Sol's Roles

December 31, 2022 + Advice, wellness

Real Life Milestones

Happy new year, TTRPG community! As we begin a new chapter, it’s a great time to start thinking about our goals for the next twelve months. Whether you’re a player looking to improve your skills or a game master looking to take your campaigns to the next level, goal setting can be a powerful tool to help you achieve your dreams.

In this post, we’re going to dive into three key areas of goal setting: large-scale strategic planning, narrowing down objectives, and setting SMART goals. By the end of this article, you’ll have a roadmap for setting and achieving your goals in the new year.

Large-Scale Strategic Planning

This is the big-picture stuff – the things you want to achieve in the long term. Maybe you want to become a published TTRPG author, or dream of running a successful streaming channel. Whatever your objective is, it’s important to start by defining your big, long-term goals.

The key to large-scale strategic planning is to be as specific as possible. Instead of just saying, “I want to be a successful TTRPG streamer,” try to be more specific: “I want to grow my TTRPG streaming channel to 10,000 subscribers within the next three years.” By being specific, you’ll have a clearer idea of what you’re working towards, which will make it easier to set actionable goals along the way.

So, take some time to think about your big, long-term goals for the new year. What do you want to achieve in the next three, five, or even ten years? Write these desires down and keep them somewhere visible so you can refer back to them as you start setting more specific goals.

Narrowing

Now it’s time to start honing your objectives from dreams and visions of success to well-defined, actionable goals.

One way to do this is to break your long-term goals into smaller, more manageable chunks. For example, if your long-term goal is to grow your TTRPG streaming channel to 10,000 subscribers within the next three years, you might set a goal to reach 1,000 subscribers within the first year. This is a specific goal that you can work towards in the short term while still keeping your long-term goal in mind.

Another way to narrow down your objectives is to focus on the key areas that will help you achieve your long-term missions. For example, if you’re a game master looking to improve your skills, you might focus on developing your storytelling abilities or learning new game systems. By focusing on specific areas of growth, you’ll be able to set more targeted, achievable goals.

You can also take this time to identify the things that are distractions or hindrances to your objectives. If you want to focus on your storytelling abilities, you can toss out objectives that deal with things outside that. This is a great time to really pare down your to-do list so you can focus on the things you care most about.

SMART Goals

Now that you’ve narrowed down your objectives and set some specific, actionable goals, it’s time to make sure they’re SMART goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. By making sure your goals meet all five of these criteria, you’ll be able to stay focused and track your progress as you work towards achieving your objectives.

Most importantly, this type of goal-setting makes you more likely to actually achieve the end results you want.

Let’s say you want to write a TTRPG adventure that you can publish within the next year. A SMART goal for this might be: “I will write a TTRPG adventure that is 50 pages long and ready for publication by December 31st.” This goal is specific (publication-ready TTRPG adventure), measurable (50 pages), attainable (it’s possible to write 50 pages within a year), relevant (it’s related to your long-term goal of publishing an adventure), and time-bound (December 31st).

Here are some tips and strategies for setting and achieving your SMART goals in the new year:

Write your goals down: It might seem simple, but writing your goals down can be a powerful way to commit to them and keep them in mind. Consider creating a goal-setting worksheet or a vision board to help you stay focused and motivated. These tools help keep you accountable and serve as a visual reminder of your aspirations.
Make a plan: Once you’ve set your SMART goals, it’s time to create a plan for achieving them. This could include breaking your goals down into smallersub-goals and setting deadlines for each one. By creating a plan, you’ll have a roadmap to follow as you work towards success. You can use this time to also pinpoint steps that might be more challenging than others and brainstorm how you will overcome those challenges.
Track your progress: As you carry out your plans, it’s important to track your progress so you can celebrate how far you’ve come and see what you still need to do. This could include keeping a journal or using a goal-tracking app to help you stay on the right path. By keeping in mind how far you’ve already come, you can also fight off imposter syndrome and burnout.
Celebrate your achievements: Don’t forget to recognize your achievements along the way! Whether it’s reaching a milestone or completing a goal, it’s important to take a moment to acknowledge your hard work and enjoy your successes. This will help you stay motivated and focused as you continue working towards your goals. You can do this privately with a special treat or other reward or you can share these wins with the community (like in my Discord or the comment section below)!

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.com

In conclusion, goal-setting can be a powerful tool for TTRPG players and game masters looking to improve their skills and achieve their dreams. By following a few key steps, you can set and achieve your goals in the new year. These steps include large-scale strategic planning, narrowing your objectives to clear, focused goals, and making sure those goals are SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound. By following these steps and using the tips and strategies that work best for you, you’ll be well on your way to actualizing your dreams in the new year and beyond.

Get out there and start setting and achieving your goals – the TTRPG community is counting on you!

I hope this blog has been helpful as you start setting and achieving your goals in the new year! Remember to be patient with yourself and to take breaks when you need them. Goal-setting is a journey, not a destination, so enjoy the ride!

If you enjoyed this blog, please sign up to be a member on my Ko-Fi — your support there empowers me to continue to write these articles and provide excellent gaming content as well!

November 29, 2021 + Advice, Gaming, wellness

Stretch before you play!

by Sol

Welcome Everyone, I’m Sol and today I’m going to remind you to stretch and warm up before you play, so let’s ease into it! Go ahead and loosen up and get comfortable first though, and a quick Content Warning (CW) for references to exercise, sports and stretching.

We love to play games, and I don’t mean just the royal ‘we’. People love to play, and we tend to rush right into it. Rushing right into it can get us in trouble though, and it doesn’t matter what you are playing! So today I’m going to take some time to outline different ways to stretch and warm up before you go outside, sit down at the table, or grab a controller and get into it. Follow my advice and you’re going to have a better time, every time!

