Paralyzed by Stress

[ralphmelton]

Feeling miserable about this coding problem at work.

I'd said I could implement Plan A by Wednesday. En route, I discovered a plan B. It looked temptingly easy, and I was tempted to do that instead. But Plan A looked within reach, and served our goals better, so I pressed on with that. But the Wednesday deadline seemed pretty serious; I really wanted to make that.

Around 10 last night, I gave up on Plan A; I just couldn't make it work. So, back to plan B. But I couldn't make Plan B work either. Beat my head in frustration on it for a few hours before going to bed.

At the moment, I've hit that point of stress in which I'm so paralyzed by stress that I can't think clearly enough to get to any solutions. Which is, frankly, a serious deficiency in a stress response, for which I should like to file a bug report. Did a deer-in-the-headlines response ever help a deer, even before headlights?

My co-workers are being super-helpful, though, which may mean that we can pull it off, even if I can't. Which gives my emotional state a nice blend of misery at personal failure and blubbering gratitude at their help. I hope that I am being pleasant to my co-workers, even while I'm freaking out like this.

Arms still hurt. Worse than yesterday, not as badly as last week.
Perhaps I need to avoid keyboards altogether for the weekend. (That would be a challenge.) I wish I could find my braces.

I am in the same sort of paralyzed stress about D&D on Saturday. I have some ideas, but haven't been able to generate more ideas or knit them together. I feel tempted to cancel, but I think that would be unwise--it's said all along that the greatest virtue of this game is that it's actually being played, and it's been a month since last we played. So doing a bad job is better than doing no job.

Comments

D&D

[cellio]

You could plan some "filler", if I am correct in guessing that that's lower-effort. You know that after the rescue we're heading for the Caverns of Laryn (barring surprises that suggest we go elsewhere), and you know that we will be going overland, not teleporting. So that means you can throw in wandering monsters, or plug in a module if you've got something handy involving a small town we might pass through.

Sorry to hear about the code-block. I'm glad your coworkers are being supportive, though I know that's only small comfort.

Re: D&D

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure it's lower-effort, but it might be less likely to make things go pear-shaped.

Though there's always the issue that wandering monsters end up being basically just free XP unless I give you a lot of them.

And unfortunately, it turns out to be hard to find appropriate published adventures. The story has gotten tight enough that it's hard to integrate new things. In some ways, that's good; it's good for the campaign if personally challenging at times.

But maybe an incidental visit in Lescap. If only I could figure out what the associations should be for the dragon's shoulders...

Re: D&D

[cellio]

(Pear-shaped?)

Though there's always the issue that wandering monsters end up being basically just free XP unless I give you a lot of them.

The situations where we have had to plan for the worst, or been trapped, have worked out well -- e.g. Durgam's Folly, Edwest Burrows, and anything that surprises us. Also things that require urgency (like Treefall did). So if we come to a town that's under attack by something or other ("things come in the night, knock down our doors, and steal people away -- it's awful!"), we would be obliged to stick around and help but we wouldn't know exactly what's coming or when. (So those 10-minute-per-level spells that cause so much trouble? Not applicable en masse. And anyway, the usual supplier of such spells is not up to his usual abilities these days.)

Published adventures: yeah, I can see that. You're not going to find something off the shelf that plugs into your larger story, but I was speculating (without data) that there might be things that would work as not-very-connected side stories. Even major arcs have some episodes that are non-arc, after all. You can get away with that.

If only I could figure out what the associations should be for the dragon's shoulders...

Shoulders often carry heavy weight, and are the real source of arm strength. So maybe things connected to strength, or to weight, are applicable? (E.g. this might be a good place to get ingredients for TK magics.) Dunno; just grasping at straws.

Re: D&D

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

Shoulders often carry heavy weight, and are the real source of arm strength. So maybe things connected to strength, or to weight, are applicable?

I'm not quite sure that this is true of dragons. More importantly, though, I've already declared that Tergia is associated with strength. :)

(I think there is no clear association for shoulders, unfortunately. I drew it in the map and figured that I'd identify the association later, but after about two years, I still haven't figured out anything really apt.)

