Even though driving in Taiwan is stressful, the drive along the East coast from Kaohsiung to Taitung was lovely. I drove my wife, her older sister (jeijei) and crazy niece.
There are many giant fiberglass fruits on the road
The stray dog problem and the plastic problem in Taiwan
gatchas in the 7-11 along the highwayBe careful if you get gas here7-11s are everywhere… and can get anywhere!Stopping to stretch the legsWarm and breezyalmost there…Make sure you get your welcome punch
We had dinner at a Korean bbq place and then for a special treat we went for bubble tea at Ding Go and fried chicken at Blue Dragonfly
Quarantine is over! It’s warmish outside! Kaohsiung is a noisy place! Finally I get to be outside in Taiwan during the day!
Outside Mom’s apartment.
First thing on the docket is to get a haircut. Pro tip: if you’re white, don’t go to this place
Not a great haircut, but you might see a corgi
I walked around and found my first street food – which was a drink – I got guava and yakult (yogurt), delicious.
Got to see our quarantine hotel from the outside. One of the things I looked at every day was the 9×9 stationary store across the street. This photo is from the door of that store. I bought pens!!
Royal Hotel – we spent 2 weeks trapped inside here watching the doves cavort in that tree.
Typical Kaohsiung street views – notice the abundance of scooters. Because of the pandemic, whenever you went into a business you were supposed to scan a QR code for the purposes of tracking any spread. Naturally me and my phone took forever to do this.
If this restaurant was open when I was nearby, I would have tried it.
Residents in Kaohsiung don’t have lawns, so they do what they can by having gardens in planters out front! Also check out the crazy trees!
AFTERNOON: ANPING OLD STREET, Tainan
Wife’s sister’s friend drove us 50 minutes North to Tainan City for the lantern festival. During the afternoon we walked about and found some fun places in Anping Old Street, including Miaoshou temple, a crazy soft serve ice cream shop, and some place with fun crustacean mascots.
Scooters are ubiquitous, and of course they have a scooter sharing programI picked up this cap from the market, which you will see me wear for the rest of the trip!
Sadly, the lantern festival was called due to rain, so at dusk we travelled to Ba-Wei hot pot/ginger duck restaurant on Anping Road where we met some of Erica’s old friends who luckily speak English!
The Anping Canal, unless I’m mistaken
Unfortunately comfortable seating is a rarity at these kinds of restaurants, as you can see the stools are tiny. I had hurt my back somehow during the flight and/or quarantine hotel and I had to stand up periodically to manage the pain.
A great first day out and about! By the way, if you come across these – they’re delicious. It’s like what if bubble gum ramune was an ice cream!
The Stranger, Barbarian, The Guns of Navarone, Bullets or Ballots, The Verdict, Everything Everywhere All At Once, East of Eden, The Grave of Fireflies, Licorice Pizza, Doctor Zhivago, The Wages of Fear (1953), Hotel Rwanda, Flee, The Handmaiden, Mississippi Burning, Your Name, Minari, The Banshees of Inisherin
2020 Texas Gladiators, Captive Women, Deluge (1933), Tides (The Colony), Appleseed Alpha, Beyond the Time Barrier, Black Crab, Teenage Caveman (1958), Stryker (1983), Raiders of the Sun, Mother/Android, Virus (1980),
Season 16, 1978, 4 episodes… Second story in the Key to Time story arc.
If you’re wondering about Tom’s lip it’s because he was bitten by a Jack Russell terrier.
The Doctor and Time Lady Romana arrive on the planet Calufrax and are surprised to find the docile society placated by the prosperity gifted by the bombastic, murder-hungry Captain. Turns out the planet is not Calufrax, but a shell planet Zanak enveloping Calufrax, destroying the latter in a planet-wide mining process. After that’s done, the Captain would move on to ‘process’ planet Earth, were it not for the Doctor and help from the psychic Mentiads.
Some really interesting ideas here, and it’s written by Douglas Adams! He even uses his catchphrase “I’ll never be cruel to a [insert noun] again!” The bombastic Captain is 110% ridiculous with his assassin robot laser parrot. There are some interesting twists and I was hoping for a clever ending but it all just winds up with technobabble nonsense that is a very unsatisfying ending to a story with a lot of potential.
