Eager to Continue, Unwilling to Push Through
Both of my campaigns have been inactive - with one pretty much dead in the water - for months now. This is partly my fault. I shut down back in October due to anxiety over employment and I've only recently been able to re-assemble myself back up. I'm not sure I have the willpower or the patience to strong-arm my adventurers into deciding on a date for a session yet, though there's been talk in at least one of the group chats about playing again. The long pause is not for lack of interest.
Moon Haze campaign last left off with a victorious party and a satisfying conclusion to an 8-episode arc. This was in July - almost half a year since. I would be eager to continue after defeating a deity just to be able to return to my own timeline (they were jettisoned a hundred years into the past). Power is so easy to come by in fiction. I wish it had been the same for us in real life, that we’re able to celebrate and take long rests after every encounter. Recovering spell slots takes more than a nap.
Before the previous year ended I hosted a one-shot for a dear friend who hasn’t had the opportunity to complete a game during the times she was able to sit around a D&D table. This was her third first time. No luck still - feeling under the weather, she had to retire after the 4th hour.
As for my return to DM duties: I could have been better at reading the room this time around. While the PCs won their final battle, the story ended on a rather depressing note. This was by design (it was a cautionary tale about propaganda - they had to fight their way through misinformation - and here I can imagine some people I know giving me the side-eye), but I realized later I should have prepared a more festive adventure. It was the holidays after all. We would have benefited from a merry tale of heroes rescuing socialist Santa from vampires but instead we were children around the hearth, listening to our grandmother weave yarns about how terrifying fascists can be.
We need happier endings. There's nothing radical about unearned pessimism. (My friends said they enjoyed it though! That's what matters in the end.)
Today's Stat Block
STR: 0
DEX: -1 A little less flexible than yesterday
CON: -1 Came down with a cold, annoying incessant sneezing
INT: 0
WIS: +1 Re-read The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions
CHA: +1 Wore a cute outfit