It's been a few (three or four) months now since I last GMed. Ostensibly, I should be working on what I've promised my players: a Call of Cthulhu campaign set in the Amazon Jungle in the 1930s.
In practice, I've been procrastinating lke a little bitch.
Don't get me wrong. In the last few days I've been on my biggest research kick since my old Vampire: the Dark Ages campaign, 10-15 years ago. I've been looking through the geography, fauna and human populations of the Xingu River basin via several Brazilian government websites. I've digged out a copy of the 18th Century manuscript that first caught Percy Fawcett's attention. I've been brushing up on Infectious Diseases and consulted the AD&D 1e DMG for tips on how to handle them (weekly disease checks, ho), which means I'll probably lump them in a table with insect stings and infestations.
I've even drafted an outline: give PCs a bit of trouble as early as their meetup in Rio, and definitely in their last contact with civilization in Cuiabá, the last town at the edge of the jungle (a rough-and-tumble frontier place in the 1930s). After Cuiabá the game becomes a big ol' wilderness crawl powered by dangerous random encounters and disease/hazard checks (which have to be statted and slotted into table entries), with a generous serving of resource management, until (if) they find the Lost City, where it becomes a CoC-powered dungeon crawl.
The research and the ideas come easily enough. Setting pen to paper, though... work, study, social obligations, Christmas shopping, videogames, sometimes it seems RPG prep takes a backseat to everything.
I used to say to myself that it was because I didn't have a deadline, but scheduling unprepared sessions just led to me improvising, which I do well enough but lately I've been finding unsatisfactory. I want a bit more from my gaming.
I also thought, once, that procrastination meant my heart was no longer into the campaign I was running, and took that as a sign to switch games. And yet as I now crave a longer campaign, I realize that every good, long-lived campaign must have its highs and lows and I gotta stick to my guns and get my ass off the chair and kick the engine until it's running again.
Is it just me, or can anyone relate?
In practice, I've been procrastinating lke a little bitch.
Don't get me wrong. In the last few days I've been on my biggest research kick since my old Vampire: the Dark Ages campaign, 10-15 years ago. I've been looking through the geography, fauna and human populations of the Xingu River basin via several Brazilian government websites. I've digged out a copy of the 18th Century manuscript that first caught Percy Fawcett's attention. I've been brushing up on Infectious Diseases and consulted the AD&D 1e DMG for tips on how to handle them (weekly disease checks, ho), which means I'll probably lump them in a table with insect stings and infestations.
I've even drafted an outline: give PCs a bit of trouble as early as their meetup in Rio, and definitely in their last contact with civilization in Cuiabá, the last town at the edge of the jungle (a rough-and-tumble frontier place in the 1930s). After Cuiabá the game becomes a big ol' wilderness crawl powered by dangerous random encounters and disease/hazard checks (which have to be statted and slotted into table entries), with a generous serving of resource management, until (if) they find the Lost City, where it becomes a CoC-powered dungeon crawl.
The research and the ideas come easily enough. Setting pen to paper, though... work, study, social obligations, Christmas shopping, videogames, sometimes it seems RPG prep takes a backseat to everything.
I used to say to myself that it was because I didn't have a deadline, but scheduling unprepared sessions just led to me improvising, which I do well enough but lately I've been finding unsatisfactory. I want a bit more from my gaming.
I also thought, once, that procrastination meant my heart was no longer into the campaign I was running, and took that as a sign to switch games. And yet as I now crave a longer campaign, I realize that every good, long-lived campaign must have its highs and lows and I gotta stick to my guns and get my ass off the chair and kick the engine until it's running again.
Is it just me, or can anyone relate?
[rantish] Procrastination, the bane of GMs
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