last day (792 days later) » 

BESW
BESW
2:32 PM
I'm glad last year's Correspondence Jam exists! Correspondence jam is for epistolary games! What does that mean? Any game where the main mechanic is players writing letters back and forth! This can mean a game played through dms, through email or shared documents, through snail mail, or any other message sending system!
in RPG General Chat, 16 hours ago, by BESW
Solitary Games Sale A sale hosted by Sohkrates. Grab some dice or some playing cards and get ready to tell your own story. Hack the rich, explore the stars, make first contact, or make your own world from scratch.
 
nitsua60
nitsua60
2:50 PM
In day 1 of home-schooling, we managed to put together a brass trio version of "Don't Stop Believing." My new personal project is to get good enough at recording/mixing/editing on the home computer s.t. I can record and upload for y'all to see.
I don't remember the last time I was so happy =)
5
 
BESW
BESW
@nitsua60 I'm here for this.
"Here's a fact thread of things that change when you're confined in one place for a long time, especially with others," Twitter thread by Kathy E J. What to look out for and how to cope with it. Doesn't sugar-coat the potential for challenges but is solution-oriented. A couple of the points have content warnings.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@BESW is the WashYourLyrics website PP approved?
 
NautArch
NautArch
@nitsua60 ha! That's awesome.
I just came up with our daily schedule last night. We'll see if it lasts a day :)
We are trying to come up with more games/activities, so I'm hoping we can share things we find here.
 
nitsua60
nitsua60
@NautArch We've already got some adjustments in the works. Both art and music "periods" need to be a bit longer.
 
BESW
BESW
I'm not familiar with it, but so long as it's uplifting/empowering?
 
NautArch
NautArch
2:59 PM
@nitsua60 Ooooh, I didn't even think about music. duh!
 
BESW
BESW
Hipster Viking Amy shares some insight from her therapist about acknowledging anxiety and finding outlets for it without feeling guilty. (Twitter thread)
→ 1 message moved to ­Trash
 
Abhas Kumar Sinha
Abhas Kumar Sinha
@BESW Why?
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
 
BESW
BESW
@AbhasKumarSinha That is not comforting, empowering, or uplifting. And don't tell people "I told you so" here either.
→ 2 messages moved to ­Trash
 
Abhas Kumar Sinha
Abhas Kumar Sinha
@BESW okay. Sorry then..
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
3:05 PM
@AbhasKumarSinha The chat desc is "a cozy-things-only social distancing support group"
 
Abhas Kumar Sinha
Abhas Kumar Sinha
okay okay... I'm sorry.
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
 
BESW
BESW
@NautArch @kviiri May I make you room owners here, please?
 
kviiri
kviiri
@BESW Yes ^__^
 
Feeds
Feeds
 
NautArch
NautArch
3:14 PM
@BESW of course
 
Feeds
Feeds
 
BESW
BESW
Thank you both.
 
Carcer
Carcer
3:29 PM
@AncientSwordRage That really depends on the song you choose
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@Carcer true....
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
I get a lot of difficulty working in an office setting, so hopefully this working from home means more energy left at the end of the day :)
i'm gonna use that to practice some drawing. i've got some habits re: how i spend my day that i need to update
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@Carcer I don't listen to music much, but I'm sure there are more upbeat songs
 
nitsua60
nitsua60
3:55 PM
In a bizzare bit of "returning to pre-industrial times," some of you may know that I run the bell-ringing guild at my local church.
Well, a bunch of my recent graduates have had their campuses closed, and two of my newest learners are faculty kids.
That means that I've got five teenagers, competent ringers all, locked into their rural little New England town, who're going to get tired of Netflix right around when their isolation periods end.
We may just stun the ringing world =)
In case you have no idea what I'm talking about ^^
 
BESW
BESW
Nice!
Loyalty Books's Recommended Social Distancing Reads. And they're offering $2 shipping for the rest of the month!
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
4:36 PM
@nitsua60 campanology!
 
