New Targets and Levels of Live Roleplayer

I ended up taking the Gathering off the diet and then agreed a penalty points reset with Ant. I Weight 13 stone 7lbs having been up to 13 stone 10lbs immediately after essentially a weekend long feast. Ant and I have new 1 year targets we both want to be at  <15% bodyfat by this time next year. My next short term goal is under 13 stone by the end of the September.

Levels of live roleplayer

I originally wrote this list quite angrily several years ago, dissapointed at how much of the game I felt people were missing out on. I have since though a lot about it and have rewritten it as a list of ways to try and make your events better. The list is fairly specific to the LT as that is the primary system that I play in.

Things that cause you to level up as a live roleplayer: (so gain 1 level for each of these that you have done)

Go to a Live role playing event
Gain a position of authority within your faction
Leave your faction camp more than 3 times in a weekend (going for food, monstering, with the rest of the faction, doesn't count)
Have Friends in another faction
Go to a sanctioned event
Go to a Sanctioned event run by another faction or Guild
Go to ten Sanctioned events in one calendar year
Have been in more than one faction
Have been in at least half the factions (at least a year in each one)
Have been in all the factions (at least a year in each one)
Go to more than one system
Join a Guild
Earn a position of Authority withing a Guild
Contribute to a ritual
Perform a Ritual
Own a Lammie
Help to organise or Run a Sanctioned event
Be considered for a DPC or NPC position
Have a Faction Hate you
Solve a plotline
Make a decision as to be PVP flagged as a Character or not
Get assassinated by other players
Make girls cry because of Roleplay (can also be written as provoke an powerful emotional response)

Thanks to the people that helped me compile the original list.

What level are you? What would you add to the list to grant someone another level? (i’ll add the best suggestions to the list.)

Gathering and a Diet Update

Diet update,

Short post this week as I am off to the Gathering!

I weigh 13st and 8lbs as of this morning largely due to falling off the Wagon and going for a curry last night. (Ant you may have one point). This means I will miss my target of 13 stone by the gathering but I am going to persevere.

Have a great Bank Holiday weekend whatever you are up to!

Diet update and how far I have come

This week I weigh 13st and 6lbs, I want to lose another 6lbs before this time next week.

Posting these weekly updates has really helped me stay on track with the changes I am making. Talking about them and having to make a post about it each week keeps it fresh in my mind and makes me less likely to cave to temptation. Speaking of temptation Tim Ferris’ Blog has a very interesting article this week on Ego Depletion.

The rest of this week's post is inspired by this post from Ant, where he gives an update on how he is doing.

I started this blog on Monday the 2nd of April and at that point I weighed 15 Stone. Since then I have made 40 Posts.

I have gone from wearing 42” waist Trousers to 36” Waist. Medium T-Shirts now fit me.

According to my massively unreliable Scales my BMI has dropped 5 points.

I have a Plan of what I want to do, even if I am still fighting with exactly how I am going to do it.

I am working towards my Dreamlines and I have a Bucket List.

I am reading The 13th Age Escalation Edition (I pre ordered and they send you a pdf of the current rules) which has a lot of very interesting ideas to add story elements to the typically more fighty D20 games. I am also reading The Education of Millionaires and some comics and graphic novels I got while at the Travelling Man 21st party up in leeds at the weekend.

This weekend I am going to Eclectic Games for the launch of the Dr Who Card Game, and then on Sunday there will be some more Fighting Practice.

All in all everything is going well. What has been cool about your week?

Player Led Plot

I structured my This is Thracia Campaign based on ideas I stole from Westmarches. Having just finished running The Pathfinder Serpent Skull Adventure path I wanted a campaign that was much more about the Characters rather than the overarching plot.

As a result I have steered away from having a story to tell with Thracia, Instead I have tried to build each area with a history and have a story or history to be discovered in the game.

It has ended up working quite differently in play to how I expected, and that experience got me thinking about what I want to do when I sit down at a table to play. A Lot of the time I just want to play and I don’t really mind what happens in the session as long as I have a good time.

At the moment I offer a variety of XP rewards to players who do things to move the campaign along.

