madbaker | Reading

Oh, I could post about all sorts of things. Like Wednesday's adventures with the refrigerator/water-leak/street-full-of-police-and-ambulances. But I thought I'd talk about my experiments with productivity.

So at the start of retirement, I was thinking about how I tend to hyperfocus on things and was worried about making progress on ALL my projects and activities. So I set up this spreadsheet with a dozen categories of activities and checked off how many I "touched" each day.

It was a bit fun, in a gamification way. Problem is, gamification doesn't really work for me as an incentive. It just became a chore to remember to record. And I didn't feel like I was necessarily pushing all the projects forward. Touching is not pushing.

So now I'm trying to leverage my tendency toward hyperfocus. I'm giving myself one project to really drill down on for a week. Then I move on to another project. So last week was getting two months of podcasts lined up. This week was making significant process on the write-up for my analysis of the Best Related Work Hugo category. Next week I think needs to be household projects. But the week after should be fiction.

Of course, that's not *all* I'm doing. I'm still biking or going to the gym every day. I'm posting pre-written history blog posts. And I'm dealing with immediate crises. (See comment about refrigerator/water-leak/street-full-of-police-and-ambulances.) And I've been feeling a bit in a rut, so I've integrated a few non-routine things like going into Berkeley for book shopping.

I picked up a facsimile of an 1828 guide to Paris, which may be useful for Mistress of Shadows, which takes place in 1826. Of course, the book is in French...but the other thing I was shopping for was materials for starting to work on my reading French. Did you know that Berkeley has a specialty French language bookstore? Did you know they don't really have anything aimed at someone who wants to learn to read the language but doesn't care about speaking it? Ah well, I have some reference works and it's not like I have any lack of texts I'd be interested in reading.

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https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2685.html

Episode 2685: Helmuth von Malarkey

Goals and objectives can change in the heat of battle. As a GM, this is one way you can spice up an encounter: by throwing in an alternative objective.

Maybe the heroes were simply trying to get past some goblins and find treasure. But add in a prisoner, and suddenly the objective changes to rescue. Pin them on a cliff top and the objective becomes avoid falling over the edge. Have the goblins start setting fire to the village and the objective changes to saving the village.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

That was straightforward. Also interesting that there wasn't more of a welcoming committee; that little trinket did something to make things easier for the main characters.

And Jim's got it all backwards! Side quests are meant to be done before the main objective! What if you can't come back to that location? Or the environment changes so previous things are unattainable? Chewie should be rescued first before the ship gets blown up. Though knowing Jim and how things have worked out for him so far, it's even odds that the ship gets partially blown up just before Chewie gets rescued, then the rest of the ship blows up while everyone escapes.

Transcript

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2685.html

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https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2684.html

Episode 2684: Signed, Sealed, Deluded

Customer service is so cliché-ridden that it can easily turn to comedy. Even when you don't necessarily want it to. So it's a thing to be aware of in a serious campaign. If things start to go south, you can cut things short or limit the amount of service interactions that come up.

You don't want to be a party pooper, but you have to do something to maintain your sanity as a GM.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Oh that's some fortunate timing there. The main characters are heading to the very ship that the main bad guy is just leaving! This'll probably lead to another instance of Kylo throwing a tantrum once he realizes what's happened. Any bets as to whether Poe manages to blow up the Steadfast with the frontal assault part?

And the point of the side trip to the snowy city planet seems clearer now. Obviously that trinket is being used in this scene as actual authorization proof, or it's at least being a part of this particular ship ride. Perhaps getting this disk to sneak into First Order ships somewhere was part of the original plan, but it's being used here immediately because Chewie is alive and needs rescuing! That would make for some nice plot tension I think. The only problem with that idea is that it involves the writers planning out that part of the plot which is contradicted by most of the various scenes so far.

Transcript

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2684.html

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Episode 2683: Death of the Authorisation

A chance at a normal life!

This is pretty much the desire of any NPC whose life path crosses that of the PCs. They probably don't want to be there. They especially don't want to be beaten up by PCs who are on their way to treasure or a showdown with their evil boss.

Rather than have every minor villain defy the PCs to the death, a lot of them are just going to want to make some sort of excuse and get the heck out of there. Let them.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Hmmm. That is suspiciously convenient for C-3P0. But I'd say the same thing if I were in that position, so....

I guess that token isn't a personal memento and probably not a proof of affiliation to the Resistance then. Not if it's actually being handed over here anyway. Maybe this is why the main characters came to this planet then? To get this little disk? Or maybe whatever information happens to be stored on it. I suppose the trade would be monkeying around in Threepio's head, and one of the side effects of that was glowing red eyes. I am really curious as to what the movie plot tried to convey at this point.

Anyway, farewell Zorii and Babu. You were an interesting little Mandalorian-like diversion.

Transcript

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2683.html

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https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2682.html

Episode 2682: Dewey Decimaelstrom

You can't go past a good raving descent into madness.

