So… yeah, I’ve had some pretty bad writer’s block this week. To the point where I was even considering taking a break from posting, but where’s the fun in that? No, I decided it was better to just forge forward and make me enemy m friend. Or, you know, make my writer’s block this week’s topic.

I don’t know about you, but I love spinning stories and writing journal entries almost every day. However, writer’s block hits me in waves. And sometimes those waves are incredibly inconvenient, like when they happen on game day. When I was playing Bim, the chaotic good druidic gnome, I had a rash of it for a few months. That was probably in part due to stress, as adult life seems to dose us with, but I’ve found that in D&D writer’s block does offer an opportunity to actually be more creative. Let me explain: for me at least, writer’s block is a sudden inability to use my own voice. My thoughts stop and build pressure in my brain, and nothing “good” comes out of my mouth. Considering how much blood and battle our tabletop characters often see, it stands to reason they are probably going through the same things, no? So, some days Bim wasn’t as funny as others, so what? On those days she woke up on the wrong side of the bed and behaved like a moody 14 year old for a change, instead of an emotionally mature prankster. Point being, you don’t need to put pressure on yourself to be a perfect player so that your character can always be… in character. Most of us aren’t being paid to be in podcasts so it’s not like anyone will review your work but the friends already sitting with you.

That said, it doesn’t hurt to build room for “bad days” into your character. For example, my current barbarian in Pathfinder 2E is based on Gordon Ramsy. She’s a wonderfully detailed cook with an incredibly high standard of self-respect, so she’s easily annoyed by rude people. Being a sabretooth tabaxi built like a refrigerator means she can get away with “clear communication” when she does get annoyed. But, if I’m ever having a bad day and can’t think of a meme-level insult (ie idiot sandwich), then Brenley the cook is just sulking in the corner waiting to rage. And it works. It works in the other direction, too, when I want too badly to speak up and end up just acting like myself. I realized about 4 sessions in that I wasn’t really playing her like a barbarian because she was often the Defacto leader and I, Nat20Mom, have a propensity to metagame to move the plot along when I can’t think of a quick comeback. (Our DM has really good writing and it’s hard to resist, lol) This can come at the expense of exploration or even opportunities for character-on-character moments. So now there’s an in-universe rule of thumb that if Brenley is over-exposed to NPC BS she’ll just snap… thus, forcing me to act more like a character who actively avoids those situations rather then plunging in headfirst for ThE PlOt hOoK because I’ve got nothing else on my mind. Note: all things in balance, please don’t actively avoid every plot hook your DM makes, haha. Just don’t be afraid to set up some guidelines for your character’s behavior in case you ever come to the table already braindead. Heck, stop forcing yourself to reread that stats you rolled for inspiration and just write some guidelines down on the back of your character sheet, that’s what it’s there for.

Another example was Salvation our Tiefling cleric in our last campaign. The friend who played Sal is Autistic and often has trouble reading the room or thinking of “the right” thing to say, so he specifically played Sal that way as well. Which was GREAT, it led to so many good character interactions. Maybe 3 years in it was discovered that both in- and out-of-universe Sal had a list with the party’s names on it and freaking gold stars and demerits next to each name… so that we were literally ranked on who he was most like to spend spell slots healing after a fight… Sal’s player did share the list with us after we caught him updating it at the table and it was HILARIOUS.

Now, sadly the gaming table is not the only place writer’s block can strike. I must be vigilant, because one of my writer’s block’s favorite times to strike is… bedtime. Yep. Right when Little Dragon is fussing and needs a bedtime story, my brain goes out to dinner. There are a few coping mechanisms for this, one of the most obvious being to just grab a book to read aloud. My favorite is to let my mouth go on autopilot and sing a lullaby which seems to work about half the time. This situation often sucks, though, because if the baby is fussy and crying it doesn’t help you think of anything to say. I know when Liddle Dragon roars, he ROARS… there is absolutely nothing wrong with my son’s lungs. All that said, I’ve found that toddlers and babies generally don’t need you to reinvent the wheel when you speak to them. The old classics, like The Three Pigs and Paul Bunion work just as fine on them as they did with us. I mean, if the DM is allowed to plagiarize popular works of fiction to make a campaign you can repeat some old-school fairy tales after a long day of toddler-wrangling. I learned the hard way that you don’t need to put so much pressure on yourself to be original with them all the time. It’s better if you just be present, calm, and candid.

Buuuuuuuuuut, Nat20 tip: when you don’t have writer’s block it is also really fun to turn the group’s last session into a bedtime story. Helps me remember everything that happened right before the group meets up again, haha, and it’ll be really fun once Little Dragon is old enough to understand my kidz-bop-ified versions of my campaigns.

Well, that’s all for me today, I hope everyone had a good long weekend (for most folks in the States this was a long weekend for the Easter holiday)! Next week’s topic should be my first installment of GenCon Prep, which a series where I talk about how to manage your little dragons at conventions in general. Tune in if you’re interested!

What about you guys, any pro tips on how to cheat writer’s block at the table and bedtime?