Cutting Online Screen Time

Reducing My online screen time

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Lately, I’ve been making a solid attempt to reduce my screen time in general and my active online time especially. I am also interested in restoring my attention span. I’m not really talking about research or destination reading. 

I could just avoid going online altogether, but that hasn’t worked so well for me in the past. 

With that out of that out of the way:

What I don’t like about the internet:

It’s a distraction, an emotional and intellectual drain and a barrier to getting work done- in short, when used without moderation, the internet is not so much a waste of time as it is an active pollutant of time. If you think it’s harmless, cool. Get lost, as implied above, I have no time for you. 

How do we reduce online screen time? The answers are simple, but require effort to put into practice: also all of these come with an unwritten “when/where it’s possible” clause

1. Commit to the physical world to whatever degree you can manage. If you want to do this you must want to do it.
2. This is the key- fight fire with fire. If the internet is a barrier and a distraction- it is in part due to its infinite nature. These days, whenever I feel the urge to get online- I find something else to do until the urge passes. I read a comic book; or a chapter from a novel; or walk the dog; or do some pull ups; I can even write a blog post. If I am working- I work. There are probably a dozen or more better ways to spend your time within arms reach of you right now. I think it’s best to keep the distractions shortish in the beginning- unless you can be consumed by work or reading or a movie marathon or what have you, in which case this is a very good option.
3. It’s probably best to work at reducing your screen time ingeneral. Turn your devices off if you can. This creates a moment to resist the impulse to go on line, “just for a minute.” 
4. Go back to or engage with physical media whenever it is feasible. Collecting physical media is another good distraction. 
5. If possible keep your new activities close at hand ready to go instantly.
6. Infinite choices are your true enemy: when you do go online, plan your consumption; go with a destination and purpose. This includes stuff like streaming movies- it’s best if you know what you want ahead of time. An hour browsing Netflix is no better than an hour arguing about class and level limits for the 70th time. I get my movies from the bargain bin; the choices are generally way better than what you can stream; but I’d rather pay full price than spend half the night looking for something that doesn’t suck- finite choices are your best friend. 
7. Online shopping isn’t so bad if you have at least an idea of what you want. Sometimes it’s the only way. But if you want to browse without the internet, go to a used bookstore or even a B&N; they all sell movies and vinyls now. Buy camping gear; go camping. Find something amongst the finite choices that interests you- and then go buy it online for less money- unless it’s cheaper in meatspace, in which case buy it there.  
8. Keep in touch with text, calls or email, not social media. This is pretty key.
9. Get an NES classic.
10. That’s all I got; any suggestions

Fractal Setting 2

Pic unrelated?

Sentients: 

Heroes: Individuals who sacrifice their own interest in service to those who are unable to help themselves. Heroes often, but not always, have special resources, skills and/or powers. 

Heroes can work alone or in groups. Both egalitarian and hierarchical groups  exist.  Heroes generally arrange hierarchies  based upon experience and intelligence.  Hero motivations vary, but the greater good is nearly always the foundational philosophy of the hero. 

Villains: Individuals driven by selfishness and greed, often remorseless; power hungry; murderous and cruel.  Villains always have a hierarchy based on power and fear. Fear is power. Most villains, regardless of their place in the hierarchy,  have similar goals: To gain, expand and exploit turf. Villain hierarchies are generally arranged in a pyramid style. The desires of the chief villain have more impact on the arrangement of the pyramid than the power of fear. Villains often feel they have a monopoly on the use of violence. 

Governments operate in exactly the same manner as villains. 

Citizens: The vast and overwhelming majority of beings who live and die in the turf the villains exploit and the heroes protect. All citizens are in danger all the time, but citizens attached to a hero in even the most ephemeral way are in constant danger from every imaginable sort of hazard, ranging from abduction to cancer to meteor strike- anything can (and will) happen to these people. 

