Yesterday, I told some friends of mine who are writers that I feel this need to write, and I certainly want to write, but my brains aren’t cooperating with me at all. I asked them for advice, and was relieved to learn that I’m not the only writer (who doesn’t feel like a writer at the moment) who experiences these weird and annoying patches of malaise.
I applied everyone’s advice, so I’ve gotten to play some GTA IV to recharge, read some comics and genre fiction to reinspire, taken some walks to clear my head, and now I’m writing something totally unrelated to my work, so I can hopefully kick stuff loose in my head and hopefully get back to my assignments.
I think I had this sudden lock-up in the brain-u-lo-tronic region of my skull because I’m kind of overwhelmed by both life and work. I think I may have taken on too many creatively-demanding writing projects, so yesterday I thought I’d make a list of my writing commitments, including their various deadlines, so I could get a better picture of what I need to do. The idea was to put everything onto paper, tape it up next to my desk, and feel a little bit better knowing what my responsibilities were.
Um. Yeah. Didn’t quite work out that way. Seeing how much I have to do has really freaked me out; I have an August 1 deadline for this project that is unlike anything I’ve ever done before, and though I’m looking at 51 days until I turn it in, I don’t feel like that’s enough time. Yikes. Fear is a good motivator, though, and I work well when I’m terrified, so I’m hopeful that once I get past a couple more milestones, I’ll be able to enjoy this thing, instead of . . . uh, whatever it is right now. Which is mostly paralyzing fear.
I also made a list of things I want to write but probably shouldn’t until I get my paying gigs handled. On that list is the last entry in our trip to New York, and a review and commentary about D&D4E. Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that I’ve been enjoying the fourth edition core books so far, and that I like a lot more than I don’t like. Because of all these commitments I have, though, I don’t know if I’ll have time to play or run a campaign — or even a one-shot — before summer is over. I don’t think it’s particularly responsible to write much about fourth edition until I get a chance to play it, you know? (If you’ve played or run a fourth edition adventure, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to leave ’em here.)
Anyway. On to the cryptic title of this post: John Kovalic, creator of Dork Tower, illustrator of Just a Geek, big bossman of Out of the Box games and all-around insanely awesome dude, has also been reading fourth edition. Today, he writes:
The designers of Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition must be having a real roller-coaster time, at the moment. On the one hand, this epic labor of love is finally in readers’ hands, to much acclaim. On the other hand, it will be slowly nibbled to death by gerbils as every gamer under the sun points out the one or two nitpicky things they dislike in the nearly-thousand-page Opus of Awesomejuice they released.
(I, for one, don’t understand why The “Customizing Scores” method of character generation starts with 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10. Would it have been that much to throw a couple extra points players’ ways – creating 10’s across the board – and thereby making the subsequent table of point additions that much more elegant? Nitpicky, nitpicky, NITPICKY!)
I will say, however, that the Monster Manual gives me greatest pause. Not due to any mechanic. Simply because of the sheer number of monsters that now go by MODIFIER-title MONSTER NAME (or MONSTER NAME modifier-TITLE). Yes, I realize this is due to the seemingly endless subdivision and stratification of monsters and monster types necessitated by new monster Roles: artillery, brute, controller, soldier, fishmonger (or something like that).
[…]
Anyway, it’s pretty obvious that D&D 4th edition has a specific way they’d like you to differentiate monsters. Now, anybody can be a critic. But it takes a better man to offer constructive advice – to put forward something POSITIVE. And so, in that spirit, I humbly offer KOVALIC’S SCROLL OF SWARMING FOURTH EDITION NOMENCLATURE, for those who want to create monsters or name new Player Characters the right way…the Fourth Edition way. Roll some dice and try it out!
What follows is an awesome and hilarious table intended to allow DMs to randomly generate silly names that fit into the unique fourth edition nomenclature. If you’re wondering, I used my very own dice to determine the type of ogre referenced in the title of this post.
If you roll up a monster name — I mean really roll it up, not just pick two funny entries and put them together — feel free to share your creation in the comments. I, for example, have also just created . . . a Bitchyhulk Oni, who I’m just certain is a level 9 controller.
You know, I can’t imagine not being a geek.
. . . and I’m very grateful for that.
