Greetings!

And welcome to the website of Jimmy Chattin, senior software engineer, science fiction writer, orator, and just about a little of everything else.

Interested in a C# programmer who’s worked for the likes of Microsoft and Aristocrat (#1 video slot maker)? Checkout LinkedIn.

Want to read some original stories and fan fiction (for practice, of course!)? Those posts are coming to this website.

Need something written or a voice that’s been described as “butter”? Reach out on the Contact page or my podcasts (start with #1).

Old posts can also be found at Make Better Games, where there’s mainly talk about goals and a few games.

Explore.  Take a look around.  We’ll talk in a bit.

December Goals Revisited

Hey, folks! After four hours wrestling with Audacity and an inexplicable series of crashes, I’m writing you a post. Boring!

We’re gathered here today to remember that we command our tools (ie goals, schedules), they don’t command us.

That clear? Cool 😎 Now that we have an understanding there, I’ve come to understand December needs some rehashing:

  1. Keep the Podcasting and EOY Goals
    1. Parties and seeing friends and remembering the year – check!
      Podcasting? Hopefully. I’ve really borked Audacity – by the time you read this post, I’ll have decided on my own what to do 😑
  2. Step Back the Modules
    1.  I had such aspirations to write three full games in the month of December… Oh well. Instead, you’ll see three mini-tabletop role playing games. A page for setting, a page for mechanics and characters, a page for phases of play, and a few pages for items and NPCs.
  3. Deescalate Shallow Seas
    1. “Great vague-booking, Jimmy! What the heck does that mean??”
      It means I’m down-scaling 40,000 words to write to 10,000. (40K would be about 80 hours of writing over three weeks at my 500 words / hr.) I’m also nixing the idea of a first draft – We’ll start at the beginning, but correctly this time.

I had a long rant for you about how tools and what we set out to do shouldn’t consume nor command us… how goals aren’t our tyrants – we’re our own masters yadda yadda ya…

It sounded better spoken. Maybe you’ll hear it someday if Audacity recovers 😁 Or I’m short on post ideas 😅

Whatever the case, take care! I’ll aim to get something cast-worthy your way soon ~

Monthly Goals – December 2019

Listen to the following post. (5m 42s)

November was absolutely a stellar month. Though I failed at getting all my 2019 media posted online, my knowledge of RPG game design and moderating of tabletop games is ready to be exercised.

I also have a ready outline to tackle a story I’m already 40K words deep in, going under the project name “Shallow Seas“. After getting one of the best outlining methods ever seen in the Ring Theory / Ring Structure, I now know where this story and any others need to go. (That, and I finally decided on the final baddie for the heroes to slay!)

And let’s not forget the podcasting. Writing, recording, editing, and distributing a cast every week has not only been fun – it has seen the most interaction with an audience I’ve ever had for a regular publication (I’m ignoring interaction on my published games and modifications). For such a positive endeavor, one should keep it up, no?

So where does that leave us?

Well, December is not only the last month of the year, but the last one of the decade. That means a lot will be happening – parties, food, friends… you know the drill.

With that and how fulfilling November was, lets end this decade with a blast ~

My Goals Due EOM:

  1. Podcast
    1. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. If it’s working, don’t stop. Of course I will aim to improve quality, but for most folks, quantity and regularity is valued over quality. (And I need to put this mic to further use!)
  2. TTRPG Modules
    1. I made a rule system in November. Now it’s time to apply it: Three modules at least will be created using the rules, all of it ready for play.
      I’ll leverage two derived IPs and one unique: Star Wars, Mobile Suit Gundam, and my universe of Shallow Seas as a one-shot demonstration of the rules. (Maybe the Halo IP too, as it has an example of recharging health!)
  3. Shallow Seas Draft 1
    1. I’ve a solid outline, I’ve a solid character theme, I’ve added context to the fictional world, and I’ve written 40,000 words already. Can I finish a first draft of this book? Dang straight.
  4. Celebrate EOY
    1. How better to celebrate the turn of the calendar than with friends? I’ll go meet a few of them abroad while partying with a number who’ll come to Las Vegas.
      To keep those who I won’t see appraised of what’s going on, I’ll also craft my end-of-year letter, a useful review of the last 365 while reminding me of the Good and the people who made the time alive worth it and worth looking towards more.

How does that sound? To me, pretty good. December is going to be playful, purposeful, and productive. It’s exciting to think about what I get to share with you to cap off the decade as we go into 2020. I’m ready. What are you going to do?

