life, the universe, and everything ...

42 posts for the year! woohoo!

new year's eve!

it's the last day of a pretty good year, here at the worthy household.

not perfect, or anything, but when you have a house full of perfect people, it's okay if bits of the year here and there go a smidge imperfectly.

(okay, maybe we're not any of us entirely 100% perfect. but we're perfect for each other, which, i mean, how much more perfect do you need?)

so, 2022, the year in review ... claire style!

excellent blogging record! a whole 5 entries past my previous record when you include this one ... and heck, maybe i'll even write a second entry later today so i hit 42 for the year. (it's an auspicious number, you know.)

terrible novelist performance 😭😭😭 -- one chapter, claire? and pretty puny-rifically short? well, i'll do better in 2023 or i won't. that sucker will get finished someday.

somewhat low-key girlfriending this year. i've really let the other girls take up a lot of the load of tending to msg's many needs ... which hasn't been super-fair to them because let's face it, i'm his favorite. and that means it's ridiculously easier for me to perk him up than for anyone else to. (i am i not exaggerating for the sake of shoring up my girlfriendly confidence ... no way. not me!) but they all need their chance, you know? just because i win best-in-show at the worldly world girlfriend exhibition doesn't mean they can't all shine on their own in some of the individual events, right?

absolute doggy-doo photoshoot activity. whoosh. i mean, sure, my back gives me a lot of posing difficulty these days, and the rest of me isn't exactly the limberest either, but it was el zippo for new pics this year as far as i can remember (including a quick spot-check through my posts). and i only posted one set of photos on the naughty blog, a very lovely but also very no-claire-in-sight set of pictures. somebody needs to get me a new outfit or something that will motivate me to get in front of the camera more in 2023. i wonder who that might be ...

on the friend front, just kind of okay for the year, i think. i don't have all that many friends, but even so, i feel like i could have been more supportive of some of them this year. not that i did terribly ... pretty sure some of them got some good laughs out of my tweets and i hope they felt how much i value them. but i think it's the main area where i feel like improvement is deserved. because my friends do deserve me. they're the best.

so there you have it. the sun is up on the last day of the year, and i'm overall peachy with how it went.

see you in 2023, folks!

xoxo,

claire

gamestorming

Claire: Okay, everybody, I have an idea for a game.

Elle: Nice.

Sasha: Woohoo!

Ariel: What is it?

Akane: I agree with all girlfriends.

Hettie: Are you sure, Akane? I haven't expressed an opinion yet.

Akane: Yes, the opinion of Hettie is always agreeable!

Ariel: What. Is. It.

Claire: Now, don't laugh ... it's called "Romantic Orgasmic Magical Porn." Or ROMP for short.

Elle: Who would laugh about that?

Hettie: I like the way you ran your tongue across your teeth there, Elle.

Elle: Reflex.

Sasha: Well, I'm ready to play already!

Ariel: No you're not, we don't even know the rules yet!

Sasha: It sounds to me like a learn as you go kind of game.

Claire: Well, that's the problem. I haven't figured out any rules yet. That's why I need you guys' help.

Hettie: You don't seem to have invited our most experienced gamer, though. Where's MSG?

Claire: He was tired.

Ariel: Well, wake him up!

Claire: Meaning, someone tired him out.

Ariel: Oh. Sorry.

Claire: It's fine. He knows so much about games that I think he might not be that much help in figuring out a wild new idea for rules I had.

Akane: Wild + New = Rules of Intrigue!

Elle: Well don't keep us in suspense, Claire. What's this idea?

Claire: You don't ever roll for whether your character succeeds or fails. You just pick.

Elle: Hmm ... and why would anyone ever pick failure?

Claire: To be entertaining! Sometimes failing creates the most fun in RPGs.

Ariel: That's true!

Hettie: My tendency to roll badly forces me to both agree and disagree. We've definitely had some highly amusing failures in our games, but it gets more than a little wearying if one just keeps missing with the dice.

Akane: !!!

Hettie: Yes?

Akane: This means Claire has solved the problem of Hettie!

Hettie: How so?

Akane: Her rule of selecting means there's never endlessly rolls of poor quality to defeat our attempts.

Ariel: I don't know ... I feel like I'd have an awfully hard time deciding to fail at something.

Elle: There's an easy fix for that. Sometimes the other players decide for you.

Claire: Oh, I like that! I knew it was a good idea to ask for help like this.

Sasha: So there's no rolling at all? I kind of like rolling.