nitsua60
nitsua60
room topic changed to Pandemic Positivity: A cozy-things-only social distancing support group. See also Coronavirus Chat Zone for unrestricted, wide-ranging discussion. (no tags)
@AncientSwordRage Bring the 17th-C. back, baby!
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
@nitsua60 needed to refresh to see that
 
kviiri
kviiri
I already mentioned this in the main Coronavirus chat, but I'll say it again due to this room's fitting subject matter: the epidemic has inspired unprecedented amount of volunteer activism in Finland oriented towards plain ol' helping one's neighbor. Some do groceries or little maintenance jobs for those who have difficulties arranging for such.
They interviewed the founder of the "Arabia neighbor help" Facebook group. (Yes, there is a place called Arabia in Helsinki)
Also, virtual closeness is increasing --- eg. my company has founded a discord for having "virtual coffee break discussions". They're focusing on being low-threshold, informal fun.
Final note, I worried buying that 13th Age book would've been a waste of good money, because I don't really play RPGs that much anymore and don't know when I get back to it. But it's already paid itself back because heavens how delightful it is to have NON-digital media to dissociate my brain from screen work.
Now i'm off to enjoy it. Take care!
 
nitsua60
nitsua60
o/
 
Carcer
Carcer
@kviiri end of last week I helped set up a mumble server for the engineers in my office so they can have drop-in voice chat and stuff
(we're large enough that the answer to the question "can we use Discord to talk about work stuff?" is "The lawyers/infosec will get back to you in 6-12 months")
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
4:54 PM
@nitsua60 \\oo/
 
 
3 hours later…
nitsua60
nitsua60
7:47 PM
 
KorvinStarmast
KorvinStarmast
@nitsua60 my challenge to you and your bell ringers is to get the bells to do the sound track to Disney's animated Hunchback of Notre Dame. (or just one of the songs) It would be cool to hear what they come up with.
 
kviiri
kviiri
@nitsua60 I didn't know bell ringing guilds are a thing! That's really really fascinating!
 
nitsua60
nitsua60
@kviiri My guild started in 1931--I'm the fourth "ringing master" of the guild in that time =)
(The guild went without ringing master for a few decades in there.)
 
kviiri
kviiri
Are the bells you ring school bells, or university bells, or something else?
 
skullpatrol
skullpatrol
in The Ivory Tower, 20 mins ago, by Wrzlprmft
https://twitter.com/StackOverflow/status/1239631312664907779
 
nitsua60
nitsua60
7:56 PM
@kviiri Though I should qualify: the nearest guild to you (of this style of ringing, at least) is probably Belgium. Or Scotland--my Euro geography isn't good enough to wager a guess as to which's closer to my vague notion of where you are =\
@kviiri We are one of two high schools in North America with a bell tower. (Out of ~48 North American towers.)
 
kviiri
kviiri
@nitsua60 Mine neither, although now I want to find out :)
Apparently they're pretty equally close to me. (Or at least their capitals)
So I reckon, your Euro geography gets a pass!
 
nitsua60
nitsua60
Woo-hoo!
 
skullpatrol
skullpatrol
Why don't they teach more European history/geo in the states?
 
kviiri
kviiri
@skullpatrol Probably the same reason we don't have to memorize the state capitals of the US over here :)
 
skullpatrol
skullpatrol
:-)
 
kviiri
kviiri
8:03 PM
I still have a shoddy memory for European capitals too.
 
skullpatrol
skullpatrol
perhaps, the next internet influenced generation will be more global...
 
kviiri
kviiri
I was always an academic kid but geography and history rubbed me wrong almost until my adulthood. Geography as-is, history mainly because of how it was taught. That's not to say I underperformed in either, I just... didn't exert myself there unlike with other subjects.
I was always more willing to make inferences than recollections. That's why I liked math, I could apply my smarts to solve a problem I hadn't seen before. But if I forgot when the Treaty of Nöteborg was signed (it's 1323, everyone here remembers that) I had no way of solving the problem. I hated it, despite actually having a pretty good memory. On principle you know :)
@nitsua60 In here and especially Karelia, skilled musicians would wow their crowds by mimicking the church bells on their instruments, if there was a particularly fine-sounding set of bells nearby.
One example became a piece of its own: youtube.com/watch?v=MV5ZOJaflSs
 
KorvinStarmast
KorvinStarmast
@kviiri I loved maps and geography as a kid, and had in 6th grade social studies the requirement to know the names and capitals of all countries in Europe one quarter, all of the ones in Asia in another quarter, all in South America in the next quarter, and the last quarter Africa. But that was in the 60's.
 
kviiri
kviiri
@KorvinStarmast Yeah I probably know the quarter of all those too... oh wait.
 
