HomeBuJo Ascension
A Bullet Journal RPG Framework
"Bullet Journal Ascension" is a light weight "solo rpg" intended to gamify usage of a bullet journal and the process of self improvement.
Motivation
Bullet Journaling is a really useful tool for monitoring and incentivizing self improvement. After seeing Emeraldspecter's BujoRPG Wuxia I felt that I had a sufficiently different background and take on the idea to make a useful contribution. At it's core "BuJo Ascension" is designed to lean harder into reward scheduling and offers an "ADHD Mode" variant for people who need different reward schedules to be effectively motivated.
How to Play
Fundamentally, playing Ascension is intended to be "added on" to an existing bullet journaling practice. (If that is new to you, start here). You should find yourself assigning Attribute gains and re-writing your character sheet as you do your daily, weekly and monthly bullet journaling processes.
Attributes
The main aspect of Ascension is assigning yourself Attributes and scores in them. What Attributes you pick are ultimately personal. They need to represent aspects of yourself that you seek to grow in. I'd pick 3-5. Picking less is fine, you can always add more later!
The Attributes I picked are:
- Body: which represents my Physical Fitness and Health
- Creative: which represents that I am taking care to express my creativity
- Social: which represents taking time to have social interactions with friends and family.
You should pick aspects for yourself, but here is a list that might help you get started:
- TODO
All the stats you pick will start at 0, but don't worry we will fix that soon!
Maintenance Streak and XP Multipliers
Before you can focus on self improvement, you need to focus on maintenance. When you start playing Ascension, make a short list of things you do to take care of yourself every day. Taking medication, eating, getting enough sleep ect. They should be things you can normally do. Each consecutive day you accomplish all these things increases your "Maintenance Streak" and the longer that lasts the higher your daily XP multiplier gets. If you fail to take care of yourself, you reset your streak to 1 and start over. This is intended to be an incentive for self care.
| Days of Maintenance | XP Multiplier |
|---|---|
| 1 | x1 |
| 2 | x2 |
| 3 | x3 |
| 5 | x4 |
| 8 | x5 |
| 13 | x6 |
| 21 | x7 |
| 34 | x8 |
| 55 | x9 |
| 89 | x10 |
| 144 | x11 |
| 233 | x12 |
| 377 | x13 |
I honestly don't expect you to play Ascension for longer than 3-6 months, but if you make it over a year, look up the Fibonacci Sequence to continue this table.
Self Care as an Attribute
Some people reading this might be in a place where the list of "Maintenance" items I have above isn't something they can take for granted. This could be because of chronic illness, depression or other challenges. Ascension is intended to be a motivational tool and you shouldn't punish yourself for the challenges you are facing. If you haven't already, take "Self Care" as an Attribute and pick a set of "Maintenance" tasks you feel confidant you can handle most days. Described below, make sure to mark XP for your Self-Care Training.
Training
The primary "mechanic" of Ascension is "Training". Training is any activity you wouldn't normally do, that you do with the intention of improving an Attribute. The simplest examples are exercise routines to improve your strength and health, meditation or other behaviors you need to make an aspect of your life in order to improve your Attributes. I include exercise and stretching under "Body", any sort of creative work (writing, crafting, programming ect) as "Creative" and time spent intentionally with friends and family as "Social".
Training comes in different sizes:
- "Small" training is activities that don't take more than 15 minutes and you only gain +1 XP for them.
- "Medium" training is activities that take an hour or so and you gain +2 XP for them.
- "Large" training is for activities you spend many hours on. You get +4 XP for them.
Note that spending longer doing something has diminishing returns. Ascension's goal is habit building and self improvement. Intentionally doing something is worth more than doing something for a long time. Consider doing multiple different things versus single big trainings.
Gaining XP
At the end of the day, or whenever you update your bullet journal, take note of any training you did. For each Attribute: add up the training XP you got for the day, multiply it by your Maintenance XP Multiplier and add it to the total for your Attribute.
