The Tao of D&D: 2025

Wednesday, February 5, 2025

Wiki Work Process

In case anyone should wonder about my working process, just a few minutes ago I edited the last of a series of 57 pages, the "oldest" on the Authentic wiki, meaning those pages that have been ignored for the longest possible time.

Of the 1,467 total pages, this leaves 1009 left to edit. But as I need a break from this process, and there are other things to do, I'm going to address the 30 "incomplete" pages that are left to do. I'm not going to complete them all — that would be most tiresome, and I find my best process is in changing the nature of the work as often as possible, while still getting things done.

The rule for Incomplete Pages is this: (a) roll three random files from the 30 that are incomplete; (b) pick one; and (c) either finish that file, or add at least 1,000 words (or, in wiki-speak, about 6,000 characters).

Then, that choice can be removed, the other two left as they are, and a new replacement incomplete file chosen. This gives me some choice, but I have to choose the most desirable from a larger field. This reduces the paralysation caused by choice, while inevitably forcing me to do some work on something in this pile. As shown on the table, I have to do five such pages, then I can move on.

The rule for Sage Ability/Spell pages is this: determine which spell and sage abilities have the most links on the wiki, without a page existing, then make that page from scratch. Do not stop until it is finished, or — if it is somewhat challenging, get at least 4,000 characters done, then move it to the "incomplete" category. In any case, get at least enough done to give a clear sense of what the ability or spell does, so that it can be at least interpreted.

The rule for the Old wiki pages is to transfer 30 pages from the old wiki to the new. Concentrate on pages that don't need a lot of work, as transfer is more important than the ones that will drag and deplete my motivation.

The rule for Wanted pages is to do the first 3, most "wanted" pages according to mediawiki's sort for this. Once this is done, all the new content will be created, and I will go back to editing pages again.

As work is done, less pages will need editing, the demands for pages to be created will increase. Eventually, I shall adjust % of Old Wiki pages to be moved across as the number drops, until this category disappears completely. As more of the larger pages are edited, they'll fail to be completed and the "incomplete" page numbers will increase, so that I'll spend more and more time with that.

Overall, this allows the type of work I'm doing, while producing milestones for me to approach and then pass, awarding me with a sense of achievement at a job that is immense and seemingly impossible.

Yes, I know I'm crazy.

Monday, February 3, 2025

Quote

When I was a teenager, the subject of virginity seemed to emerge all the time. We were quite taken with it. We concerned ourselves greatly about who was, and who was not one, and who might cease to be one; it mattered greatly who intended to go on being one for much longer, and we all wondered what might happen when we weren't one anymore.

Now that I am sixty, the subject never comes up. It's possible it really wasn't that important.

Saturday, February 1, 2025

when a creator doesn't give a fuck

I'm just going to rattle off a few things. I've just watched this video from CinemaStix. I follow the channel; the creator has some valuable things to say. The creator occasionally has his head up his ass. This video makes me want to write in his comments, "Shut up. Go make your own film."

The video is irrelevant. The creator also, the comment too. What's relevant is that as I sit here in my world giving advice as a creator on my channel, outlining rules for a game that I've run, that I would run again... that I've proven to many online that I can run, I'm not prancing out someone else's work that I can't duplicate, I can't match, I can't even remotely, fully, understand.

You, Dear Reader, see that video and think, "Interesting, I hadn't thought of that before, I have new perspective on the movie..." Whatever.

You read a post here about something I've written that says if you want your game world to work effectively, you'll need to get off your ass, work, figure it out, create your own content that I haven't created for you and no, no one's really going to help you, especially your own players... and you think, "I can't do that."

Well, maybe you don't, but you have ready excuses for why you don't. No one has that kind of time, it's just a game, this isn't rocket science, I have other things to do with my life, I don't think my being a better DM is all that important. Whatever. What matters is that you have an excuse, not that it's a good one.

The difference is that Danny Boyd, the voice behind CinemaStix, isn't a creator in the way that Tony Gilroy, who directed the film spoken about, is a Creator. Boyd needs someone else to create things, so that he can comment on it. That's the strength of his "creativity." Tony Gilroy doesn't need that. He needs money. Because the difference between Gilroy creating and Gilroy not, is whether Gilroy has the money to create what he does.

I am not a filmmaker. I am a writer. I don't need money. I need a computer. But I don't need someone else to create something first, either. I continue to use source material that is 45 years old, but I pay no attention to it. I don't cut it into different shapes and then call that "creating content."