You may be familiar already with the idea of warming up, but for those of you who aren’t let me explain. If you jump right into an activity then you are at a higher risk of injury, by warming up before hand you prepare yourself for the activity ahead and not only reduce your injury risk but also perform better. A warmup takes you through the motions of the activity you are about to participate in, just in a slower more controlled fashion. Now, you might laugh thinking about warming up before a tabletop roleplaying game but trust me, you should be doing it! Thankfully it doesn’t take long, and I have a wealth of suggestions.

I will start will the less obvious idea of warming up before playing a non-physically intense game. When you are sitting around a table throwing dice and laughing with your friends the last thing that might be on your mind is the idea of strain being put on your body, but it is there! Sitting for a prolonged time takes a toll, poor posture can cause muscle strain when poised over a character sheet, and even your voice is getting a workout! If you neglect those then you are going to feel it the next day; a sore back, squashed flat butt, and a scratchy throat has been the price of many an adventurer’s good time!

Before you grab those dice, consider trying a few of the following: shake out your wrists and arms, roll and flex your shoulders and back, warm your voice up with some light singing or speaking softly in character! Don’t neglect your emotions either, they are going to get a workout in as well! Laugh, sigh, hold silence with a pensive or sad thought, grimace in imagined pain, and scowl in anger, then let it all go on an exhale and return to your normal emotional keel.

Photo by RODNAE Productions on Pexels.com

If your play is physical, say a sport like fencing, then warming your body up by going through similar motions beforehand is probably familiar to you. Dynamic stretching, maybe a light jog, some faster motions as your muscles adapt. All something you’ve probably seen and done dozens of times. That familiarity can also make you less diligent about it, however, so always watch out for your friends and suggest they warm up and model that behavior yourself. Since physical activity is so wide ranging, I leave it to you to select a warmup that fits for you.

Whatever play you engage in, remember to hold space for others and have fun! When you are done, take some time and space to stretch again and cool down physically and emotionally. Take care of yourself and your friends and keep an eye to the future by doing things today that will let you stay fit to play for the rest of your life!

I hope that this article has helped you improve your gaming! If you enjoyed it, please sign up to be a member on my Ko-Fi, your support there makes me able to continue to write these articles and provide excellent gaming content as well!

November 1, 2021 + Uncategorized

Learn to Love to Listen

by Sol

Welcome everyone, as always, I’m Sol and today I’m going to be sharing some tips from my experiences as a long-time role-player and wellness educator. This advice will help you play better games, have more fun around the table, and improve your health and wellness. The article for today is going to focus on using a trick from motivational interviewing to improve your communication skills as a player, game master, or friend!

“When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” –Ernest Hemingway
Learn more about how to listen on @SolsRoles blog!
solsroles.com
Tweet

There is a big difference between hearing someone and listening to them. This advice is all over the place so I’m going to skip ahead to the good bits that apply here. Let’s talk about why you should listen as a starting point. Listening to the other people at the table is the single most important and impactful way to improve your gaming experience. The following advice applies to anyone playing the game but lets start with running a game first.

If you are the person running the game, then listening is going to give your players an opportunity to express their character, they will feel heard and valued, and they can for a moment be the star of the show that they want to be. By listening you also give yourself information about what that player really values and looks forward to in the game. Further, by asking questions rather than making statements, you take some of the load off your own shoulders. If a player asks, “What do I know about X?” consider asking them to tell you the rumors they have heard before you give them any info. Sometimes those ideas a player throws out there will beat anything you had planned, and even if not, it tells you a bit about how that player and character imagine their version of your world!

If you are a player, you might think that you are very familiar with listening. You spend all session listening to some hoary game master drone on and on, right? Well, when is the last time you really sat and listened to the story other players are telling? By investing time and energy in caring about the other player character’s stories you can get more out of the game you are playing. Every player at the table has an incredible wealth of information and creativity that you can be entertained by, excited by, and even build your own stories with! I encourage you to ask more questions, investigate the other characters, engage with them, and let them tell you a story. I promise, the more you do this and the more it catches on at the table, then you will have ever more fun!

Outside of the game table there are a lot of benefits to this as well. By training yourself to be still and listen to the stories other people tell you will have a richer experience with other people in your life. If you get used to asking another player how their character feels in a certain moment, that skill will translate to real life as well. You will become more sensitive, more caring, and more attractive. People will trust you more, and they will listen to your stories more as well.

How do you build this skill? As with most things, it is simple but not necessarily easy. The first step is to cultivate an appreciation for other people and what they say. Practice thanking people for speaking and sharing their stories, be genuine about it, and be sincere. This will encourage people to continue to share with you, and even if you struggle with putting your effort and energy into being present in the moment, it indicates that you really do care. The second step would be to work on being present with the storyteller. This can be a challenge for many people, I realize this, so make these steps in your own time and way. However, by paying attention, stilling your own thoughts, and managing your desire to add to the story you can build rapport and focus that will result in richer experiences for everyone. Lastly, I encourage you to ask more questions, especially about emotions. When you show interest by asking questions you encourage the speaker to share more details, and often those are the more interesting details as well!

October 18, 2021 + Advice, wellness

Take a Break

by Sol

Welcome everyone, as ever, I am Sol. Today is going to be a shorter blog article; I’m taking a break.

You heard me right. We’re taking a break here. I didn’t announce it, I’m not asking you to be patient, and I’m not explaining it. I’m just saying that today, this week, the blog isn’t going anywhere.

Will it be back next week? You can bet on it. This week? Nope.

Why did I bother posting at all? Because you can do exactly this. You really can. Your work is either so small that nobody will mind you missing a day, or so large that the momentum will carry on. You need to prioritize yourself. Sometimes, that means stepping away.