• 100 XP for discovering a location on the map. (to promote exploration)
• 50 xp for updating the Table map (to encourage communication between the players)
• 100 x level for a session write up (as above)
• 50 x level for a character bio. (Because I will turn it into something in the setting)
• Carousing,
• XP monster value for delivering live monsters to the arena
• 100 x level for completing a quest or plot hook (these tend to be player defined)
• 5 xp for a fortune coming true (I stole my fortune telling rules from Vornheim)
• level x 100 xp Achieving a Personal Goal. (to define a personal goal you have to email the list with your goal. For example “I Want to Kill the Goblin King”, or “I want to find the 8th Sword of Ares.”
• Defining parts of Cannakale. (reward varies) (define something about the town, preferably something that leads to adventure.)

What other ways can you encourage players to take an active role in the campaign?

Also there is a new Playtest Packet available for Dnd NEXT

Diet update and Cheating at Confidence

This week I weigh 13 st 8 Lbs, I need to lose another 8lbs in the next two weeks to hit my 2 stone by the Gathering target.

Tricks and techniques for making yourself more confident. Something I find very easy to do now but took a long time to learn is confidence, here are some of my favorite tricks to make yourself both appear to be and actually become more confident.

1. Pretend you are/can.
This is a very simple trick and one that I have seen work for people familiar with Roleplaying all the time. At it’s core it is as easy as the name suggests, pretend you can do something and before long you will have done it. If you are a Roleplayer and you have done something in a game or a Larp field then you can do it in real life.

2. “Better make myself look big.”
This one sounds pretty weird but works surprisingly well, immediately before you need to be more confident imagine a giant glowing golden version of yourself and then step forward, feeling yourself growing to fit into it. I also hear the Mario Getting big from a mushroom noise when I do it.

3. Head Scripts
Similar to making yourself look big a Headscript is a short Mantra that you repeat to yourself inside your head before you do something you are worried about. It helps unify your body language so that what you are saying matching your non verbal communication. My favorite is
“I’m Cool, You’re Cool, You want to know more about me” ( i usually replace the last line to make it appropriate to what I am doing, for example “You want to do an order” is one I use if I have to cold call someone for work.)

4. Practice
Do something simple that is outside of your comfort zone. One of my favorites is asking pretty girls for their telephone number. Even if they say no the boost from being able to ask them can be massive.

5. Anchoring
This is a trick i learned from NLP. If you have ever been in a situation where you felt completely in control and confident you can use those feeling again in another situation. Simply remember that situation in as much vivid detail as you can, as if you are looking out of your own eyes at the memory. Then touch an easy to get to part of your body (I used the back of my right hand for my most powerful anchor.) Do this for 2 or 3 situations and then when you are in a situation that you need those feelings touch that point again and you can get them all back. I used this to pass my 2nd Driving test. I went from 11 minor and 2 major faults to 2 minor, using this trick.

What is your favorite trick for appearing or being confident about something?

Diet update and another reading List

This week I weigh 13 st and 8 lbs. I have lost a total of 20 Lbs. Taking a little bit longer to drop the binge day weight this week..

This weekend I am off to a Field in Derby for the LT Summer Moot. Then on Monday after the event I will be going to Alton Towers with several of my mates from the event.

As part of my Plan I am reading several books about getting better at things.

Here are a few of them:

Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? How to drive your career and create a remarkable future
This book is about becoming indispensable by applying emotional labor and making your work into art. I finished it on monday and am doing its advice in my day to day work.

Tribes: We need you to lead us
Another book by Seth Godin  This time it focusses on how We should all lead especially when it is as easy to connect communicate and share as it is now.

Ant recommends his book The Dip for people suffering from depression or pursuing difficult goals. The Dip: The extraordinary benefits of knowing when to quit (and when to stick)

A Complaint Free World: The 21-day challenge that will change your life
I picked this book up after being inspired by a post on Tim Ferris’ blog. The idea is a simple but powerful one. Go 21 days without complaining, bitching, moaning or gossiping. They use wrist-band things that you move when you catch yourself doing it. I have managed 3 days in a row so far. 

 Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess (Girl Genius Novels) This is the fiction book I am reading before bed at the moment. It is based on the webcomic found here.

Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping
I haven't finished this one yet but it is a fascinating look at how people behave in shops. From when and how we look at signs to the route people take when they enter a store. Very interesting and I am looking forward to finishing it