About Me – Page 3 – Welshtroll

Hello 2018

I admit that I’ve been pretty pants at blogging over the last few years, I would like to improve on that, I enjoy sharing thoughts, ideas and ponderings with cyberspace.
So when Vero blogged that she was going to challenge herself to blog each day in January, I though it had been a few years since I did Blaugust and I kind of enjoyed having a goal that can keep me focused.

So this is the start of my new 2018 blog posts, firstly I decided to quickly look back at 2017 and what have been my favourite parts. I’m going to avoid all the worldwide political nonsense because, it gets me worked up and this isn’t Facebook 😛

RolePlaying

I enjoyed role playing so much in my youth but once I started work it fell by the wayside, 2017 for me was the year that I returned to Role Playing and to Dungeons and Dragons. For my clan I started a pre-scripted adventure that has given us 10 months of giggles, admittedly ~~some~~ all of the sessions just descended into chaos and fits of laughter. But I have known these folks for the best part of thirteen years I know that when they are laughing, they are having fun and after all isn’t that the point.

That said I have started running the same campaign with some other friends and it too descended into fits of laughter, so I think the common denominator is me ,Welshtroll purveyor of finest RPG giggles.

I have finally got to GM a Fate game, after owning a collection of the books for some time, I convinced my clan that we could a break from DnD with an excursion into an Achtung! Cthulhu game, which is proudly named “Who do you think you are kidding Mr Shoggoth?” the game of cause has turned into a mixture of Kelly’s Heroes and ‘Allo ‘Allo!

Music

Alongside some new albums by some of my favourite bands I have had the pleasure of discovering (new to me) artists this year, I drift more into the world of electronic music, finding that it complements the heavier stuff and finding some music with a darker cyberpunk theme has been bliss.

Earlier in 2017 I decided that I would give Google Music a bash as my amazon music experience had be fraught with hurdles and miscommunication, that resulted in me having no service from them, but still being emailed monthly to say that my subscription is about to end. I have found that discovering music much easier on Google Music and have made purchases based on those discoveries.

This was how I discovered Makeup And Vanity Set who’s albums I find wonderfully though provoking, in that there is often an album theme that you can use to start the ideas of what each songs is trying to convey.

Streamers and Streaming

This year I have watched more streamers than ever before, thanks to twitch affiliates I have also managed to show my support for those streamers directly either with subs or cheers. As it stands I barely watch any live or recorded TV now, there is a great deals of folks who keep me entertained and with whom I can interact with both during and after streams.

I have always been cautious of considering people as content, (stemming back to how games companies have often delivered a game/world that is sparse on predefined content and expect players to be that content for each other) but I have to admit there are some amazing streamers and communities that have dispelled that belief when it comes to streaming.

Personally I have been streaming on and off this year, hampered slightly by my episode of vertigo. However I’ve been quite pleased with how it has been going and I’ve enjoyed myself quite a bit.
In 2018 I hope to continue to stream with increased with regularity, plus not forgetting that we have signed up for GameBlast for the third year in a row, raising money for the amazing charity Special Effect.

I was going to touch on my games from 2017 but I think that will wait until another post, mostly as it was so good.
See you tomorrow

BPPV and I

After getting a head-cold from co-worker I awoke one morning shortly afterwards and was barely able to stand due to dizziness. Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) usually affects persons over 50, but its seems that once you’ve had it you are more likely to get it again. For me this is at least the third time, possibly fourth time that I have been afflicted with intense dizziness and nausea.

It’s thought that small debris/calcium often referred to as crystals enter unexpected parts of the ear causing it to send the wrong information to your brain that you are still moving when you are not. It’s OK though as without treatment it often clears up after several weeks or months.

In order to treat BPPV there are a two main methods “Epley Manoeuvre” and the “Brandt-Daroff exercises”, both of these aim to help to move the debris into a place that doesn’t cause vertigo any longer. So far I haven’t had much joy with the Brandt-Daroff exercises, I’m continuing to take Cinnarizine daily to help me feel more normal, but frankly I’d rather the blasted thing was gone.

As I’m not able to drive at the moment so I’ve not been able to commute to work, but thankfully I have been able to work from home on my Laptop, which I am rather grateful for as not having something to focus on during the weekdays would drive me up the wall. Having me around in the daytime is certainly getting to Munki and impacting her daily routines. Some days I don’t feel the effects too much and wonder if things are getting better, usually to contrast a good day is followed by an awful day where I struggle to sit upgrade for any extended period of time.