KorvinStarmast
KorvinStarmast
Of course, my older brother and I were in a never ending series of contests with one another on who had memorized more, and who remembered the song lyrics more perfectly.
We even competed on who could sing without error Gilber and Sullivan songs.
And we still do that stuff over the phone with each other-hilarity ensues as our aging brains drop a detail here and there and we both try to remember, without the internet, if we got it right.
 
skullpatrol
skullpatrol
8:21 PM
today, it would be google-fu competitions :-)
 
kviiri
kviiri
@KorvinStarmast Song lyrics do stick with me quite well. Sometimes a bit too well
If I remember a bit here and there it's a guaranteed ear-worm as the reconstruction engine of my brain tries to find the missing bits.
 
skullpatrol
skullpatrol
or hack-a-thons...
 
V2Blast
V2Blast
@nitsua60 Looking forward to this! :D
@AncientSwordRage I don't know how many would find Rage Against the Machine "positive" but I think they posted one of these memes with the lyrics of one of their songs on their own Facebook page :P
 
skullpatrol
skullpatrol
see here for more info
 
AncientSwordRage
AncientSwordRage
8:43 PM
@V2Blast I'm sure since would
 
KorvinStarmast
KorvinStarmast
@V2Blast In other great news, our friend who is an airline pilot returned home from a trip and had to get tested. Just got the news from her husband: all clear, so far. Positive news is nice.
 
kviiri
kviiri
@KorvinStarmast Wouldn't that be negative news, now? :)
 
KorvinStarmast
KorvinStarmast
@kviiri OK, it's a positive negative? X^D
 
V2Blast
V2Blast
lol
 
Carcer
Carcer
@V2Blast you might be thinking of twitter.com/RATM/status/1237036386886303744 and the twitter account is run by fans
 
doppelgreener
doppelgreener
9:02 PM
Eric Campbell is starting up a communal story-telling RPG on Twitter. “Isolation can be difficult. Anxiety & depression thrive when we feel disconnected. So let's play a game.”
Some of you might know Eric from Geeks & Sundry.
 
Carcer
Carcer
9:38 PM
 
BESW
BESW
9:57 PM
room topic changed to Pandemic Positivity: A cozy-things-only social distancing support group. Be extra careful, we're fragile here. For unrestricted, wide-ranging discussion: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/105510/coronavirus-chat-zone (no tags)
"How to run a remote design team: Practical steps for collaborative success," a collection of resources by DigitalArtsOnline. Some of this is good stuff for organizing TRPG groups too!
 
nitsua60
nitsua60
@V2Blast Holy wow, the first recording attempt (of 4 bars) sounds horrible. But it's a good proof-of-concept: individual instruments are being picked up well and sound fine. But multitrack recording with only visual (not aural) feedback is making our timing sound like, well, a 3rd-grade band not watching their conductor.
 
BESW
BESW
"The Bird Museum," a free itch.io project where you wander through a virtual museum showcasing a random selection of over 1000 bird arts by people from Twitter.
 
user15026
curls up this room is helping.
 
BESW
BESW
10:15 PM
Oh, another useful collection from last year: Discord RPG Jam. We’re already playing RPGs & chatting with our game friends on Discord, why not make some RPGs specifically designed to play on Discord?
2
 
trogdor
trogdor
10:27 PM
all for that
 
user15026
Ooooh yes
 
nitsua60
nitsua60
10:58 PM
@NautArch So, edits include longer music and art periods each morning and... we got slammed today with work from all three of the kids' teachers. They sent home packets on Friday. Then they had a full day in school without the kids, and apparently decided those kids needed about five times as much work as they'd originally been given.
=(
 
BESW
BESW
 
NautArch
NautArch
11:27 PM
That's bonkers, but we've so far haven't really gotten anything from the teachers (that I know of, maybe the wife does)
But the kids had a great day with the first schedule. My son asked for less creative time and i countered with a music Period.
 
nitsua60
nitsua60
Hard GM move! I like =)
 
NautArch
NautArch
Hahaha!
 
V2Blast
V2Blast
11:59 PM
@Carcer Ah okay
 

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