Peer Responce
Taking a look at other people's blogs has been really interesting. Learning a new skill isn't easy and I know I certainly hit my fair share of roadblocks. It's nice to know I wasn't alone in that. Some of the things people did their projects on, I was already familiar with, others were unfamilair but still managed to hit close to home and teach me a thing or two.
Jenson London - Week 5, What do my Players Want?
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Isn't that the bloody question? A DM's first priority is player satisfacton, and it's such a complicated thing
that you get complaints for making one person happy, because you screwed over the ideals of another player. Intergrating your character's stories into the plot is really hard, and something that takes practice. And sometimes players wil ask something you aren't expecting and youll fumble a bit, but that's just part of the human experience.
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They rightly idenify that they struggle a little with keeping track of player's abilities and they fumbled a bit on the combat mechanics, but those things are hard, and a DM's first combats often go disastrously. There's a lot to keep track of and everyone's talking on top of each other and strategizing. It can be really overwhelming. A lot of the things their platers pointed out as needing work are skills that only come with time and practice so I would say they were as prepared as they could have been, and did a really good job.
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Overall it looked like all of their players had lots of fun, and they did too. DND should, in my opinion at least, be 60% laugs, 30% plot, and 10% the DM giggling to themselves. I would say this post is a huge milestone of success for Jenson, despite a few difficulties.
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London, J. (2021, June 3). DnD – Week Five. Greater Expectations. https://greaterexpectationss.wordpress.com/2021/06/04/dnd-week-five/
Blair Johnson - Week 4, Vegan Carbonara
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Something that is very dear to my heart is food. I was raised around food and taught to cook my first meal (supervised pan toast) the same year I started schooling. It is needless to say that this means I also have a lot of opinions on food and just like any person who likes to eat, the ethicality of my food is an important thing for me to consider. Meat and animal products are, of course, at the forefront of these discussions, so it was an abolute delight to read about Blair's foray into vegan cooking.
The tart from week two looked pretty tasty, and those vegan burgers looked great, but what really made me get to my feet was week 4. The idea of a vegan carbonara baffled me. Carbonara is egg based pasta mixed with more egg and cheese. That's literally all a non vegan carbonara is, so I couldn't not take a look. I got about halfway through reading before I said "I gotta try this" and went to the store to get some vegan ingredients.
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Now I will not lie, this was a costly venture, but it was not bad at all and if I had already had the ingredients in my house, I would have been happy to make it on the regular. I would make this if I had a lactose intolerant houseguest coming over.
It was really interesting and pleasing to see someone take a look at the ethicality of vegan ingredients as well. It's an aspect to most diets that I feel goes unaddressed. Ultimately, how one decides to tackle the ethicality of their food is their own choice. I was raised told that anything less than free-range meat and eggs was a disrespect to both the animal and my body, and I have continued this line of thought into my adult years. Vegan cheese and milk substatutes are an interesting workaround I'd never really paid much attetion to until now.
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Johnson, B. (2021, May 18). Week 4: Carbonara. Blair’s IReflect Blog. https://blairsireflectblog.wordpress.com/2021/05/18/week-4-carbonara/
Leo Ballantyne - Week 1, World Formation
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As of right now, this blog is not complete, but I couldn't not take a look at it because worldbuilding is my jam. Setting up a detting for a DND campaign can be grueling, thankless work that rarely actually gets seen in-game. Seeing a meticulously put together timeline of a city's history was such a cool thing to read. Already, Leo found a way to weave space exploration and world setting into the setting of the adventure, rather than copy-pasting a city into a context that doesn't fit.
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I thought how the scientists discoevered the planet through the tranferrence of ninerals and deseases was really clever and a cool detail. I would definitely use this for one of my campaigns.
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Ballantyne, L. (2021). Week One: World Formation. Corps and Cutters. https://corpsandcutters.wordpress.com/page/2/