Episode: 2782
Title: HPR2782: Never stop gaming
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2782/hpr2782.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 16:46:30

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This is HPR episode 2007-182 entitled Never Stop Gaming and is part of the series Tabletop Gaming.
It is hosted by Klaatu and is about 21 minutes long and carries a clean flag.
The summary is ways to feed the gaming impulse even when you can't game.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by AnanasThost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
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Everyone, this is Klaatu, thanks for listening to Hacker Public Radio.
Thank you in advance, I should say.
So this is an episode about how to feed your addiction to gaming.
The idea here is that with a lot of geeks and nerds,
the obsessive side of personalities surface.
And so if you are really interested in, for instance, Linux,
then you kind of binge on it for eight or nine years straight.
And you just can't get enough Linux content.
And if you are very excited about gaming, then you obsess over that.
And maybe for eight or nine years, you do nothing but
the gather content about gaming and so on.
And I think that's a very healthy way of being.
I mean, it can be taken in a negative direction.
Certainly, I mean, at the point where it stops you from attending real life things,
like jobs and hygiene and that sort of stuff.
But certainly, if you know how to leverage this kind of obsession,
then it actually becomes quite a positive force in your life, possibly.
Certainly for me, not that I'm obsessive at all.
If I were, I can imagine that it would be very, very useful to me
because it might, for instance, lead me to getting jobs in, for instance,
an area over which I might obsess for instance Linux.
So we're going to take this theory of healthy obsession
and enable it further by talking about how you can never stop gaming,
how you can enable yourself to continue to stay in the headspace of a gamer.
I'm looking to increase the production quality of my podcasts lately.
So I'm going to be, I'm going to be introducing each new topic with a fancy sound effect.
So first of all, my first tip on this is really it harkens back to what I used to do in school anyway.
And that is to be a compulsive character builder.
I've always thought of building RPG characters, as I think I've probably mentioned,
in previous episodes as a mini-game within the RPG system.
So probably because my first introduction to D&D was rolling up characters over lunch break
in middle school, that was to me, that was the game of D&D.
I didn't understand that there was more to the process.
I thought that the game was to build characters and then to compare the characters that you built.
That was, and then you kind of file it away.
And then during English class or literature class, I guess you might call it
instead of reading some stupid old novel about British boys in a British boy school
and how horrible they were to each other,
then you just imagine what your character might be experiencing in a made-up fantasy world.
That's pretty much what I thought D&D was growing up.
I mean, I knew there was more to it, but on a practical level, that was D&D for me.
Now, I do the same thing today more or less.
Compulsive character building isn't just fun.
It's a great way to learn all the little details of a rule system.
So if you always play a rogue, you know, you might never learn about
how cleric magic systems work unless you go to the trouble of actually building a cleric.
And then for clerics, I think, especially leveling that cleric up.
So, and who knows, maybe you'll end up multi-classing or something,
or maybe you'll just find a new favorite character type to play.
And in either way, you can only play one character at a time in any given game.
Well, that's not entirely true.
You could actually play several characters at a time,
but there's a finite number of characters you can reasonably expect to play.
So building a wide variety, a wide-er variety of characters,
then you are currently playing inevitably demonstrates the different ways
that characters can manifest themselves.
And so even if you look at just something like the rogue,
you might think, well, there's really only one way to build a rogue, right?
I mean, we can give it these specialties, concentrate on dexterity,
and stealth, and that sort of thing.
And yet you realize in, if you look at character builds,
that there are several ways to build rogues.
I mean, heck, in the D&D handbook for fifth edition,
they've got two sort of archetypical builds of rogues,
and then there are more in unearthed arcana,
and then there are more still on anyone,
anyone player's character sheet that there are different types of rogues.
And so you can learn about the different aspects of even just one specific kind of character
by building a bunch of them,
seeing what would happen if you instead of concentrated on decks quite so much.
What if you did put a little bit more into, I don't know,
Constitution or Wisdom, maybe they would perform better in certain situations.
And on top of that, a character that you build,
but never actually play can always serve as an NPC
that your actual character encountered while adventuring,
or a distant relative, or a competitor, or a viled nemesis.
Who knows? Anything you create within one game system,
there's usually space for it as kind of a raw material for the actual game,
and then anything created for another game system is potential material for a future game.
And the nice thing about building characters, of course, is that it is relatively a simple task.
You all you need is maybe a character sheet,
unless you sort of memorize the character sheet already,
in which case you need a sheet of paper,
and maybe you need some stats from a book,
but even those can be notated quickly,
and they're quite portable.
You could carry it around on a sheet of paper,
rather than bringing your entire book around.
So it's a pretty low barrier to entry process
that you can do in your spare time,
and it keeps you in that gaming headspace,
where you're thinking about the different aspects
of really one of the most important things about a game,
which is what tools you have to play it.
Okay, and next topic, so next sound effect.
This doesn't get me a Grammy, I don't know what will.
I think Grammys are for sound effects, right?
Anyway, so the next thing on my list is to use alternate realities
to improve your leveling.
