phoenyx.net are finally closing it down. Unlike the last time I said the Fudge is dead, this time it’s official. The FudgeList will be gone by August 26 (archives will still be available). I think perhaps in the long term this will be a good thing (for many reasons that I’m uncomfortable saying in public). I do hope in the short term, perhaps, that this might consolidate the remains of the community around something new or alternative, such as fudgeforum (though I’ve barely used it myself), but I suspect it’ll just disappear for a while, subsumed by the Fate community (which isn’t a bad “fate” I guess).

I still have Reboot, though I should kick Brad about where its at. Also my “secret” project L___ H_____ was a Fudge-based roleplaying game, that I’m quietly working my way through to putting it online, in some form of free (though originally I had planned to try and get it published). I’ve even already put some of it online on here (here and here) and even had Chris of Seraphim Guard interested in buying the rights for the Story Hooks bit. But I admit that I was beginning to feel that the FudgeList wasn’t going to be the place to announce it. In short, I’m not stopping being a fan of Fudge.

In the meantime, I plan to setup a small website that generates a monster FudgeRPG feed pulling in the known FudgeRPG feeds out there since the phoneyx.net one disappeared quite a while ago.

BTW for those reading from the Fudge community, you can see just my Fudge posts using this tag (or even better Fudge and Roleplaying posts using this link).  There is even unique RSS feeds, so you don’t have to read about Fringlish or TDOMF updates.

See ya all on the other side I guess, where ever that might be.

I haven’t been blogging as much as I would like. It’s certainly not from lack of material but simply time-constraints. Such is the life of a working father. I do have a narrow bandwidth to work on personal projects (i.e. not work or family) and recently that has been consumed by my Fudge Reboot work and TDOMF. Blogging has come in a weak second to these projects.

Actually the TDOMF project has got me rather excited because I’ve never really publicly got so close to the original vision for the project. Particularly one that people are using and want to see. I am about this much away from finally moving to a 1.0 version (pending feedback, bugs and some small improvements). After that I’ll be just improving it. As for Reboot RPG (my other public project), we’ll see what happens as I’ve just sent an updated version of the setting to Brad.

I am also working on a new little pet project which I will posting here soon for Fudge; an RPG combat system based on some of my discussions from last year on the Fudge List. Certainly nothing revolutionary but I’m enjoying getting my teeth into. However it’s slow going. Finding time to write and solidify ideas down on digital ink is hard. Finding time to think however is bountiful. I always have stuff running through my head.

My LH RPG project is starting to rumble beside me too. A lot of ideas have been piling up in my subconscious and recently they unleashed themselves in a furious random note-taking over Christmas and suddenly the vision I had for the project has meta-morphed again, into something that’s got me dribbling with excitement to start. I’m still having a strong flow of new ideas and how to take those ideas into something tangible. But until I clear my creative queue, I can’t really start on it. Some thoughts about it though have pushed me to consider releasing it as an indie or even free project. My only problem with it is that I’d need to find some real artists for images (how much is the going rate for commissioning original artwork for RPGs anyway?) and a decent tool for laying out a book (you know, fancy borders, floating boxes, etc.). I only have Word/OpenOffice and they both don’t have much tools in terms of actually laying out such a book.

Ann from GreyGhost contacted me a few days back about Reboot. Reboot is a roleplaying adventure I’ve been working on with the hopes of getting it published as a PDF. Read the tag for more posts on it. She can’t dedicate enough time to the project… but she’s passing me along to the guys behind Now Playing another Fudge RPG system derivative. If you like the Fate system from SOTC, you should probably check out Now Playing. The two systems, Fate and Now Playing, are considered the best Fudge implementations.

It’ll be interesting to see where things go next. I was making progress finishing updates to Reboot, so I’ll probably continue doing that, finish it and use it as a baseline for moving it to Now Playing.

I think I’ve managed to beat my procrastinating. I’ve started doing the necessary work for Reboot over the last week. However my pace is a bit slow.

The problem is, I’m still itching to do some coding. TDOMF is crying out for me to jump right in, I want to do some work on MOC(my roleplaying group’s webpage), Game Crafters’ Guildand have a number of ideas for some cool plugins for WordPress. The danger is, when I code, I get wrapped up in it and swallows all my creativity. Reboot would be lost.

Apparently this is a psychology state called the Flow.

From Wikipedia:

Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

I do get into the flow when I write too however coding has some additional “hooks” that make it worse. Two of the qualities of the flow are:

• Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
• The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.

When I’m coding, I find it flows so easily and “effortlessnessly”. Given enough time I feel I can complete any objective I set. And with a lot of my PHP projects, the rewards are fairly instant. Code a little, see the results. Code more, more results. It makes coding addictive. While with writing, I have to write a bit and then read and rewrite. The process doesn’t come off as effortless. It’s an uphill process. And I’m not a writer by trade. The task of writing seems more difficult than coding.

