Let's enjoy blogging together.

It's been a while.

Last week, I volunteered to help edit a friend's blog. While going over their draft, I was struck by how much I missed writing in a longer format than Tweets and Instagram updates. This will be my attempt at rectifying that.

The good ship Terribad Ideas is getting relaunched. All my old content, for better or worse, is going to stay up. Don't worry. That one RPG group in Argentina that's using my Mass Effect rules for Cortex+ isn't going to lose access. My grimdarke nonsense isn't going anywhere. It's part of who I am and serves as a reminder that even if I think my writing is garbage, someone out there likes it.

With that in mind, what am I going to be posting here? Game stuff, mental health stuff, travel stuff. Maybe, after I've worked at it for a while, this place will eventually congeal into an understandable theme.  Probably not, but there's always a chance.

Where do we start? I guess we'll do a bit of catching-up with what's been going on in my life.

Since last we talked, I've:

- Taken another trip to Japan.
- Ran a successful D&D game to completion, without scheduling or drama tearing the group apart.
- Hosted a D&D fundraiser (JephCon) on Twitch that raised $3,300+ for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
- Visited my Homeland. A topic for another day.
- Struggled through a two-year battle with a very severe bout of depression.
- Started streaming on Twitch, albeit irregularly.
- Wrote a bunch of homebrew content for both 4th and 5th edition D&D. A lot of which I'll be posting here over the next few months.
- Started a YouTube channel with my wife about our travels.
- Began a combination art project / protest over on Instagram.
- Survived the wait for Mass Effect: Andromeda.
- Crafted several cosplays.
- Wrote and recorded the first two episodes of three different podcasts, none of which were ever posted publicly.
- Successfully completed all three good Persona games.
- Continued to be gainfully employed.
- Backed a whole lot of Kickstarter projects.
- Called my Representative and both Senators every work day for the past 4 months.
- And a whole lot of other stuff that I can't remember at the moment due to lack of sleep and stress.

A good number of those experiences will be posts in the future, but for now I feel I should leave y'all with some new content. Below is the second draft of my Downtime rules for my upcoming D&D campaign. It details the stuff characters can do when they aren't out doing Adventure Things.

Town Phase:

1. Lifestyle Costs: For each day spent in Eternal Bedrock, each PC must pay Lifestyle Costs as a way of abstracting the individual costs of lodging and food. Provided below are a series of possible scenarios and their associated costs.
1. Sleeping in the Adventurer Tent City (Basically Homelessness):
1. Food is basic (bread, water, bean paste), provided free of charge by the Cathedral of Pelor. Characters must furnish their own bedroll and tent.
2. Benefits: -1d4 on Carouse and Fellowship checks.
3. Daily Cost: 0 GP.
2. Staying at Novagen’s Economy Lodge (Low Quality Inn):
1. Food is simple (porridge, fruit, water, eggs), provided as part of your daily cost.
2. Benefits: None.
3. Daily Cost: 1 GP.
3. Staying at Erathis’s Smile (Average Quality Inn):
1. Food is acceptable (bread, meat, cheese, fruit, ale), provided as part of your daily cost.
2. Benefits: +1d4 on Carouse checks.
3. Daily Cost: 3 GP.
4. Staying at Three Stars (High Quality Inn):
1. Food is good (pastries, meat, cheese, eggs, fruit, wine), provided as part of your daily cost.
2. Benefits: +1d6 on Carouse checks.
3. Daily Cost: 5 GP.

5. Staying at Twin Drakes (Exceptional Quality Inn):
1. Food is grand (full buffet for each meal, along with beverages of choice), provided as part of your daily cost.
2. Benefits: +1d8 on Carouse and Fellowship checks.
3. Daily Cost: 10 GP.
6. Staying at The Cockatrice and Medusa (Fantastic Quality Inn):
1. Food is grand (full buffet for each meal, along with beverages of choice), provided as part of your daily cost.
2. Benefits: +1d8 on Carouse checks.
3. Daily Cost: 50 GP.
5. Downtime: Players may spend as much or as little time in Eternal Bedrock between adventures as they want. For each day the characters pay Lifestyle Costs, they gain one Downtime Day to spend as they wish on the options below. Downtime Days may not be earned or spent while Adventuring. (Note: While other options are possible, these broad-reaching examples cover 90% of downtime activities available to PCs.)
6. Carousing: Adventurers can spend downtime and GP to gather information, hear rumors, or find quests in addition to those listed on The Board. For each Downtime Day spent, the player rolls a hard Streetwise check (with a possible bonus or penalty from lodging and a +1 bonus per 10 GP spent on carousing). Depending on the result, the Character chooses one from the appropriate list.
1. On a success, the Character:
1. Learns a useful rumor.
2. Finds a lead on an otherwise hard to acquire Magic Item.
3. Gains access to an otherwise secret quest.
2. On a failure, the Character:
1. Learns a rumor which gains them no useful information.
2. Runs afoul of The Law.
7. Shopping: Adventurers can spend downtime shopping for new or replacement gear. For each Downtime Day spent, the player may purchase any number of pieces of non-magical equipment with GP or a single piece of magical equipment (Note: Purchases subject to rarity and availability.)
8. Religious Services: Adventurers can spend downtime to attend or perform religious services and rites for 5 GP. For each Downtime Day spent, the player may gain Advantage on one roll during the next Adventuring Phase,
9. Equipment Upkeep: Adventurers may spend downtime to maintain their equipment. For each downtime day spent, one piece of equipment does not have to make the Saving Throw at the end of the month. (See the Equipment Upkeep rules in the Adventuring Phase section below.)
10. Fellowship: Adventurers can spend downtime to build bonds with other characters. (Note: Both characters must spend a Downtime Day on the same day for the Fellowship action to add to their Social Link.) See the Social Links section at the end of this document for more information.