Fingers crossed the exercises help to get rid of this soon.

A la Mode

Welcome dear reader!
Hi, how is 2017 treating you so far?

I’ve usually attempted to post more by the halfway mark of the year but alas this year has been pretty much hectic with an added pinch of exhausting thrown in for good measure.

Why you ask , well mostly as my role has transitioned into something different, but while retaining much of the same stuff as I was doing before only more of it. Confusing right?

Streaming and gaming

I’ve been a little relaxing in my streaming habits, I started to ease back to streaming on Sunday mornings and will aim to keep up that habit while it makes sense to do so. I’ve been trying to keep the streams to relaxing games, mostly as it’s Sunday morning but also I usually have Little Troll in close proximity.

Gameblast was great fun this year and we raised more than our total in 2016, which considering there was on three of us this year was rather a good accomplishment. I totally love Special Effect and all the good work that they do.

Games

Munki and I are possibly going to get into a MMO (know first time in forever), we bought the game with the month trail as some kind of bonkers anniversary gift to each other, we’ll see how the first month in FFXIV pans out.

I am playing alot more Euro Truck Sim 2 recently, I think it’s that I find it quite relaxing ( until I hit something ), I’m covering more of the map to try and get those achievements.

Online Role Playing

Since the start of the year we have been playing through the Hoard of the Dragon Queen, we’ve had a few start and stops due to real life but it’s been enjoyable, we even picked up another player a month ago, So I must be doing something right. It makes Sundays a little longer for me as a 8am start for streaming and a 11pm finish after the DnD session can make for a long day, but it’s enjoyable.

I find that Roll20 is such a great tool for our game, that I have now got a Pro account, which if they only thing it gave was the ability to copy between games would still be very worth it.

I had the pleasure of running a One-shot game for some friends from the streaming community I am part of, I was nervous as the last game I created and ran was in back in 1997, so I was worried that it wouldn’t go according to plan or I’d just turn into a blithering wreck. Thankfully it was fine and everyone enjoyed it, including me.

I have found that I enjoy building up scenes for the groups to consume, yes I know it’s all make believe, but sometimes it’s useful to have an idea of the environment or things that as the GM you want to remember to use in your story telling.

In getting to building these I pretty much bought all of the art assets by David Hemenway on Roll20, I find that his the art style lends itself well for use with both rendered and hand drawn characters, and the various packs fit well together.

Library Legacy

A clan mate and myself were discussing the use of a Steam account by relatives, that had belonged to someone that has sadly passed away.
Slightly macabre I know but as more things become released digitally, the material worth of worldly good diminishes more each year. Mine dropped greatly when I binned all fifty of my Babylon 5 VHS cassette tapes (but I recovered a portion of my house back, so you know swings and roundabouts).

Digital rights in death is not really talked with any view to a long term resolution, outside of Facebook’s memorial pages, but it’s something likely to become something more frequently discussed. If I collected Vinyl or Stamps it would be easy to pass those onto loved ones in a will, however all those films I bought on online services or music that was purchased digitally isn’t something that can be given easily, if at all, as many companies don’t allow account sharing.

So when it comes to Steam looking at something like SteamDB will tell you the current value of my Steam account, but of course all those games bought at release are now likely to have their cost considerably reduced in comparison. Family sharing maybe an option so some, but not a long term answer to who gets to inherit my Team Fortress hat’s.

Perhaps it’s just a transfer of the keys to a new owner, so no statistics or items move just the basic purchases, what do you think?

The road to Gameblast 17

Last year Munki, myself, friends and co-workers took part in a Charity event for Special Effect called GameBlast. Apart from some bad planning about start times, we had an amazing time and collectively raised £643.58 for a truly amazing cause.

Incase you aren’t aware of the charity Special Effect is an awesome organisation who strive to give those who aren’t able to enjoy gaming due to disability the freedom of playing games again, allowing them to interact with friends and family.
Although I can type of the good things they do, I would ask you to watch the following video which can do a much better job at explaining things than me.

This year we are taking part in GameBlast17 on 24 to 26 Feb 2017, with a more carefully planned schedule that doesn’t start straight after work. I think we are aiming for two 12 hour sessions so that we don’t need to work out child care. We are hoping to play some multiplayer titles, and if we can get the camera setup working correctly we shall even stream some table top board games.

We are still working out the schedule of what we are playing and when, but most of the PC gaming events we shall be hopefully streaming the gameplay.
This post was to give me a bit of a kick up the arse to complete my fundraising page as much it was to start putting the word out about the event.