Next week, we’re going to talk about how to be better listeners and how that helps us as players, GMs and friends. In the meantime, I’m going to have some ice cream. Why not grab some yourself?

October 11, 2021 + Advice, wellness

Community and Gaming

by Sol

Welcome Everyone! I’m Sol and this one goes out to all the creative developers out there trying to make it in the tabletop gaming market. I’m going to share with you some important wisdom on why and how you should approach marketing to the community and how you can become not only a better more successful company, but a more considerate member of the community. You’re also going to learn a lot about how to respectfully interact with communities outside your own. Buckle up, it’s gonna be a long one.

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Matthew from Abyssal Brews was recently talking in the Hope4TTRPGs Discord about what they felt made them successful. They pointed out that their relationships with the community was really what made their launch of Campfire such a success, and they struggled to express exactly why that was. He knew, deep down, exactly how important community relationships were to build a successful platform but didn’t have the words. I was inspired to share my insight as a Public Health Education specialist and he encouraged me to post here, so let’s dive into it.

The tabletop roleplaying community is insular. While it is becoming more mainstream to play games like Dungeons and Dragons, it is still something of a defensive and small community. Small communities are self-protective, they critically eye outsiders and are astute to being marketed to. It is extremely difficult to develop and sustain a long-term program in such a community, no matter what value it may be delivering. Speaking from a public health perspective you would be surprised by exactly how many free services are offered and never taken advantage of, because a community does not trust an outsider. Importantly, they are often correct in that mistrust!

It is a fact that without the informed consent of a population you are unlikely to have any long-term success interacting with them. To get that informed consent there is little gain in appealing to the community at large. The louder you are, the more insistent you are, the more you push your product as a solution, the less likely you are to succeed. So how do you get that consent? How do you build trust and confidence?

Well, if you are lucky then you are already part of the community before you try to develop or sell anything. You could be a high-profile, well-known person who is already speaking and acting within those community spaces. By already being part of the community, you are already past those first barriers. Not to say that you won’t be critically viewed, but it’s much easier when people already know and trust you as part of the collective.

If you are new, or an outsider, then things get more difficult. This is where Matthew really had an intuitive idea of what he needed to do and how do it. As a newcomer or outsider, you must do two things; respectfully establish yourself as a resource for the community and develop relationships with people in positions of respect.

Giving something away for free, with no pretense and no sales rhetoric, can show that you are invested in the community. Investing in the wellbeing of a community is the key here, it isn’t about giving away merchandise or advice, it is about giving away time and emotional labor. Small communities see bribes of all sorts to try to buy their good will. They know what’s going on. Giving your time, your value, your self, patiently and respectfully is an investment that is genuine. It will take time to develop this sort of trust and it will be a constant ongoing project.

The second part, developing relationships with people in positions of respect, is equally important. Communities look to leaders, not authority figures, leaders. Being able to identify who really sets a tone and opinion in a community is vital, often it is not the people you first expect. You will probably listen to your grandmother’s opinion on someone more than you will the Mayor’s opinion, for example. Having those key relationships, and honoring them, is how you develop actual social capital that will allow you to interact with the community and help.

So how do you develop that connection? The same as any other decent human relationship; respect, patience, and kindness. You cannot approach these leaders and lay out your plan wholesale and expect instant agreement. You need to develop that kindness to the people they care most about and show respect to their position in the community. Give of yourself and listen to the person you are working with. Do not force your opinion, do not suggest, or advise when not asked. Simply listen, be patient, and help where you are able.

Helping is what this is all about, right? You’re not here trying to make money, you’re here because you believe that what you’ve developed is going to help someone, right? Because let me tell you, if you get this far, build those connections, and then betray them? There is no way to recover from that. On the other hand, if you build those connections and work constantly beside folks, you not only help that community, but you widen your own. You now are part of a wider more connected, more compassionate world. Even if you don’t sell a single thing, isn’t that worth the effort?

I hope you enjoyed this article and I hope you reach out to a new community and join it with trust and kindness. If you found value in this article it would mean the world to me for you to follow my Ko-fi and become a member. Thank you in advance!

October 4, 2021 + Advice, Gaming, GMs, Players

Are you a Hero or an Adventurer?

by Sol

Welcome everyone! I’m Sol and today I’m going to help you explore your character, oh and maybe along the way we’ll talk about your roleplaying character too. We’re going to discuss four large archetypes that I see with how people interact with the world and talk about how thinking about these archetypes can improve your life and your gaming. Ready? Let’s go.

In my experience people fall into one of these four categories. You are either a Hero, an Adventurer, an Explorer or a Wanderer. None of these are intrinsically worse than any of the others but knowing which you are (and why) can certainly help you in life and in roleplaying. Let me explain what each one is and how it can relate to both the real world and our gaming experiences.

A Hero is driven by a mission, they generally have some ideal that they adhere to that drives them to take action. This ideal can be concrete or nebulous, so long as it is something deeply personal to the Hero. Often a Hero is reactive, they respond to some call to action or a perceived slight against their ideal and then they take steps to set the world back in alignment with their ideals. Heroes are linked to change, either correcting a change or enacting one.

In the real-world there are more Heroes than you might expect. Heroism isn’t always about facing down dragons or evil wizards, often Heroism comes in small acts of kindness. If you feel like your actions aren’t heroic, I invite you to step back and explore what your ideal is, what mission you have in life. Then once you identify that, seek out opportunities to make those small changes in the world. Often, we wait for the right time, we wait to feel ready. Stop waiting, start acting.

In gaming, if you are making a Hero archetype, consider what motivates them. What ideal or mission drives them. What event caused them to rise up and decide to make a difference? How do they act to make those changes happen? Whether those actions are small or large, consider their commitment to their ideal. Also consider how they could be more active rather than reactive in their Heroism. Once the big bad is slain, what will they do then?