To make an already geeky post that much more geeky: WWdN reader kendiara shared some thoughts on 4E that were interesting to me. (Is there a good signal to noise 4E discussion online anywhere?) Maybe they’ll be interesting to other geeks. There’s also some really funny monsters that were rolled up, including the Kobold Dreadlard, who I think must be a really tubby Kobold with a Dex of 5, and the fearsome Ogre Meatspike, who could be rather NSFW, depending on how demented you are. Eww!
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Very cool. I haven’t picked up anything D&D since the 2nd Edition stuff in my youth, so this looks very interesting.
Hopefully some of these odd naming conventions or other aspects of the 4th Edition will be popular enough to become internet memes and spread to “real life,” kind of like “rickrolling the Scientologists” — http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/
It’d be nice to see FRPG stuff popping up in broader popular culture again.
Well, that didn’t work right. Here’s the proper link:
http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2008/06/11/rick-rolling-the-scientologists/
I just rolled a Creamtrimmer Orc.
No, seriously.
I tried out the DnD4E combat system at NYCC. It’s pretty cool. Every class has some abilities it can use all the time- for example, wizards can use unlimited magic missiles. It’s odd that you always need to roll high tho. What do you do with those jinxed dice that only roll low?
Waiting to get into 4e until you have real time is a wise decision. I’m not busy with cool stuff like you, but i’m somewhat lacking in free time, and now i have to find time for a weekly 4e campaign. Not want to. MUST. one session, and now i have a need that will not be ignored.
also, thank you for filling the boring parts of my day with awesome.
One of the great perks of bookstore working is actually getting to check out books pre-release so you can talk about them intelligently on release day. So there was a mad dash of checking out the 4th edition core books. Tonight will be the third night of play running a basic campaign out of the DM guide. So thoughts so far are thus:
Night one—Rolling up characters with one player guide for four people is a bad idea, but we were stuck as we can only get one book each and we needed the DM guide for my spouse to run the thing. There are changes for sure everyone in the group kept getting bloodied by kobolds because the hit points changed (15hps+ strength not 15hps + strength modifier) Lots of dumb moments when your brain says one thing and your book says another. With only a couple days lead time we decide to use a pre-made out the back of the book and make it all the way through the first room after rolling up. Our normal House rules still work pretty well with the new setup. The rolls are pretty basic (d20 initiative, 1D10 + mod for damage) and understandable and nothing seems really broken or warped so far. At will (use as much as you want) powers are sweet! Encounter powers are slightly more powerful than at will and Daily powers are pretty much major beat down (Brute Strike does 3 weapon damage plus your strength mod).
Biggest complaint—not a lot of variety in races/classes, but being the first books that’s pretty normal.
Night 2—Everyone has their own book which makes it a lot easier than passing one around when you have questions. We’ve all gotten a chance to read our classes which works well to. We tweak our characters a bit, and make it though the next 3 rooms of the dungeon. Really smooth comparable to the last night. Everyone seems to be having fun. The level one stuff seems a bit hard, but not undoable.
Biggest complaint—The books don’t seem to be dry. The ink bleeds and its really annoying.
As a fellow scrivener who’s been scrabbling for pay copy for 3 years now, I can completely relate to your frustration. I’m just coming out of a 6-month blockage that was triggered when two people (who I thought were friends or at least genuinely interested in my work) turned their backs on me. As a result, I’m now seriously considering the self-pub route.
With previous blockages I found the best cure was to have numerous irons in the fire. If you’re stalled on the short story, work on the script for awhile. If the script stalls, take another look at the essay. And so on.
The cure for this recent blockage was a suggestion from a former therapist: whenever you have trouble getting started on a project, he said, or just getting out of bed, remember this phrase: *fish or cut bait.* I’ve created a pictograph of that saying and have posted it in several line-of-sight spots in my work area. Since this is my short duration personal mantra (shordurpermar), I don’t expect it to work for other people.
Also helpful: good tunes (lately, for me, Bowie, Kraftwerk and Joy Division) and Irish coffee (on an as-needed basis).
Hey Wil, I read that post from Kovalic this morning and I just had to take it into my own hands to whip something together.
http://www.benlori.com/generator
Its a simple generator that allows for batches up to 20 at a time, It does its updates via ajax too so you arent reloading the whole page.
Gnome Lightningstool… has teh runs… Rar!
