On writing when you just can't be arsed

 Let's be honest.

 We've all been there.

 Every writer in existence had at the very least one day where they felt like just the thought of staring at a page full of words was too much. Where even thinking about it makes your brain hurt in ways you don't like.

 There might be all sorts of reasons for that. It can be a bad period, the inspiration just isn't there, you had an awful day and the thought of sitting down and thinking words is making your brain hurt.
 Or you're just a lazy fuck. I know I am.

I mean, if even Robert can be one, we all have an excuse, right?

 Then again, you don't always have the luxury to just lazy around. Deadlines are a thing, and to some of you commissions are another thing - while you might know what you like to write, not always you will like what you have to write. I know. I've been into that position a number of times.

What's the worst that can happen? It can't be that bad, right?

 Actually, it really can be. And I'm talking by personal experience, here.

 If you stop writing one day - and I'm talking about the whole thing, not even thinking about writing, or characters, and so on - you risk to go into a loop and keep avoiding that. The whole 'yesterday I didn't, so today I don't really feel it either' can get to you, and you end up like a floppy little blob on the couch trying to motivate yourself to do something.

This is gonna be you. No, it's not as fun as it looks. Trust me.

 And this is without counting the fact that you might have to deal with deadlines and so on. And that's some stress you don't really need. We're writers, we have enough of that already.

That sounds awful! Whatever shall I do!

 First, tell me to stop writing like an infomercial. I find it unnerving and I wrote it. Brrr.

 Second of all, don't fret - there are a number of ways I've found helped me get through these sort of slumps.

 1. Dedicate some time to at least think about your writing - you don't necessarily need to get words on paper, but develop it in your head. Character progression, scene ideas, etc. Even just scour the internet and use it as research. It's gonna help. It won't create a gap between the days you actually write something or not.

 2. Write shorts tied to your WIP - Maybe you're just tired of writing that character. You got a bit of a burnout. Why not explore the other characters? Hell, why not explore the world you've put them in? What's MC's best friend doing? And best friend's best friend? What is the baker of the auntie of your character's best friend's best friend doing? Allow yourself to think outside the main plot. Look at your world from other sides, and it might just help you get in the mood to get back to the main plot. They won't need to be published, or even seen by any other living being, but they kept you in motion.

 3. Text-based roleplay - I already talked about the benefits of the various kinds of roleplaying in my series dedicated to it, but especially in a slump it might need reiterating - text based roleplay is easy to find, easy to get into, and it's a good way to keep your technical writing in check. It can be a one off, just not to lose the habit of writing something creative, and then back to the WIP. BEWARE: Use with caution, since it can lead to burnout as well.

 4. Just take it easy and relax - Don't let this post make you panic about skipping a writing day or two. Burnout is a reality and can happen, and sometimes we just need to take a break. It's actually more healthy than forcing yourself to work. But it's good to keep in mind the possible drawbacks of it, just to make sure you don't fall into that loop. Remember: knowing the risks helps avoiding them. So just kick back, relax, do something else, ride the writing block out, but remember to get back to it.

But I have a deadline!

 Then that becomes a bit trickier. But there are ways around that as well. Especially if you're trying to write something that you don't fancy or feel, and if you do commissions that can happen - it's not your fault, or the customer's fault, it's a matter of not always knowing what we get into. On concept the idea they want you to write might be amazing, but in reality you might look at the blank page and don't know what to do.

 Here are some ideas:

 1. Try to weave in things you like - As writers, we know that a story is not just a scene: there are little details, little things that all compose a singular work of literature. Yes, you might have a specific guideline for that piece, but the rest is up to you: even something simple as having a side character, or a color, or a piece of something to describe that suits your fancy can help you get through it.

 2. Get technical - The work you're doing is not about the work you're doing. Make it about you. No, I'm not saying to completely ignore the guidelines, but to steel yourself and put yourself in a mindset that says 'I'm good. I'm capable of doing this. I might not like it, but fuck it, I can make even things I don't like writing work. Because I'm a fucking good writer.' Don't take the piece as a chore, take it as a possibility to showcase that yes, even what you don't fancy in your hands turn into bloody gold.

And trust me - you CAN do it.