An Adventurer isn’t a Hero, but they are much more active! Adventurers seek excitement, they are drawn to challenges for challenge’s sake, and they reject a passive lifestyle. Many Adventurers aren’t sure what they’re looking for ultimately, and that is because what they seek out is an internal state. They want that thrill; they want the adrenaline. If you always feel like you need to do more outrageous actions to feel fulfillment, this might be you!

In the real-world Adventure seekers are often downplayed as adrenaline junkies. People who put themselves in danger for no real purpose are considered rash and foolish. I feel that Adventurers are the drivers of society, they don’t settle and they want more engagement and action than the status quo provides. Because of this it may be easy to get carried away with frivolous actions, but these are also the people who are sparking action and dynamic thought! If you feel the call to Adventure, I want you to embrace it and ask who you can bring along!

In the world of roleplaying, an Adventurer is what consider the typical player character. Perhaps there is an overarching drive or motive, but for the sake of the game it is window dressing. You can lean into this archetype by embracing the vivacious nature that it conveys. Adventure can be found fighting harpies on a cliff, but it can also be found in the subtle actions of the court! Your adventures can be as grand as imagined or as mundane as finding a new store for your character to get swept away in!

Explorers seem like Adventurers; they both are active and seek out new experiences. Explorers are different, however, in one main regard; they seek out new experiences and knowledge rather than wanting an emotional or physical thrill. Explorers are boundary pushers, there is some baggage with this idea and term, but I reject the colonial aspects that this invokes deliberately. Experiences must only be new to the Explorer, and they can easily embrace and respect the lands and people they encounter. This exploration doesn’t confine itself to the physical world either, the spiritual and mental world is a frontier to be embraced as well!

Explorers in real life are restless, but in a way that differs from Adventurers. Exploration is about discovery; adventure is about excitement. If you find yourself always curious, always wanting to know more, then I call you an Explorer. Whether you look outside yourself, trying new cuisine and travelling to new places, or if you look within and investigate math, science, or religion, you bear this title. To fully actualize this is to bring growth to not just yourself but also society!

In gaming Explorers are pathfinders, seekers of knowledge, and at times busy bodies and pests! The wizard seeking lost spells, the ranger asking what lies over this mountain, the druid watching the trees quietly grow. If you want to make an Explorer shine in game, ask yourself questions about their relationship with novelty and what they will bring back to others around them. How do they share this open minded, generous hearted behavior?

Lastly, we arrive at Wanderers. It would be easy to dismiss this group of folks, but it would be a mistake. A Wanderer may seem lack luster, apathetic and without motivation, but that misses key components of this personality. Wanderers aren’t tied to places; locations hold little appeal to them. What you often see in wanderers is a quiet respect for others and a fierce independence. They move from place to place not because they need new experiences, not because they seek changes, but simply because they are free to do so. They have a boldness of spirit and a self-assuredness that I think is admirable!

A Wanderer in the real world might strike someone as carefree or cavalier, maybe even callous and uncaring of others. Yet spend time with a Wanderer and you will often find that they care more about people than anyone else, they just believe that each person is capable of being content with or without them. A Wanderer makes friends quickly, trusts those friends deeply, and believes that time and distance play no part in the connections forged. If you feel this call, I admire your spirit and encourage you to live that authentic life despite what others might think.

Within roleplaying, a Wanderer might strike you as the side character, the support player that has no story drive. You’d be wrong though; a Wanderer makes the perfect protagonist. Drawn only by their own spirit and motives they can go anywhere, charm anyone and then move on. Nothing drives a story quite like a well played Wanderer. Lean into your belief in independence and freedom, support and love your character’s friends fiercely, but trust them to be fine without you.

I hope you enjoyed this dip back into the gaming side of things! Last month was all about creativity and I am happy to share those tips, but I also want to unite that with the world of tabletop games. Roleplaying is such a rich and rewarding way to explore our relationships and beliefs. If you enjoyed this article, please support me! Writing this blog, developing games, and providing coaching to the community is my full time job and passion, every bit of support allows me to better serve our gaming community.

September 27, 2021 + Advice, wellness

Cultivating Creativity (Part 4)

by Sol

Welcome Everyone, to the end of the Cultivating Creativity series! As always, I’m Sol, and today we’re going to be wrapping up the month of September with a final article on how to keep creativity flowing. If you’ve not had a chance to read the other articles, start here. Otherwise, let’s just get to the good stuff!

From our last articles you have cleaned up your environment, made it more conducive to creativity, and have even explored your own relationship with creativity. You have had practical and applicable big scope actions which will set you up for long term success. “So, what’s left?!” You might be asking. Well, there are still some things I can share with you, little tools and tricks that can get you past a block or barrier and get that creativity flowing again!

The more tools like this that you develop and maintain the more creative you can be in the moment, but more importantly the more confident you will become in your creative pursuits. As mentioned in earlier articles, creativity is blocked by anxiety, fear, and lack of confidence. Just knowing about these tools can make you more confident and more consistently creative! Pretty neat, right?

First off, I want to tackle procrastination. You know that big project that you need to work on but have put off until the Sunday before it’s due to publish (not this article, no, not at all). So many people struggle with this, a lack of inspiration or lack of creativity is what we often tell ourselves, right? Well, that may be the case, but often it comes down to an emotional context. There is some emotion, normally a negative one, connected to the work that we are avoiding. In the case of this article, I feared not being able to deliver on this project. It is the first long form series for this blog, and I was afraid it wouldn’t go over well so I avoided writing for far longer than I needed to. That fear? That was what was blocking me.

To break through procrastination or “writers block” that manifests like this, it really does take introspection. A tool you can use is just a quick self-check before you even sit down to start a project. Investigating your emotions and being aware of them in relation to your work, as part of your routine, can let you get ahead of this type of block and overcome procrastination. Find out what the real emotion is, confront that (or not, just do the thing!) and you will blast past those barriers.