At least, you should make sure that the PCs in a game can't go past it. They should be exposed to the full experience to really get the feel of it. And to let you satisfy your unfulfilled dramatic desires.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Yep, there's the First Order right on cue. Interesting that Rey gets to sense Chewie here. I guess the GM thinks it's important to have at least some of the party members on the ground realize Chewie's not dead. I wonder if something like that happened in the movie as well.

Poe/Jim is so fixated on finding the Factory Gate, he doesn't realize that he'd still need to leave this room in order to find it. It's not like the First-Order-made gate is going to show up right there in the room with them. He does have a veeery small point though; the players came to Babu to get a copy of the knife. They're now leaving without that. So we're falling back to the old "who knows what comes next" part of the plot, though I suspect a large part of it will involve running away from that ship. And probably a bunch of the troopers that were already on the ground.

Transcript

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2682.html

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Episode 2681: More Trouble in My Body or My Mind

People being unconscious or otherwise out of it while important stuff happens are a fun source of amusement in movies and stories. Unfortunately it doesn't work so well or easily in a game. Most players won't like their character being on the side lines for any length of time. Effects like paralysation or mind control can be real downers, and can also feel like taking agency away.

If you can turn it into a role-playing challenge with the player on board with the situation, like Sally here, things may work better.

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Huh. I wasn't expecting to be accurate with Babu getting talked down and fixing Threepio. Well, probably anyway; there's not any way for me to guess at what the actual movie plot was at this point, but it does look somewhat close. Otherwise this whole diversion would have been to just turn C-3P0's eyes red for a little bit for no reason. And also have the small chat outside looking at the city. Which, okay that's random and unexpected, but not exceptionally flashy or interesting. And most of the other characters in the scene seem rather bored as well.

As for the rumbling, that's gonna be the First Order of course. Air dropping a Factory that turns out to have been faked seems most likely, at least from the comic point of view. A more intense form of the door knocking seen at the start of the scene on Kijimi? Delivering packages only goes so far, and wouldn't fit the movie either.

Transcript

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2681.html

hrj

I have this mental block about actually "fixing" leaky bicycle tubes. Swap in a new one and move on. But tubes aren't exactly cheap (especially since both my regular bicycles have odd size wheels and I have to mail order), so the last several flats I've kept the tubes, meaning to patch them. Eventually.

Last week I had a flat on the right front of the tricycle, removed a small thorn from the tire, and put in a new tube. That made three leaky tubes waiting for a fix. This morning, the same wheel was soft, so I assumed I'd missed the actual culprit. Figured this was my cue to actually patch all the tubes, so I filled up the kitchen sink to locate the leaks. The three older tubes had clear leak sites, though the most recent of those was very small and slow.

But I couldn't find any leak in the newest tube. I suppose it's possible I didn't have the valve tightened completely and it was leaking slightly through the stem. (The tricycle uses Presta valves.) So I checked the tire carefully for possible causes and put it back on. We'll see tomorrow if it's gone soft again. Which would be annoying.

But at least I've gotten a bit more practice in getting the tire on and off, which requires a high level of believing that it can be done plus significant hand strength. (The front wheels on the tricycle can be worked on without removing them from the frame. The rear wheel is...more complicated. But not quite as complicated as the rear wheel of the Brompton fold-up, which involves a lot of keeping track of which small item goes where.)

Given how many miles I put on the bike, I probably have a relatively low rate of flats. I got heavy duty tires because the rec trails have some vegetation hazards. (Star thistles can serve as surprisingly functional caltrops.) Glass is less common. One flat was due to a small, short wire that I only found by running my finger around the inside of the tire. (Ouch!)

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Episode 2680: Supreme Revenge

Red eyes are evil, so obviously if you turn evil your eyes should turn red.

Note that this is not a thing that can normally happen, in a realistic sense. It might help if you're a robot... but even so...

aurilee writes:

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

The GM could probably do with an update to their repertoire of references; this is clearly a long-planned heist and clearly should have referenced cracking into a vault and stealing every memory and secret!

Really though, what's the horror of Hawiian style pizza? If you want evil pizza, make it anchovies, pepperoni, and pineapple all baked on a crust of bread and souls. I have yet to see anyone who likes all three of those ingredients at the same time for a regular pizza. And eating souls probably adds some evil points as well.

The detail of parts of Threepio turning red is a nice touch. It makes me wonder what might have happened back in Episode VII now. Some sort of Evil Dead situation maybe? There could probably be a number of fun reasons for C-3P0 to only partially turn evil in a backstory.

Transcript

https://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/2680.html

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A seething mass of turgid drama.

Reading

Leveraging One's Geek

Episode 2685: Helmuth von Malarkey

Transcript

Episode 2684: Signed, Sealed, Deluded

Transcript

Episode 2683: Death of the Authorisation

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Episode 2682: Dewey Decimaelstrom

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Episode 2681: More Trouble in My Body or My Mind

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Bicycle Tires

Episode 2680: Supreme Revenge

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October 2025

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