When I’m in the flow it’s hard for me to switch tasks, almost impossible. If I start coding and get into that state, forget writing. In fact, more than once, I’ve caught myself in the flow with a personal coding project in work and find it very difficult to break out of it. I tell myself, on the hour I’ll stop, at fifteen minutes after the hour I’ll stop, etc. Also the flow sucks for debugging non-linear problems. You get lost in one thread of investigation and it becomes hard to switch to another thread, even impossible to explore multiple threads at once, which is often what you need to do.

Also interesting, when I looked up the flow on Wikipedia, there was this link at the bottom.

• Solving Procrastination an application of Flow to solving procrastination by Kevin Chiu

The main point of Kevin Chiu’s article is that you should break up the task your procrastination about into multiple tasks that you can order by perceived difficulty (easiest first). This falls inline with the way the flow works.

And, unsurprisingly, this is how I conquered my procrastination over Reboot. I started by listing all the things I wanted to do, then started inserting the new headings I wanted to fill and then I started writing…

I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t sit down and do it. I’ve set aside time to do it. I’ve said to myself, finish this and then do that. That didn’t work. I’ve put time limits on it, though thats more for writer’s block and I certainly not out of ideas. In fact, it’s the opposite, I know what needs to be done. So now I’m at the writing-about-procrastinating in the hopes the writing momentum will carry me through it (another trick to fighting writer’s block).

I don’t know if there is any real “trick” to getting around it. You just got to do it, right? But even the lure of money isn’t enough. I think, perhaps, I’m not in the right mind-space to do it. I’m not getting enough sleep or even just plain chill-out time. All my energy goes to work, Alice and home. This project should be enjoyable. I know once I start, I’ll just keep at it. But it’s not even the first hurdle or opposition that’s stopping me.

Anyone have any suggestions about beating procrastinating?

I’ve just made a new release of my ever popular WordPress plugin: TDO Mini Forms (v0.6). Mostly backend changes but it should be even more stable than before.

However I’ve got to take a break from working on it. I’ve made four releases of the plugin in March alone! Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed working it. But at a cost of my other projects. My non-work time is split between family, relaxation and these. I just don’t have enough time to be able to really spread it out.

Specifically my roleplaying adventure Reboot is suffering. On the publishing side momentum is building but I haven’t been support it as much as should. So I’m going concentrate on it for a while.

I’m not abandoning TDO Mini Forms and if there are any bugs I will attempt to fix them. But I am shifting my priorities around. At some undetermined point in the future I will dive back into developing the plugin.

Things have been quiet on my current active roleplaying project “Reboot 2006″ up until this week. (For more info about Reboot 2006, you can read the previous post or just read my posts tagged with Reboot 2006, tags are a new feature of my website). For those who are new to my blog, Reboot is a roleplaying adventure that I’m hoping to get published, as a PDF (i.e. online), via GreyGhost, publishers of Fudge, one of my favourite RPG systems. It’s also my first *thing* to be published!

I sent Ann @ Grey Ghost, a friendly request for an update and within a week she did and had got some feedback on the sceanrio and the maps that I did for it. This is the choice bit from the email:

He thinks it’s great as a convention game but needs a bit more “meat” for a commercial product.

Of course, they’re right. It was designed and playtested as a convention game and I tried to keep all that goodness in there without losing it. As I was re-working it, I stubbornly pushed the temptation away to turn the adventure into a fully-fledged world, thinking it would detract from the completeness of the project. Seems, perhaps I should have caved to temptation.

But now I’m left contemplating coming up with multiple solutions to the adventure (I proposed only one in the adventure), multiple “branches” within the adventure to explore the world/story, re-working the format, introducing new elements to the world, etc. I’m a little thrown about how I should do it. It feels like I was walking a long a well envisioned path, suddenly to become blinded by the lack of path below and before me!

I haven’t responded to the email yet, I’m exhausted with Sophie, my wife, being sick at home and therefore I’m getting Alice, our 2.5 year old daughter, up in the morning and putting her to bed at night and I’m still struggling to get over this nasty cough, a leftover from Saturday. I have to hit the right tone in my reply. My first, human, reaction is to explain why things were done this way or that… but that would read as “like duh! Thats the way it’s meant to be, silly!”, while I want some more like I’m taking your ideas on board and seeing what I can come up with.

This “reboot” of the adventure is a creative challenge because I’m treating the whole project as something new. Hopefully I have the headspace and time to properly invest in it.

(Maybe I should rename the tag Reboot 2006 to “Reboot 2007″ now.)