Secondly, lets talk about actual lack of inspiration or passion. You don’t have a project to work on that you’re avoiding, you just are coming up dry and empty. Nothing inspires you, none of the great changes you made from earlier articles are paying off, you’re a failure! Inspiration can be fickle like that sometimes, but there is something you can do in the meantime that often shakes you out of that. Do something related to your creative work, but nothing new or inspired. If you’re a writer, just write anything! Even song lyrics you know, or copying a book passage over, can jog some ideas loose. If you are a visual artist, practice drawing something tedious, like hands or faces. If music is your expression, you know you have scales to work on, or chords to finger.

The key here is it needs to be boring and not actually challenging. Your brain, if you’ve not noticed, hates being bored. It will look for something new, novel and engaging any time it lacks stimulus. Also, your brain is lazy, it will always try to spare as much energy as it can. By engaging in a creative adjacent pursuit but keeping it boring and tedious your brain will often jump to creativity as an escape! Worst case scenario, you get some decent practice in for when that creativity does strike, and that is a big win too!

Lastly, if nothing else is working, just step back and give yourself a break. I have mentioned this often before but being able to disengage and give yourself space and time to recharge is vital. It is easier to catch your breath and get back into the groove if you don’t get frustrated or burned out before hand.

I am glad you joined me on this longer format series of articles and I hope you found some good ideas on how to improve your creativity! If you found this article useful, please become a follower on my ko-fi and support my writing. If you feel that you could use a little more direct one on one help, I am happy to work with you through my coaching program!

September 20, 2021 + Advice, wellness

Cultivating Creativity (Part 3)

by Sol

Welcome Everyone, I’m Sol and today I will be diving into the relationship we have with creativity! Whether you are a traditional artist or someone who plays Dungeons and Dragons, this series on creativity is for you! Earlier in this series we looked at ways we can control the environment to increase our creativity. Cutting out distractions and building inspiration into our lives is important! However, at the end of the day, creativity comes from within. I promised at the start that I would help you find ways to reliably tap into that inner resource, so grab a drink because today we’re going to dive deep!

Developing a healthy relationship with your creativity is vital to having long term success and happiness. Understanding that aspect of your personality, exploring it without judgement, and embracing failure will strengthen you outside of creative exploits. Being in touch with your creative and expressive side is why you are here, right? So, let’s focus first on how we define a good relationship and a bad relationship with creativity.

A good relationship with creativity should bring you joy and fulfillment. You should be able to sit down to be creative and it should come easily and naturally. Inspiration should bubble up throughout the day easily and be ready at hand when you need it. Your past success should inspire confidence in your next projects. Boldness and risk taking should come naturally to you, knowing that you have the skills to venture outside your comfort zone. Setbacks and even failure should encourage you and inspire you, not sap your will and drain your confidence.

If the above paragraph doesn’t sound like you, you’re not alone. I have coached many people who have what I would call a negative or adversarial relationship with creativity. Having anxiety about projects, feeling stressed about the quality of your work, struggling with creative blocks, and feeling like a failure may have brought you to this article. Those are signs of a bad relationship. If you felt this way when you met someone then you’d say there were some real red flags! It’s ok to feel that way about the process sometimes, but if it happens often, changes must be made.

Introspection is the key to making effective long-term changes. Determine where these feelings stem from and understand how those emotions arise and influence you. If you followed the advice in my prior post, then your surroundings should be supportive of this. Even better, if you need help and support you should have surrounded yourself with people who can bolster you. Either way, resolve to improve your relationship with your creativity based on the insight you have.

The further you can get from negative emotions involved with creativity the better your art will become. Stress, anxiety, and fear cause your brain’s creative side to focus on new and inventive ways to escape or fight back. Lack of confidence and fear of failure also causes you to reduce your risk taking, and all creativity is a risk! Getting into a habit of identifying those emotions, walking yourself back from them, and embracing a more positive relationship with creativity will allow you to truly grow and explore.

A positive relationship is built on understanding, compassion, and trust. If you lack confidence, understand that creativity is part of what it means to be human, that it lies within you, and that lack of confidence will start to vanish. If the quality of your work discourages you, be compassionate about your own efforts, after all you are closest to that art and see all the flaws that nobody else will notice and you are constantly improving. If you feel stress and anxiety about the time you have left to complete a project, trust that creativity comes in waves, and you will have moments of high production and low production. Embrace the positive thoughts and your creativity will be easier to tap into.

Good relationships also require a degree of honest work as well. I wish I could tell you that this is a quick and easy three step process, but I can’t. Working to embrace positivity and fight off those negative thoughts is going to take time and hard work. You will run into times where the creativity just isn’t there. You’re going to make some bad art along the way as well! Embrace the hard work, and as I said at the start, give yourself permission to fail, but most importantly, stay with it. Continue to work with yourself on reducing negativity, increasing positivity, and remember to love yourself and embrace those passions.

If you enjoyed this article and found it helpful, please support me by joining my ko-fi. Supporters get credit in my games, previews on upcoming work, and monthly retrospectives. You can also support me directly by buying the games I have developed on itch as well.

September 13, 2021 + Advice, wellness

Cultivating Creativity (Part 2)

by Sol

Welcome everyone, I’m Sol and today we will continue to work on keeping up your creative energy! If you need a refresher on the last article click here, and if you’re struggling with burnout click here. Today we will be focused on building an environment where creativity can flourish. Grab something to take notes with and read on!