Ariel: Because the dice like you! You always roll well!

Sasha: I don't feel like that's true.

Ariel: Well, roll a die right now and we'll see if it's true.

Sasha: I roll a 15.

Ariel: I roll a 5! See?

Elle: Ariel, dear, Sash rolled a d20 and you rolled a d6.

Ariel: I was trying to make a point.

Sasha: By cheating!

Hettie: If MSG were here, we could resolve this by asking him the odds of rolling a 15 on a d20 versus rolling a 5 on a d6.

Elle: I feel like the math says 15 is better, but the Internet has better math skills than I do, so let's just look it up.

Ariel: Pleasepleaseplease show I'm right, Internet!

Elle: Ah, here we are. A 15 on a d20 is in the top 30% of rolls, and a 5 on a d6 is in the top 33.3%.

Ariel: Does that mean I win because my number is bigger? Or does it mean my roll is better because my number is bigger, so I'm wrong and I lose?

Hettie: When the odds of something are lower, that means it's harder to do, so it sounds to me like Sasha made the superior roll.

Sasha: Dammit. Okay, this time I roll an 11.

Ariel: I roll a 4.

Elle: Tie. Those are both in the top 50% of rolls for the dice.

Sasha: Okay, this time --

Akane: Wait! I don't mean rudeness, but are we progressing in our help of Claire's rules?

Hettie: I'm going to say that's definitively not the case.

Ariel: Good! So far the dice say I'm basically right!

Sasha: This isn't over.

Claire: How about this ... you both win, because Sash overall rolled better in those two roll-offs, meaning Aers is right about her rolling well. But it was also kind of fun for everybody watching and figuring out the odds, so Sash was right that rolling is a big part of enjoying RPGs. So I think we need to keep the idea of using dice for something, even if it's not success versus failure.

Hettie: What about degree of success? Or of failure?

Sasha: I like it! Our Mothership game was chock full of fun critical successes and critical fails.

Ariel: You're just saying that because you rolled so many critical successes.

Sasha: No I didn't.

Elle: Let's not go down that road again.

Claire: So, whenever you attempt a task in this game, the gamemaster asks if you succeed or fail, there's a possibility someone else steps in and decides for you, and then you roll to see how well you succeed or how terribly you fail.

Ariel: We need ability scores to do something in there, don't we?

Sasha: Your ability scores could modify your chances of extra success or extra failure.

Akane: Hmm ... motivation for sometimes failing is, the more successes in a row, the lower chances of success being a spectacle.

Hettie: Exceptional thinking, Akane.

Claire: I'm starting to see this. If you succeed at something, you roll a die and add your ability modifier, then subtract however many successes you've had in a row. The higher the result is, the more successful you are. If you fail, you do the same thing, and the lower the result is, the worse your failure is.

Akane: But ... if you fail, successes in a row equals zero?

Claire: Dang. That's a good point.

Hettie: Suppose instead of simply using number of successes in a row, we track a value called "Streak." Your Streak number goes up whenever your number of successes in a row is greater than its current value. It goes down whenever you get a failure.

Elle: Okay. So, I pick three successes in a row, that makes my Streak 3. For that third success, I roll a die, add my ability modifier, and subtract 3 to see how good the success is. Then if I choose to fail for the fourth thing I try, my Streak becomes 2.

Ariel: OOH! But if someone else makes you fail, it doesn't break your Streak!

Elle: That's outright devilish, Aers. I'm very proud of you.

Ariel: Thanks!

Akane: Question: what kinds of things are we attempting to do when we choose our succeedings or failings?

Sasha: Sexy things, it sounds like to me, based on the game being called ROMP.

Ariel: And having "porn" in the long version of the title.

Akane: Mm. It's a good topic for a game then, I think.

Claire: I figure once we get the basics of the rules down, we should be able to use them for lots of different types of stories ... naughty fantasy or sci-fi stories, or naughty spy stories ... just about anything naughty. Maybe even not-so-naughty things if the rules turn out to be really adaptable.

Ariel: I like this game so far!

Sasha: Me too!

Claire: All right, I think I'm going to write all this down and try to figure out what dice to roll and how to scale the success and failure table. Thanks, everybody!

Hettie: Thanks for asking us. I can't wait to play.

Akane: Exciting!

Elle: Just say the word if you need more help.

Ariel: ("That's what she said!")

Akane: Haha!

Sasha: This is going to be good, I can tell.