I’ve set a new goal for StupidRPG. I’ll be entering it into the 2018 Interactive Fiction Competition. 9/28/2018.

More DD&D playtesting.

Did a flow diagram of the first two segments of the “not dungeon crawl”, which I’m reasonably happy with. Not sure I can fit it into a single session, so I need to plan a good breather point somewhere in the middle.

Some general objectives:

• Don’t utter the words “dungeon crawl” at any point.
• Give every character important things to accomplish, whether that’s holding off a wave of thralls, bypassing a locked blast door, or restarting a steam turbine.
• Risk of death.
• Forward the plot(s) with relevant NPCs and the Plague.
• Every room should feel like it has a purpose.

Did some playtesting of DumDums & Dragons today. It’s a friend’s goofy lite RPG system, lots of fun. Only a little time has passed since the first time I looked at it, but the character creator I built is already in need of updates.

Finally found a use for my old smartphone. Turns out there are a couple apps that will let you use a smartphone as a makeshift security camera. Nice alternative to letting it sit in a closet like some kind of zombie device.

Ran D&D for the first time in 7 months. It went well, everyone got back into the groove without too much trouble. I ran the players through a masquerade ball with a planning segment, a fair bit of intrigue, and multiple objectives. No combat, only one death, so a pretty good party.

They also met some key characters for the plotline going forward.

Next up, I have some bigger plans for the rebellion. I’m also working through what makes a good/bad dungeon crawl. I’d like to trick them into enjoying a dungeon crawl by making it plot relevant in a big way.

I think I have the reverse-power to choose who wins DOTA2 tournaments. Every team I root for loses.

Final versions of the masquerade invites.

Invitation mockup for the D&D masquerade. I like to occasionally hand out physical items to the players; it helps set the mood.

In retrospect, I should have been tagging these posts better (or at all, in many cases). Second time I’ve written a bunch of game content, only to find I had separately written the same content in the dev journal much earlier.

Usually the stuff in the journal is better. Writing prose in a code editor doesn’t stir the creative juices, apparently.

Decided when I reach 365 posts (a year, give or take), I’m going to switch to a more ad-hoc schedule. The daily dev journal started as a way to motivate me to work on SRPG every day, but over time it’s morphed to the point where I spend more time worrying about updating the journal than I do actually making the game.

No regrets, though.