Man, hit kind of a wall with writing this week. I've been plodding along with Shawn's notes and have been making some progress. I've been working on some Pathfinder conversions as well, and I've got most of the upcoming scenarios complete. I'm kind of feeling like I hit a wall today though. I can't bring myself to pull up my Pathfinder notes, and I've got my tenth scenario right on the cusp of being finished, but I can't bring myself to pull it up and put words to paper. I'm just feeling really burned out and lazy. I think I just need to take a break from writing my balls off on a daily basis.
In that vein, I Gesso-ed up Kethranmeer today and he looks alright. I tried to greenstuff in his face area to give him that flat metal, eyeless, face that is kind of iconic to him and it didn't go well. I just can't get the bits of greenstuff small enough to fit in the helmet eyeslits in a way that doesn't cause the greenstuff to go every where. I think if I carefully apply Gesso to the slits with a toothpick or skinny ass brush in thin layers, it will do that same job. I just have to be real careful and apply it in several layers. Once I get a good smooth coat of chainmail or gunmetal paint over it, it should be fine. If not, I've got a dozen other helmets I can play with to make it work on. I think if I focus on making Kethranmeer, it'll be a nice break from writing and will allow me to kind of take it easy with the creative muscles.
I've also got a book about characters and viewpoints that I've been reading, so I can focus on that while I'm taking this break or whatever.
Moving along, I recently listened to a podcast from a website called Critical Hits (www.critical-hits.com), and learned about something called campaign planning with the 5x5 method. I'm not going to wax philosophical about how ingenious and awesome it is, but I would like to type about it for a bit. Its awesome, brilliant, I love it, and I'll be using it next campaign. Enough said.
Anyway, the podcast taught me a little about scenarios. The gist of the 5x5 method is that you break shit down into pieces. Our sessions are lengthy, each of them exceeding eight or nine hours. I would like to cut that in have and game once or twice a month, rather than once every three or four months. I've crafted the next three scenarios with that in mind, kind of taking a page from the 5x5 method as best I can.
As an example, our last scenario where the group ousted Phineus the Formerly Fat from power. Instead of one massive scenario, I should have anticipated that there would be a lot of discussion without decision in a group with no centralized leadership. What I should have done was make a scenario based around them figuring out how to bring the district under control. That would have cut the scenario quite literally in half (if we cut out the Lost talk), then we could have called it a day and come back in two weeks and fully implemented those plans. It would have made the sessions more fun and less about endurance, and I could have had more time to implement what went on in the planning stage in the let's do this stage. I've made the ninth and tenth scenarios very focused in their content and purpose, hopefully this will make them quicker to play through and a little more relaxed with less emphasis on "let's get this done!"
I've been thinking about it, I'm totally over GURPS. I can't even think about the GURPS wiki and my Reich-5 stable of characters without sighing and my mind becoming this void of blahness. Reich-5 doesn't interest me anymore, and the initial immense appeal of GURPS' general universal standpoint that allows for easy use has just faded to nothing for me. If Eric called me up and said we were playing GURPS next weekend, I would say "Cool, have fun. See you when we play my campaign."
Sad I suppose, but I'm just sick of thinking and wondering about GURPS and not having it go anywhere. Who knows, maybe Eric will make an impassioned speech about the gloriousness of GURPS when we all discuss what system we want to use next once the 4th Edition campaign is done, and maybe it will re-inspire me. We'll see.
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