it been since you last DM-ed?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Luke. I think it has been six or seven years since I last DMed a Pathfinder campaign at a game store. It was a campaign that varied between two to about seven players, and was episodic because I never knew how many players were going to show up. I got better at, through the grim experience of being thrown into the crucible, both scaling adventures and adjusting the challenges depending on how many players showed up and what they were playing. I was running the game as part of working at a store and the game had a core of people, who showed up most all the time and let me know if they weren’t, and some players with highly eccentric orbits, who showed up if they didn’t have anything better to do or the allure of video games wasn’t too strong that night.
Honestly, if I had been running it as a private game, I probably would have culled most of the orbiters (especially the one that slowed the game way down by playing on his cell phone when it wasn’t his turn) but I didn’t, it being an “open to all” store game. While it was often frustrating at the time, I’m glad I didn’t because I think I learned a lot from the experience.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Happy New Year to you as well Ann.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Many thanks. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here’s hoping you get to play D&D and write more in 2020! Nearly half a world away from you is the same reindeer standing on our bookcase keeping a watchful eye on us! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Many thanks, I hope so as well. I hope you get in much gaming and painting as well next year. May your rough riders and armoured hordes increase in both power and number.
Huh, the same reindeer? I wonder if they are siblings or maybe (even better) evil clones? A good thing that on January 2nd mine is going back in the dreaded red and green plastic bin, which will then be banished to the inner recesses of my dungeon, until next year. I would greatly fear how Reindeer’s evil reindeer powers would wax monstrous if I was so silly as to give Reindeer a home on my bookcase. I’d expect to have to start rolling percentile dice against sanity loss within the month!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank Ann! I’ll maybe think of them as siblings just to be on the safe side! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s probably a lot safer than evil clones, I’d agree!
LikeLiked by 1 person