It’s August and another month has been consumed by the langoliers, which was a really stupid story and I don’t imagine any movie or miniseries versions could have possibly been any better and I don’t know why I keep trying to read Stephen King’s shit, but I digress…

This is going to be shorter than last month’s by a large margin. Mainly because shit went well last month and writing, “I did it” is way less interesting than bitching and moaning about my problems.

I hit most of my benchmarks for July. For the first time in over a year, I delivered one new Feature article each week instead of slamming out four Features in the last week of the month. I didn’t quite hit the “every Wednesday” goal, but it was close enough to count and a huge improvement over months past. I also managed to move most of the backlog of older articles to the main page. That’s despite having to recover from a major computer failure last month.

Anyway…

If I continue to hold things together for two more weeks, I will be through my Catch Up and Hold Ground phases and can start looking at putting resources into medium and long term future plans. That said, it is important that I note — mostly for my own benefit — that I am still healing from significant emotional losses and physical health issues. I’m operating at something like 70% right now, which is a major change from previous months, but it is still not 100%. I’m also dealing with a number of surprise stressors — especially financial stressors — that are taking up more of mental bandwidth than I’d like. I’m getting there, though. You’ve all been very kind and very patient and I am grateful for your continued encouragement, support, and patience.

Site Clean Up

As I said last month and in the Live Chat and several times over various channels, I am very much aware of issues with indexes and feeds on this site not being updated and with a few technical issues. They are on the list and I am working through them, but they were a lower priority than meeting my weekly content obligations. They will be taken care of.

Consider that a blanket response to all comments, e-mails, and Discord messages. It’s being worked on. Please be patient.

August Content

I know some of you were really looking forward to my article about initiative and turn order in Dungeons & Dragons. I promised some analysis and a variant system that would make initiative and turn order matter without being a pain in the ass to track that wasn’t speed factor bullshit. Mostly not, anyway. Instead, you got an Ask Angry column at the end of the month. At least, those of you who get Early Access did. It’ll end up on the main page soon.

Well, What if Initiative Mattered? is coming out this week for you Early Access supporters and later in the month for the rest of you.

After that, we’ll return to True Scenario Designery for an article about scenario shapes and, at the end of the month, you’ll get the second the part of the True Campaign Manager’s Guide to Conflict Resolution. Between those two, you can probably expect a rant entitled The Problem with Virtual Tabletops that’s inspired by my work with initiative systems.

So, yeah, that’s content.

August Mostly Monthly Live Chat

I will be hosting the August Mostly Monthly Live Chat on Discord — for supporters with access — on Tuesday, August 12 at 7:30 PM EDT. I’ll open a thread for topics and questions in the Discord soon. The recording will be posted for all supporters of every level within a day or two.

Slapchat Anyone?

Any members of Club Slapdash want a Slapchat? We should do a Slapchat. I think I can pull one together even though it’ll probably be a bit of an unfocused mess. Let’s say Tuesday, August 26 at 7:30 PM EDT. The recording will be posted to the Club Slapdash website soon thereafter.

Yes, that means work is picking back up.