Re: D&D

[cellio]

True -- I had forgotten that strength is already taken. And good point about dragons vs people. I don't know; nothing's coming to mind for shoulders. Maybe some body parts just don't have regional associations; you never promised that everything would, after all.

Re: D&D

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

The fact that I couldn't find a good association for shoulders was what led me to put Captain Jorvik down close to Thoracis (where I had an association), instead of near Tergia.

I'd been hoping for some time to get y'all to speculate IC on Lescap's associations, but hadn't managed to do so. I finally gave up today and got explicit. :-)

Re: D&D

[cellio]

I'd been hoping for some time to get y'all to speculate IC on Lescap's associations, but hadn't managed to do so.

You win some; you lose some. :-) Lescap really hasn't been on our radar all that much -- yeah, we're near it, and we've met someone who claimed to be from there, but we don't know of any interesting destinations in the region, for example. It's just the third side in the war.

(I assume that we have to pass through either Lescap or Thoracis in order to get to Laryn.)

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

Poor sweetie. I am sorry you are having a rough day!

Re: D&D

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

Lescap. The neck bone's connected to the shoulder bone. :-)

(I have been somewhat surprised by how much you haven't been speculating and researching regional associations. Do you know the association for Draneken? (I know you speculated once.))

Re: D&D

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

"pear-shaped": I think I got this from British acquaintances. It refers to things going out of control or unpredictable.

Re: D&D

[cellio]

Lescap. The neck bone's connected to the shoulder bone. :-)

Yes, but so is the torso, and I am unclear on the relevant borders. I wouldn't object to a better map than the one we currently have, which (IIRC) made vague sweeping gestures in the direction of Thoracis. :-)

I have been somewhat surprised by how much you haven't been speculating and researching regional associations.

Good point. Larissa should be doing more about this. The player, and perhaps the character, has been distracted by more urgent concerns. This, I suppose, ties into a question of campaign direction: I would love to be able to take the time to explore the world, to go places just because they sound cool, to research the effects of different regions (and their raw materials) on magic, and so on. But the situation with saving the world has become somewhat urgent, and I imagine that when we succeed at that (assuming we do) the campaign will then sort of wind down. Maybe the answer to that is later followup adventures (minis or one-shots) with those characters who want to continue in this vein. "The party: 1 year later" and all that. :-)

I will try to have Larissa pay more attention to arcane geography in-character. While we're in Kozel'sk, is there time to shop for beastiaries (dragons are particularly interesting :-) )? Does anyone sell local political maps?

Re: D&D

[cellio]

(Missed one.)

Do you know the association for Draneken?

Nope. I'm having trouble visualizing the geography there, which might be part of my problem.

Re: D&D

[glenbarnett.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's an English phrase. It's one of my favourites. Essentially "it's all gone wrong".

Sorry to hear about those work difficulties.

Re: D&D

[glenbarnett.livejournal.com]

More human or non-dragon animal associations here, but if you're looking for a particularly draconic association for shoulders, you're probably out of luck.

Shoulders not only have a direct strength association, but some more metaphorical/indirect strength ones that may be more useful.

Firstly, there's the giving of support (in the sense of morale): shoulder to cry on
'he has a broad set of shoulders' meaning that he can handle difficulties, etc

Secondly, there's the sense in which shoulders relate to strength "bound" or in chains. (Shoulders can be harnessed to a yoke.)
Or, I guess you could make it more dragon like by saying that /their/ shoulders can't be yoked - in which case it would be about avoiding the attempted dominance of others.

(ooh, and I guess that connects back to the first one above)

I don't know if that helps

Re: D&D

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

Can you tell me more about the metaphor behind the phrase? Are there other idioms about things being spherical or cylindrical?

Re: D&D

[glenbarnett.livejournal.com]

Nobody seems to actually know, but the most common explanation I hear is that it came from RAAF pilots learning to loop-the-loop, probably shortly after the end of WWII. Apparently it's quite hard to fly in a reasonable approximation of a circle, and often the loop tends to be tighter at the top (when the speed is the slowest); that is, "it's all gone pear shaped".

But I didn't learn even those supposed origins until recently, but you don't need them to understand the expression - it made sense from the first time I ever heard it (we get lots of British TV here, to fill up the little spaces between US programs).

Glen