Thanks for hanging out with me so far. It's been fun. We'll have to do this again sometime.

D&D 5e Playtest: Combat 1

Yes, I realize that the working title is *still* D&D Next. Yes, I realize that D&D Next sounds like NewCoke or Crystal Pepsi. That's why I don't use it. And technically, if we're counting all of the editions, we're on D&D 10e or something. Meanwhile, here comes the playtesting. (Obviously, spoilers abound for the playtest adventure.)

So let me set the scene. Five players, me in the DM's chair (well, I stand for the entirety of the game, but I think DM's chair is more a figure of speech anyway). First, a little more about the players.

Vicki - Playing the Elf Wizard. Her experience with D&D amounts to two sessions of Pathfinder.
Adam - Playing the Human Cleric. Adam doesn't generally play spellcasters, but really likes this Cleric.
Heather - Playing the Dwarf Fighter. Usually plays fighters. Refuses to play spellcasters.
Mary - Playing the Dwarf Cleric. Has some experience with meaty, hammer-wielding nonsense.
Joe - Playing the Halfling Rogue for two reasons: 1) Everyone else picked their characters first. 2) Joe somehow always ends up playing Rogues.

The session started out with Our Heroes leaving Castellan Keep for the Caves of Chaos. As the PCs crested a small hill, the full majesty and terror of the Caves of Chaos came into view. The party, having been sent to the caves for several different (but complimentary) reasons, set off for the cave entrances.

Adam, being the voice of Cleric, decided that they should go into the cave at the far West end of this tier of the complex. His rationale was that the path to it was lit by the Undying Light of Pelor and therefor nothing bad could possibly go wrong.

In that cave, the party found an Owlbear. Something bad had gone wrong.

The halfling hid, the dwarves tried to sneak into melee, and the other two stayed outside the entrance hoping to blast the hapless monster with lasers. Initiative was rolled and off we went.

Joe, having advantage over the poor giant magical monstrosity, decided to start pelting it with rocks from his sling. A well placed shot and the monster was injured. Cheers around the table.

Heather charged in, Greataxe in slaughtering mode. She swung and missed. A collective "aww" was uttered. That is, until I reminded her that even on a miss she does damage. Cheers again.

Mary carefully positioned herself to better harm the beastie. She swung and connected with her warhammer.

It was the owlbear's turn. Yay. Claw, Claw, Bite. All directed at Heather. All misses.

Adam cast a Radiant Lance at the owlbear, searing off some of its fur.

Vicki cast Magic Missile, because she'd always wanted to do that.

Joe hid again to regain advantage. Heather swung and hit with her axe. Mary cast Crusader's Strike on her warhammer, turning it into Warhammer 40k. The owlbear hit Heather for a grand total of 6 damage. Adam cast Searing Light on the owlbear, doing significant damage. Vicki tried to cast Ray of Frost, but missed the attack roll.

The combat went on for another three rounds, with the PCs emerging victorious. I let them know that the Owlbear was supposed to be sort of a sub-boss for this complex and they'd gone in a totally different direction than the module designers had planned. Most of the players thought this was bad game design, but Joe and I countered that they probably just used the original Caves of Chaos/Keep on the Borderlands adventure with updated monsters. That means random crap happens. I'm not sure how much I like that, but the point of the playtest isn't to check for story.

High Points/Things We Liked: Overall simplicity, the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic, and at-will spells for the Wizard/Clerics. All of the fire-and-forget spells seemed to really be worth casting. Spell descriptions were to the point and simple enough for a complete newbie to understand on first read-through.

Low Points/Things We Disliked: The fighter seems a bit too simple compared to the other classes. Not enough options for Heather during a round. Also, our dice didn't want to roll well all night. I don't think the playtest will address that particular issue. Monster design is rather basic, hopefully there'll be a fix to that during the next round.

So far, D&D 5e is looking pretty sharp. 4 / 5 d20s. Later today (or possibly tomorrow), I'll have more on our playtest for your reading enjoyment.