2016 Review of Game in the Brain

Game in the Brain is going in low performance mode. I've been busy with work, family, health, and studies.

Stats. 

Top 3 Best Posts are in 2016 from all time. These are:

1. Random Character Gen update: Life Event Table .  I honestly forgot about this and I forgot to link the Gdocs. 
1. Life Events Table Gdoc Commenting again I am always looking for feedback. I can't promise I'll act on it immediately (it depends what I'm juggling) but I will take note of it and when i come back around I will act on it. 
2. Appreciating the Work. is a post about guessing the kind of work that goes into making analysis posts with the most abstract of numbers
3. My Notes about Zones. This is my notes about Zones compiled from various sources and my take on it. I usually try to look at it where entroy will tend and highlight what key process needs practice to be a skill. Where attention is best applied on. 

2016 may be my most productive since 2013 because:

1. My  son turned 5 and take care of himself
2. Election means no Airsoft so not team related tasks and activities, which has a lot of prep.
3. I had a co-worker help me with my tasks for the first time in a while. Thats Nick. 
4. The company I work in was relatively stable. 

These factors dont apply anymore for me in 2017. 

1. I have a daughter born mid nov 2016, any of you fathers there know that will be months of high maintenance lolz. 
2. Nick is leaving and I'm training a new guy. 
3. I'll be more hands on work because I finally got some important training and studies relevant to my job. (lolz I'm draining the swamp lolz).  
4. I'm having my son shadow me when I train and exercise and study. The only manner I know how to teach is to show and lead by example. All these tasks now double in time and half in quality lolz. 

Trends. 

   I'm trending towards System Agnostic Skills and Techniques. Its weird, because going with techniques that are more universal regardless of system is actually a more niche hobby because of the anchoring effect of systems.
   Never underestimate Anchoring Effect, at work we are studying Risk Management as a requirement of ISO 9001:2015 and the Black-Scholes model was brought up,  by Nick my co worker,  and its debacle has the trappings of Anchoring Effect. Basically the need to Assign a Value to Risk even if that model is so short lived and useless in the long run. Our brains needs anchors even if its a stupid and terrible anchor. Nature hates a vacuum and so does our mind.
   Game Agnositicism is such a waste with GURPS day to add to my readership :( I know but I'm applying what i've learned and what I've learned has let me be more efficient in my use of memory and attention.
   My System Agnosticism is going to be weird and natural at times. Work also is getting me into time and motion aka Psycho and Bio Mechanics. Even if things have variables there are always benchmarks we can strive to surpass or limit our failure to. This is the Cognitive Dissonance of gaming and real life: its Game, its a Faulty model, But I have nothing better to use, or Its useful some of the time etc... I think as we grow older we get better at managing Dissonance but we have to be aware of it. We cannot normalize the internal conflicts and limits of our beliefs and understanding or else we fail to correct ourselves. Sorry for the deep personal belief tanget, its just me expressing my fundamental assumptions and how my mental algorithms work (for ease of reprogramming when in error). My belief is that Cognitive Dissonance is bad when we fail to be aware of it, and are unable to make a self honest assessment of the limits of what we know and validate the uncertainty of every source and assumption we use to formulate our conclusions.
    So because life is limited in time, memory, and practice, my gamings borrows from the  mental models I use at work or my work borrows from the mental models I use in games (hence the Dissonance). Of course some mental models requires a System Two Appraoch and we need a System 1 to run games fluidly or be able to change gears quite fluidly when we are entertaining Players or able to make the Players Enjoy shifting gears with the GM (which is the ideal and the most benefit for everyone IMO but we do not force something unless the person asks to be helped force his mind to change).
   I've mentioned many times the open Gdocs I'm working on. its easier to show progress and updates in those because I really only have a handful of 2-5 minute instances to think and write notes with the back of my mind always churning and processes-sing everything in a Gamer way , hence the blogs name
   Time flies when you're raising kids, taking care of other people, and taking care of ones' self. So while I maybe back before I know it, if you find my absence short if you have other people to occupy you.

Summary

While gaming is what made me, I'm using it to improve my life. It will be there when My son comes of age, and I have more free time. But I can make it also there when I frame my life and work as an adventure in itself. I will always talk about gaming and life as one thing and it sadly it will be what will limit me. If I cant make the game part of my life, then I dont have the free time to work on it. 

In 2016 i made my Gaming Life Blog. A terse blog of updates of my training and studies. If I'm a character of my own adventure then I better be Min-Maxing and leveling up lolz. I'll come back to this blog when i can, if time permits and I have more of a TRPG thing to say.