The process of leveling up a character,
an RPG character is obviously quite important to the game,
because it's something that, I mean,
unless you're dying very, very frequently,
it's something that you do on a fairly regular basis.
And it's kind of one of the best kinds of homework.
It's the time that you have to bring the game home with you
from the gaming group.
Unless you spend time there at the game leveling up,
which I don't feel most people do,
but I mean, maybe you do, but either way,
there's some extra game time that needs to be dedicated
to leveling up, and really the more time
and thought you dedicated to the better.
You could just randomly take some new benefits and go with it,
but if you really think about what's happening in the game
and then level up, choose your level benefits accordingly,
obviously you're going to have probably better results.
Simulation is intrinsic to RPG.
I mean, that is what an RPG is.
Just as you experience simulated reality during gameplay,
you can leverage it as part of the decision-making process
when leveling up.
Don't just level your character once and call it done,
get out some spare character sheets,
level your character at least three different ways,
and then review the alternate realities
that you've just created,
these forks in your own timeline,
consider how they would affect your character,
and then choose the one that you want to actually commit to.
So leveling isn't just min-maxing.
Of course, there are story concerns about the leveling process.
You can ask yourself, well, how did this character develop
these new skills that I've just added to their character sheet?
Have they been refining those talents
by using them frequently throughout the game?
Or did they seek out a mentor maybe
in some cut scene that didn't make it into the game as it were?
And maybe there they learned something completely new
that maybe you could even argue is out of character.
And if it is out of character, maybe you need to,
or maybe you owe it to yourself and your fellow gamers,
not an obligation,
but just maybe it would be more fun if you did
have a little bit of a story about, well,
well, yeah, when we were in this one town,
while you guys went out to the pub to go drink
and do silly things, I went
and sought out this monk in the hillsides
and learned this new trick, which I bet you didn't think I would know.
And how does your character feel about the new skills?
Is this a path that they're happy with?
Or does it frighten them to see what they're becoming
as a response to the life of hardship and adventuring that they've now
they've embarked upon?
So I think that that's something that you can really kind of,
you can blow that up a lot more than the absolute requirement.
If you think about the leveling process,
the bare minimum requirement is that you take your character sheet
and you add the new boons that you have earned
from acquiring some number of experience points.
So once you've spent those points, then now you've leveled up and you're done.
But if you take that process and really break it out,
it can become a lot more satisfying
and it can become, again, kind of a minigame,
well, which of these three paths should I take
and then once I decide upon one, how did I get there?
And how does that affect my character?
And how can I make that into something to present to my fellow players
just to kind of flesh out the game world?
It's a little bit more fun that way.
Now I'll just choose a random sound effect again.
Next up, we have Spending Time with Down Time.
So depending on what system you're playing,
and this will be highly dependent upon that,
but there may or may not be official rules
for what your character does between campaigns
or even between game sessions.
D&D Fifth Edition has some rules for downtime in the player's handbook.
On page 187 and in the Dungeon Master's Guide,
pages 127 through 131.
It's pretty good stuff.
It's worth a read, worth looking at.
Pathfinder certainly has, I mean,
they've got a whole book called Ultimate Campaign
and that contains literally a whole chapter
on what your character could do during downtime.
Now whether or not your game formalizes downtime,
I've never met a GM who doesn't want players
to add to their character's story.
And certainly between sessions is a great place to do that.
Developing a story between campaigns for your character
can be fun and rewarding for you and your fellow players.
I think that's one of the important things here
is that this whole idea of,
well, I'm going to take the game away from the game session
while I jokingly say, well, this is a great way
to enable your gaming addiction.
What I really, what it really actually ends up being
is that you're developing the game further.
You're making it more fun for you and your players.
You're adding a little bit of narrative
to something that can sometimes turn into a numbers game.
So if your game system has rules for downtime,
then use them.
Look them up and then and implement them.
So for instance, in something either D&D or Pathfinder,
you have activities that you can undertake.
You can open a shop front.
You can become an apprentice.
You can do work on a farm.
All of these things.
And the mechanical advantage of that
is that you may earn XP
or you might end up with a crafted item
that you created during your downtime.
Or you can have gold pieces.
Yeah, like accountants and Pathfinder settings
make three gold pieces a day.
So if you are an accountant in your downtime,
you can get richer.
You can get three gold pieces a day of downtime.
And then in any case, you get to spend more time in your game world
and you get to develop your character.
So you're leveraging these rules for your downtime.
And then the non-mechanical bonus here
is that you can also develop a story
around how this all came about.
How did you get the apprenticeship?
To whom are you an apprentice?
Did anything interesting happen during your work?
Did you meet any suspicious characters
or people who have maybe suggested new quests to you?
What happened during downtime?
Come up with something.
It doesn't have to be super fancy.
It can just be a simple mini story
of an encounter that you had
or of a thought that your character had.
And so on.
downtime activities can play into your choices
when leveling your characters too.
It might surprise your friends
that your thief character multi-classes is a cleric
until you regale them with the downtime story
of how the death of a father figure
and mentor changed his or her outlook on life or whatever.