I haven’t actually played yet, but I’ve done some looking at the book. I do miss some of the class variety, but some of it seems really streamlined. The alignment changes were pretty jarring at first, but seem to make a good deal of sense on reflection. Although my DM complained that I was going to take penalties for using logic against him 😛
Here are a few kobolds I rolled up:
Boltsmacked Kobold
Kobold Sleepylover
Kobold Heckbrains
Dragoncrotch Kobold
Kobold Dreadlard
Kobold Sheboyganshowers
Kobold Stalkersnack
Spongejuice Kobold
“Sheboyganshowers”? What??
I’ll bet that every writer who reads the first part of this post (including myself) will say, “Oh yeah. Been there. Done that. Ate the manual.”
Ah, but there’s always the bright side for ya….at least you get PAID to write. 🙂
Roll: 111, 64.
Ogre Meatspike. Ew.
Roll: 13, 33.
Ogre Lilydancer. WTF?
Roll: 76, 69.
Pseudoshadow Ogre. Ok, sounds neat.
Roll: 110, 26.
Fraktail Ogre. Huh?
I give up.
I’ve been struggling with my brain regarding my dissertation in precisely the ways you describe. I find that agressive yard work helps…taking out frustrations on stupid, stupid weeds. Also, your blog always brings a smile to my face and the renewed determination to just finish already! (Then it will be “Dr. 3Kats” to all and sundry.)
I must seriously be losing my geek abilities because those instructions made no sense to me.
I read it as roll a 12 sided die and a ten sided die. Use the 12 sided die to look under the first column and the 10 sided die to look under the second column. But there are 120 rows in each column. Also he says to generate a random number from 1-120. I guess you are supposed to rolle each die twice and multipy the results of each pair of rolls, but that is not what the directions say.
Luckily he includes a helpful script with which I generated:
Lizardman Tastybeast
Whic is kind of disturbing since I playing in a campaign with a PC Lizardman.
Wish I had the time and number of sufficiently nearby and sufficiently geeky acquaintances to play D&D4E.
And wish I was able to play GTA4 whenever I wanted, instead of late at night.
Man, I haven’t played a game in years… makes me want to find a campaign! Yes, for my oodles of freetime… [sarcasm] sigh…
I had no idea you could play D&D online now. Should have known. I haven’t played that since I was 13..ages ago. (38 now :P. Is it easier online?
Longtime lurker, first time poster. Why now? Well, for one, I’ve gotten myself into a situation which allows me to both write (screenplays) and blog daily from work. I’m learning that getting involved with others blogs really improves your own.
I’m also finding that GTA IV is a great way to reset my thinking and get a fresh perspective on things.
As to D&D4, well, I have to say I’m both excited and saddened. All of my favorite geeks and gamers are geographically distant enough from me that most of our time together is spent playing WoW. I really do miss table top gaming. It’s good to see the game evolving and thriving though.
Anyway, I’ll no longer be a lurker.
Cheers,
Connor
That’s funny … I’m freaking out about an August 1 deadline for my next novel. Kind of nice to know I’m not the only one.
I hope you get past the fear to the enjoyment again soon!
wil…remember to be really, really nice to your wife. the only thing worse than being married to a writer is being married to a writer who has uncooperative brains.
thanks for the monster table…i’m pretty sure my DM will use it to full advantage when he gets the 4th ed D20 Gamma World campaign up and running…
*hugs*
Your paid gigs are what makes you more accessible. In regards to writing, anything that distracts you to a certain point is normal. Was that harsh criticism?
Burroughs, Smiths, DnD, holy shit batman, this dude is awesome. Because you are so goddamned cool, I’m going to buy your books. Plus, you are a self professed geek, which in my book is yet another giant leap towards awesome coolness. IF I find out that you also like Hunter S. Thompson and old black and white B horror movies I think I’d pass out.
Kudos to the power of 42.
Speaking of 42, if I find out you also love Douglas Adams, I’d propose, but you’re married… so I’ll just pass out again!
Yay you.
Just
Doshia
Whiner. I’ve been “writing” my master’s thesis for 6 years. I’ve outlasted 2 topics, 2 Universities and 5 advisors. Last month, they told me it was due this Sept. Not sure I can outlast an Admin Assistant, man. Might be easier to write it… 🙂 Wil, No Lego Indy review? The DS version is better than a PS2 port, it was totally remastered for the DS… Oh, what was that? Thesis? What thesis?