For example, yesterday I did the following training:
- Spent 6 hours programming (+4 Creative XP)
- Worked Out for 30 min (+1 Body XP)
It's only my third day testing out "BuJo Ascension" so my Maintenance XP Multiplier is only "x3".
| Attribute | Old Value | Gains | New Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Body | 2XP | 1x3 | 5XP |
| Social | 1XP | 0x3 | 1XP |
| Creative | 0XP | 4x3 | 12XP |
My stats are pretty low, but that will change with time! Not gaining XP in an Attribute is also fine, I took my meds and slept well, so my Maintenance Multiplier is still going up and I'll get the chance to power level my Social Attribute later!
Sometimes a training might feel like it would apply to more than one Attribute (A yoga session could apply to both "body" and "mindfulness" Attributes). When this happens, you should pick just one to apply it to. You can alternate and apply it to the other next time you do training!
Levels
Levels are just a system of looking at how much XP you have in a trait. Your brain is dumb, and doesn't do a good job of rewarding you for sustained efforts without some sort of obvious benefit, so we are making up a benefit to help it do it's job.
There are lots of "level" schemes to borrow from Wuxia and Progression Fantasy, pick one that your feel a connection with. I like "Arcane Ascension" so much I named this game after it and I like using it's "Attunement Levels".
| XP Threshold | Level | Rank | Metal | Attunement Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 XP | 1 | 5 | Copper | Quartz |
| 50 XP | 2 | 4 | Iron | Carnelian |
| 300 XP | 3 | 3 | Bronze | Sunstone |
| 600 XP | 4 | 2 | Silver | Citrine |
| 1000 XP | 5 | 1 | Gold | Emerald |
| 2000 XP | 6 | S | Platinum | Sapphire |
The XP Thresholds are designed so that you will level up every month or so, but individuals will vary wildly. Loosing a high Maintenance Multiplier can be a big setback on your growth.
Levels for those who need more rewards
ADD and ADHD change how the human brain sees rewards. One accommodation that makes sense is to have an alternate reward schedule that has more steps in to to encourage such folks more effectively. To do this we add "intermediate" levels or "grades" to each of the major levels.
| XP Threshold | Level | Grade |
|---|---|---|
| 0 XP | 1 | E |
| 10 XP | 1 | D |
| 20 XP | 1 | C |
| 30 XP | 1 | B |
| 40 XP | 1 | A |
| 50 XP | 2 | E |
| 100 XP | 2 | D |
| 150 XP | 2 | C |
| 200 XP | 2 | B |
| 250 XP | 2 | A |
| 300 XP | 3 | E |
| 360 XP | 3 | D |
| 420 XP | 3 | C |
| 480 XP | 3 | B |
| 540 XP | 3 | A |
| 600 XP | 4 | E |
| 680 XP | 4 | D |
| 760 XP | 4 | C |
| 840 XP | 4 | B |
| 920 XP | 4 | A |
| 1000 XP | 5 | E |
| 1200 XP | 5 | D |
| 1400 XP | 5 | C |
| 1600 XP | 5 | B |
| 1800 XP | 5 | A |
| 2000 XP | 6 | S |
| 2400 XP | 6 | D |
| 2800 XP | 6 | C |
| 3200 XP | 6 | B |
| 3600 XP | 6 | A |
Level up Rewards!
Effective rewards will vary between people. "My numbers went up" is a good one for me, but if it is good for you, don't be afraid to give yourself a small treat whenever you go up a level or grade. Food, entertainment or just drawing yourself a fancy new character sheet to show off your Attributes new level.
Quests!
"BuJo Ascension" is intended to integrate with the projects and goals you are already using your bullet journal for. Quests are a way to reward yourself for long more complex goals you have achieved for yourself. Unlike Training, Quests are unaffected by the Maintenance Multiplier but they give a lot more XP! You can also split this XP between Attributes as you see fit.
When you undertake a quest you should establish two things:
- When will the quest be over?
- What will make the quest a success?
For example the Quest "Do well this semester" would be over "at the end of the semester", and be a success if "all your grades are B or higher". When the quest is over, and if you succeeded, you get bonus XP to add to your Attributes.
Quests are rewarded based on how long you expect them to take:
- Small Quests are Quests that will take a week or less. They are worth +10 XP
- Medium Quests are Quests that will take a few weeks. They are worth +50 XP
- Large Quests are Quests that will take a few months. They are worth +250XP
Quests are important achievements, but they are worth less than the sustained effort of training over the same time period. Hopefully all your training makes the quests more likely to be successes too!