 3. Focus on the end goal - These sorts of slumps, and this works on both sides, can make you lose track of what you're writing for. They can make you question yourself. Don't fall for that. If you're having a day like this, and you have a deadline and can't take a day off to avoid burnout, keep your mind steeled on the end goal. And this can be showcasing your talent, or some days - and yes, I know it might be heresy to say it outright because it's that part of the business we don't like talking about, I always feel icky about that part myself - the thought of being known, selling and getting paid for your work is a good incentive too. Don't feel ashamed of that. Don't sell yourself out, don't get sloppy just for a paycheck (look above - get technical, you're here to do GOOD work) but the trick is exactly that: work. If you want to make writing your work, that is an aspect too, and not something to be ashamed of. I mean, we all need to eat.

 Mind you, on that last part...it's not easy, quite the contrary. But keeping it as one of your goals can help. And when you've got the clock ticking and no saints to turn to, you can use all the help you can get.  

 So come on. We're writers. Let's keep doing what it says on the can, shall we?

On RPG's in general - Tabletop RPG resources

 Here we are! The end of the RPG and Writing saga.

 It's been a nice run, and I hope I gave you both good ideas for your writing, an incentive to try this amazing hobby, and a way to find other very awesome people. Most of the friends I made roleplaying in various ways stuck with me for a long time, and I'm proud to call them so.

 

 Today's post will be a tad shorter, too. Do keep in mind, though, that the same little word of advice about meeting other people applies here too: all of these resources usually will require an interaction of sort with other people, and this time we're talking voice interaction at the very least.

 So keep that in mind, yes?

 Prepare your bodies, because we're starting!

'cus it's gonan blow yo mind~

Online resources - The tools of the trade

 So, remember how we used the term Tabletop way too much in the last posts? Here's a secret.

 You don't necessarily need a table for it. Or a group to be physically in your house or somewhere else, either!

 Thanks to the powers of science and technology, the applied sacred oils and praise to the Machine Spirit while chanting the Sacred Hymn of the Planetary connection-*coff*

 Sorry, sorry. My 40k is showing. It's getting a tad shameless at this time of the month.

Look at dem servoarms showing. So lewd. (For those who ask, yes, there's 40k tabletop roleplaying too.)

 But yeah, with the power of the internet, in this day and age you can engage in all sorts of roleplaying from the comfort of your own home.

 To do so properly, though, you'll need a couple of things:

• A Voice over Internet Provider service: My favourite at the moment is Discord - light, easy to use and secure. Skype is another good option as well, especially with the latest updates making it a bit more streamlined and usable.
• An account on Roll20, or a similar service: Roll20 is basically a virtual tabletop. It's a framework that can accomodate most kinds of roleplaying systems. There are other instruments that you can find that provide the same sort of service. Google is your friend.
• Friends. Here's a little inspiration on how to acquire some.

Interacting and improvising around other people

 This can be one of the biggest hurdles to surpass when you start in this hobby. You'll have to talk with other people, and you'll have to interpret a character, with its reactions, its backstory, talking back and forth in real time with other people doing the same!

 It can be scary.

 Luckily, you have a couple of games that, after you acquired a sufficient number of friends, can help you doing that without going through the whole, in-depth experience.

 I find that one of the best sort of games to do so are social deduction tabletop games - some of them you can even find versions online to play. These games are a ton of fun, usually very easy to learn, and will help you gain confidence in doing and saying stupid stuff with your newly acquired friends.

 Some examples are:

• Secret Hitler (Here's an easily accessible online version): A social deduction game with pretty easy rules and that can get very tense, it's an amazing tool to learn how to play a 'character' - of the players, a small group of them will have a secret agenda and will need to work against the group to fulfill it, while the others will need to stop them in time. Try it. It can create some gorgeous and hilarious moments.
• Tabletop Simulator: found on Steam, if you guys have a decent enough pc, this game will be invaluable. Another tabletop simulator, but usually for more traditional games, it hosts a miriad of various games you and your friends can find and play - and yes, social deduction games too, like Snake Oil, where, given a certain item, each player will have to sell it to the judge (appointed every turn) as the BEST THING EVER.

Let's get some dices rolling, shall we?

 Right. It's time for the big one. The real stuff. You've read the whole miniseries, you've tried to roleplay by chat around, you've tried calling your friends and get more comfortable around them while playing games...the time is right to get your character sheets, login on roll20, and get started as a GM or as a Player.

 The first thing you'll need to do is the manual for your system. Of course, as we discussed before, usually you'll have to buy these manuals, because no one here supports piracy, do we?

