Year: 2022

Musings on Starforged (TTRPG)

November 22, 2022 / / 0 Comments

A while back I came across Quest Calendar on Reddit/Kickstarter, a single-player RPG in the format of a tear-off day calendar; It’s a fun RPG that only takes a few minutes out of your day to play. It has also opened the door for me to explore the Solo RPG genre, which I was previously unaware had even existed. I have been playing Starforged on-and-off for a few months and it is positively delightful; It’s a PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse) based tabletop RPG that can be played either solo, co-op or guided; My chosen method of play is sort of a blend between a tabletop roleplaying game and a creative writing prompt.

You see, I love journaling and drawing/watercoloring as a form of personal creative expression and I really like dice rolling TTRPGs. I also really really love world building but I really really don’t want to DM a game. Starforged seems to do a decent job of scratching the odd combination of all 3 itches. So lately, there have been more than a few evenings spent with my Traveler’s Notebook, a printout of some of the rules, dice, a cup of tea, and background music to set the mood. It’s also nice having other activities that aren’t in front of a screen or don’t require daylight and expensive sporting equipment.

One thing that I really like about PbtA systems (vs D20 based systems like DND) is that I feel it is a better balance of chunky stat things vs narrative based actions. The systems is also open enough to make it fairly easy to incorporate other role-playing systems. For example, I really like Stars Without Number’s method of sector generation as it’s more comprehensive so I have been using a blend of SWN and Starforged to generate new sectors and planets. I might integrate some of the ship building and ship combat rules, but I don’t want my campaign to get too mechanically “chunky” so we’ll see.

Here’s a couple of things that I have bookmarked that I either use or have bookmarked to look into:

  • Stars Without Number: Mentioned above
  • Bucket of Bolts: Another indy solo space RPG. I really like the idea of playing through this and then integrating any characters and ships into my Starforged campaign.
  • Starship Geomorphs 2.0: In-depth ship building. It looked neat.
  • itch.io Starforged Jam: Community created extended Starforged content. The Cyberpunk playkit interests me greatly as I am enjoying Cyberpunk 2077 play #2 (inspired by watching Edgerunners).

…I also really love how the community has officially unofficially adopted the standard sized Traveler’s notebook as an analog medium for this game. I have a notebook insert and folder with laminated cheat sheets that I use during play sessions.

Happy November

November 18, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I am not really great about updating this site, am I? I had a random actual/digital life update post sitting in drafts from way back in May but I think most of that is old news now. Anyhoo:

  • With the news that Japan would be opening up for tourism in October, we had quickly planned a November trip at the end of September. We actually just got back this week. Fabulous time as usual, I have a mountain of images to sort through, edit and post, which will be hopefully mostly done by next week because I kind of wanted to show them to family at Thanksgiving.
  • This is old news but my solution to needing a new personal computer and not wanting to deal with any GPU or CPU shortage was to just buy a MacBook Pro. A+, would recommend.
  • The bag that I use for my photography & adventure every day carry has once again changed, so I’ll make a post about that at some point.
  • A while back I came across a TTRPG system called Ironsworn and had bookmarked the site and put off looking into it. What I found interesting about it was that it could be played both solo and co-op. Recently-ish, Ironsworn: Starforged, a sci-fi themed followup RPG was released. I’ll make a separate post about this at some point but I have been playing it on-and-off in my spare time and it is very fun. It scratches a very specific analog creative writing/journaling, dice rolling, and world building itch. I’m really sad that I had missed the kickstarter.
  • I had this paragraph typed out in late May about how I had started up the Final Fantasy XIV trial again and was enjoying it but that phase only lasted about a month or so and I haven’t touched it since. Triple Triad for life though.
  • Finished reading Dragons of Deceit, the new Dragonlance novel on the plane trip over to Narita and started up The Expanse series. Slowly working through my reading backlog…

My Customized Traveler’s Notebook

May 28, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I recently ordered and received a customized standard-sized Traveler’s Notebook from Baum-Kuchen. I have been wanting to order one for a while so as soon as they had re-opened the service, I contacted their lovely team to work out the details of my request. I have always wanted a camel Traveler’s Notebook and have always wanted a customized Traveler’s Notebook, so great opportunity to fulfill both wants.

My Tokyo Station Traveler’s Notebooks is what I have been using as my main journal for the past couple of years. I kind of baby it because it is one of my favorite souvenirs from our first trip to Japan. As such, whenever I take it anywhere, it is usually in a canvas carrier to prevent it from getting scratched up; Which is fine, but that makes it kind of a chunky thing to carry anywhere and prevents it from developing a nice patina like my passport Traveler’s Notebook. I kind of just throw my passport TN in my bag since it functions as a planner and extended wallet. Because of that, the leather has become nice and supple and broken in with a lot of character.

Continue reading

Hello and Happy 2022

March 8, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Hello there, long time no post. I have this backlog of photos to edit in Lightroom and (maybe) post somewhere, but just haven’t gotten around to doing that for reasons. This post was actually written in July of 2021, sat in the editing queue for around 7 odd months until now, March of 2022. At some point I’ll post a picture dump of all of the cool things that we’ve done. Maybe.

So on the topic of biking. I figured out what was causing the saddle and hand pain whenever we went out to ride: The bike I was using was too big. I was using my husband’s old bike which is a men’s large. The seat to pedal distance was fine, so I figured it was fine but the problem was that it was too long, causing my to lean forward too much. Sold that bike to a friend who really needed one and who fit it perfectly, purchased a new bike which fits me perfectly. According to online measurements, I am between a small and medium, leaning towards medium. A small fit me perfectly so that is what we got. New bike has a 1×10 drivetrain instead of a 3×8.

We have gotten into GUNPLA (Gundam Plastic Model) building lately. I have always wanted to build one but for some reason, I was under the impression that the kits required painting and gluing like Warhammer or most other model kits that I have seen. Painting and gluing is beyond the barrier of entry for whatever effort I am willing to put into novice model building.

The kits are pre-painted snap fit. The only tool that you actually need is a nipper to snip the pieces off of the plastic runner and optionally, a hobby knife and maybe sand paper to clean up the nub marks. GUNPLA seems to be the natural evolution for web + likes LEGO and building things. Also a great, “It’s hot outside and I need something to do indoors” type of hobby. Many regrets not getting into GUNPLA before going to Japan or at least before everything was closed for COVID reasons.