Jim C. Hines…
Wait…
Jim C. Hines!?
Holy crap! I JUST read Goblin Quest (which I read about on Scalzi’s blog). I feel like it’s a small world!
I thought you did a GREAT job making the characters fit into the archetypal D&D party. It was a fun book, and I really enjoyed reading it.
/End surprised gamer girl glommage.
@JustDoshia: Get ready to pass out.
With my game group, a play test of the game is set for August 15th. Its a little far out, but the guy that is going to be DM is new to being a GM and is going use the time to review the rules.
Thru podcasts and online I have heard good things about the update.
This (http://the-heath-bar.blogspot.com/2008/06/summary-of-game-day.html) was emailed to me from a friend of a friend who expirenced the release of the D&D game at a local store in Seattle.
–Heath
http://the-heath-bar.blogspot.com/
@Keri: Heh. I got to read Goblin Quest about a million years ago, and I believe Jim got a quote from me for the jacket. Man, I LOVE that book.
I am a brain dead writer, all of my work goes on the serious backburner and I have over 400 stories, poems and cookbooks combined, I just dont have the brain power to consistantly write these days, to busy playing No Limit Texas Holdem thanks to you. 😀
“…character generation starts with 8, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10.”
That’s Numberwang!
I only got Dragon Club, that’s not really funny or badass.
I’m going to keep rolling until I get 88, 67.
I don’t understand. Are you all saying there people who *don’t* love Douglas Adams?
Keri – thank you! I’m delighted that you enjoyed it, and I’ll have to remember to thank Scalzi again for the plug!
Wil – your blurb was awesome, and I still use it in interviews sometimes. Also, if you check out the Amazon page, your quote is the very first piece of description on there … because really, if Wil Wheaton likes the book, what more does anyone need to know? 😉
I got in on a playtest of 4E with John Rogers. (Who is, by the way a very good DM.) I think a couple things may have been tweaked since then, but overall it looks a lot like what I played. A lot of the things that look a little quirky to experienced players end up being brilliant in actual play sessions, and some of the powers that seemed silly on paper were devastating in practice.
I’ll be honest… I went into the playtest displeased with what I’d read about 4E, and came out pretty much shaking with my uncontrollable need to have the new books NOWNOWNOW. It’s really a ton of fun, even at first level. Very, very smart design. Combat went WAY faster in 4E than it did in any 3 and 3.5 game I played, and the fact that we didn’t have to stop and sleep after every freaking fight was a huge bonus.
One rule I’m going to implement when I run my own game in a week or two… There’s so much new stuff in there, so many things that don’t work quite the way you expect, that I want my players to have a chance to experiment. So I’ll be instituting a rule that for our first few game sessions, any time the characters take an extended rest, you can change around your daily, encounter, and at-will power selection. After a few sessions, I’ll make people take their actual final picks, and then we’ll be playing the normal way after that, but I suspect a lot of great powers will get overlooked for quite a while if players don’t get to experiment.
Hi Wil,
I think the whole “how to break through writer’s block” topic deserves more exploration. Did your writer friends give you any other pointers?
A couple of Saturdays ago I was mentally revisiting a neglected story idea of mine, and found that lots of fun little plot points were popping into my head. It seemed that I might actually have something. I was excited, and relieved that I was finally going to get myself unstuck.
Problem is, I haven’t written a thing! I haven’t even jotted down any notes to try and catch that afternoon brainstorm in a bottle.
I’ve got lots of excuses, but it comes down to fear. If I try to string those snippets together when I’m not at my best, the result will be a pathetic mess that can’t withstand my “who are you kidding with this writer nonsense” thoughts.
Here (on page 8) is what I wrote about it a year ago: http://www.llsdc.org/attachments/contentmanagers/32/LawLightsSummer2007.pdf
I guess I’m answering all of my own questions. Frustrating though.
I shouldn’t have been drinking coffee while I generated these names:
Orc Saladforged
Sluttrimmer Orc
Orc Whiteclaw
Tastynuts Orc
Those sound like the industry in the Valley got hold of the 4th ed. books.
Ahem.
