Just a blog post to be blog posting. Several notable blogs have come back to life in recent weeks (my favorite is Grognardia which had been inactive since 2012. It made me think about my own blog in which the post prior to this was in February. You would think with all the time on my hands during the lockdown, I would be able to blog lots, but it didn't work out that way. Trying to write thoughtful and well-researched articles (like I aspire to write) just seemed like too much work for my mental state during those times. Chrome frequently overwhelms the memory of my ancient desktop (used to be 4 GB of RAM was a lot). My copy of Outlook 2007 seems to constantly fight with the new mail servers as well. My wife and son's computers are much better behaved, but I need their permission to use them. I have not been gaming idle during this blog quiet period. Activities included: Binge-watching Critical Role (I had to stop about season 1 episode 100 as the scenarios seemed to be becoming repetitive and the players didn't seem to be learning how to handle their high-level characters). Playing through all of Ravenloft 5e on Fantasy Grounds. Learning Unity game programing by watching Zenva videos (unfortunately, programming seems to be the same tedious line by line text typing I learned in college, I have recently picked up a copy of RPG Maker to try instead). I started watching the Lord Gosumba youtube channel after virtual GaryCon. They have a fascinating series of interviews with many of the "old" Living Greyhawk organizers. I am at the time of life where 10 to 20 years ago doesn't seem old but I suppose it is. Unfortunately, times have changed sufficiently I do not think we will see anything as large or freewheeling as Living Greyhawk again. For the last few weeks, I have been playing Path of Exile. I have been thinking about how to play Path of Exile as a tabletop game. However, it is a little too bookkeeping intensive to play well without heavy modification from the online rules (here is someone else's attempt). I find the part Pacific Islander, part Roman Empire, part Steampunk fascinating. My backed Kickstarter .pdfs keep collecting in my virtual inbox. I am trying to slow down on signing up for new ones (5e campaign settings re-treading grimdark horror are making that easier). Well enough kvetching, for now, I'll try to do something more substantive next time.