Forces: Inscrutable beings of immense personal power. Forces act according to their own mysterious and motivations, often with catastrophic consequences. Forces manifest  in countless ways; some examples: a living planet; a giant life hating robot; planet eating space monsters; a vast, sentient space storm bent on the eradication of everything; and a swarm of hive minded space bugs

Bad Canyon, Player’s Map BX Mars

I have at least 15-20 maps from the play test.
Here’s One:

Save Vs. Comics # 1

Review 

Popeye

Thimble Theatre Presents: “Witch Whistle” 

22 pages

Bud Sagendorf

Popeye # 12 

1950

Currently available in Popeye classics V3 Ed. Christopher Yo. 

Elements of note: 

Recurring Villain; powerful magic item (the titular whistle); unbalanced adventure party; nautical and airborne action; mystery; escape. 

Synopsis: The farmers of Spinichovia are disappearing. Ignorant of the crisis, Popeye, Olive and Wimpy arrive on the coast. Giant vultures abduct Olive and Wimpy, fly the pair to a hidden castle and lock them up with about a hundred farmers all of whom are nearly identical (clones?).

Soon after their incarceration, Olive and Wimpy discover that the Sea Hag is in charge of the castle; furthermore, she controls millions of giant vultures with her magic whistle. She used the giant birds to kidnap the farmers. The Sea Hag never really explains her plan in regards to the farmers. 

Discovering that Popeye is nearby, the Hag sends 500 vultures to slay him. Popeye defeats the vultures, but falls from the sky, smashes through the roof of the castle and into he dungeon, where he meets Olive and Wimpy. 

In the course of their subsequent escape attempt, the trio encounters the Sea Hag, who proposes matrimony to Popeye. Eschewing the customary can of spinach, Olive opts to open a family size can of whupass instead. Beaten within an inch of her life, the Sea Hag survives, but in a subdued state. Popeye and company take her whistle and, using the vultures, return all the farmers to their homes. 

The end.

This story, like many Popeye stories, invokes a mood that lies at a right angle to both high and low fantasy and emanates a  sort of whimsical, fairytale vibe instead. The art style mirrors this perfectly, giving equal weight to swashbuckling adventure; character warmth; slapstick, tall tale physics and fantasy. 

5 cans of spinach out of 5

RPG 

Science Fiction: Pilots and navigators have been vanishing from the local spaceport. Star-Kahn a notorious space pirate possess advanced mind control technology. Using an army of rogue robots moving through a secret tunnel complex beneath the space port, Star-Kahn kidnapped the spacers. He intends to brainwash them into crewing his armada. His captives are hidden in a domed city somewhere far away from the space port. Star-kahn requires a special cybernetic implant to control the robots. 

The adventure begins upon the discovery of the hidden tunnels. Where do they lead- to answers- or horrible death? 

Fractal Superhero Setting creation 1

(Image from Cosmic Tales #1)

Introduction:

Fractal Campaign Creation 

A complex and satisfying campaign requires a solid and coherent setting. Superhero settings range in scale from a single city to a multiverse and often encompass elements such as time travel and alternate reality as well. 

Despite this variation in scope, most settings and sub-settings share a similar array of traits, differing from one another in degree, but not kind. This similarity in characteristics, regardless of scale, allows one setting to be nested within another, i.e., a neighborhood within a city; a city within a country; a country within a continent; a continent on a planet; a planet in a solar system; a solar system in a galaxy; a galaxy in a cluster; a cluster in a universe;  a universe in a multiverse and so on. 

These traits are as follows:

Four classes of sentient beings exist: Villains; citizens; superheroes and forces; each engages reality with unique motivations; behaviors and philosophies.

Environment is often, at least in part, a reflection of the villain(s) and, in game terms, should be thought of as an hostile NPC. Otherwise environment should contain several landmarks, hazards, wonders and mysteries. 

History reduces to the following: The beginning; the good old days; the disaster- which leads up to the present, AKA: This fallen world. 

Each class of sentients views the same history through a different lens. 

Origins profoundly impact the present.

Historically speaking, everyone feels put upon. 

