Wilson Waffling

I'm juggling a lot of balls at the moment. Not literally, but it feels like it! I'm trying to actually sort out days on which to write content for this blog and although nothing has been finalised relating to which day I will do this on, I have a few ideas that I wanted to get writing about. This being one. As you might be aware I play an RPG called Mythras. It's a d100 ruleset which I have to say I enjoy immensely. Character generation within it takes you through your cultural background and then profession and even takes into account your age! But there is one thing as a GM which I hate and actually consider a waste of time for the players to do. What is it? Well writing their character's background!

I’ve been working through a presentation I gave at university called ‘Are we robot-proof?’ Within this presentation, I based my reflections on a few academic texts but mainly “Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the age of artificial intelligence” by Aoun 2017. (http://robot-proof.com/#about) In the previous blog posts, I have discussed the current situation with respect to technology and learning (https://www.wilsonwaffling.co.uk/are-we-robot-proof/) and how change is important and can be embraced (https://www.wilsonwaffling.co.uk/are-we-robot-proof-2-2/) . Having established that new learning (https://www.wilsonwaffling.co.uk/are-we-robot-proof-new-learning/) is required to embrace the future, the question remains what will this look like?

In this episode, I talk about using symmetry in your teaching activities and suggest strategies for dealing with disappointment and ever-growing to-do lists.

In this, the first episode of the SE2 podcast, I give you an idea of what to expect and share with you the first teaching idea of the series!

Welcome to this week's podcast. The podcast image was suggested by Emma - a sleepy Koala! In this week's episode, what you should be getting up to next week and the Equality and Diversity SBT explained. In 'Ask Wilson Waffling' I answer questions about great depth, challenging children in science and different activities within the EYFS setting. Also the regular items of a teaching idea and my motivational phrase for the rest of the placement.

[Link to previous podcasts](https://www.wilsonwaffling.co.uk/se2-podcasts-2019/)

In this podcast I let you into the secret of how I keep so organised and provide you some interesting teaching ideas about species. Plus the regular features of what you should be up to, SBT and another of my favourite sayings.

Me singing to make you happy :) ['I will survive'](https://youtu.be/10lG1Sv6cyg)

Here is the first podcast for SE2\. I hope you enjoy it and it keeps you all positive.  If there are any questions you want me to answer then just send them to my uni email and put 'Podcast Question' in the subject line. Hope you enjoy!

I have this habit of blogging in spurts. When workload is heavy my blogging is reduced or even becomes non-existent but when my marking has been done and I my mind is not filled with schedules and time based tasks, a get a flood of ideas to blog about. Initially this blog used to be a one a week blog but, despite keeping this up for several years, I eventually lapsed and then it become both haphazard or even erratic. But things are about to change again and I have decided to come back to blogging with vigour and energy!

Last night, due to illness, I GMed my second instance of Starfinder and, following a series of pre-made adventures, the players and myself embarked on our first experience of space combat. While it is still fresh in my mind, I thought that I would jot down my own views about the system. If you want to watch it in full then you can find the video of the session at the end of the waffle…so, engage inertial dampeners, power up the drift drive as we enter space within Starfinder!

Once we have said our goodbyes and the stream has been stopped, we quickly congratulate each other or have a quick chat on Zoom while everyone is there but, depending on the time, the 'End Meeting' button is clicked and the game world is put on pause until the next session when the players venture forth into the campaign world. But just because the players are not actually in the game world anymore it doesn't mean that everything stops. Indeed I probably spend, as the GM, a lot longer in the world than anyone else. So, continuing the 'Behind the Scenes' series I thought I would give you a bit of an insight into what I do between the gaming sessions.

When I actually started to play RPGs we (as in the group and I) had to book the dining room table in order to play, since it generally meant it would be out of action for the majority of the day! Coupled with this, I remember having boxes of dungeon tiles, small drawers full of painted metal figures, a DM screen and adventure log and a piece of perspex which was where the action took place! The latter would be placed ontop of a hand drawn square grid which I actually covered with that sticky back plastic – so there were several wrinkles all over! Coupled with a huge tub of dice, that generally made up the tools of the trade for my DMing. But now things have definitely changed. No dining room table, no DM screen and no piece of perspex! Instead these familiar items have been replaced with programs which run on the internet and bring the gaming group together. I always like to research what is available and then I find that writing a blog post allows me to clarify my thoughts before purchasing – so here is that

When I first put fingers to keyboard for the first ‘Behind the Scenes’ blog post, I didn’t realise that I would be writing a second or even a third one of these. However, as soon as I started to have a think I suddenly realised that there was quite a lot I wanted to write about which actually happens behind the scenes. I was trying to do these in some sort of order, although as always, I feel that if I kept waiting to get all the posts together and then order them, it could be sometime next year when I actually get to publish them so I just thought I would go for it. This waffle is about preparing adventures – something which I spent some time doing…

I am an incredibly nosy person! I know that people say that I am curious to my face, but I know that they really mean nosy. Also, often lacking social nuances, I frequently blurt out comments which really I should have kept to myself. They are not personal or nasty comments – I would never do that – they are more those questions or comments that everyone else is thinking but no-one ever asks. Brain in gear before mouth in motion, is a saying which I often say to myself before talking. Anyway, back to being nosy – one thing which I am always interested in is ‘setups’. When watching an RPG game on Twitch, we always see the professional output scene but what is actually happening behind the scenes? Well in order to share my own set up with you I thought I would make the first in this series of ‘Behind the scenes’ waffles, what I have running on my screens when I am GMing.

The world of streaming and gaming is full of acronyms and abbreviations that I constantly have to work on in order to understand what people are talking about. When I was growing up a ‘GG’ was a horse with an ‘MT-GG’ being a hungry horse! I’m sure the latter is not really an abbreviation within the gaming world, but it did take me some time to understand what GG (good game – I hope) meant and even now, terms like ‘lul’ baffle me. But one term which I have been very familiar with for some time is the term ‘cookie cutter’. What does this mean and what are my thoughts about it, well this is what this waffle/post is about.