T w e n t y S i d e d
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings CXIX:
Oops.”
DM of the Rings CXIX:
Rewarding Negative Behavior
This week I posted almost nothing, aside from the comics. I realize that for a majority of my current readers this site is “The Comic, plus some other stuff”, but I still think of it as “my blog, plus this comic I’m doing.” For me, this week was hopelessly lame, because I didn’t get any of my writing done. I still have about a dozen half-written posts waiting to be finished. (I’m finished with Prey, I’m playing D&D again, and I’m working my way through a new anime series, all of which I intend to write about. Eventually.)
And now that I’ve utterly failed in my blogging duties, I see that many, many new people are visiting site and clicking the everlovin’ crap out of the ads in the sidebar. (BTW: Thanks. Seriously. Profusely. You people are great. I hope you found something good.) I can’t explain this upsurge in traffic this month (more than double last month) during the time in the year when I usually see a lull in traffic. Visits usually slow down in summer, but instead traffic is going way up. To all of you who are new to the site, thanks for coming. Have a look around the archives, if you like, maybe read some of my “best of” posts. Maybe visit some of my friends over there in my blogroll. Or just wait for the next comic, if that’s more your style. That’s cool too. You know. Whatever.
I will say this: If I were to do another comic – and I’m not saying one way or another what I plan to do, since I don’t really know yet – it would not appear on this blog. It would get a domain or a blog of its own, because this arrangement is oddly lopsided.
Microsoft Surface
Via email from a friend:
Apparently this is a real ad, or a concept ad of some sort, to which some smart alec has added his own voiceover.
DM of the Rings CXVIII:
Descriptive Text is Sometimes Important
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings CXVIII:
Descriptive Text is Sometimes Important”
How to find a gaming group
Occasionally I get emails from people expressing interest in playing D&D. I’m pretty flattered that they would come to me for advice. Being well-connected to the hobby and being able to make fun of the hobby are two different things, and I have much more of the latter. I feel bad that I can’t help people more, particularly since many of them decided to try out roleplaying based on what they read here at the site.
The Fear the Boot podcast tackles this very subject this week. They are talking about gamers who have lost their existing group, but their advice works just as well for newcomers. I also stand by advice I gave a long time ago: Buy the two core D&D rulebooks – the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the Player’s Handbook. Give them a read, and have a friend roll up a character “just to help you practice”. The dice are very appealing and the process of making up a character is a lot of fun. They are very likely to become hooked right then.
Browser Comparisons
As a follow-up to this morning’s post about Safari on Windows, here is what I’m seeing in various browsers:
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Browser Comparisons”
DM of the Rings CXVII:
I Didn’t Know I Knew That
Continue reading ⟩⟩ “DM of the Rings CXVII:
I Didn’t Know I Knew That”
From The Archives:
Object-Oriented Debate
There are two major schools of thought about how you should write software. Here's what they are and why people argue about it.
Good Robot Dev Blog
An ongoing series where I work on making a 2D action game from scratch.
Starcraft 2: Rush Analysis
I write a program to simulate different strategies in Starcraft 2, to see how they compare.
Silent Hill Origins
Here is a long look at a game that tries to live up to a big legacy and fails hilariously.
The Best of 2018
I called 2018 "The Year of Good News". Here is a list of the games I thought were interesting or worth talking about that year.
The Best of 2019
I called 2019 "The Year of corporate Dystopia". Here is a list of the games I thought were interesting or worth talking about that year.
Tenpenny Tower
Bethesda felt the need to jam a morality system into Fallout 3, and they blew it. Good and evil make no sense and the moral compass points sideways.
Juvenile and Proud
Yes, this game is loud, crude, childish, and stupid. But it it knows what it wants to be and nails it. And that's admirable.
Spider-Man
A game I love. It has a solid main story and a couple of really obnoxious, cringy, incoherent side-plots in it. What happened here?
The No Politics Rule
Here are 6 reasons why I forbid political discussions on this site. #4 will amaze you. Or not.