“Creativity is like a flower, in the wrong environment it will never bloom. What does your creative garden look like?”
Tweet

In the last article, we talked about what creativity is and the mystery behind it. I ended that article with the advice to allow yourself to fail. Despite all our best efforts life often finds a way to trip us up, slow us down, and set us back. External factors can drag you down, it’s a fact! So, before we take aim at developing your inner strengths, let’s look at how we can make the external world support creativity rather than stifle it.

Thinking about creativity as a tree that you need to plant, care for, prune, and then eventually harvest the fruit from will help you understand the process. I am going to walk you through finding the best soil, selecting good seeds, and taking care of pests along the way. You can visualize this any way you like, but I think this is a fun way to visualize the process and remember the steps!

Start With Basics

Before you can grow your creativity, you need to consider the soil it’s going to be planted in. Where is this work going to happen? If you are trying to be inspired and creative but you are surrounded by clutter that annoys you, sounds that distract you, and people that drain you, how could you ever expect to be productive?! Even if you do manage to grind work out, your mind will learn to associate your workspace with anxiety, frustration, and other negative emotions. Once that happens you will be fighting not just the environment but your own mind!

Look at your workspace and consider what gets in the way. Take away the things that impede you and add things that inspire you! If you work in a physical medium like painting or sculpting, then lay your tools out where you can easily grab them. It’s easy to get stuck on the past if it’s always lingering, so clear the clutter and old projects out. If you work digitally tidy up that desk, dust off the art, and clear out your file folders! Now you have the space clear and ready, and creativity has room to grow.

Now take some of that space you made and add things back. Putting sources of inspiration in your workspace can boost your creativity. Choose a wide variety of moods and inspirations that fit your style and the methods you are working with. Consider all of your senses! It is easy to get stuck on visual inspiration and overlook music and sound, or even to forget taste or touch! Our sense of smell is most tied to emotion and memory, use that to inspire you!

Reduce Clutter and old projects.
Have your tools and space ready and available.
Surround yourself with inspiration.

Supportive Relationships

Growing creativity is more than a solo job, art comes is part of the community it grows in. Surround yourself with positive influences. Developing a good relationship with other creatives will always boost your own inspiration. Having a mentor to help you along the way, and an idol to look up to is also something you should invest time in. Consider being a mentor to someone else! Your skills and creativity will become ever so much better when you teach someone else! Seek out friendships with people who love to see what you do, and who can help build you up! Art might happen alone, but the relationships you surround yourself with are people who can help you stay creative, or they can drain that creativity…

Just like I suggested clearing out your workspace and tossing out the old clutter, it can be beneficial to evaluate your relationships in the same way. Distance yourself from people who disparage your dreams, they are just blocking the sun from getting to your creativity. Also, get away from people who demand more than you can provide. People who ask for the fruits of your labor without enriching your garden are like bugs on crops or weeds in the flower bed. Pull them up from the roots and spray those pests away.

Even if you work best alone, having people to talk to outside of your creative space is a great benefit. The more diverse people you can connect with the more sources of inspiration you will have. If you’re a bit introverted (like me!) this can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be an immediate event! Gently explore talking with new people, getting to know them, and seeing where their different views lead them. If you struggle with conversation, just ask people what they are passionate about and why! Listen to them, I mean really listen, and you will learn so much, become inspired, and make some friends along the way.

Develop relationships with other creatives.
Remove negative people.
Meet new people with different experiences.

You have probably read advice like this before though. So let me take it a bit further than others and bridge some gaps. Fall in love with the process. You can do all the above advice and make great strides, but to really thrive, learn to love doing this! Gardening and farming aren’t something you do once and then you’re set for life, and nor is creativity. It is a continual process that you devote yourself to. Learn to love clearing out the clutter and come back to it seasonally. Embrace going into the world and gathering new friends to help you grow and thrive. Gain satisfaction from pruning back bad ideas and chasing off pests. If you can fall in love with this part, the rest will always come easier than you had ever imagined.

September 6, 2021 + Advice, wellness

Cultivating Creativity (Part 1)

by Sol

Welcome Everyone! I’m Sol and today I will be writing a spiritual follow up for one of my more popular articles. I often work with creative people who are burned out after demanding too much of their creative side. Over the years I’ve developed practical techniques and advice for developing a consistently creative lifestyle without burning out! If you’re currently struggling with being burned out go ahead and read my article on Burnout again (or read it for the first time)! If you’re ready to develop your own personal creativity and find ways to tap into in on demand, then read ahead!

“Creativity can’t be forced, but we can learn to nurture it!”
Tweet

Over this series of articles I will be diving into the process of developing your own creativity with advice that applies to novices as well as veterans. Whether you are a painter, a singer, or writer this advice will work for you. If you are here from my conversations about Dungeons and Dragons, then this advice will certainly help you! I will discuss what creativity is and how society views creative work, ways you can establish an environment that encourages creativity, how to develop a healthy relationship with your own creative process, and a toolbox of techniques to refresh your mental and emotional energy so that you can sustain your creative pursuits. Because of the length of this content, the entire month of September will focus on this topic, but expect some great articles next month about tabletop roleplaying games!

Despite everyone being creative (and yes, you are creative!) Creativity is one of the least understood components of our human experience. We all have it in common to one degree or another, but really diving into what it is and where it comes from is complicated and uncertain. You could easily make the case that our creativity is a defining aspect of what it means to be human. Innovation, curiosity, and exploration come together in a unique mix to give us our fertile imaginations and drive our culture, art and technology forward. So, why don’t we know more about it?

Creativity is difficult to understand because it arises out of the tangled intersection of our biological brains and our social environment. We are just touching the surface on looking at what going on in our brains, so we are probably a long ways off before we can really look at the mechanics of creativity. Looking at the other component, society is a shifting landscape that shapes us constantly, but we rarely are very introspective about those influences. Add to that the myth and mystique surrounding art, and the way we undervalue creative work, it’s no wonder this is a mystery!