Cheers!

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Phone screen lock images from Yigit Koroglu, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, and the National Archives Catalog.

Goals Recap – November 2019

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Phone lock screen base image from an unknown source

My November has been full of study, just the way I like it. Think we’ll need to redirect to creating more, studying less for December, though that’s another post 😉 Despite there being a week left, it’s Thanksgiving, so let’s get on with it:

  1. Podcast
    1. Won. A podcast every week talking about these goals has been absolutely fun. So much so, I think we can continue this into December 😁 Checkout cast 01 here.
  2. TTRPG
    1. Winning. Editing the system right now, though it still requires some example modules (or full games) that leverage these rules and will be distributed after this post.
      Overall, the greatest contributions of this goal are:

      1. The 4M Stats: Mind (mental ability), Muscle (physical ability), Machine (tool use), Maybe (optional stat for a narrative)
      2. Character squad mechanics
      3. Advancement through gear
      4. Game Master and Player prep shortcuts
  3. Redirect Shallow Seas
    1. Won! I used the Ring Theory / Ring Structure to re-outline my Shallow Seas universe. This wasn’t difficult after some study, though deciding on the Dragon (the big-bad thing the Heroes slay) required some serious thought.
  4. 2019 Pics
    1. Failed. Having only made it to March / April of all of my 2019 content, I merely did not get to posting every day, multiple times a day. Sigh.

Oh! And there was a fifth extra goal: Extra writing. This kinda happened, though it wasn’t writing fiction: It was writing scripts for podcasts, taking notes on how to make and direct tabletop role-playing games, and filling in RPG modules and rule systems.

So that was November. Fun. Now, we’re onto figuring out December’s role for my goals. Have a fantastic Thanksgiving, and a fine start into the last month of the decade! 😃

Cast 03 – Be Known

Download for the road. (10m 38s)

This cast covers a recurring theme of November’s goals: Be known. I go into depth of what that means, why I’m doing it, and how you can do it too.

How are you known? Want to be known? I hope to learn from you, so please leave a comment!

Cheers until Thanksgiving ~

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November goals phone lock screen base image from an unknown source

Cast 02 – RPG Systems

Download for the road. (11m 38s)

To follow-up on last week’s cast, here I am discussing the finer points of what I’ve learned about tabletop role playing games, and what I mean to do about it:

  • Faster prep
  • Faster play
  • Faster narrative escalation

I talk about “clocks” at one point. These are those:

Image of narrative clocks from Kevin Whitaker.

 

Cast 01 – Better With Jimmy Chattin

Download for the road.

As promised, a podcast! We’re covering why I’m doing this podcast and the other goals I’ve set out to complete for the month of November.

Here’s Jenna Moreci on goal setting as mentioned in the cast.

Hit me up with your feedback and questions. I will touch base with you on what you bring to the table! Until then, I’m off to determine what to talk about next week…

Monthly Goals – November 2019

I’m itching to do more with tabletop (TT) RPGs. I also want to write. After some self-analysis for my career, getting myself out in the open more is also a prerequisite to my success.

With these things in mind, I present to you, my goals:

My Goals Due EOM:

  1. Podcast
    1. 15 minutes, every week. I’ve struggled with how to shoehorn myself into what to talk about. The solution seems to be to talk about these goals and what’s on my mind. What could be better than me talking about making things better?
  2. TTRPG
    1. More tabletop role playing games! Play a TTRPG, draft a complete TTRPG system, and give myself kudos for publishing my TTRPG notes and/or playtesting the TTRPG.
  3. Redirect Shallow Seas
    1. Shallow Seas takes direct inspiration from Star Wars. I’ve written two-thirds of a first draft, but it feels flat. November can be the time to rewrite what the world is, the plot, and where to take the story.
  4. 2019 Pics
    1. Do you know what I’ve been doing? Do I? Let me go through my gigabytes of photos and videos of this year, figure out what’s going on…
  5. BONUS – Write
    1. It’s NaNoWriMo! 2016 was a lot of fun when I participated. 2019 is not that year. Thinking that Saturday’s could be set aside for writing-jams so this huge collection of stories in my backlog don’t get stale 😉(Won’t hold myself to this extra goal – it should push me to accomplish more sooner, though!)

Let’s get to it 😁

1911.jpg
Phone lock screen base image from an unknown source