Generally, it's just a good exercise.
It's a legitimate useful exercise
on exploring your character.
Oh, hey, it's time for a new sound effect.
Here's something else you can do possibly.
Again, it kind of depends on what you're playing.
But you can read up on lore.
You know how you can get lost for days
just clicking through Wikipedia,
reading about people and places
and things that you never even knew existed?
Well, you can probably do that
in your game world as well.
Different games have different
different amounts of virtual history.
So this may or may not work for you directly.
Certainly games like D&D, Pathfinder, Demon Wars,
Reformation, Shadow Run, Conan, Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer,
all of those have so much lore
in the form of either source books
or gazetteers or novels or video games
or, you know, historical works
upon which they were based.
It's probably not even human,
humanly possible to consume it all,
much less remember it all.
But with the abundance of detail
comes knowledge and with knowledge comes power,
ingenuity and importantly new ideas.
The satisfaction of being able to recognize landmarks
when you encounter them in a game is second only to that
of being able to stroll into a tavern
that your gaming group has never visited before
but still able to greet Dernan by name
as any adventuring water deep citizen would.
So your gaming group might think,
oh, that's medicaming
or you're using privilege to knowledge,
but maybe you're not.
Maybe you're from this town
and so of course you know Dernan.
Reading up on the lore of your game world
can be fun and at least virtually educational.
It benefits you and it may benefit your character.
It's a role playing game so there's nothing wrong
with having to role for knowledge local
to determine whether your PC knows something
that you the player either you don't know
or maybe you do know and shouldn't know.
But it's an automatic crit
when you actually do know the thing
that your character should know.
And I have mentioned this in a previous episode
I'm going to mention it briefly in fewer words here
and just say that when you were playing in a game
and you meet a legendary figure,
let's say you're playing in Shadow Run
and you come across Harlequin.
That would be one of those moments
that if that meant anything to you
it would it would change your evening.
It would change your week probably
because you just come across Harlequin.
You'd met Harlequin.
Whereas if you didn't know anything
about Shadow Run lore
then it's just another NPC.
Now if a library of lore doesn't exist
for the game world that you're playing
and you can still mimic a good proper virtual education
by immersing yourself in other fictional worlds
that are similar or near the ones that you're playing in.
So if you're playing in a sci-fi game
or a horror game or a fantasy game
or a historical urban fantasy or whatever
there's something out there
from which you can draw inspiration.
Your job is simply to locate it
and then avail yourself of it.
Use what you see and read
to help you understand your character's condition,
the surroundings or the backstories involved.
We're just to get general inspiration
for things that might happen
or could happen or should happen in your game.
Like the sound effect.
That was less impressive than I'd hoped.
Anyway the next thing I've got is
well you know they don't call it pen and paper for nothing.
Backstories and downtime and non-played characters
don't have to be mere mental exercises.
You can write this stuff down.
You don't have to write an essay or a novel
if that's not your style.
You can fill a page in a notebook with phrases
or ideas to reflect your characters
at each different level
or you can sketch or draw something
or just track your character's progress
or create a build tree or whatever you like.
A dedicated notebook for your gaming
is a great way to extend your game off the table
and into your daily life.
So just go get a notebook,
make it your gaming journal or whatever you want to call it
and take it everywhere with you.
Open it when you get bored.
When you're standing in line or over your lunch break
spend time with your character and with your adventures.
You'll really, you may surprise yourself
at what you can come up with.
If you just spend a little time thinking
about the story that's being told during the game.
It could be, you can treat it like a fan fiction
except that your fan fiction becomes cannon
almost instantly.
And as I say, it doesn't have to be any one thing.
It doesn't have to be you writing down a story.
It doesn't even have to be you thinking of a story.
It can just be idle doodles or sketches
or like I say, a build tree of places
that you think your character might want to go
in what direction they might want to go
with their leveling up or whatever.
It's just essentially to spend time focused
on idly focused on your character
or on the game or on the game world
it's a helpful and useful thing.
It doesn't matter whether you're the player
or the player doing the GM work.
It doesn't really matter.
You can always contribute ideas to the gaming group itself
or back to the GM.
Just tell them, hey, I sketched this Indian restaurant.
I sketched it out.
I don't know.
It could be a thing in the game.
There you go.
You know, something simple like that.
Final sound effect.
That must mean my list is over.
And indeed it is, the finishing thought here
is to never stop gaming.
There are lots and lots of ways
to productively obsess over your games.
So find the ways that work for you.
Bring your game into your daily routine.
Don't wait for game night to get your RPG fix.
Hopefully this has been entertaining
and maybe gave you some ideas if you are a gamer.
If not, it was a pretty quick episode
or you could have skipped it.
I don't know, but there you go.
That's it.
You can find the text of this show, this show, this episode,
over on mixedsignals.ml slash games, slash blog,
slash blog, slash blog, underscore lifestyle, dash gamer.
It's a lot of blogs.
Probably need to work on the taxonomy of that.
Anyway, that's where you can find it.
I'll put a show in the link notes and I'll talk to you
next time.
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