With such a fundamental misunderstanding of creativity it is no wonder that so many artists are struggling! We ask too much of them, ignore their process, underpay them, and then have no sympathy when they burn out! Aspiring creatives aren’t in any better spot either. With unrealistic expectations of their own creativity, the mystery behind the process, and the lack of quality tools to develop creativity, it is a daunting challenge to take up as a hobby, let alone try to make money with!

My first bit of advice for you is to give yourself permission to screw up, burn out, crash and burn and fail. Seriously, that one bit of advice is all over the place for a reason. You are going to be fighting an uphill battle to tap into one of the most powerful and least understood aspects of the human condition. You will almost certainly make mistakes, push yourself too hard, get frustrated and question your self-worth. I promise you though, you’re going to do great and you will learn to be consistently, passionately, creative.

In the next article in this series, I will dig deeper into how to begin the process of building an environment that allows creativity to flourish. Expect to learn a lot about yourself along the way and you can start this journey on the right foot. For those of you with more experience as a creative, read the next article with a critical eye for new approaches and ways you can set yourself up for even more success!

August 30, 2021 + Advice, Gaming, GMs, Players

How to Steal Ideas, Respectfully

by Sol

Welcome Everyone! I’m Sol and today we will be talking how to “steal” ideas from anywhere and use them in Dungeons and Dragons or your favorite roleplaying game! So, grab your favorite set of thieves’ tools and meet me below.

I am a strong advocate that you should be stealing more ideas from everywhere. We are surrounded by a veritable sea of ideas, from the books we read, the shows we watch, the music we listen to…even commercials! So, if something is clever and interesting enough to grab your attention and get you engaged and excited, you should really consider making it your own. You do have good taste after all, right?

“But Sol, that’s boring and uninspired and maybe even unethical!” I hear you say.
Tweet

Well, there is an art to it, to be sure. Let us style ourselves as sophisticated criminals performing a heist, rather than some base ruffians mugging someone on the street. A properly executed idea theft is elegant, classy, and leaves even your ‘victims’ shaking their head in admiration. Hardly boring or uninspired!

As for the ethics question? We all are doing this on some level at this point. Truly novel ideas are very rare and many things we love and enjoy are ‘stolen’ changed retellings of old classics. Look no further than the line between Gilgamesh and the Avengers for an example. Yes, it’s true, you can’t just copy and paste the exact same story, lines, names, and all with a hope of it being taken seriously, that doesn’t stop you from making it your own once you have your hands on it however!

The Smash and Grab

Running across a ripe idea in the wild that you can’t help but grab immediately happens frequently. The most common way to steal an idea is to sneak up on it, bonk it on the head, and drag it back to your lair. Thefts of this sort are normally small ones, things you can run off with, and things that are relatively harmless. A name, an accent, a description, maybe a quick scene. Low effort, low reward, and the world is full of them. You can generally get away with this unless what you are stealing is particularly unique and/or well known. If you bring a high profile shiny new idea to the table and others recognize it, expect to catch heat.

To beat that heat you need to do at least one of two things; change the idea or wait. Right now, if you named a character Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner or Tony Stark you’re going to get some serious attention, but if you were to wait for those names to become less popular then you might get away with it. What that means is sometimes your theft and your payoff must be farther apart than you would like, which brings us to the other option. Change what you’ve stolen. Take time to think about the elements that you like about what you’ve gotten your hands on and then see what can be changed about the idea. Maybe you think Tony Stark is a cool name because Tony is a casual nickname contrasted by ‘Stark’ which has a lot of interesting emotional weight. Taking that same idea, you might name a character Rebecca ‘Becky’ Ire.

And just like that, you’ve mugged The Mouse.

The Heist

To steal something complicated and high profile, something elaborate and alluring, takes quite a bit more. You must approach the heist with a plan, with skills, with understanding, and very often with help. No good heist caper is done solo, and who am I to argue with the classics. These sorts of idea stealing are much harder to pull off, but the payoffs in both the long and short term can be very rewarding. These ideas are big, these are stories, narrative beats, themes and motifs, whole campaigns can be built around these.

As with any heist, the first step is understanding your mark. What are you stealing, why are you stealing it, what makes it unique, what ‘protects’ it, and what are you going to be able to get for it once you have stolen it? Think hard about what you are trying to take a bigger idea from and figure out why it works and what about it made it captivate you. Detail everything you know about the idea and pick it apart. If it’s a favorite book or anime for example watch it with a notepad near by and jot down the scenes that made you gasp, then work out what lead to those moments.

The second step is to determine what protects that idea you are stealing. In the case of casual gaming what you are worried about is less often trademark/copywrite material and more about distinctive notes. A sword in a stone which determines who becomes king next is a pretty apparent theft, as is having a dragon invade a dwarven kingdom and wallow in their riches. These obvious signposts are going to be alarms that go off for anyone who sees you with your newly stolen idea.

A cat peering from underneath a curtain half obscured by a bookshelf

Now that you understand what you want to steal and what protects it, you must come up with a plan to make it your own. File off serial numbers, disarm those alarms, dig into the uniqueness of the idea, and make those key components yours. Excalibur, sword in the stone? Fine, now it’s a druid’s staff in a grove on an island, she who touches it (and is not consumed by the Stryx that perches above it) is the reborn elder of the fae druids, and all the fae of the forest will kneel before her.

All good heists and capers require a team though, as I said above. So get other people onboard with this heist. If you are the one in charge of the game, talk to your players about being inspired by and stealing from a piece of media you ALL love. They will distract the guards and baffle the alarms for you and allow you to get away with a great deal more than otherwise. If you are a player planning to heist a character concept, say a moody monster slayer, then also recruit your group. Tell them what makes this idea compelling to you to steal, and how you are going to change it so that it can get past the investigators.

