Great advice. This is part of the reason I started as soon as I could (today is my final day of Week 3). I wanted to spend as little time as possible thinking about making and just get straight to the making. I'm generally taking your discovery approach for the themes, lore (more headcanon really than anything), etc. as I go. Having a lot of fun with it so far!
I am definitely on the dungeon 23 hype train. But I couldn't agree with every word you wrote more. I'm just trying to do this to build some creative repetitive muscle to get my brain working on some good habits for my other project. And if I end up with a couple cool dungeon levels even better. Thanks for putting this idea out into the world and continue to support it in a very healthy way. Here's to a great 2023 in all our pursuits.
I'm doing the challenge and started yesterday. Thing is, my friends don't even want to do a dungeon crawl so it's not like I'm going to get to run it. Not anytime soon, anyway. But that's not the point. Getting things on the page is a trick I learned doing nanowrimo. The people who insist that it has to be good, or that it's important to have themes, etc are the people who who drop out of that challenge after 10k or 25k words. I used to. It was only after I learned the secret that it's totally normal and fine to write shit and go on that I finished one year. Haven't failed since. It was a mental block and once broken (thanks Pressfield) writing got easier. I assume I'll find the same block on this project.
Also, another great book is Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. How do you write an essay about birds? One bird at a time.
I completely agree on this. Putting something to paper sort of trumps everything. Not whether it has 500 upvotes or hearts, not whether or not there are fifty paragraphs of lore or flashy art for every room this week.
I started this challenge because I'd already planned to do the megadungeon for my player group, this just made it a simple and fun activity and format to accomplish it in. While I have design experience from NWN and other game development, I know people doing any sort of large project for the first time should definitely read, then re-read this post. I'm gladly learning from the experience, and this will end up being more valuable than my dev time, I'm sure.
I recommend pretty much all of Steven Pressfield's writing books. My favorite remains The War of Art. Total mindset shift related to procrastination (he calls it Resistance, yes capitalized). Anyway, great post, but I geeked out a bit when you recommended Do the Work. :)
Great advice. This is part of the reason I started as soon as I could (today is my final day of Week 3). I wanted to spend as little time as possible thinking about making and just get straight to the making. I'm generally taking your discovery approach for the themes, lore (more headcanon really than anything), etc. as I go. Having a lot of fun with it so far!
I am definitely on the dungeon 23 hype train. But I couldn't agree with every word you wrote more. I'm just trying to do this to build some creative repetitive muscle to get my brain working on some good habits for my other project. And if I end up with a couple cool dungeon levels even better. Thanks for putting this idea out into the world and continue to support it in a very healthy way. Here's to a great 2023 in all our pursuits.
Have fun.
I'm doing the challenge and started yesterday. Thing is, my friends don't even want to do a dungeon crawl so it's not like I'm going to get to run it. Not anytime soon, anyway. But that's not the point. Getting things on the page is a trick I learned doing nanowrimo. The people who insist that it has to be good, or that it's important to have themes, etc are the people who who drop out of that challenge after 10k or 25k words. I used to. It was only after I learned the secret that it's totally normal and fine to write shit and go on that I finished one year. Haven't failed since. It was a mental block and once broken (thanks Pressfield) writing got easier. I assume I'll find the same block on this project.
Also, another great book is Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott. How do you write an essay about birds? One bird at a time.
Discover, don’t design is so good
I completely agree on this. Putting something to paper sort of trumps everything. Not whether it has 500 upvotes or hearts, not whether or not there are fifty paragraphs of lore or flashy art for every room this week.
I started this challenge because I'd already planned to do the megadungeon for my player group, this just made it a simple and fun activity and format to accomplish it in. While I have design experience from NWN and other game development, I know people doing any sort of large project for the first time should definitely read, then re-read this post. I'm gladly learning from the experience, and this will end up being more valuable than my dev time, I'm sure.
I recommend pretty much all of Steven Pressfield's writing books. My favorite remains The War of Art. Total mindset shift related to procrastination (he calls it Resistance, yes capitalized). Anyway, great post, but I geeked out a bit when you recommended Do the Work. :)