Re: the fear and being terrified and overwhelmed — oh man, have I been there. I used to get that way with my writing, and now I get that way with my paintings. Some things I do that help me get out of my own way:
-Setting a timer and making myself do anything remotely related to the terror-inducing project, for 10 minutes. Often, if I can make it past the first 10 minutes of panic, I’m good. For painting, it’s methodically cleaning my brushes, and scraping my palette and putting out fresh paint, that gets me past it. It may seem lame, it may seem silly… but the sillier and lamer it is, the better it works for me.
-Starting with something I know I can do and am confident about. Emails, blog posts — sometimes those are enough to get me into my flow.
-Conversely, doing the thing I dread first can work, too, if I’m not petrified, but just ehh about it.
-Switch gears often (which you’re doing). I find my painting and writing to be a huge help in shifting my headspace (though that can get annoying sometimes, too).
-Bribing myself.
-Beer as a tool to obliterate that part of my brain which tells me I suck. Used judiciously, this lets me get something, anything down, which I can then go back and edit later.
-Looking at my lists of things to do at the day job and elsewhere can get overwhelming. I hear you. It can be really hard to say no to work, especially when it’s irregular work, and you don’t know when it might come again, so you jump at the chance. I try to tell myself I’m lucky I’m being given so many chances to make money doing what I love. Even if what I love terrifies me when I do it.
-Try explaining your idea to someone else who has no background in your subject.
-Take yourself out of it. This one is a bitch. But try to detach you, the ego part of you, from your work. You mentioned in a podcast forever ago that you feel like you’re just catching your ideas and hanging onto them — so just be the vehicle that brings the ideas you catch into the world.
And try to remember that the more terrified a thing makes you feel, the more you need to do that very thing to change and grow.
Ugh I rolled Budgieslime. I didn’t even bother putting a suffix or prefix on that because it’s just that fucktarded. Bleah.
On another note: my hubby’s going to run a game, based on The Princess Bride! Sweeeet! I have no idea what type of char I’ll play yet, mostly I suck at roleplaying, so I’ll just create an awesome character, then sit on my ass throughout the whole game. Yes, I am totally awesome in that way.
I had a 4th edition preview at my library with some teens who have been playing 3/3.5 for a long time (some of it with me … I guess some really started with me) and it was awesome – all we did was read the quick start rules from Keep on the Shadowfell and talk about differences, similarities, and implications. For three hours. It was gratifying that they saw some of the implications before I did.
someone needs to explain the KOVALIC’S SCROLL OF SWARMING FOURTH EDITION NOMENCLATURE joke to a few posters here … but i won’t do it … i won’t hit you … POW!
Wil-
As a sometimes writer, I’m curious: do you ever find that having a deadline makes it easier for you to finish a piece? My problem is that all of my writing so far has been for personal enjoyment, so I never have a hard-and-fast deadline to get it done by. Add to that an over-active imagination that likes to come up with new story ideas and I’m left with…let me see here… *mumbling, counting on fingers* …oh good lord, six novels and a dozen short stories in various stages of being written, none of them approaching being finished. Do you think a good, solid deadline for a few of those would help me get a couple of them done? Because now I’m at the point of “Oh crap I’m DROWNING in stories I don’t know what to do! Aaaaaahhh! I’m going to go play WoW and not think about it!” …and that really doesn’t get the writing done. 🙂
Last time I played was back in..1984!!
That was way back when I took pretty much ONLY my 1stgen books and the latest star trek book to school (gamed in an empty classroom with permission.)
After I rode my bike home and if I had any money would stop at the 7-11 and play either Wizard of war or Gorf
forgot to add, all the promo about it has gotten my dice engine turning over
Tastysnack Dragon.
Hey Wil,
For uncooperative brains and general malaiase, take:
1 “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron*,
and call me in the morning.
No, do, really. ;o)
Hey Wil,
For uncooperative brains and general malaiase, take:
1 “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron,
and call me in the morning.
No, do, really. ;o)
Ack! Stupid slow refreshing browserI’dliketogive*it*arefreshmentsometime!
*ahem*
Sorry for the double post.
Hooray for magic:the gathering inflicting it’s naming over on D&D. Magic names have been horrible like that for years now, so……
At least for magic it has an excuse that it can’t use the same name twice。
“What do you do with those jinxed dice that only roll low?”
ahem-
buy weighted dice.
and as far as magic naming goes, (sorry magic i really do love you), they borrow some(a lot) of that from the old/middle englishes, welsh, scottish, and gaelic languages. (I know there’s an article somewhere about that, but i can’t find it.)