In the end, steal with respect. Respect the media you are pulling from, the talent to create and change ideas to make them great is valuable and rare. If you do take inspiration from somewhere, give credit where credit is due and where possible pay the artists responsible for the content. I don’t endorse real theft here, to be clear. Also, treat your fellow crooks with respect, they are probably as canny and clever as you are, so don’t try to steal from them or pull one over on them. Bring them in on the heist, make them part of the caper, and share the spoils.

August 27, 2021 + Uncategorized

Making Exploration Exciting – A Backpacker’s Perspective on Adventure

by GM Jay

Adventure—the word evokes feelings of excitement, thoughts of drama and danger, and images of travel. Although most TTRPGs dub you an adventurer, it’s rare to have an in-game experience that feels like you’re on a grand voyage. Very few systems are built to support exploration, and even fewer do it well.

Take an exciting travel scene from a movie, break it down using a rule book, and you’ll generally end up with a couple survival rolls and some extra travel time.

That’s not an adventure. That’s a slog.

In contrast, take a look at this scene in The Fellowship of the Ring.

The party is ascending Caradhras, huddling together for warmth and stability on the snowy pass. The wizard battle-from-afar was technically inconsequential to the perils that befell the Fellowship. Driving, blinding snow, strong winds howling across narrow ledges, and falling rock are natural possibilities on high mountain slopes.

I know from experience.

Backpacking has afforded me a unique perspective on how traveling on foot feels. After scaling thousands of feet in elevation to a summit, I’ve had the pleasure of looking out over miles of seemingly untouched landscape. I’ve also had the stark reminder of my mortality leap out at me as I lost my footing on an icy ledge.

Despite my love of trekking and frequent trips, I’ll be the first to tell you that most of the experience is actually a slog.

However, it’s more than just putting one foot in front of the other.

Walking through a warm, grassy field? An experienced traveler will be on the lookout for snakes and mud pits. The heart of a forest presents its own set of troubles, with spiderwebs crisscrossing trees at an obnoxious frequency. Heavy rain or a recent fire can bring down an alarming number of branches, as well. (If that doesn’t sound scary, just wait until one falls nearby, silent as death until it lands.) Once you get into rocky, elevated terrain, stable footing becomes imperative and perilously uncommon.

Throw bad weather, ill-suited gear, or an unprepared traveler onto any terrain, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for misery.

Now, look at the distances involved.

The real world and most fantasy worlds agree on the average walking speed being between 20 and 30 miles each day. 30 miles assumes around 10 hours spent on the move.

Realistically, the Sorcerer who spent most of his life in a library isn’t going to keep up with the nomadic Fighter. That Fighter will struggle after just an hour or so wearing full plate on a desert trek.

Thankfully, we don’t generally play games for realism.

The fantasy is that every character can walk, run, swim, and climb like a hero. If a GM asks a player to roll to see if they tied a knot in their climbing harness correctly, the GM is being a jerk. Five encounters with grass snakes, one muddy boot, and a rogue with a blister on his heel do not turn five days of travel into an epic journey.

That doesn’t mean that realistic setbacks shouldn’t be introduced. Blending fantastical heroics with a dash of true-to-life difficulty can breathe life into an otherwise dull part of play.

The trick is not to overdo it.

When you’re far from civilization, difficulties boil down into one of two categories:

Inconveniences

Threats

Threats are generally obvious and immediate; a bear is snuffling around nearby, brigands are hiding in the trees, or a twister is sweeping towards the party. Subtle and delayed threats can be introduced with care, including environmental effects like a blizzard (hypothermia) or heatwave (heat exhaustion and dehydration). Particularly challenging terrain may be a threat, too, if taking near-lethal damage could result from a poor roll.

Inconveniences, on the other hand, can be as varied as the topography. Biting flies, muddy roads, chaffing, shoddy maps, and difficult terrain are all nuisances that drain time and willpower.

Your table should never have to roll in regards to an inconvenience.
Tweet

To tailor your exploration scenes to your party, add more inconveniences for more realism and more threats for more fantasy. The most balanced journeys will have one to two compounding inconveniences (that may build into threats on their own if left to fester) and one to two threats.

Countering the threats and inconveniences should be a measure of surreal beauty.

Hiking up a mountain sucks. Standing at its peak is an experience of wonder. Summoning feelings reminiscent of that awe in-game is challenging but doable.

In addition to describing the terrain to your table, try adding an experience in between events. Single out a random player to notice how the sun is shimmering off the snow-capped peak across the valley rather than telling the whole group. Offhandedly mention to a different player how the smell of the air carries a scent they’ve never encountered; clean like spruce but warm like cinnamon.

Personalize it. Make it real.

On a final note, if epic journeys can be presented to the party without combat, why would filmmakers introduce Saruman as a direct opponent in the Caradhras scene?

Tolkien originally wrote the mountain itself awakening, furious at the audacity of the trespassers. That literal conflict between humanoid and nature seems closer to the spirit of travel, of adventure.
The cinematic decision played off how we associate excitement with confrontation.

You can employ this at your table, too.

Structure inconveniences, exhilarating experiences, and some threats into “combat rounds”. By imposing the template most associated with action, you automatically instill the moment with weight and capture your players’ attention. Try to match your tone to what you would use for any other encounter. Push the pacing along to keep the scene from growing stagnant and keep the spotlight moving.

If you enjoyed this article or found any of these tips helpful, please consider supporting Sol by subscribing on ko-fi or checking out the games he’s developed on itch.

To connect with me directly, reach out via LinkedIn, Twitter, or comment below! I want hear how you’ve integrated (or avoided) exploration at your table, how your gaming methods differ from mine, and your thoughts on TTRPGs and real-life adventures!