Turf belongs to someone. Turf unprotected will fall to chaos. Villains claim their turf in an explicit and hierarchal manner; heroes, perforce operating in the same territory, assert their claim in much more passive, implicit and (often grudging) egalitarian manner. Turf wars manifest in many different ways and provide the initial impetus for numerous conflicts. 

Death Spore

DEATH SPORE:

AC: 0; Hit Dice: 12; Move: 240’; Attacks: 1; Damage: Death (Death Ray; save for 3d6 damage); No. Appearing: 1; Save As: MU 13; Morale: N/A; Alignment: D

Bio-weapons left over from the war that allegedly drove the Azure Martins to extinction, the remaining Death Spores circle Mars, borne on solar powered wings, riding high in the atmosphere. It is unknown how many are left; but sometimes, one comes down

SPORE ZOMBIES:

AC: 7; Hit Dice: 1; Move: 30; Attacks: 1; Damage: 1d4; No. Appearing: 10-1000 or more; Save As: F1; Morale: N/A; Alignment: D

Regardless of distance, all those who bear witness to the death spores decent; vomit uncontrollably for 1d3 rounds. Everyone within a mile of a Death Spore’s impact must Save vs. Death. Those who succeed suffer no damage, but fall into a dark, nightmarish slumber for the next 1d4 hours. Failure results in instant death. These dead will rise as zombies, their eyes an electric, luminous green, and make their way to the impact site. Once all the dead have gathered (2d6+2 hours) they will turn away from the crater,  join ranks and march towards the nearest population center,  bearing the green glowing sphere of the Death Spore in their midst and killing anything in their path. When the next settlement is reached the spore activates once more, and so on. The only way to stop the advance of these creatures is to destroy the spore. 

Adventure: returning from an errand beneath the surface, adventurers find that a vast army of Spore Zombies marches towards their location. 

B/X Mars preview: The Dragon Tower, cutaway.

Cosmic tales is sold out
If you have alreadey pay paled me- you’re okay and taken care of.
ZERO Cosmic Tales remain available for your purchase.
Please be careful; it’s a gateway drug.

On to the Mars
This was originally the Dragon Towers, but i cahnged my mind whilst drawing the second tower and decided that at one time it was the Dragon Towers- now it’s just the Dtagon Tower.

Some of the data will be presented on the “mapistration” below. The Riders have the tip; a huge grav-lift extends up the entire length center of the interior; trees and other plants grow, attached to the lift-tube and terraces; creating a vertical forest, that runs from top to bottom inthis 2.5 mile high structure (ease up, sperg, 20% gravity).

Countless small and equsitely modifed caverns line the circular wall of the tower’s interirom, from the base to just below the airie at the tip.

 Dragon Tower

• Ruler The Dragon Empress
• Fourteen adult dragons live in the aeries atop the three great spires. 
• Thirteen of these dragons select their own riders through the auspice of a strange, psychedelic and poorly understood process. 
• The Dragon Riders control the skies of Zerzura.   
• The exploits of the Dragon Riders exist as a topic of eternal interest to the Red Martians. Everyone has a favorite rider, of course
• The fourteenth dragon, the immortal seeming Empress, rules the Dragon Towers. 
• Her priests manage and watch the populace
• Population 3000, predominately,  but not exclusively, Red Martians.
• Provisions 
• Numerous well maintained phototron banks and meat vats provide food. 
• Each tower has its own well (and bathhouse). 
• Tribute
• The Shuttered Spire
• A structure/landform nearly identical to the Dragon Tower.
• All external entrances blocked.  
• Rumored to have been invaded by horrific creatures and abandon and closed off as a result. 
• Day to Day Life
• Although potentially as indolent as any other red Martian settlemrnt
• The origin of the towers is a topic of continual speculation amongst the citizenry. 
• Many believe the towers are natural spires of stone, modified and reshaped over time to suit the needs of their residents. 
• A rival school of thought contends the opposite to be the case. According to this view,  the towers are artificial structures, worn by erosion and design until they grew to resemble, somewhat, it must be grudgingly allowed, formations of a more natural sort.