Friday, February 2, 2024

Dice Make a Hard Man Humble

Photo by NASA Hubble Space Telescope ]
Hello Earthlings. Last night on the way home from a tabletop RPG game, I heard a chorus of frogs singing in a marshy, wooded area. The same chorus I always hear when Spring is near. Which is usually March, so that was weird.

But I took solace in the frog-song anyway, because in that game, I experienced an especially horrible run of bad dice luck that saw my "champion" humbled. It was a tough fight to be sure, but my friends, ouch. Tough fights are fine, but when you're consistently rolling at the wrong end of the bell curve, even WITH five second chances (you can use XP in the Cpher System for re-rolls, and I used up three of my XP and two of my friends' XP), I still couldn't land a telling hit or avoid a devastating blow. Afterward, Sean (a co-player) said, "Are you really a warrior?"

I was still smarting this morning, but with the day to give me some perspective, I'm ok with it. My character survived, and it makes for an interesting story. And maybe will knock my cocky "spellsword" character down a notch or two. In fact... I need a new character arc. I'm thinking of some version of "Fall From Grace" (of his sense of self-importance).

Speaking of someone facing mishaps, my latest Patreon post (Chapter 7, scene 3 of Dreamrider in the Nightland) picks up from scene 2 where Minerva met a three-headed entity that stepped out of the boundary between regular dream and what she regards as the realm of nightmare. One of the three visages is a manifestation of her greatest mistake...


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