More to the point, I tell you, Dear Reader, that you don't need someone else to create content first, either. You don't need someone to make you a module, so you can be Danny Boyd. I don't tell you that you need to buy the latest books. I don't tell you that you need to follow people on youtube, or anywhere else. I tell you that you need to get off your ass and make your own fucking content. For your players. That you pretend you care about.

When I started "working on my D&D world" in 1980, I had players. I did not have subscribers. I did not have a channel. I did not have a computer. I had a desire to work on the game because I loved it. If, today, I'm not working on my Streetvendor's Guide... I'm not working on Finding D&D in the Dark... I'm not working on Fallow... I'm not working on any of the projects I've started and haven't published... it isn't because I've forgotten about these projects, or because I'm not going to do them. It's because, for me, my priority is, always, that I love D&D and I'm going to work on whatever the hell I love. If I want to spend four or five months doing maps, then that's what I'm going to do. If I want to work on my wiki, that's been closed to me since winter of last year, then I'm going to do that. Because that's what matters to me. I don't give a fuck, sorry, what others want, or what others think matters, or what others feel I ought to be working on. I don't care about success. If money is what mattered to me, if it ever mattered, then I'd be out working and making it. What matters to me is what I want to work on. In the way that I want to work on it.

What most youtube "creators" who talk about this kind of material, who laud this person or that, will never understand, is that youtube "creating" isn't. It just isn't. It's time-wasting naval gazing that adds nothing to the store of value for the human race.

As I'm also doing that, then I'm going to do it for me. Those of you who want me to go on working, who are simply glad that I am working, it won't matter to you what I'm working on. It won't matter than I'm a miserable, inflexible, uncaring, hostile asshole. It will only matter to you that I am still working, on whatever I want to.

Thank you for your time.

Friday, January 31, 2025

This Week's Wiki

For those not following me on Patreon, this is a list of adjusted or rewritten Authentic Wiki content compatible with 1st edition D&D, or merely of interest, updated in the last week. This will be adjusted throughout today, as new pages are created.

Monday, January 27, 2025

Quote

No matter how you arrange the rules of a society, there will always be one person who figures that things ought to work in such a way that their going to jail can't be right — even when they're playing Monopoly.

Friday, January 24, 2025

This Week's Wiki

Saturday, January 4, 2025

Finding D&D - 10

With the party and the children, their parents and the drivers loaded up on the wagons, there's an opportunity here to casually invest the players in the game. It's not needed... but small bits of "stage business" in telling what goes on in a campaign helps ground the players in the place and time, so that the world is a little more "tangible." It's a practice that needs to be inserted in bits, when an opportunity arises.

The idea is to convey the physicality of a setting that can't actually be seen by the players, and therefore can be easily dropped from their memory... which flattens the players' experience, such that each part of the game world becomes like any other part. In addition, we want to give moments emotional "weight." It doesn't have to be a lot, just enough to make these people in the wagons, whomever they are, feel like people and not stick figures. And finally, we want to convey a sense of connection between the players and both of these things... giving the overall experience of the game "atmosphere."

At the same time, we don't want to stifle the campaign or invest a lot of time. The momentum of events has to be maintained, so anything more than four or five minutes of atmosphere would potentially bore the players. So there, right off, we've got a series of goals and constraints we want to observe, and no apparent easy way to do it.

Continued on The Higher Path

Friday, January 3, 2025

Finding D&D - 9

Olivia heads to the bathroom and, predictably, Susan reaches for her coat. October now and the weather's getting cold. Rick stands and asks if she'd mind his coming along and she says, "No, of course." He follows her outside.

John has sat down again and appears to be copying some part of his character onto another sheet; he's been fairly quiet all night and I want to ask, but I won't as long as Jason's here. None of us know the fellow yet and I know it's not the time to ask John what's wrong — though I know something is.

There's nothing odd about Jason's presence creating a shadow over the usual rhythms of a group. Someone like Jason was going to be friendly because I trusted Susan's judgment. She wouldn't have asked me to let just anyone play; I've long known that her instincts about people are good.

Susan's husband had been named Daniel too, like his son. He was a professor specialising in urban planning; when Susan discovered she was pregnant, Daniel had been in Boston, overseeing a reconstruction project as a consultant, with a nice stipend in the bargain. When Susan told him over the phone that she was four months pregnant — they hadn't seen each other in a few months — Daniel had been wildly happy about it, half raving on the phone as Susan told us. The next day, he was home. He'd caught the first flight out of Boston he could get and after 17 hours of hopping planes, he was back in Calgary. He told Boston they'd have to do without him; he wasn't leaving his wife and child for any reason. That was the sort of man that Susan married.

Continued on The Higher Path