• DrivethruRPG is one of the most extensive online stores to get all of your roleplaying fix. Reviews, an easy-to-use online store, an online library where you won't lose anything as long as you remember your password. A great way to get your manuals.
• If you still don't feel like laying down money to play, which is totally understandable, you have some RPG's that are completely FREE! I know, right? Here's a selection: of particular note are Dungeons and Dragons 5e, so famous I don't think it requires explanation, and ECLIPSE PHASE, a stunningly well done transhumanist roleplaying game with underlying themes of cosmic horror.

 Once that is done, it's just a matter of starting and creating your stories! Remember, you can always propose a new system, you can always rework things, you can always back down. After all, it's all PEOPLE we're talking about, and if your friends are good friends, they'll understand.

But I want to invite people in my house!

 You do? I know, it's a good feeling, I had to stop because I don't want them to find the bodies in my closet  - I'm too embarrassed of the mess.

 If you wanna connect in the real world with people who enjoy the same hobby, one of the best ways to do that is finding a shop for the hobby in your area - Comic book stores, book stores and tabletop gaming stores usually tend to have both the resources you need to get started (dice sets, manuals, etc).

 A friendly chat with the workers there is usually a good way to know who's playing what and if they have available spots - sometimes you'll even find little ads around that will ask for players or game masters for specific systems.

 

 Going online and searching for groups in your areas is another good way as well. As always, I'd advise first a public encounter and getting to know them instead of jumping headfirst. It's not just a matter of safety - you might not like their style, or they might not like yours. It's all a matter of being curteous and recognizing a situation you might not have fun with.

 If you want to get to know more about the hobby, there's plenty of resources online to expand your knowledge. On youtube you'll find a lot of channels dedicated to tabletop RPG's - between recorded sessions from start to finish, stories and guides, you'll be hard pressed not to find what you're looking for.

 A very nice serie I found some years ago, and that is still funny and reliable to this day is Noah Antwiler's 'Counter Monkey' series: lots of amazing little snippets and stories, advices and experiences from his days as a roleplayer that are fun to watch and listen to. 

 And with that, our little miniseries is done! Stay tuned tomorrow for my very short short set in the #Tiogair universe, 'Tryouts', depicting a little snippet of life at the Heart's Delight.

 Go forth, my dungeon delvers, mercenaries, scoundrels and paladins - try this hobby for yourself, and if you like it create gorgeous and fun stories. And if you're already familiar, share your best stories down here in the comments! Show everyone how amazing this can be!

 Toodles!

On RPG's in General - Lite: where and how to get your feet wet!

 After yesterday's technical problems with blogger, I had my tech specialists take a look to make sure everything was fine.

 That's why you didn't get the post yesterday - they're  competent, but very much difficult to cut a proper deal with.

It costed me three whole cans of tuna! THREE I SAY! IT'S A TRAVESTY!

 Now, I can already see you eager to get started, fidgeting and staring at your screen as you scour the post, with your mind craving to start...

 

 Hey. At least let me dream about it. It makes me feel all fuzzy inside.

 Anyway, let's not waste any more time and let's get to it, shall we?

Little premise - but important

 Now, do remember that almost all the resources I'm going to show you today are either pointing you to, or giving you the tools to, engage in an activity that more often than not requires other people.

 I know, scary.

 Some of them will require some contact online, so always keep in mind that some level of interaction with strangers might be possible. But nerds are usually a friendly bunch. We don't bite.

 Still, for all the various options, either have some friends come with you, or keep in mind that a tacit 'con' and 'pro' for each will be that you'll interact with them. So amazing friendships and dramas can still happen.

 Believe me.

 I know.

 And with that out of the way, here you'll find a lot of hints and resources for you to start down this path. I'll list pro and cons of each one, and what level of engagement is required. In the series we talked about Tabletop RPG (Dungeons and Dragons, Vampires, Shadowrun, etc) but there are a lot of possible experiences out there that can ease you into the roleplaying world with less of a daunting interaction and still giving you some of the same benefits.

Lite Experiences

 What I intend by 'Lite experiences' are akin to gateway experiences to ease you into the whole roleplaying scene.

Pros:

 These sort of experiences will probably have you start as the role of a player, with a possible growth to some minor world and event building and very easy narratives.

 Character creation will be most probably just narrative based, without any sort of statistics or number crunching to be dealt with.

 The settings will be usually well explained or easy enough to grasp to not require a lot of work to go into it.

 All interactions are usually gonna be tied to just text-chatting, adding a layer of tranquillity and anonimity to the whole ordeal.

Cons:

 

 Interaction between people will usually be short, and only a few grow to something more meaningful.