I’ve been finding it incredibly difficult to find time to do things-I-want-to-do, the things-I-need-to-do and things-I-have-to-do. Many of the things-I-should-do, don’t get done… because I simply forget. This isn’t old age setting in however.

I work and I’m parent. That pretty much sums me up today. Add on top of that that we’ve moved into a new house in the last two to three months.

What this means is that, we’re managing. At home we’re slowly getting rid of the moving boxes. By and by we’ve hired two skips so far, once for the new bathroom and then a bigger one for the new kitchen. But, it looks like we’ll have to hire another one to get rid of all the empty cardboard boxes (and other junk we’ve accumulated in the move)! One room is just boxes at the moment; our other spare room is just a dump for the old carpet. Even our living room is a mess of books in bags waiting to be put on shelves that will appear, soon, on a wall, somewhere in the house.

This all meant that I have no where to code, draw or meditate. What’s worse, I didn’t feel inclined to do any. I could always just clear stuff off the table and start drawing or sit down for a few hours in the living room with my laptop and headphones or even just close the door in the bedroom and take 30 minutes… however it dawned on me that the lack of a workspace was an obstacle to actually pursuing my hobbies outside the priorities of my life. It isn’t the only obstacle however.

Of course, being an engineer, once you understand a problem you can often solve it. So why haven’t I starting coding TDO Mini Forms v0.3 yet or got dug into maps for Reboot (see here and here)?

A workspace is a meant to be physical thing, a space separate from every day life. Somewhere private. But essentially it is just a tool. Required but you don’t necessarily need a private room (unless there are practical considerations such as space to store equipment etc.).

I could easily grab my laptop and start writing (or coding) anywhere! No it is also a mental thing. A workspace allows you separate your life and what you’re about to work on. It simply helps set you up for work. When I was training Shotokan, you would enter class, bow, take your place and start training. You would leave work behind. The workplace simply aids in giving you head-space.

And that is what I am really missing. Head-space. My free-time gets filled up with all things that-must-be-done-now. When I try and make space for me, I just zone out. Tired. Sophie, my wife, gets pretty tired these days, which is understandable, so I end up taking on a little more. My head-space is actually just vegging out in front of the TV, playing my Nintendo DS or Unreal Tournament 2004 on the PC. None require any real particpation on my part. Sure I could write in this period, but it isn’t just a case of my body being unwilling, it is also my mind. I need to feel I can and able to do it, not be dragged down by lethargy.

Which also means it’s a little hard to really chill-out because part of me goes… “you know, you should really finish of that piece, get it done” (where piece is a flat-pack piece of furniture or a piece of code for WordPress plugin).

I could meditate, but I’d probably just fall asleep!

Anyway, all these to conclude that an abstract or true workspace is also one of time and mood, not just some physical space.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

In the last week, I discovered I have the potential to make some money from my main hobbies, which surprised me. If you read the last really bloggy post I made, I’ve been in contact with GreyGhost about publishing a Roleplaying Adventure. This included some artwork I did for it. I don’t even consider myself a good artist even.

Then I released TDO Mini Forms plugin for WordPress which came out of the code I did for GCG. I enjoy coding. I learn and I create something useful. However someone offered me money to add a feature. Wow. I’d love to take his money however I can’t do that on my current host as it’s against the rules. Still, the potential is there. Other wordpress plugins I wrote (here and here and you can see all the software I’ve made available here), have been warmly received by the greater wordpress community. Search and Replace has got mentioned in a few articles as a necessary plugin for WordPress. The point is, if I moved to another host, I could ask for money and I’d probably get some.

Of course, I’m not going to quit my day job to start writing Roleplaying Games and WordPress Plugins, but I wonder how making money off these things would effect my output. Right now, I have freedom to try and do anything I like. I’m not bound. But I wonder if I think I can make money, would I attempt to streamline or focus on things that would make more money? i.e. would I discard interesting ideas because I think they wouldn’t make money?

It also might be a good thing, making me write even better stuff and really support the plugins I have written. Or even just as a nice little kick-back for knowing that there are people out there who are willing to give me money to do the things I love. As in, I’m no longer working in a “vacuum”, but actually engaging people.

Thoughts and opinions?

It is a very good day today. Yes it is. Two pieces of damn fine good news today.

Neither of which I can share with any of you. Arg. Believe me, I want to.

However on the slightly lesser good news and related to, I can say that GreyGhost got back to me on my Reboot 2006 adventure. (Previous post about it). Things are moving forward.

Which brings me to the point of this post. I don’t normally use maps when I GM so I didn’t do any maps for the adventure. It never even occurred to me. However they would like me to do some maps for Reboot 2006. I need to create some building-type layouts to match up with some of the adventure and I need to do some city-wide street-maps.

So what do people use to create maps for RPG scenarios, particularly as hand-outs? Anyone got any good references or websites?