I’ve been a part of online communities for around 3 decades. Before I got onto the Internet, I was on BBSes (kind of mini, proto internets where typically 2 computers would talk to one another at a time). Discussion forums have been around since these olden times, from messages forums on BBSes, to Usenet, to […]
First Reactions To Thousand Year Old Vampire
Like anything, role playing games (RPG) have their “trendy” releases. The currently trending product seems to be “Thousand Year Old Vampire” by Tim Hutchings. Rather than a review, since I haven’t even played the game, this is my first reaction to flipping through it and getting a general sense what it’s about. My reaction is […]
Feedback on Creative Work
I’ve just finished the first chapter of a book I’ve been thinking about for a while. I’m happy with how it came together generally, but had a feeling that I often have at the early stage of a creative project. “Why don’t I get some feedback and figure out if this is worth developing?” It […]
A Monte Carlo Analysis Of Rolling Modifiers in Gloomhaven
After a heated debate at today’s Gloomhaven game about the effect of rolling modifiers, I decided to get to the bottom of the matter. The debate centers on whether rolling modifiers added to your attack modifier deck help or hinder you. One side felt that the modifiers help your attacks while the other felt it […]
Role Playing Games as Inherently Game Design
I was recently watching a video “Why did TSR Hobbies publish Advanced Dungeons and Dragons?” by Nicholas Bielik and one of the things he claimed coalesced a bunch of different ideas about role-playing games that I’ve had over the decades that I’ve played them. Role-playing games are not, were not, and never will be complete […]
Getting Started With Your Mailing List
Starting and maintaining a mailing list is some of the first advice new authors receive, after “paying for a nice cover” and “hiring editing services”. What a mailing list actually entails usually isn’t detailed and I found the specifics somewhat confusing, so I wanted to write up what I’ve figured out so far. The general […]
My Experience Writing Serialized Web Fiction
I’m 2 months into publishing my fiction in a serial format and thought I’d post a few thoughts about my experience so far. There are writers with *FAR* more experience in the format than myself, but my hope is that this can be useful to people at an earlier stage. Experts sometimes develop a novice […]