Communicate often with your players. Do this both as a group and one-on-one. Converse with them, not to them. Tell them what your expectations are of your players and ask what they expect out of their DM. If you see conflicts, address them. Understand that what works for some of your players may not work for others, and you may have to make some hard choices to play the game you want to play. But above all – communicate.
TOREN’S TIP: You are the game referee, but you are not your player’s conflict mediator outside of the game. Set healthy boundaries. Seth Skorkowsky has an excellent video on his channel about this.
2. People these days talk a lot about ‘Session Zero’ – this is basically a subset of point 1. It could be in person or it could be virtual, or even just an email. It’s a communication of what the tone, gaming style, rules restrictions, setting, and everything else about your game will be, including what you will allow and what you won’t allow. This happens before the first adventuring session and it’s a great time to find out what your players are comfortable with (remembering that many of your friends have deep traumas that you might now know about including sexual assault, death of close relatives at young age, etc.).
Is alcohol allowed at the table? How about cell phones? Will characters level up via XP or milestones? What’s the balance between crunchy combat and roleplay-heavy social encounters?
TOREN’S TIP: Ask each character to have a connection or bond to any 1 or 2 other player characters (the fighter and I escaped the slave mines together; I follow the cleric’s god and look to her for advice; the druid is my adopted sister!)
There are lots of articles and youtube videos about what you should cover in a session zero. Here is a good one:
3. Watch your Group Size. It’s legendarily difficult to find a good, stable gaming group (congrats if you have one) and there are different philosophies as to the perfect size. You can absolutely have a game with 1 player and 1 DM. Typically the magic number is 4 players and 1 DM. With smaller groups, you risk having to cancel the entire session if 1 or 2 players has to cancel, whereas if you have a larger group of 5 or more, the danger becomes when everyone shows up and you get very little done in the session because there is more time used up between players’ turns. It really depends the reliability of your players so all I can say is good luck!
4a. Set reasonable standards for yourself. Everyone wants to be the greatest DM/GM in the world, and many feel like podcasters and youtuber like Matt Mercer are the gold standard to aspire to. Keep in mind these are professional actors and what you are watching are performances for a medium, rather than a casual gaming group of friends. Look to them for inspiration and ideas, but remember you will never be Matt Mercer, and you shouldn’t. Just be a good you.
4b. Don’t burn yourself out! I find preparing for my RPG sessions very therapeutic, but manage your expectations. The players will inevitably thwart or avoid many of your lovingly crafted encounters, so just try to roll with it (pun). Also, find a balance for how often you play. Most people try to have a weekly game, but if that seems to be too much for you, adjust the schedule. See if anyone in your group is interested in running a separate game (even a different system) and you can alternate weeks as a GM and a player. Also, consider the idea of a co-DM, if you have a friend that you have a good relationship to work with, having two DMs can ‘share the load’ as Samwise Gamgee once said.
5. Is Everyone Having Fun? If they are, then you are doing it right! This might be the most important tip, perhaps tied with #1. And if you are not having fun. Ask yourself why and what you might want to change.
Here we see the red space suit used during the Spaceship Zero tour and elsewhere. Made of space-age materials and surprisingly breathable! $100 OBO
“Chain Dragger” – a classic that has gone through many iterations. The light helmet still works! The gun makes 8 different noises which was primarily used for the instrumental breaks in “Rock Lords”. Worn by Toren at PAX in 2008 and many other shows all the way back to the 90s. $100 or best offer
Satyr Pants! Worn by Warren AND Toren, including at our show at PAX in 2008. $50
Complete set of Thickets-branded Jones Soda beverages produced as promotional prizes for Cthulhupalooza in 2008. Stainage on one or two of them. $35 obo
Various sold individually. If something doesn’t have a price please ask. Please keep in mind all photos may not be 100% up to date, let me know what you’re interested in and I’ll visually confirm them for you.
Chainmail Gnolls – $10 each
Servitors of the Outer GodsSerpent Men FolkDeep Ones of Innsmouth
D&D, Mork Borg and Ruin Nation Sessions Played: 17
Number of #torentries: 62
Number of pomellos eaten: 7
Movies watched for the first time: 150
Movies I watched that rated 8+ out of 10: 
Post-apocalyptic movies watched and 
Doctor Who episodes watched and
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