 Waiting times in some cases can be quite long.

 No guarantee of the quality of writing you'll find with this or the other person, or the sort of person you'll deal with (yes, some people are jerks. But that's why I put that little premise beforehand).

 SINGLE PLAYER EXPERIENCES

 

 For those of you who are into PC gaming, one of the best ways to start getting acquainted with the whole concept while going at it on your own and experience some amazing stories.

 The pros of it are that you won't have to interact with others, and you still get some of the benefits - explore a different world with its rules, generate a character you can to some extent customize and give a backstory to if you wish (or not).

 The cons, instead, are that you're going to have a very 'limited' experience. Being constricted to a specific script, you won't be able to customize your character as much as you want, but in some cases, the choices you take during dialogues will help you 'flesh out' the sort of person your character is. And that usually, they are paid experiences. 

 A couple of examples:

• Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/Hong Kong: I couldn't let it out. A gorgeous universe where tech and magic blend together, one of the best settings I've ever met with (and a great inspiration, too.) Based on the Tabletop RPG, these are three contained stories with very nice characters and good (even if limited) choices to figure out who your character is. Should run well on older machines as well.
• Pillars of Eternity: A more 'classic' cRPG, on the same level with Baldur's Gate and other great titles of the past that used the Dungeons and Dragons license and system, it's a good title to pickup, with an extensive lore and choices to customize your character.
• TES: Skyrim: An example of open world rpg: this means your character is plopped into a world and from there on out you can develop and do almost whatever the hell you want, among the limits of the engine. Even follow the main story, eventually. Or not.

 MULTIPLAYER EXPERIENCES

 Now we're getting into the meat of it. These experiences will start putting you in contact with other people interested in roleplaying.

 The number of resources around for these sort of things is massive, so google is definitely your friend. You'll find communities roleplaying about everything (yes, even very, very lewd stuff of all kinds).

And lewd roleplaying follows suit.

 The pros are that almost all of these options are free (except one, but we'll cover it).

 

 The cons are the ones I've already listed - you won't know what people you'll be playing with, and writing and roleplaying 'quality' can vary greatly.

 It is at this point that I would suggest you get familiar with messaging/VoIP programs like Skype or Discord - they'll come extremely handy to keep in contact with the people you like, giving you the option to play again for a more continuative relation, and they'll be extremely helpful tomorrow when we'll go into full on tabletop RPG resources territory.

• Play by Forum: With the pros of being easy to enter into and giving you a lot of time to think of a reply scene, and the specific con of it usually bringing very slow pacing due to people replying 'when they can', this sort of roleplaying can be found in a lot of artsy communities (DA, FA, etc) with a simple search for 'roleplaying' and contacting members who are interested. A quick search on google can find you a lot of other communities into other established settings like say Star Trek, or Star Wars.
• Play by Chat: A term that encompasses everything between simple *does this* banter in a private message to more complex, specifically made chats and sites to support character creation and chat groups, the pros of play by chat are the same of play by forum, but along with that there's a much more speedy dialogue between the parts. Beware that the cons apply as well. You can easily find discord groups with a google search, or you can create your own little group with friends to try it out without too much of a problem! a great way to flesh out your own settings too.

  A mention aside is for MMORPG's - Stuff like Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft, Star Wars - The Old Republic and so on.

 Some of them are free, some of them require a monthly fee, some of them require just a one time payment, but all of them tend to have a roleplaying scene of sorts. While the setting in this case is very well defined (usually following the race histories, storylines, etc of the world they're set in) you still have a lot of freedom in character creation, and can get pretty good interactions roleplaying wise.
 Another pro is that, even if you don't wanna roleplay, you still have a fun game to play in and make new friends without much of a worry about writing and so on.
 You can find a lot of amazing people, and these can turn into play by chat roleplaying partners, friends, sometimes betareaders, and even tabletop roleplaying companions. It happened with me!

 Cons are obviously the time consumption, money spent upfront, and the unsure quality of interactions, along with the sheer fact that you should make sure the game runs smoothly on your system. Choppy framerates can kill the mood.
 
 To give you an example of it, here's the RP side of Guild Wars 2 , where there are character sheets, events, and other fun and amazingly creative stuff made by players in that universe - and, like this, you can find an RP community in almost every other MMO game around!

 So, here's the resources just to 'get your feet wet'. Tomorrow, we'll get into tabletop RPG proper - and how to completely avoid the need for the physical table alltogether, thus ending this miniseries!