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Whoo! OK, here is the story. My company recently kicked off a large SAP implementation and I am slated as the BASIS lead. OK, most of you have no idea what I just said. That's cool, you don't need to. The short of it is that my time is suddenly being swallowed by work. Last week, I put in over 70 hours. I had to skip my Wednesday night session entirely. I left work to run my Friday night session at 7:55. My game starts at 8:00. After the game, I came back to work for several hours.
Gaming is part of my stress relief. It's my hobby and I enjoy it. But I am having difficulty having time to even do the basics in prep and retaining the energy to be creative. I have my own little strategies to keep my creative batteries going, but I thought I would ask what everyone else does?
So, what do you do to stay creative when life steals your prep time? I'm interested in all ideas, diet, inspirational material, etc. Whatever you guys can come up with, I will be interested in reading.
I've been having this problem, too, actually; working three jobs and doing school and music takes a bit of time. I've basically been cutting a couple of hours of sleep a night and cutting *other* social life for gaming and I'd be interested in an alternative as well.
(And I understood most of the project description....I actually went and looked up that Dilbert lingo. ^_~)
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Whoo! OK, here is the story. My company recently kicked off a large SAP implementation and I am slated as the BASIS lead. OK, most of you have no idea what I just said. That's cool, you don't need to. The short of it is that my time is suddenly being swallowed by work. Last week, I put in over 70 hours. I had to skip my Wednesday night session entirely. I left work to run my Friday night session at 7:55. My game starts at 8:00. After the game, I came back to work for several hours.
Gaming is part of my stress relief. It's my hobby and I enjoy it. But I am having difficulty having time to even do the basics in prep and retaining the energy to be creative. I have my own little strategies to keep my creative batteries going, but I thought I would ask what everyone else does?
So, what do you do to stay creative when life steals your prep time? I'm interested in all ideas, diet, inspirational material, etc. Whatever you guys can come up with, I will be interested in reading.
Get better at winging it.
Between working, graduate school and other curve's life throws my way, I just gotten better at winging the game. I reuse NPC's much like I would reuse code in my projects. I beg, borrow and quickly modify, sometimes on the fly, maps and other material. All I need is idea and basis of where and what I want to happen in game and go from there. I make notes in game about the things I come up with on the fly so I can flesh it out better later when time permits. Surprisingly keeping everything running smooth, pretty balanced for my campaign homebrew and consistent, at least according to my players on most of it.
Not much other than that is going to help when you have work schedule like that. But I know projects like that. I once pulled 18-hour days to get a project complete within the time frame given, never look forward to that kind of stuff again.
Winging it? *laugh* I wing 60% or more of every session already. I think I do pretty good at it. But like all things, I could get better. Suffice to say that I am comfortable winging it, but I feel like my creative batteries are being sucked dry and not being recharged. I need that creative energy to flow so I can wing it well.
Winging it? *laugh* I wing 60% or more of every session already. I think I do pretty good at it. But like all things, I could get better. Suffice to say that I am comfortable winging it, but I feel like my creative batteries are being sucked dry and not being recharged. I need that creative energy to flow so I can wing it well.
Understand that feeling. I think I am around the 85%-90% mark of winging it most of the time here lately. My creative batteries have needed a major recharge for a while probably even replaced.
At times it is hard for me to use the time I do get to develop and prep stuff for game time due to lack of energy for creative stuff. I know part of the reason is the creative energy used at work for software development also drains me as well, and the homework for classes and such.
If you have another player that can DM maybe being a player will help. I'm not so lucky with that choice, unless I can convince my better half to try the DM role instead of the player.
One thing I do is use my players to give me ideas or help out with campaign stuff if possible like develop a history or town or even characters for you. Something that you can take from them, change it a little bit and work it in later when they don't expect it and possibly even have forgotten about it. Use stuff they think of or ask about in game as DM hooks for the plot line development, and see where you can go with it or even how far and even how well you can weave into the spider web of events you already have going on in the campaign.
WE are studying archetypes and English which reminded me of a quote form someone I don't remember:
There are only about 12 different plots in existance. Every story somehow stems from one of those plots.
I think archetypes work in much the same way. Create a character (villan) and plot and conflict based on an archtype and put a little unusual spin on it. That usually works out well.
WE are studying archetypes and English which reminded me of a quote form someone I don't remember:
There are only about 12 different plots in existance. Every story somehow stems from one of those plots.
I think archetypes work in much the same way. Create a character (villan) and plot and conflict based on an archtype and put a little unusual spin on it. That usually works out well.
I thought there were 20 different plots in existance? I have a book on that subject at home on the shelf that describes each plot and stuff, but it has been a while since I looked at it, maybe it was 12. Have to check. :\
Very true point however, pick a plot, twist, add a few side plots, stir, then add a mastermind. Should do the trick. Maybe I should read that book again.
The short of it is that my time is suddenly being swallowed by work. Last week, I put in over 70 hours. I had to skip my Wednesday night session entirely. I left work to run my Friday night session at 7:55. My game starts at 8:00. After the game, I came back to work for several hours. 
I have a book on that subject at home on the shelf that describes each plot and stuff, but it has been a while since I looked at it, maybe it was 12. Have to check. :\ 
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